potd 1/24-1/30

monday 1/24
kids playing games on the computer, x is playing star wars, while c plays on pbskids.org
tuesday 1/25
xander doing his reading for homework. he is supposed to read 20 minutes a day. most days he puts up a big stink about doing it. but he has been reading the "diary of a wimpy kid" series and really likes them. wish he didn't complain so much about it though. caught him in a quiet moment.

thursday 1/27
cassidy's half birthday! she is 4 1/2 today. so, she got 1/2 a cake.

saturday 1/29
here we come spring ball!
baseball assessments at george pierce park. went early, warmed up with his best baseball bud, went through the assessment with no problems (overheard comments from coaches while i was playing pohotographer...."nice swing", "good hit", "nice job (on fielding)", "good arm").
it was a beautiful day, so we hung out at the park for 2 hours. saw lots of friends from years past. met a few new ones...
now we wait for the call to find out what team he is on, and who his teammates will be. keeping our fingers crossed!
sunday 1/30
New Beginnings for the young women at church.
as an advisor for the beehive class i helped put the decorations and backdrop together. the counselor i work with was the mastermind behind this balloon arch, and i was in charge of the clouds and "title". not too shabby!

potd 1/17-1/23

monday 1/17
cassidy waiting for her friend to walk up from down the street. everyday when we drive home from school she begs me to call so they can play. they are just alike... CLL & EKP

tuesday 1/18
no pictures today. just come preparations for todd's birthday. he's 40 tomorrow!

wednesday 1/19
todd's birthday! we ate at olive garden followed by chocolate birthday cake at home. despite their initial protests x & c LOVED olive garden. x said it was just like heaven, and that he couldn't keep his lips off the raspberry lemonade. good choice todd!
we followed up at home with the cake and a couple of presents. his mother had hand cut birthday cakes, party hats and hearts, which the kids had decorated the living room with. a "heart attack" of sorts. they had also put together 40 dollar coins, and me and the kids gave him tickets to the gwinnett braves for the summer. he'll get presents all summer long as we shop in the gift store there.

thursday 1/20
my poor car. it has been sitting at my in-laws for the last three months following the accident. and we are finally having it looked at. i miss my car.

friday 1/21
no pictures....but daddy/daughter date to bath & body works and mcdonald's, and mother/son date to school showing of "despicable me".

saturday 1/22
no pictures....cleaning day. working on decluttering the house! my main goal this year, besides working on my "picture of the day" collection

sunday 1/23
three days in a row. oh this isn't good.

potd 1/10 - 1/16

so? you want to know what a snow day looks like? how about 5 of them? yup, we had 5 snow days in a row! i grew up in massachusetts, it snows alot there, but never were we out so many days in a row, never a whole week! but georgia has their way of dealing with snow... wait for it to melt!
i thought i'd get started on my post for this week, since i have so much free time! don't get me wrong, there is still plenty to do around the house, and my master's class hasn't stopped and there are two adorable kids that need to be entertained. but in between all that i've had a few minutes to myself. ooops, minute is over, cassidy just climbed on my lap. yes, she is still awake at 9:30pm. didn't you hear? there's no school tomorrow.
and sorry, i can't keep it to one picture each day. we've been home this whole time, the camera is close by...lots of pictures!

monday 1/10 - snow and lots of it! six inches! we headed out after bundling up layers and layers. i think we lasted for an hour and half. we met several of the neighborhood kids outside. snowmen and snowball fights didn't work because the snow was too powdery, but good ole fashion jumping and snow angels were just as fun! the neighbors had some makeshift sleds and we used boogie boards too. anything to enjoy the snow.




tuesday 1/11 - second day of snow, x played outside, but it was so much colder than monday! when he came in his cheeks and feet were bright red. cassidy went outside with a friend and then played at her house and ate snow cream. we put up a tent in our living room! kids slept there all night. oh, and a picture of 11:11 on 1/11/11.wednesday 1/12 - cleaned the kids rooms today, and mine! yeah for clean bedrooms! after cleaning cassidy and i had a tea party. yup, a tea party! this was a first for us. so cute. but i admit, i had to fight the urge to get up and keep working. stop and enjoy it, cause she won't want to do this for long. and she was so animated! one of those moments you wish was on video.
it was a busy day for us. i put out a message on facebook to our neighbors that we had a tent set up in our living room and they were welcome to come watch a movie. and they did. we had three other families come join us. moms sat and talked and held the baby, kids played and played and played. great fun!
when the movie was done the crazy boys went back outside to play football in the snow! (glad the other boys wanted to do it, cause otherwise it would have been me!)
then that night we pulled out the games....uno attack, checkers, and candy land.
they slept in the tent again.

thursday 1/13 - not as much playing in the snow today. a low key day. we were going to go for a walk down to whitehead rd. to see how icy it was, but both kids fell asleep watching a movie. the last airbender. x loves it, but i guess the exhaustion of the last few days kicked in. i finally saw the end of it, after seeing the beginning 2 or 3 times. when todd got home from work and the grocery store (yeah!) he and x watched another movie. so it was "the day of the movie"! and still tent sleeping!


friday 1/14 - last day inside. mom and rachel came to get us today. they braved the ice on whitehead road. we ran a few errands and went to the mall. met todd there when he got off work. never really did have "cabin fever" but it felt good to be out doing something. last night of the tent! we have to get back to normalcy at some point.


saturday 1/15
lego birthday party for a friend. incredibly well put together and wonderfully executed. so stinkin' clever with i-spy and car races! xander loved it and has had a renewed desire to play with his legos and cassidy loved being girly with dresses and make up. best for both of them!
and as if they didn't have enough candy and sugar at the party, we had to try out the mega huge campfire marshmallows that todd found at the store. roasting marshmallows over the flame on the gas stove, not quite the same as a campfire, but fun nonetheless. (yes, it is on fire)

sunday 1/16
something i've been working on the last 3 weeks - drink more water! i've never been a big drinker, but i'm getting a little more used to it. like my water bottle?

potd 1/3-1/9

we are expecting snow. but it hasn't started yet. should have been here by now. xander is having a conniption (is that how you spell that?) fit because gwinnett county hasn't called off school yet. he is really worried.
but while i am waiting for it to start let's get going with my new goal...

1/3 monday
back to work for me! kids came to school with me today while i worked and cleaned in the classroom. and then came home to clean our house. putting away all the christmas stuff can be sad. i took a picture of the boxes all stacked up. they are ready to go upstairs and stored in the attic. but i thought it would be funny to photograph the boxes, because one day x & c are going to look at the picture and remember the decorations we would put up at christmas time. they may even laugh because some of the same boxes and decorations are still around.

1/4 tuesday
back to school. xander was not happy and said he didn't feel well. poor kid and his nerves. funny when it affects him, but on the baseball diamond is not one of those times.

1/5 wednesday
we started a tradition 3 or 4 years ago...when we take down the christmas tree we have a snowball fight. snowballs? okay, we have a marshmallow fight. we have to do something fun to to keep from being sad that all the decorations are put away and the season is over.
(that is my mom behind xander and rachel was safely sitting in the kitchen)

1/6 thursday
what happened on thursday? not much evidentally.

1/7 friday
the picture i should have gotten today would have been picking karen up at the airport, or surprising my mom and rachel by bringing karen to the house! YEAH good surprise! or karen with my kids or even all of us together. but none of those happened.
karen did get one of my kids drinking their QT slushies. I'll have to get that one from her.
but i caught a picture of cassidy making brownies. she is always happy to help cook!


1/8 saturday
we hit old navy and got some great deals! love a sale.
we also ate a stevi b's...oh, so much pizza.
but not picture today.

1/9 sunday
as i've been sitting here typing the the snow has started. in the last 1o minutes it has gone from cloudy night to snow storm. the flakes are coming down hard and the ground is already covered. i woke xander to let him know that gwinnett was closed, thanks to a text from rachel. and he got up to look at the snow. now he is laying next to me on the bed. todd was a good guy and went and took my potd for me. here is the first snow of the year. (technically the first snow we had of the winter was in 2010 in december, so this is the first of 2011). pictures tomorrow! fyi, karen barely made it out of atlanta's hartsfield jackson airport. her story was pretty funny (now that it is over) and amazingly the pilot was able to take off at 1:40. this picture was taken at 10:30 or so. visibility was pretty bad. thank you to the pilot and crew that got her home safely.
** edited monday morning **

the snowball fight tradition

true to form, xander threw a bullet of a marshmallow, cassidy ate a few too many as she flitted around, and we all had a good laugh at the protective gear they found in the garage.

potd 12/26 - 1/2

well, it is sunday, for at least another 15 minutes...so i am on track with my goal to post more on my blog, and to have a picture of the day.

i actually started to get on my blog an hour ago, but sucked into 3 new blogs. one about organizing myself/house/kids/etc., and two about healthy eating for kids. wow, my brain is on overload. i want to do it all...but i know i can't do it all at once. i'll have to see if i can add this in. really good ideas, but will take a little bit of time to wrap my head around, then wrap my kids around, then actually accomplish it.

so, onto the POTD... okay, so some of them i couldn't do just one picture. i know, over achiever! i guess this will be another way i need to simplify my life!

since i will do pictures just for christmas (at some point in the near future) i'll start the day after.

12/26 - playing in the snow was a must today! thank you white christmas. we went to george & pam's to use their sled (really? they have a sled and they live in georgia? that's being prepared) and their hill.
12/27 - sadly, no pictures taken today. i think we stayed home...actually, we went to rachel's and had pizza with my parents. we watched tv, hung out, and ate too much!

12/28 - here it is...my entrance into my mid-30's. xander and cassidy made breakfast for me. xander made scrambled eggs and cassidy did the toast. later that night we had an "oreo" ice cream cake todd had whipped up. blowing out the candles was a great "mom" moment...as cassidy got to them first. and i added the picture of me looking at cassidy's hand-made card. both kids made their own.... cassidy's had something new and exciting, her first written word "MOM". and i love the nonchalant way x is standing next to me, with his hands in the pocket of his hoodie.


12/29 - i spent an hour or so getting ready for my night out with todd and my in-laws. they had big plans for our birthdays. turned out they took us to the varsity (always good for a "famous" hot dog) and then to atlantic station for a cirque du soliel show, "ovo". quite awesome. but no pictures of the night. anyway, while i was getting ready cassidy was working on her own toes. love the outfit, pink long sleeved t-shirt and a pair of xander's old baseball pants. (they were from his first season when he played on the marlins).
12/30 - today we went bowling with joanna & her kids. so cute, and so fun (except for the arcade games!) she has all those pictures. i'll have to get them from her.

12/31 - new year's eve. chinese food, movies at rachel's with her and my parents, counting down to midnight (look at his face, he is so excited!), and sparkling grape juice to toast a new year!
1/1/11 - the first day of the new year. what better way to celebrate than finally having the last night of hanukkah! our schedules got to busy and we never lit the candles for the final night. that and i had promised xander that we would have latkes when we did it. so thank you todd, for making us some "gentile" latkes, as we lit the candles one last time for this year. (okay, technically, since it is 2011 we'll be lighting them again this year. technically.)
and when i should have had my children go to bed at a decent hour, we stayed up to use cassidy's new Easy Bake Oven (merry christmas from rachel!) really, cassidy did a lot of the stirring and pouring, it wasn't just me playing with it. oh, and the dial on the front really doesn't work, but we had to test it out.
1/2/11 - sunday. 9 o'clock church. and dinner at the pett's. no pictures all day long, til i remembered i wanted to do this post and i needed a picture for today. so i grabbed the camera and went into x's room. he was supposed to be in bed. but instead he was at his desk, surrounded by his books and mp3 player, pencils and radio. just as he had organized it. and he was writing. the other night he wrote about the books "the diary of a wimpy kid" which he got for christmas and has been reading. he told me he wrote about them to make sure he didn't forget how to write (while he's been on vacation from school).

so, too long winded? too many pictures? too much writing? oh well. even if no one else reads it right now, i'll have it for later. yeah me!