Grampee's Birthday

This weekend was my Grampee's birthday. He turned 51 years young. Gramay threw him a birthday party, and we decided it would be fun to go. I was a really good girl on the trip to New York!

Here's a picture of me walking with Grampee. He bought me cookies and goldfish crackers!

This is me and Gramay.

There was a swimming pool at the party! I got to go swimming with Daddy.

I didn't cry this year!

Don't let this picture fool you, Grampee just got in for a picture.

He didn't really swim!

Aunt Kristen helped me ride in a motorized truck. It was SO fun!

Everyone kept telling me I look just like Aunt Kristen!

I had so much fun! Thanks for having us Gramay and Grampee! Hope you had a great birthday!!!!

Great Grandpap

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

DelGrosso's Amusement Park

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Boo Boo

Jocelyn is officially a kid.

She got her first skinned knee. I knew it would happen soon. She has no fear while playing outside: climbing the levels of the patio and running down sidewalks.

Yesterday she fell. I was right there and picked her up right away, knowing she would have a boo boo. She didn't cry. I brought her in, washed it off, and got a box of band aids.

Jocelyn did not want a band aid.

She pulled it off.

Here's how it looks this morning.

"Do I want to wear a band aid today? No way!"

I'm sure this is the first of many, many skinned knees. It's a right of childhood. I can't believe my knees look normal today when I think about how many skinned knees I had when I was a kiddo.

Beautiful Baby

Here are some scanned pictures from when I took Jocelyn to the Beautiful Baby Contest last year (I believe it was October and Jocelyn was 9-months-old). Jocelyn received a $350 gift card to the studio for winning.

Last week we went in to have a family picture taken. I figured that we could use the certificate for a nice portrait to hang in our dining room. When we went, the photographer took only a handful of photographs. She probably figured we wouldn't be spending much more than what the gift certificate was worth, which was right, but still...she could have treated us like regular customers.

Never-the-less, we went in last night to view and order our pictures. The girl who was there was very nice. It happened to be her last day and she pulled out some pictures from a folder and said she was supposed to send them to some local doctors' offices, but that she hadn't and we could keep the pictures. She said that the photographer would kill her for giving them to us, and asked us not to tell. I was so happy to have these shots. This photographer is so expensive that all we could purchase with the $350 was one 11x14 family shot and one 8x10 of Jocelyn. There was also a session charge.

I am amazed at how expensive she was, and even more amazed that people pay so much for portraits!

Done for Now

We have done so much work the past few days while my parents were up "visiting". The driveway repairs are done!!

Looks GREAT!

We also added some more landscaping to the back yard! The bushes and natural area around them are new. It looks like a brand new place, and I absolutely LOVE it!! It's not completely finished, but this stage is over. I would like to add a bird bath and some more flowers...

The shed is going to be gone in a couple of weeks. It's falling apart and isn't able to be saved.

The patio is leveled out and is as beautiful as ever!

We also added a bamboo privacy shield to the fence right outside our side door. This adds some privacy where we can't really grow anything tall to block the fence as well as blocking out the ugly air conditoning unit that was just put in our neighbor's yard. When the plants get bigger and bloom, I think this area will look pretty!

Mammie and Pappy did get a little free time to spend with Jocelyn too, and she loved the constant attention!

Thanks so much mom and dad for all you do for us!! We miss you already!

Weekend Work

My Dad has traveled up to Pittsburgh again for another workation.

I'm sure he had to take vacation days from work, and I'm sure he laughed at the term 'vacation' when this is what he has been doing so far...

Leveling the patio

and driveway repairs

After pictures still to come!

A Portrait Sitting

I took Jocelyn to Target for portraits about a month ago. I'm not taking her back. The only reason I went to Target was because I had a coupon for 6 free portrait sheets, which I received after our Holiday portrait disaster.

Target schedules appointments every 10 minutes. That's just not enough time. Jocelyn wasn't even warmed up to the photographer by the time the session was over. I don't think she smiled in any of the pictures. There weren't any pictures that I absolutely loved, probably because I love her little smile and it wasn't captured.

Here are some of the pictures from her session:

(I hate this tacky background)

I'm not liking this fairy either...Trying to catch a bubble

Ugly fake flowers...

The Timing of it All

It's so funny how things seem to work out.

In November of last year, we had a water main break on our street. It just so happened that the break was right under part of our sidewalk. They came and tore up our sidewalk, as well as part of the street, to fix the leak. We were left with a hole in the road and no sidewalk for two months. Our Christmas decorations were outshone by the blinking yellow lights on top of the construction horses.

They came to fix our sidewalk a little earlier than expected. I can remember the exact day they came. It was Jocelyn's birthday, January 8. I didn't think they would lay a new sidewalk until the weather got warmer, but I was obviously wrong. What do I know about pouring concrete?? It was REALLY cold that day. The high temperature was 28 degrees and the low was 21. I'm pretty sure it was also snowing.

They covered the sidewalk for a couple days and then came back, uncovered it and left it to our care taking. No special instructions were left behind.

It snowed.

We salted it.

Little did we know that you aren't supposed to salt a new walk for at least a year after it had been laid. Well, we only salted it once before I came to the conclusion that we shouldn't do that again. The sidewalk looked horrible. It was chipping up, and looked like it had dried, melted salt running all over it. This didn't wash away with the rain.

We knew the condition of the sidewalk would only get worse with time. We were afraid to call and tell the water company that the new sidewalk was horrible. We thought they would know as soon as they saw it that we caused the problem.

After months of feeling sick that we had a brand new sidewalk and ruined it ourselves, I decided that the worst the water company could say was, "No, we aren't laying a new sidewalk at our cost when YOU screwed it up." So I sent an e-mail, someone came out and looked at it, and I received a call that we would have a new one put in within 2 weeks. Woo Hoo!! Thank goodness.

Well, this morning at 6:50am we were awakened by the joyous sound of jackhammers. The funniest part of the timing is that Jocelyn had been waking up at 6:30am for the past 4 days. Today she was still sleeping. I thought the double jackhammering going on right outside her window would surely wake her up. Nope. She slept right through the entire thing. Me, on the other hand, not so much. The one morning I could have slept in later than 6:30 and there are jack hammers pounding outside! I guess I asked for it, right??

The best part of the whole deal was that when Todd left for work, the guys working out there asked him who laid the sidewalk that was there. Todd told him that he wasn't sure. The guy asked when they did it. Todd responded with January. The guy said, "Yep. That will do it. It's way too cold to lay a sidewalk in January." So, maybe it wasn't our fault? Maybe it was a combination of the salt and the cold weather? We will never know, but we won't be putting salt on this new sidewalk for a while, that's for sure.

Now, at 1:00pm, Jocelyn is down for her nap and the crews have just resurfaced to pour our new sidewalk. I'm guessing she will sleep well. At least I wasn't trying to take a nap!!

My Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day this year (thank you so much Todd)!!!

I woke up to a Belgium waffle maker and yummy waffles with strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Nice job Todd! Then we got ready and went to the zoo.

The zoo had free admission for moms, so we decided to go. Thank goodness we got there early. It was absolutely packed after lunch. Jocelyn had a great time seeing all the animals, and she zonked out on our way back to the car, stayed asleep while getting her into the car seat and the whole way home.

For dinner, Todd grilled some filet mignon and a little steak for Jocelyn as well as corn-on-the-cob. Delicious! Oh, and I can't forget the appetizers of cooked shrimp with cocktail sauce (that Jocelyn thoroughly enjoyed too) and watermelon.

It was an absolutely wonderful day!

Happy Mother's Day!

BEFORE I WAS A MOM:

Author Unknown

Before I was a Mom,
I made and ate hot meals.
I had unstained clothing.
I had quiet conversations on the phone.

Before I was a Mom,
I slept as late as I wanted
And never worried about how late I got into bed.
I brushed my hair and my teeth everyday.

Before I was Mom,
I cleaned my house each day.
I never tripped over toys or forgot words of lullabies.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never been puked on
Pooped on
Spit on
Chewed on
Peed on
Or pinched by tiny fingers

Before I was a Mom,
I had complete control of:
My thoughts
My body
And my mind.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held down a screaming child
So that doctors could do tests
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
When I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
Could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond between a Mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small
Could make me feel so important.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay
I had never known the warmth
The joy
The love
The heartache
The wonder
Or the satisfaction of being a Mom.

I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much before I was a Mom.

Horse

Jocelyn has always liked the commercials on TV. Her two favorite commercials right now are the Eat 'N Park strawberry specials (yummy pictures of fresh strawberries, including pies, strawberry-stuffed french toast, strawberry milkshakes, pancakes, waffles, etc.), and the commercial for The Horse lecture series and exhibit at The Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
She will stop everything when these commercials come on and watch.

This morning the Horse commercial came on during GMA, and Jocelyn went up to the TV, pointing to the horses on the screen, saying "this." I said "horse," and she went over to her puzzles, grabbed the horse puzzle piece and took it to the TV.
I didn't realize that Jocelyn even knew what a horse was. I just thought it was so amazing...there is so much going on in that little brain of hers!