25 & 76

today i am 25 weeks pregnant.

today my poppop would have been 76 years old.

while i'm happy about the first number, i'm saddened by the second and the fact that it's been 10 years (oct of 2000) since we were able to celebrate poppop's birthday with him.

happy birthday poppop. we miss you every day and hope we are making you proud.

happy birthday troy!

on sunday we spent the afternoon celebrating troy's 3rd birthday at a yo gabba gabba party!

the weather was beautiful and all the kids (and grown-ups)had a great time. shannon had the yard decorated so cute and had organized crafts and other activities like pin-the-tail on the donkey, a pinata & pumpkin painting. sooooo much fun!

shannon snapped and shared some cute pictures of tony from the day.

tony hamming it up for shannon
tony taking his turn at pounding the pinata

tony's masterpiece

the look of total concentration

following the party, tony and troy decided to cool off by using the leftover ice from the drinks to cool off.

soaked and still having fun!

oley fair fun

on a lazy saturday evening, we decided to venture down to oley for the annual oley valley fair. i grew up having a dad who worked at the fair every year and a mother that hated the fair because of that, so i didn't get to go too often, unless it was to "work" the fair with my dad. we thought it might be a fun tradition to start with anthony. not to mention, how could you ever pass up the fair food. cheeseburgers, hot dogs, french fries and funnel cake! oh and we had it all!

first, we ventured through the animal barns...the above picture is tony (in the orange hat) pointing to the different cows. he also got to pet piglets, goats, sheep and bunnies. he was in "hog" (no pun intended) heaven.

next tony decided to subject daddy to a ferris wheel ride. tony was excited to be able to see the whole fair from the top of the ride...you can't see his face behind the entrance sign, but daddy's expression did not match that of tony's.

the other ride of tony's choice was the cars/motorcycles. of course, as soon as the "carny" opened the gate to let them in to pick their ride, tony hopped on the motorcycle. like father, like son, i guess.

and no trip to the oley fair would be complete without a stop at the f.m. browns booth. this is the booth where poppop worked for years and years, and years and years (and even more years if you ask mimi). mommy has many memories of her daddy, my poppop, "workin the booth". mr. brown even gave me an extra pencil when i told him who's grandson i was!

the weather was a perfect fall evening (as you can tell by even john wearing a sweatshirt). we are hoping for some more fall fun and look forward to the fair again next year!

labor day weekend - 2010

on friday the 3rd, i, along with

this little guy and fuzzy girl

and this big guy

packed up and headed to warwick woods for a fun weekend of camping...
just the 3 of us!

we enjoyed the most beautiful weather we'd seen in months.

we ate what we wanted to eat, went to bed and got up when we wanted to, and had a fun time being together. saturday we took a walk around the campground and enjoyed a fun hayride. tony took a lazy afternoon nap in his tent outside enjoying the fresh air and cool breeze. sunday warmed up enough for one last swim in the pool (for tony only - still too cold for the rest of us). lots of campfires, smores, and worms to play with. we had a great weekend!

(click on the collage to enlarge for a better view of the pictures)

my big gay italian wedding

what a fun night we had in new york city!! not only did we enjoy a fun-tastic limo ride (thanks to uncle jim for the limo in celebration of aunt cathy's birthday) to/from the city, show and dinner at rue 57, but we saw a fun show that had us laughing and got to see live and in (rather) close person, the real housewives of new jersey!


the girls were guest starring for 4 nights in the show being co-produced by housewife, dina manzo, herself. nice production in a small, personal venue. so much fun. caroline manzo and her daughter lauren stole the show and i was actually quite impressed with their acting skills. jacqueline lauretis, caroline's sister-in-law was just funny and i didn't realize she had as much of a sense of humor as she did. theresa was, well, theresa and her part actually allowed her to read her lines, word.for.word out of a book...which was obviously very much needed! jacqueline's daughter ashley...she was a wet noodle and the show could have done entirely without her.

baby talk...

we had a dr. appointment on friday 8/20. john, anthony and i were led into the u/s room. right away we saw 2 hands...2 feet...2 kidneys...bladder...everything is looking good so far...

oh wait.

what's that??

oh boy! it's a boy!

meet vincent "vinnie" robert d'angelo

our little bug's a boy! and this little boy (the 5th total now for my side of the family in 5 years) is measuring just perfectly. we go back in 3 weeks for another ultrasound of him to finalize some measurements (not because anything was wrong, just because they need him to be a little bigger to get the accurate measurements). she saw all the major organs, etc., but needs to get good measurements of them...i'm not going to complain about another peek at my little man.

i have been honest when asked all along...i would have loved a baby girl knowing i have an amazing little boy at home and that this is most likely our last (last with treatments anyway - it's all up to Him now if we're meant to have another). but after everything we went through to get to the point of even being pregnant this time. after losing our little one last year just weeks after the excrutiating loss my sister had, we honestly couldn't be more thrilled to have a healthy baby boy!

dirty rotten scoundrels

not these guys...

definitely not these people...

certainly not these two...

at the end of october...we were able to attend walnut street theatre's production of dirty rotten scoundrels. i had never seen the steve martin movie so i didn't know what to expect. the show was awesome!! probably one of the favorites we've now seen there.

we enjoyed a yummy dinner at a cute irish pub in the city before heading to the show. we all made sure to eat light so we were able to hit our other favorite places after the show...lorenzo's and geno'...before heading home.

here's dave enjoying his last few bites of lorenzo's while we walk to geno's

time

there just isn't enough of it. in a day, a week, a month, or even the year. and...i.don't.like.it.

a few weeks ago, john gave notice to the part-time position (mantle shop) he's been working for 9 years now. it became difficult for him (and on him) to be out of the house two days a week from the time he would leave for berks in the am and not arrive home until after 8 or 9 pm. that made for a long day for me of getting tony ready in the morning and out the door, going to work and coming home and taking care of tony, the house, etc. it was taking it's toll on me and on john as he was missing out on so much time with anthony in the evenings. tony would typically be in bed before john would get home, which would lead to there sometimes being 2 days straight where john wouldn't even see anthony awake, let alone get to have any "fun" time with him.

we discussed and felt it would be better for john to pick up some side work on the weekends (one or two good paying jobs a month, which he'd already been doing on top of mantles). this would, not always easily, make up for the loss of income we'd be taking by him leaving mantles. we'd have to make some changes, but ultimately, it's his health and the health and happiness of our family that is most important...we'll manage. it was with a heavy heart that he gave the notice to his boss. a man who had become a good friend...a man who, as a father himself, understood john's reasons more than some would.

last week marked the first week that john didn't have to work in the evening. it wasn't quite an accurate portrayel of how our weeknight's would be as anthony was in disney all week, but already i could see it was going to be a good thing. today ends the first week of our "new schedule" and all i can say is...

i.love.it.

we have eaten dinner by 6/6:30 every night as a family (as opposed to two meals and two shifts, with the latest being after 9 pm sometimes)...tony's had his bath followed by lots of snuggle, book reading, board game playing time (instead of bath and right to bed)...and john and i have had some quality time together in the evenings to talk and work on our little projects (both individual and household)...all before 9/9:30 at night. we are getting more time together as a family, as a couple...more sleep too, and it's making our little house on mayer street a much happier place.

another thing we are working on is our need to "just say no". we find ourselves booking our calendars jam-packed to the point of juggling multiple things on the same day and running the three of us ragged, all because we like to keep everyone happy and can't say no. we have started to limit ourselves for the remainder of this year, allowing for plenty of us (meaning just the three of us) time. starting january 1 we are going to evaluate this a little further even as we were just overwhelmed at times this year and just can't let that happen again.

please don't get me wrong. we love our friends and family. we do. we really, really do. we are so so blessed to have such amazing people in our lives, that we love and care for and they the same in return. this is why it's so hard to say no sometimes...but seriously people, there just isn't enough time. you know it. we know it. if you ask us to do something and we say no, it's not because we don't want to, or, heaven forbid, don't like you. we do. we really, really do. it's just we have to put our family and our needs first now. we've back-burnered ourselves long enough and 2010 is going to be the year for us!

wow

tony arrived home from florida safe and sound last night. wow...i didn't realize i missed him as much as i did until i saw his big, dark eyes looking up at me and hearing him say, "i missed you mama".

we didn't do much at all this weekend, and you know what...we loved it! we spent the rest of the weekend just enjoying our little family of 3 again.

following church, we came home, had lunch and just spent the day together. we watched a movie, watched some football, played domino's and with cars.

we had sword fights in the living room with a new light sabre from disney and an old light sabre from disney (one can never have too many)...

daddy & tony - sword fighting from Christy D'Angelo on Vimeo.

listen to that giggle...i could all day!

oh, and laughing...there was a lot of laughing going on...to the point of tears! especially after tony ran upstairs to use the potty and mama jumped up to grab the light sabre to "fight" against daddy...i'm not saying who won! it was a great day and i can't wait to have another weekend like this with my boys!

summer (fun) - in - review (august)

the beginning of august we celebrated harrison's 2nd birthday at my aunt's house in hershey. it was a fun day of swimming and relaxing in the sun. apparently i didn't have my camera at that event, so i will have to enjoy my sister's/mom's pictures and unfortunately, unless you're friends with my sister on facebook (yes, folks, my sister is now a facebook junkie -- actually worse than me!), you won't get to see them. sorry. bad kiki! next up...

deep creek lake, or bust! that's right folks, august brought vacation with the scollick-d'angelo family!! once again, john's mom and step-dad gary rented a house and boat at deep creek lake in western maryland for a week. it was 2 1/2 years ago that we did this, and this year was even better than that trip which i talked about here and here.

when we weren't boating, fishing and swimming in the lake, we were hanging out at the beautiful home, spending time with each other and just relaxing. we played wii, poker, had pleeeennnnnttttty of wine and margaritas...and the occasional mo-ji-to too! we stayed up late and slept in and plain just had a good time!

we all had so much fun in fact (as evidenced by the 150+ pictures i took which you can view here) that not even a week after returning from the trip, a different house (this one with a pool for some of us folks that are freaked out a bit by swimming in the lake) was booked along with a yellow pontoon boat for next year's trip...kathleen's crossing, watch out for the scollick-d'angelo family trip 2010!!

front of our home-sweet-home for the week

side deck overlooking the lake

tony, ready to head to the lake

what a ham!

daddy and his little buddy sportin' some shades

mommy and her little guy

not one's to stay at home for any period of time, the weekend immediately following our return from deep creek, we loaded up the camper and truck and headed to knoebel's for a long weekend with jack and sam for our annual trip!

despite the downpour of rain (which also seems to have become part of our annual trips) we all had a great time. my parents, and sister, dave and harry joined us for the day that friday (the worst rainy part of the weekend) and after a brief hour+-long downpour and waiting it out under some shelter, we enjoyed the rest of the day together.

tony on his "international harvester"

in line for his first roller-coaster!

tony ridin' rides with harry b!

tony and sam

tony and jack

i think jack and sam were pretty excited that tony can go on all of his rides alone now and they don't need to cram in kiddie-rides with their knees up to their eyeballs anymore! we are already excited about next year's trip...if jack & sam aren't done with it yet!! i didn't take a ton, but what pictures i did take, you can view here.

summer (fun) - in - review (july)

the beginning of july brought about more camping for the d's. we spent 4th of july weekend camping with the brumbaugh's and enjoying a reading phillies game. not too many camping pictures, but a few cute shots from the game can be seen here.

also in july was anthony's first year of vacation bible school (not the same bible school my friend luci refers to here). he spent the week with betty nana and attended at her church, st. benedict's in mohnton. he had a great time and although he spent much of the program not singing the songs...he definitely enjoyed it as he sings them for us all the time. here is one video that actually shows him singing and dancing...

tony - bible school from Christy D'Angelo on Vimeo.

the middle of july allowed for a night out for john and i with corinne and dave (thanks to mimi and poppop for watching both boys). we headed to philly for a little sushi and drinks mass quantities of sushi and wine at raw and then headed to walnut street theatre to see mel brooks' producer's. it was a great night and i can't wait until our next show with them the end of this month! here are a few pictures of our night.

one of the best pictures of john and i in years!

dave & corinne

the last bit of sushi and edamame left on the table

all 4 of us...stuffed and feeling good...ready for the show!

the end of july brought my sister and my "girl's get-away" weekend. we loaded up the convertible (thanks mom & dad) and cruised our way to delaware for a long weekend in dewey/rehoboth! this trip was a first for my sister and i as the two of us never went away together just us...it was a lot of fun. no husband, and no kids allowed us a lot of sleeping in, followed by a ton of time on the beach. yummy late dinners and boardwalk fun too. it was great and something we may need to turn into an annual trip!! there weren't many picture taken, but here were just a few.

on the beach @ dewey

following a delish dinner at la la land

headed to rehoboth on the jolly trolley

it was a lot of fun and the weekend (albeit a long one) was too short! thanks for a fun time corinne! can't wait to do it again!

"not me" monday - deep creek lake style

seeing as how we're on a week-long family vacation, this is going to be a family effort for nmm!

my brother-in-law bryan, whom we've always referred to as the renaissance man, arrived at the lake and realized he certainly did not leave pennsylvania without his shaving kit containing his toothbrush, razor and other toiletries and we definitely do not now refer to him as encino man.

yesterday while out boating, we stopped for a swim in the lake...tony and the hubs hopped out and the boat drifted slightly away...tony in is floaties and john treading water and getting a little nervous, asked us to throw a rope...sue throwing the rope, realizing it's too short, jumps into the lake...fully clothed. it was at this moment, that my husband did not put his feet down to realize he could actually stand and was able to walk himself and tony back to the boat.

last night while enjoying some peaceful alone time in the hot tub part of the house by herself, my sister-in-law sue, after her strenuous rescue efforts earlier in the day, did not swear she saw and heard something in the woods (you know, like freddie krueger-ish, or mike myers-ish) outside the house and frantically, heart pounding, most definitely did not throw the cover to the hot tub back on, not bothering to secure it and run through the door and up 2 flights of stairs to avoid her [imaginary] assailant.

we awoke this morning to some nice weather and all gathered our belongings to head out on the boat...my father-in-law gary and sister-in-law missie headed in the car to go over to the marina. the plan would be for john, sue, tony, and bryan and i to drive the boat over and pick them up there. they left and we headed down the backyard to the dock. it wasn't until after we were down there that we certainly did not realize that gary took the boat key with him to the marina. nope, not us...we're professional boaters.

oh, and i was just given orders from my mother-in-law to make sure i tell you all how sweet she is! i certainly did not just type that while crossing my toes and fingers...just kidding.

head on over to mckmama's blog to read more funny (ok, funnier) not me mondays.

sunday june 21, 2009 - daddy's day

john enjoyed a great father's day. more like father's weekend. sleeping in (saturday and sunday). breakfast in bed and lots of snuggle time with tony d - we were all exhausted from the crazy-as-usual busy weekend! we headed to weaver's (amish store) in fivepointsville to purchase john's father's day present - new hiking/work boots...and some homemade mini-donuts...de.lic.ious. then later that night after giving the decision of where he wanted to eat his f-day dinner, we ended up at our usual, sebastiano's...as it's foolproof we'll love what we'll eat and you can't beat the service and personal attention either!!

john - you are an amazing father...more than i could have hoped you would be. thank you for working so hard to provide for us and take care of us like you do! we hate that you're so busy, but it makes the time we spend with you (like this past weekend) just that much more special!! tony and i love you very, very much!!

i hope all the daddy's...whether it was your first, or you 31st...had a happy father's day!

well, that's all the updating for today. we had very special plans with very special friends yesterday (monday) and that will require a very special post of it's own...but for now...i need to get to bed! nighty-night all!

friday june 19, 2009 - relay for life

on friday we again joined the berks home building community connection team in walking for the relay for life. after work i picked up tony and we headed to the twin valley high school to meet up with john and some others from berks homes. we walked, mingled and tony made a tie-dyed t-shirt at the berks homes kids tent (picture of the shirt to come later). while john stayed over-night with some others from the office, continuing to walk, tony and i headed out around 11 following the luminary ceremony - we couldn't hang much longer...in fact, tony couldn't hang past the parking lot - he was out like a light before i hit route 23.

his sleepiness could have had something to do with the fact that while we were walking around the track...he practically ran every lap - the whole lap. i wish i had 1/2 his energy!

a rare (and not so great) family picture - just the 3 of us - that doesn't happen often!