sharing the love

happy valentine's day...

"call me"

no lack of love from this guy...

showin' his love for mom!

tony picked spiderman valentine's to give to his friends at school...

we've been working on him writing his name...he signed all his own valentine's cards this year...no help from mom or dad!

tony helped me make heart-shaped rice krispie treats (on lollipop sticks) for his valentine's party

he helped me make a lot of them...

wishing you all a "love"ly valentine's day!!

adventures with mr. slurpee

i've been meaning to post this for a while now as tony's first visit to the dentist was at the end of january...where has the month of february gone already? anyway...

tony has been eagerly anticipating his visit to the dentist since his pediatrician at his 3-year well visit said that now is the time. he was on me to make the appointment, and me being me, procrastinated and when i finally did, was told the dentist i was taking him to see was out on maternity, so i made the first appointment available after her return. well, thank goodness his excitement hadn't worn off til the visit actually came around.

let me just start by saying, i will never go back to that dentist office again, but it wasn't because he didn't like it or didn't do well...it just wasn't the "experience" i expected when i made the appointment with a pediatric dentist. ok, the place actually scared me...just looking at the place scared me. misspelled handmade signs telling you to turn off your "sell phones"...and that was the english...i can only assume the ones written in spanish were spelled correctly. it was dimly lit and i'm not sure if it was that in combination with the [dirty] shag carpet or "mood" music that made me feel like i was walking onto the set of a porn movie rather than a pediatric dental office, but needless to say...all of that combined with the fact that the dr. barely spoke english and didn't say 1 word other than "open" to anthony made that our first and last visit there!

but we were there, and i didn't want to upset him, so we hung tight...enjoyed the "cultural experience" and waited our turn in the love nest...i mean, waiting room...amidst the screams of a small child having their teeth pulled with no anesthesia...yeah, that was fun watching all color from my child's face drain at that sound...but he was still so excited. yeah, weird, i know.

we headed back and the very nice assistant got anthony set up for his x-rays...

doesn't look as excited in these pics (sorry, i took them with my phone)...but trust me, he was!

here he is biting down on the cotton to keep his teeth apart for the x-ray

here he is holding mr. slurpee (he thought that thing was hilarious...and asked if we could take it home with us), waiting for ms. personality...err, i mean the dr. to come in

and here he is in the car (i had to get the he!! out of there), showing off the finished product...his nice clean teefers...no cavities (hopefully he'll continue with mama's teeth history...knock on wood for both of us)!

we already have another dentist all lined up for his next visit in 6 months. i already feel much better about this one as it's been recommended to me by no less than 1/2 a dozen people already!

she likes me. she really, really likes me!

much love to my friend bobbi for sending me my very first blog award!! i am slacker for not accepting this award sooner as it was given to me back in january, but as most of you are aware...life is a crazy thing and sometimes just gets in the way.

there is the award...isn't it cute?

"these blogs are exceedingly charming. these kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. they are not interested in self-aggrandizement. our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. please give more attention to these writers. deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

so here goes...this was tough because i can't give it back to bobbi and she already gave it to another great friend of mine and her awesome blog...check out luci's here...and a bunch of other friends have just started theirs...but here are my eight...

heath & jamie from the frey family - heath and jamie are the ones that got me into blogging. yes, my family can blame it all on them...although i do remember them warning me. i'm hoping in giving them this award, maybe, just maybe, they'll find time to update their blog. it's been waaaay tooo loooong...err...hint, hint!

heather from the watson family - heather is heath's sister and her husband kevin used to work with john before. we also spent a few camping trips and fun nights with them before they moved. i've been able to "reconnect" with them through our blogs and keep up with the happenings of their adorable kiddos victoria and logan.

rebecca from the schmidt family - unfortunately for all of you, her blog is private. rebecca and i met years and years ago when her grandfather was the pastor at my church. rebecca lived in hawaii at the time (i know...jealous, aren't ya?) and we became great pen-pals and remained that way even through college, getting to visit occasionally on her trips east. we lost touch towards the end of college. i kept tabs on her through her grandparents when i would see them (he had since retired from our church) and we reconnected last summer on facebook. i am looking forward to meeting her husband and adorable daughter this june when they visit east.

mario and anne from the matesic family - i've known ann all my life as we grew up one street away from each other and i went from nursery school through college with her sister karyn...only to start my job at penske to find that my co-worker mario was anne's then-boyfriend...now husband. small world, eh? the matesic's recently joined the blogging world in order to keep everyone up-to-date on the recently-added-to-the-family son brady.

alison from uncomplicate me - i began reading alison's blog when i was blog-hopping on blogs regarding infertility/trying to conceive. alison is now pregnant with her son "cletus" (nickname...not his real name) and is due "any day". she and her blog has been a wealth of information to me and i wish her and husband "j" all the best with their new addition

jannica from the moskal family - unfortunately again, this blog is private, but take my word for it...you are missing out! sorry! i came across jannica's blog (before it was private) hopping off of bobbi's. she was just getting ready to give birth to her adorable son owen...that was 8 months ago. i hope to be able to meet jannica and her family some day soon as they don't live too far away.

tamara from the deloretta family - tamara is just beginning her blog and unfortunately has had to take some time away from it after her dad's stroke a few weeks ago. i've written and asked for prayers for her and her family before. please keep them in your prayers. he seems to be doing well and they even had him "walking" the other day...God's work continues to amaze us all concerning her dad Dan!

the last one i am going to split between two blogs because they are both just starting and are doing a fantastic job as well...kylene from the knepp family and marci from the tolley family. both ladies work with john and have recently given birth to their first children...both boys...caden (kylene) and lucas (marci)...adorable. check them out.

to accept your award, save the award picture above and copy the award explanation...paste both into a new post and you're off. don't forget to post your award on your side bar too!

congratulations and my thanks again to bobbi for giving me the award!!

sixburgh, pa!!

well, they did it! the pittsburgh steelers (and d'angelo family 2nd favorite nfl team -- you can't go to school in western pa without becoming a steelers fan) became the first nfl team in history...yes, history, to earn 6 superbowl champion titles when they defeated the arizona cardinals this past sunday in the superbowl!

we had the pleasure of joining our friend the kutzler's at their homestead for a black and gold (doreen is from pittsburgh) party to watch the steeler's bring home a victory!! it proved to be a great time just as we expected as we got to see some friends that we haven't visited with in waaaayyy too long!

the lovely hostess and i

wave that terrible towel...there was a lot of this going on here in robesonia...

...and in tampa (via the big screen of course)!

here is a little slideshow of the rest of the pictures and some video from the party! thanks dor & paul (and all our other friends that were there) for such a fun night...and i sure am glad johnny and i took off the next day!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

snow day fun

we received a "decent" amount of snow and considering we are the last street in exeter to get plowed, i figured it would be better for tony and i if we stayed home today. i say "decent" somewhat sarcastically as the amount of snow we got is nothing at all to right home about if you're someone like me that actually enjoys the snow, but it was a fair amount for this winter so far.

tony and i enjoyed a lazy morning of snuggling in bed watching caillou and mickey mouse clubhouse on demand. he slept until 8:30 and then came and crawled in bed with me for about another hour or so...yeah, we were bums.

then we forced ourselves out of bed and i finally fed my child some breakfast...good thing he's as much a morning person as i am. after a yummy (and fun!) breakfast of egg and cheese breakfast burritos, we bundled up and headed outside intending on shoveling (tony) and snowblowing (me)...only to find that our awesome neighbor across the street had already snow blowed the entire block's sidewalks and service walks! all we had to shovel was the little bit of the driveway that wasn't blocked by our cars.

because of the kindness of our neighbor, we got to do this instead of shoveling...

"shorty" the snowman...

"but he needs a hat mom..."

then after coming inside to warm up by a cozy fire...some of us decided it was a perfect time to take a snooze...

this guy here wanted to lay on the floor...next to the coffee table...almost on top of dad's slippers...nice!

while this little lady here decided she'd take her nap on the cozy couch...with her baby...brat!

boy do i love a good snow day!!

friends and firewood...lots of firewood

last weekend we had our friends tamara and danny come over. we love spending time with them and their daughter's paige and lillyanne. you might recognize tamara's name from this post about her dad. you'll be happy to know he's doing well and was moved from icu to the stroke unit. he's been thumb wrestling with tam and he sat in a chair the other day as well. the power of prayer is amazing and he is a true testament to that!

danny and john spent the majority of the day in the woods at my dad's and mikey lutz's cutting wood to be used for firewood. this is wood that we'll split and season to be used for camp fires while camping this spring/summer/fall...and then wood for the fireplace next winter.

danny (tamara too!) were very generous and dropped off a supply of already seasoned and split wood that we can burn in our fireplace immediately to help supplement our heat and hopefully save some money spent on our gas bill!!

here's some of the wood danny brought for us...

and more wood from danny...

and even more wood from danny...

this is the wood they cut and stacked to be split and stacked again...

then, danny went home to get tamara and the girls and they returned to enjoy a fire and some dinner with us. the kids had a ball (well, paige and tony anyway...lilly slept almost the whole night). paige and tony enjoyed watching mary poppins on tony's dvd player snuggled in their pj's tucked in bed while the adults watched the dark knight downstairs.

lilly woke up then and tony got some snuggle time with her too...

a couple of night's later, tony and john put on their "workerman" carhardt coats and bundled up in their heavy duty snow gear to head out and split the wood...

bundled up and sooo stinkin' cute!!

tony grabbed his saw from his tool bench and was helping daddy cut the firewood...

hard at work...

thanks danny for bringing the firewood and helping john cut the other up and bring it home...thanks to my dad for the tip of the downed cherry tree in your backyard...thanks mikey lutz for the downed trees on your property...and thanks tamara, danny, paige and lilly for joining us for a quiet night in.

my new *furry* niece!

sue d. rescued a black lab/german shep mix from a kill shelter. this is storm. isn't she a cutie?!

... she likes to be snuggled like a baby

...and give kisses!