The suckiest February on record......

It's March 2010 and before I forget I want to capture for future generations just how sucky this past February was.

We live in Pennsylvania so we're used to snow, cold, and winter.... but despite all that February 2010 will forever be known as the month/year that Mother Nature put the smack down. This winter she let loose on the East Coast in a BIG way.

In the shortest month of the year Philadelphia got over 51 inches of snow. Over 4 feet.

For all you sissy la la West Coaster's - - that's a-lotta snow.

We had 3 huge storms slam us pretty much back-to-back-to-back. And speaking of backs.....ours are still trying to recover from the plowing and shoveling that had to occur. Not that I did much of it myself....I'm pretty much speaking for my poor husband on that subject.

I didn't take too many pictures because I was holed up inside the house pretty much the entire time praying that we wouldn't loose power (thankfully we didn't, but many did). I was also so sick of the white stuff towards the end that I didn't take even one picture of the snow from the third storm (however I'm sure you can pretty much use your imagination and picture yet ANOTHER 6 inches on top if what I did get a picture of).

These pictures were taken a few days after the first storm. The snow had already packed down quite a bit at this point.










These next pictures were taken after the second storm added a few feet on top of the couple of feet that were already on the ground.

Lovely.

There was so much snow that the kids dug out numerous tunnels in the front yard to play in, and in one shot you can see that Stephanie (8 years old) is standing on top of a rather large mound that puts her almost to the top of our first story.







Thankfully spring should be on it's way very soon and hopefully we won't have a winter like that for a very VERY long time.

Jennifer at 5

The reality is starting to sink in.

My baby is growing up.

I can't stop it either: tomorrow evening I have an appointment to register her for Kindergarten!!!!

~sigh~

Here are just some of the things that I want to remember about you, my little one, at 5 years old:

- How you make up songs all day long about everything, but mostly about how you love me and how sweet I am and how I'm the best mommy in the world.

- How looooong it takes you to eat dinner every night.

- How you still want me to rock you for 5 minutes on the edge of your bed every night before bedtime.

- How you are still obsessed with your Pooh Bear silky cuddles (blankets) and have to have them all in bed with you every night.

- How you say your sorry's so good and are very sincere when doing it.

- How you can't talk with an "inside voice"......everything is at a near yell.

- How you and your big sister have made a deal: if she tickles you then you get to pull her hair.

- How you looooove clementines and would eat 5 a day if I would let you.

- How you know the rule: if you ask for special treats then you don't get one, and you have found a loophole around it. Instead of ASKING for a special you will just point at one or start talking about how much you love specials and hope that I will realize that you want one and give you one.

- How cute you are when you say "super" with everything. For example, you are always "super-super tired" or "super-super hungry" or "super-super sorry".

- Your lisp and how your little tongue pops out of your mouth everytime you make an "s" sound.

- How sometimes you only have a few minutes of concentration then need to move onto something else.

- How you are obsessed with making orange juice and fruit salad and ask me almost every day if we can make some at home.

- How you are not a quitter. You will keep trying to do something until you do it and rarely ask for help or get frustrated.

- How you will get out of bed early on the weekends and climb into your sister's bed and cuddle with her before starting your day.

- How you put your pants on backwards the other day and didn't notice for a few hours.

- How much you love when I put a braid in your hair at the top instead of a hair tie.

- How great you have always brushed your teeth. And how you manage to get the toothpaste everywhere in the process.

- How brave you are when getting shots except for the last time when you had to get three at one visit. Three was just too much.

- How much you love to wear cotton dresses in the summer.

- How you picked out a pair of silver flats for Church and you and Daddy call them your Cha-Cha shoes.

- How mad you get when I won't kiss you after you let the dog lick you on the lips.

- How brave you are at trying new things. You would go on the scariest rollercoaster if you weren't too small.

- How you torment the dog (Daisy) and how she lets you.

- How much you LOVE cuddles.

- How you came home from school the other day and said in the most proud voice ever: Mommy, today at lunch I ate a whole half of one of my broccoli's!!!

- How you and your sister bicker and argue one second then love each other the next.

- How you have to give multiple kisses and hugs to me and daddy every time we are leaving the house, and then when you're done you always say: Now I want LAST kiss and hug.

- How you will hold a conversation with a complete stranger and have shown very little evidence of shyness.

- How you randomly come up to me numerous times a day and just say "your sweet", then walk away.

- How hard it is for you to listen. We have to tell you at least 4 times to do something because you get distracted in the middle and end up doing something else.

- How you still can't unbuckle your carseat buckles.

- How you would prefer to stay in your jammies all day.

- How you memorized the Our Father prayer by listening to Stephanie practice it a few times in the car for CCD class.

- How much you love Spongebob.

- How much you hate mashed potatoes.

- How adorable your giggle is.

- How you tell me all the time: I can't STAND how much I love you!!!!

- How much of an awesome sharer you are. I've never seen a 5 year old so willing to give half of her candy or cookies or "specials" to anyone who asks.

An old e-mail.......

I was going through some old e-mails the other day and found one between my brother and I from 2007. Jennifer was 2 1/2 at the time and Bubba and I were going back and forth on this e-mail recalling numerous small (yet hilarious) conversations that we had recently had with Jen. It brought back memories and made me laugh, so I wanted to copy it and share it here:

On 8/1/07, Andrea Chrupcala wrote:

Mommy: Jen...today is splash day at school!
Jen: I want to wear my swimming boot.
Mommy: It's swimming SUIT Jen.
Jen: Swimming soup?
Mommy: Your so cute and I will eat your face now.


>>> "Alex Baldini" 8/1/2007 9:12:29 AM wrote:

Bubba: What color is that?
Jen: Blue.
Bubba: No thats green.
Jen: Gween
Bubba: What color is that?
Jen: Blue
Bubba: No thats red.
Jen: Rwed
Bubba: What color is that?
Jen: Blue
Bubba: Good job Jen, you're cute, let me eat your belly.


On 8/1/07, Andrea Chrupcala wrote:


Jen said to Bubba: Bubba....Daisy is outside farking. NO FARKING DAISY!!!!


>>> "Alex Baldini" 7/31/2007 4:22 PM wrote:


Jen said to Bubba: I sorry Bubba, I twied, I twied.


On 7/31/07, Andrea Chrupcala wrote:

Jen said to Bubba: Bubba.......give me the sauce.

The end of an era...

It's finally here.

After nearly 7 years of working hard and hoping that the day would eventually come I am finally able to say that I only have ONE CLASS LEFT until I get my degree.

I can't believe I just typed that.

The class starts in 2 weeks and I will be finished on April 24th.

Then I'm done.

I can't believe I just typed that either.

All this goodness is happening in the middle of the extreme stress and uncertainty that's currently going on at work, what with the buyout of my company (Wyeth) by a much larger company (Pfizer) and all the massive layoffs and the not knowing for over a full year if I have a job or not.

Good times, good times!

I'm trying to keep a positive attitude and focusing on the obvious plus of the situation which clearly is the fact that I will never have to buy another textbook for myself, I will never have to spend my evenings and weekends doing research or writing ridiculous papers, and I will never again have to say to my kids' "Sorry. Not tonight....Mommy has homework to do."

It feels great to be so close to such a large accomplishment in my life. I'm proud of myself and I am so grateful for my family for all the help they offered and for putting up with the "time suck" for so long.

Its almost over.

We made it.

Thank the Lord!!!!!!

Tis' the season.....

We had a wonderful Christmas at our house and here's hoping that you did too.

This face pretty much sums up all of it for me:



Note: Just after I took this shot I asked Jen what the gift was that she unwrapped which made her so excited and she said, "I don't know what it is."

Ahhhhhh.....to be 4 years old and easily excitable again.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

Pumpkin carving - 2009

Yep. I'm a little late on this one. So without further ado.....

This year the girls enjoyed carving the pumpkins that we had picked at the patch and Steph did most of the poking and carving on her own pumpkin. Jen was what I would call "less than impressed" by the entire process and didn't like scooping out the goo one bit. She did it for about 6 minutes then looked at me and said, "I'm done."

And that was that.

Here are a few pics of the fun.....



Oh she looks happy here alright, but don't let the cuteness fool you. This was the first scoop of the goo and a split second before she realized that it was nasty.



See....here she is showing me her perfectly clean hand alongside her gooey other hand. This was a split second before she walked out on us to watch a movie instead. Good times folks, good times.


As you can see the goo didn't bother Steph one bit.


Daisy got in on the action. I think she liked the goo. Or maybe it was the face. Yep....I think it was definitely the face.



After some carving and a tiny bit of gagging from goo disgust, they painted a few of the smaller pumpkins. This was an activity that Jen could sink her teeth into so she decided to grace us with her presence again.

12 Days of Christmas

Hello to everyone who is stopping by for Scrapbook News and Review Magazine's 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop!

I'd like to welcome you to my silly little blog. Take a look around but don't be distracted by the cuteness that lurks on these pages. My suggestion is to try not to look directly into the eyes of the little one we call Jen....

*smile*

Today I have two seperate holiday projects that I would like to share with you. The first are some cute christmas tree ornaments that I handmade for our tree this year using a bunch of ribbon scraps and some canvas (and I just know that all you scrappers and cardmakers out there don't have ANY ribbon in your stash....right???)

hee hee.

So what I did was:

- I cut two pieces of canvas in a triangle using my pinking shears
- Sewed different lengths of ribbon right onto the front of one piece
- Added about 10 inches of ribbon to the top to use as the hanger
- Sewed the two pieces together leaving a small gap to add stuffing
- Once stuffed to my liking I sewed the gap closed, and there you have it!

These are so quick and easy and they can be added right to the tree, can be used as an adorable door hanger, or can also be used to top a special gift.




The second project was done using my handy dandy and always trusty Cricut! I used the Tags, Bags, and Boxes cartridge to cut out the 2" circle tags from kraft paper, then I used the Doodletype cartridge to cut out the snowflakes on white cardstock. I found many different snowflake shapes on a bunch of different cartridges so you can look through and pick out your favorite. After everything was cut all I needed to do was glue the snowflake to the front of the tag, stamp the back To: and From:, and add a red string for the tie. These gift tags are a fun way to add handmade to the holidays and will be on all the gifts I give this year!




Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to check out my Etsy shop funsize creations for other fun handmade goods for the holidays, and for even more eye candy stop by my sewing blog and take a look around.

Happy holidays everyone!!