Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentin's Day with the ones they love. I was very luck to get to spend the entire day with Brian since he is still on nights. It really was a perfect day starting from morning to night. When I woke up there were beautiful roses on the table along with a big cookie and my favorite chocolate squares. Then we decided to spend the day together and not even leave the apartment or do any kind of work. So we stayed in pjs, ordered food in, watched a little Olympics and two romantic movies. It was a great lazy day. I'm so glad there is only one week left of nights for Brian.

Valentine's Day Craft

It's almost Valentine's Day. Brian and I usually don't go all out or make a huge ordeal about Valentine's Day, but we do acknowledge the holiday with a small gesture. If you don't want to support the card company or just trying to save money make a homemade Valentine for your Valentine. It means more since you spent time on it and then you can write whatever you want on the card. This is an especially good idea if you have kids. I just pulled out some colored paper, stickers, markers, and ribbon, all stuff I had at home.

Here is my Valentine (nick names are covered :)

Happy card making.

Snow Day & Craft Pictures

Here Are the photos I promised from the past couple of posts. I didn't get any really good ones of the pretty snow scenes but I got ones of us sledding.

This is Clementine and her friend Luke going down the the hill. You can't really tell from her expression but she loved it.

This picture is hard to see because it is dark, but this is how you play with a 4 month old in the snow, strapped on and zipped under my jacket. We all decided to sit in the snow.

This is Brian's parents house before they got their second snow on Wednesday. They have a crazy amount of snow and Foster loves every bit of it. It snowed the first week we got him and he thought the snow was so much fun then too. I love looking back at puppy pictures.

His first snow.

Here are my art projects I sent to Megan for Jude.

This is the other tutu I made for Madalyn. She really likes all the Disney characters so I wanted to make a Mini Mouse tutu and it could also be worn UofL game days.

Happy Snow Day!

I know a lot of you have had quite a bit of snow recently but we haven't. It has barely snowed here since before Christmas. So I was excited about the big snow today. I love snow because it always makes you feel like a little kid. Snow really has it's positives in the city because we don't have to worry about driving anywhere or being stuck at home without milk. Although, I never understood the panic of being stranded without milk; unless you have babies who really need it I promise you can survive without milk (keep in mind I don't really drink the stuff so I could be a little bias.) Now wine or a cold beer on the other hand is what we should stock up on when there is nowhere to go, at least it makes for fun times. Ok, I am a little off track. Anyways, I wish Brian wasn't on nights so we could go sledding together I bet the snow won't be good for sledding by Saturday, oh well. It is still beautiful to look at and I get to play it all day tomorrow with Clementine and Field. Brian on the other hand is not so happy about the snow because his Vegas trip was cancelled since his flight was supposed to leave in the morning. He will recover from this heartbreak soon enough.

More snow fun talk: Today was Nelson's birthday, the father of the family I work for. He was telling me how on the day he was born there was a huge snow storm that basically shut down the city. So it was fitting that it would snow on his Birthday and he didn't have to work because classes were cancelled. His mom sent out this link that was an interesting story about the snow storm in 1969. If anyone wants to read it here is the link and I think it is crazy to think about how efficient we are at snow removal these days.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/remembering-a-snowstorm-that-paralyzed-the-city/

Also if any of you are are looking for fun things to do with your snow you should look up recipes for snow cream. It's basically slushy ice cream and tastes delicious. Enjoy the snow ya'll I'll try to get some good pictures of it tomorrow.

Missing Brian and Other Projects

The Past couple weeks Brian has been on his night rotation. We miss each other by one hour coming and going so the only time we get to spend together is from Saturday around noon until Sunday at noon when he leaves to go back to work. In that time on Saturday he has to nap/sleep because he worked on the Friday night before so it's really less than 24 hrs that we are together. I'm so glad he only has two weeks left of nights and then he never has to do it again.

Since I have all this free time on my hands I have been tuning into my creative side. My parents gave me a sewing machine for Christmas and I have been trying to teach myself how to sew. I am really starting from scratch since I have never even touched a sewing machine before. On Thursday nights this month I'm taking a beginners sewing class. It's a lot of fun and I never knew there was so much to sewing. We are making a tote bag with lots of little details so when it's complete I'll post a picture. I can't wait to make all kinds of things with my machine. I have also been painting and paper crafting. I can't post the pictures of my creations just yet because most of them are gifts. But I will eventually.

These are all my fun fabrics that I am going to create with :)

I made this little tutu for Clementine.

I am going to give it to her for her Birthday. Her signature color is orange but I couldn't find orange tulle so I used orange ribbon for the waist band.

Some other exciting news is that Brian received a scholarship to go to an orthopedic conference in Las Vegas. He is only going to be there for two and a half days but it's such a great learning opportunity for him. Not mention everything is paid for. I am so proud of him and when great things like this happen it just confirms that we made the right choice to move here even if we have to be away from our family and friends that we miss a lot. Brian is luck to have so many wonderful opportunities here everyday.

Waiting for Jude

Megan has been one of my best friends for almost 15 years. She was my first friend in Louisville and in middle school, probably the hardest time ever to meet new friends. I have spent more hours of my life with Megan than any other friend. We have experienced and shared so many things in life together. We danced, attended grade school and college, and lived together. We were in each other's weddings, experienced lots of firsts and probably some lasts, laughed, cried and everything in between. I am so lucky to have a friend like Megan in my life and I am so so so excited to be a part of this next first she is about to embark on. That first would happen to be Motherhood.

Megan is going to give birth to a baby boy in one month. I am sad that I won't be there for his birth but I will get to meet him soon there after when we go to Louisville for the Derby. Megan is going to be an awesome mother because she is one of the most nurturing people I know. Lonnie will be a great dad too; I can tell by the way he lights up when he talks about the baby.

When we were home for Christmas I was able to help Megan finish decorating the nursery and host a shower in her honor. We had a lot of fun and Megan received so many wonderful gifts to help with the arrival of Jude. I can't wait to meet him and to share this next chapter of life with Megan.

If you look close in the background you can see the cute diaper cakes

I made for the centerpieces.

Yum Cookies!

Jessica knitted this beautiful blanket.

Monogramed onesies

All the girls, Megan is the first mom

Reagan handmade this beautiful mobile

The letters I painted for Jude's room.

(They were out of Js so Megan had to paint it later.)

Back on the Blog: Christmas Update

So I have been away from the blog for about a month now so I thought it was time to get back on. I am just finally getting back into the normal swing of things after the holidays. It was so much fun going home and seeing everyone and I'm sure I had several long blogs I could have posted about the trip but I'm just going to touch on a few of the highlights through the photos.

First, here is what our finished Christmas tree looked like this year.

Let me start by telling you about our drive home to Louisville. It was the night it started snowing a lot and Brian thought we should get as far as we could before we were stuck in New York. At 4 am when we got off the turnpike we had to get a hotel because we were traveling at 30 mph on the highway. Thank goodness we found a vacancy. And by morning the roads were cleared so we could make it home just in time to see Lindsey dance at her college basketball game. Her team is really good and I'm glad we were able to see her dance.

Another highlight was hanging out with Matt, Nikki, Whitney, Creed, and their children, especially meeting this new little guy Hayden. I think Brian and Hayden have matching hair.

Another stop while we were home was to the land where my parents are building their new house. It's so peacefully and beautiful. This is the view that they will see every morning out the back windows. I can't wait to see it in the summer.

Nikki and Whitney were great hosts and had a yummy cookie party.

We were able to get in lots of Foster cuddle time. This is our family Christmas photo.

We open our presents with Brian's family on Christmas Eve after church and we usually have lots of fun. Here is an example: Stephen-I think he was trying on all his presents at the same time but I'm not really sure.

Example #2 Brian and Andrew and their Dad got Das Boots to drink their beer out of. Stephen already had one.

Then on Christmas morning we go to my parents and have a marathon present session and it is so much fun also. Here is Brian checking out his new driver I got him. But his best gift was the new computer he got from my parents so now he can do all his work from home like reading X-rays.

Dad's fishing pole for the lake behind the new house.

This is Tony Lindsey's boyfriend and he joined us as well since his family lives in Bulgaria.

Meme was surprised with her new flat screen TV.

After presents the extended family comes over for a delicious dinner and family time.

This was a great Christmas trip home and we are so blessed.