well tomorrow is it...anthony's last day at miss michelle's. i've been fighting back tears for two weeks now everytime i drop him off/pick him up dreading tomorrow arriving...in a few short hours, that time will come. alas the real waterworks have started!
miss michelle has been a constant presence in anthony's life since 9 weeks old. he has seen her 5 days out of 7 for the past 133+ weeks of his life (that's just crazy when you look at it like that).
this leads me to the struggle i am having now...thinking that i'm being selfish in moving him to his new school to accomodate my schedule (i work 5 days a week and need 5 day care; michelle is only going to be working 3 days/week going forward and it's impossible to afford 3 day care with her and 2 days some place else)...not thinking about what it's going to do to my son to pull him away from a woman he loves and cares about as much as some family members (no offense to any family members...you know what i mean).
i know that given time, anthony will come to love playing at his new school as much as he loved playing at miss michelle's. i know that he will enjoy craft time, lunch and nap time as much as he did before too; however, my small, sweet, caring little boy i know will miss the one-on-one time with miss michelle. the patience and caring she showed towards him (and the other children) as if they were her own children, will outshine any "attention" he may get at his new school.
last night anthony and i worked on a gift to give miss michelle tomorrow. it's a flower-shaped stepping tone in which we placed tony's handprints with his name and '08 and some neat mosaic tile pieces. we (ok, well mainly me, he wouldn't have known if it didn't turn out "right") were very pleased with the outcome and wrapped it up for her. i created a card using a wordle i printed with things anthony and i thought of when we think of miss michelle. we will be giving it to her tomorrow morning.
such little presents for a woman who has/will have had such a huge presence in not only anthony's but john and my life as well. we will miss her so much!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
presence & presents
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
happy birthday to you!
please say happy birthday to my sister-in-law if you see her and wish her a great day!
Monday, July 28, 2008
happy birthday to me!
well, since i'm the only one in my family that actually knows how to update this thing, i guess that leaves me to say...
i already received some great birthday presents...
the tori spelling tell-all book, stori telling
the legally blonde the musical soundtrack (original cast recording)
really cool jacket from j.jill
pottery barn candle
and my actual birthday only arrived today!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
word up, wordle!
check this out...how cool!
wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. the clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. you can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. the images you create with wordle are yours to use however you like. you can print them out, or save them to the wordle gallery to share with your friends.
i created ours by inserting our blog address and it created the wordle using all the words that appear in our blog, but you can just insert words you want to appear. pretty neat. check it out to see for your self. you can click the image below to enlarge it...if you want to.
take me out to the ballgame...
anthony fell asleep in the car on the way to the game and continued to sleep until almost 8 p.m. well into the game. good thing i had saved him some food because til he woke up, the 2 hour buffet had ended. guess his first few hours today at his "new school" really wore him out (hmmm...was it the hysterical crying - when i was there with him for the time we were there - or the playing he did once he relaxed? my guess it was a little of both)!
this year was a first for the "reading phillies dance team"...interesting...why a minor league baseball team needs a "dance team" is beyond me...aren't all the men there to watch the baseball game anyway? how about an all male dance team to entertain us women that aren't into sports?? now we're talkin'! well, anyway...they came into our section to search out the craziest woman there to win a "makeover" treatment at a local salon. i told them up front while pointing to sue d. that they wouldn't have to look too far...well sure enough, when the contest started, so did sue! she won the title of craziest woman in our section that night and in the process won herself a haircut, full color and wax at a tricia's salon in wyomissing!! way to go sue!
despite john leaving early for the men's church group camping weekend, tony d and i stuck around and enjoyed the fireworks with all of john's fun co-workers! it was a long night, but we had a great time!
special thanks to heath, jamie, julie & maddy frey for taking such good care of t and i and walking us to our car after the fireworks!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
chip 'n dale...or are they?
so here is a conversation that was held this morning between anthony and i while he was watching mickey mouse clubhouse. let me preface this by mentioning he asked earlier in the week who these two "new" characters were on the show. i explained they were chipmunks named chip 'n dale and i reminded him he had his picture taken with the two of them while in disney last february.
this brings us to this morning...
t: hey mom, ya know who those guys are?
mama: yeah, t i do. do you remember who i told you they were?
t: yep i do...them are chick 'n nugget! (said with the utmost of seriousness)
mama: really, are you sure? (holding back all laughter, kind of not sure that's what he said)
t: yep...chick 'n nugget! (said with even more seriousness, but now questioning himself slightly)
mama: sorry to break it to you bud, but they are chip 'n dale (still trying not to crack up)
t: oh
then we both lost it...hmmm, i thought my kid realized by now my knowledge of disney, yet there he was questioning me on who's who in the wonderful world of disney!
oh the things that come out of a 2.5-year old's mouth!
sharing the love
so i just finished up another order of lollipops for a co-worker. they are for a tasteful 2nd time around bachelorette party...thought i'd share in case you or your friends know of anyone in need of some shower (bridal/baby) favors!!
holy bad blogger bat-man
testing...testing...is this thing on? just checking. wow - i can't believe it's been over a month since my last post. no excuse really except for shear busyness in the lives of us 3-amigos here in pennside. but you don't really want to hear about what we've been up to...do you? oh, ok, you twisted my arm...let me bring you up to speed.
alright...since i last posted, friends of ours, chris and bobbi-jo welcomed their second child, a daughter, kara ellasyn. she made a grand, grand entrance a bit earlier than planned (you can read about it here) but is doing just fine! ryan is the doting big brother and we couldn't be happier for this new family of four!
the week after the pasta run (6.21-6.28), the 3 of us and corinne, dave and harrison loaded up the cars (yes, despite the horrible gas prices)and headed to rehoboth beach/dewey beach searching for a week of fun in the sun! we found it. it was a fun time and the weather couldn't have been better. we had 1 night of rain/thunderstorms but it was after we were all tucked in bed some of us already sound asleep. this was t's first real experience at the beach (we were in sea isle city for a weekend when he was around 10 mos, so he doesn't remember anything), and he absolutely loved every part of it...the sand, the ocean, the boardwalk (i love when he says that word - it's more "bode-wok"), and the rides. he slept well even taking 2 hour naps bundled up on the beach blanket under the umbrella. here he is dancing up a storm on the boardwalk to a rod stewart impersonator. you can click here to view the photo album from our vacation.
he loved his time with harry! who, by the way, began crawling while at the beach that week. it was a fun milestone and i was excited to be able to share it with him.
we went to several picnics this summer so far and have been having fun with friends and family which has been occupying every weekend we have...guess it's why this summer seems to be going by so fast. here are a few pictures of anthony and his girlfriend abby at our friend sue and jd's pool party this past saturday.
tomorrow we head back to the reading phillies for berks homes' company picnic. it will be nice to visit with john's co-workers again (especially the ones from out of town that we don't get to see often except for the christmas party every year). john and mike lutz (and the lutz boys) will be leaving immediately from the picnic to head to hickory run and skirmish to meet up with dave and the rest of the men (and their [older] sons) from church for the 2nd annual camping trip. they should have a great time playing paintball and having "manly talk" by the fire - oh, and i'm sure there will be some stuffing of faces and beer drinking too.
in other exciting, yet sad news...next thursday is tony's last day at miss michelle's. she will only be working 3-days a week this coming fall and that just doesn't fit in with my 5-day work week and needing 5-day care for him, so as of 8.4 he will be starting at kindercare in exeter. we visited back in january and made the decision that's where he'll be attending, however we are going for a "trial" run tomorrow to spend a few hours (with me there with him) so hopefully he won't be as scared on the 4th when he has to do it by himself. i can't type too much or i'll get sappy, but i will really miss him being at michelle's. she's been caring for him since he was about 9 weeks old and i can see how much of an impact she's had on him and his behavior. i don't know how i will ever thank her enough for the love and care she has given to him these past (almost) 3 years. we will be making a stepping stone for her to place in her new landscaping by her patio with his handprints as a reminder of him.
i know i've probably missed so much, so just take my word that if i think of something i forgot, i'll update it pronto...i'm back on my [blogging] game.
oh, and have i told you all recently how much i love these two guys?
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