Sunday, August 10, 2008

good times...and sad

wow - what a rough week this was in the d'angelo house. whew, i thought it would never end, but a ton of good things happened that made it all worth it!

we'll get the sad stuff out of the way...

since my last post, anthony finished at miss michelle's. it was a sad, sad, day, but it wasn't until later on this past week that he actually realized it was his last...but more of that in a minute. he had a fun day. michelle made it special (which isn't much different from a normal day there - she made every day special) and even had a "tony cake" for everyone to enjoy as a special snack. she said she loved the flower stepping stone tony had made for her and said it was "perfect" for her...i thought so too! there were lots of tears by me as i left for work, knowing that michelle's daughter would be there with the kids for pick-up as michelle had an appointment. when i picked him up, he said he had a great day. he said good-bye to all of his friends and there were lots of hugs. i only got a few pictures of the morning b/c my camera had died. here are the few that i did manage to get.

michelle got some with her camera and i'll do an update to this post once i get them. i know had we have not been heading out to knoebel's camping right from michelle's, he probably wouldn't have been as excited to leave. it was really sad pulling out of her driveway knowing the next week we wouldn't be back. we are definitely planning on visiting soon, but not until after he's more comfortable going to his new school and knows that's where he'll be going from now on.

that thursday afternoon after michelle's, tony and i picked up my cousin's jack and sam who were staying with nanee and we headed home to get john and the camper to head out to knoebel's for a long weekend. it was so much fun, although we did get rain a few evenings through the night. didn't interfere with the time in the park, just the fun time that would have been spent in the evenings by the campfire, although we did manage to have one on saturday night...enough to cook hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. mmmm! we had lots of fun! friday our friends tamara and danny and their daughter's paige and lillyanne joined us for some fun times! while the bigs guys (john, danny, jack and sam) had fun on the thrill rides...tamara and i took it easy with tony, paige and lillyanne and headed over to kiddie-land for some slow-paced fun.

tony and paige on the helicopters

tony and paige at the woodworker's shop

tony and paige on the mini-ferris wheel

lillyanne is all smiles

are these two cute or what?

jack, sam and tony had a blast (as did john and i)! so much so that when monday morning came, the first thing out of tony's mouth was, "where are jack and sammy?" he had gotten so used to them being there when he woke up, he really missed those two!

jack, tony and sam

jack and sam enjoyed a full weekend of thrill rides...

and the occasional kiddie-ride that tony needed assistance on...

the boys couldn't be more excited that tony is able to ride more rides on his own than the previous two years we've gone!!

saturday brought corinne, david and harry to elysburg, pa to meet us as knoebel's. it was harry's first trip there, but certainly not his last! he loved every minute of it...oh, except for getting off the rides. he didn't want them to ever stop!



we had a great time!! the kids (of all ages) were very well behaved and seemed to enjoy themselves immensely! we ate great food in the park and back at the camper...the weather was almost 100% perfect...and we got to share it with some good friends and family!! what more could you ask for? you can click here

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

presence & presents

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!



Tuesday, July 29, 2008

happy birthday to you!

happy birthday to you!


happy birthday to you!


happy birthday dear sue dddddeeeeee...


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...

happy birthday to me!!!



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...

last night we went to john's company picnic held once again at the reading phillies. we have such a good time there every year and the food and fun just seem to get better with every passing year.

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!