The Wax Museum

Christian was Vincent Van Gogh at his Wax Museum Presentation that the 5th graders at his school put together. They all had to pick a famous character and dress up like them. Then they stood behind their desk and pretended to be wax statues of the famous person. They even did a little research, had some props on their desk. The cute thing was that they each had a paper button that if you pressed it then they would talk and say something about their character. It was funny to see how many of the visitors pressed the buttons over and over again. I passed through with Arianna and had her press the buttons over and over again and as we came around to Christian's desk he was whispering, "don't press it, don't press it". Of course, I had Arianna press his several times but I think it was broken because he did say anything. They even had to stand very still during the visitation times and really act like they were just statues. The kids really did a great job!!



Oprah Winfrey was on the left side of Christian and Helen Keller was on his right. Next to Oprah was Claude Monet. In the other picture was Picasso and Ghandi, and I don't remember the rest. Some of the others not pictured was Will Smith, Rachel Ray (that was portrayed by Christian's "girlfriend", Kylie), William Shakespeare, and I can't remember the others.

Christmas 2011

Wow! Where does the time go? I can't believe the the last time I posted something was back in August. I have tons of pictures to post but don't have the time so I guess I will start with the most recent, Christmas! We had a nice Christmas holiday this year. We were invited to a holiday party on Christmas Eve which we attended. There were lots of great food and children running around like crazy. We came home early, put Arianna to bed, then Steve, Christian, and I stayed up and read from the Christmas story from Luke and then read from my grandmother's journal about her Christmas memories. Her memories reminds us of why we have some of the traditions we have and brings back the simplicity that Christmas used to be for them. They were so happy to wake up in the morning with peppermint sticks and oranges in their stocking and almost always had no toys or if they got anything it was homemade and simple. Some of our Christmas traditions that we have came from my grandmother. When she was growing up she remembered having cheese and crackers and peppermint sticks. These were something special to have on Christmas day. So, every Christmas we make up a platter with cheese slices, crackers, and candy canes. Also, I always stuff the stockings with apples, oranges and bananas because these were things that were hard to get back in the day and were very precious to my grandmother and her siblings. It was a rare treat to have a nice juicy orange or to bite into a crisp sweet apple or to chomp down on a nice yellow banana. I think Christian's favorite tradition is to be able to open up one gift on Christmas Eve. Santa was very good to the kids this year and I believe the kids had a great Christmas. It was a very relaxed day for all of us. We didn't go anywhere and didn't do any work around the house. We just had fun with the kids and spent some good quality time with the family. It was great!

Arianna's First Birthday

I can't believe we are celebrating Arianna's first birthday! Time has sure flown by this year. She is such a joy in our lives and I can't imagine life without her. She makes us smile all the time. She loves people and always has a smile on her face for everyone to see. She is into everything now. She is walking very well. She loves to give me hugs and kisses (well, open-mouth and slobbery raspberries is more like it). She has a total of 16 teeth, very unusual for this age I suppose. She still sleeps very well at night for us, which is a good thing because I am a monster when I am sleep-deprived. She loves her big brother, Christian, and loves it when he plays with her. She also loves to go into his room. We keep her out most of the time by shutting the door but if she disappears and we don't hear a peep out of her, more than likely she got into his room and into one of toys.
Since we just moved to Syracuse and don't know many people, we decided to travel to Jason and Sunshine's home in PA to celebrate her birthday together. My friend Denise and her daughter, Julie drove up from Harrisburg to join us. I decided to make it easier on myself and order a subway platter for lunch. It was a very nice day and things went rather well considering the temperament of a one year old. Her birthday theme was Baby Einstein and since we couldn't buy a baby einstein cake, Sunshine and I decided to make one out of cupcakes. I think it turned out pretty good for a homemade cake. We attempted to make the worm that Arianna loves so much when she watches her video. Whenever she sees the worm, she smiles really big at it. It was no where near the quality of the cakes on Food Network's Ace of Cake or Cake boss, but I think we did okay with it. I don't think Arianna knew the difference, which is what matters!

Pictures

I love this picture of me and Arianna. We are so happy together.

Christian and his big brain!!!

Camden, my nephew.

First time swimming,

Keeping the kids entertained, Christian with his DS and Arianna with her Baby Einstein

Waiting to board the plane

Getting comfortable for the plane ride

Just starting to crawl

Her first pigtails

Easter 2010

Update in the Days of Our Lives

It has been awhile since I last posted but I have a good excuse. My computer has been on the blinks lately and finally died on me. When I went for a visit to Syracuse I brought back Steve's laptop and have been using it ever since. It took me awhile to finally figure it out the multi card reader that it has. But, Voila!! I did it. I got the pictures loaded onto the computer and able to share it with my family and friends. a

Let's see now, what is going on in our lives. First off, we have our house on the market now since we are moving to Syracuse, New York where Steve has gotten a job as a inhouse patent attorney. Since we were moving up there, I decided it was about time that I see my new home town, So, the kids and I flew there to visit Steve and Syracuse. It was a good trip. We stayed with Steve in his studio apartment. That was something else. Imagine the four of us in a one room apartment. It was quite a squeeze to fit in but we made do and had a good time. We visited downtown Syracuse and toured the MOST (Museum of Science and Technology) Museum and Christian really enjoyed and wants to go back, which is a good sign. During out time there I drove with the kids down to Danville, PA where Jason and Sunshine were visiting and doing a house search since they are moving there. I stayed there overnight and drove back to Syracuse the next evening. While there, my friend Denise and her daughter, Julie, drove up from Harrisburg and we visited. We took the kids bowling, then to Friendly's for lunch and then to the pool for a quick swim. They all had a good time and I got to see one of my best friends. My drive back to Syracuse was a very long and difficult one. For some reason, one hour into my drive it started SNOWING! What the heck. I drove into a blizzard. Pretty soon, everything turned completely white and I was slipping and sliding on the interstate. I was going 15 MPH for about 2 hours until I got out of the Poconos area and got into New York. What a drive. It got so bad and I was hunched over with both wheels tightly gripped to the steering wheel and Christian sensed that something was wrong that he prayed that we would make it safely back to Syracuse.

By the time we got back to Knoxville, it was Easter weekend. This year was a weird Easter for us. It was just Christian, Arianna and me. We couldn't go to Memphis to visit family because we had just gotten back from Syracuse. So, we stayed home and celebrated Easter by ourselves. I had a small egg hunt for Christian and I got Arianna a large stuffed lamb. It was a very boring Easter for us. Our Easter dinner consisted of Ramen Noodles and Chicken Nuggets.

Arianna is now 8 months old and doing so much now. She has been sitting up, rolling around and now she is starting to crawl around. Time is going by so fast I feel like I am falling behind. She has already got 8 teeth and I think she is still teething. She is still drooling like crazy. She really loves to bite into her baby biscuits. They are a bit messy but it makes her happy. She is a very good baby. I love it when she looks at me and gives me her biggest smile and then reaches for me. No matter what I do or how I look or how bad I smell, she loves me unconditionally.

Christian celebrated his 10th birthday this year. For his birthday he chose to take two of his friends and visit the indoor waterpark in Pigeon Forge. So, I got a friend to take Arianna for the weekend and I spent the weekend with 3 boys at the waterpark. It was nice. I think the boys had a great time. When we got there they got to go to the waterpark that was open until 10pm, then we got back to our room and ordered pizza. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep that night. The next morning we got up and spend the whole day at the waterpark. They had a very good time and I think Christian will always remember his 10th birthday.

Christian's Trip to the Bahamas

I just realized that I never posted anything about Christian's awesome trip to the Bahamas with his aunt and uncle and 5 of his cousins. Steve's brother, John and his wife Sharon decided to take 6 of their nephews to the Bahamas with them. I think John had an Optometry Conference and thought this would be a great opportunity to enjoy some of their nephews. It was actually great timing for us. Since Steve was unemployed last year and I was pregnant with Arianna, we decided not to take a beach vacation. Christian has always looked forward to our week long beach vacation that we tried to take every summer. So, when John and Sharon called us up and asked us if they could take Christian off of our hands and take him somewhere wonderful, we were ecstatic. Not only will this be the first time that Christian has ever spent more than a few days away from us but he was going somewhere exotic. Christian, of course, was a bit nervous because we were not coming with him. We met John, Sharon, and the others in Atlanta, where they would fly out of, on Sunday, July 4th and they did not come back until Friday, July 9th. Christian had a very good time. They got to swim with the dolphins, feed sharks (which Christian did not participate in), play at the beach, and lots more that I can't mention because I wasn't there. But here are some pics of their trip. I think the best part was the dolphins. He even touched their flippers and fed them fish.