Busy, busy July!

Hi blog friends!

Once again I haven’t posted in ummm forever! Things are going really well with the A family.  You can blame my blogging hiatus on stupid end of the fiscal year close out at work (yes, I said stupid, and yes I know I am not nine!) and being tired 24/7!  I seriously don’t remember being this tired with Cecilia during my first trimester.  Maybe it’s because I am a momma of one and I am pregnant that I am extra tired!

I am almost officially done with my first trimester! (YAY!) The baby looks great, I have had two ultrasounds so far and I heard the heartbeat on the Doppler at my appointment on Tuesday.  The baby’s heartbeat was a strong 160! I go for my next ultrasound next Wednesday, which happens to be my birthday (YAY!!! I love my birthday, every single year, even though this next year will be the last year of twenties…).  I don’t think we’ll be able to determine the sex then (I’ll be 13 weeks 4 days) so we will have to wait until August to see if we will be blessed with another sweet girl or a gorgeous baby boy.

July is a huge month for us.  We are going away this weekend camping.  Yes, I said camping.  For those of you who know me well, know that I don’t camp.  But friends of ours have a camper that they keep down to the Delaware beaches for the summer.  It is supposedly a very nice camper, but I am still reluctant about the whole thing.  I like hotels and resorts.  I like having a whirlpool tub to soak in after a long day and a nice huge comfy king bed with Egyptian cotton sheets and a down comforter on vacation.  Not a camper.  Daniel promises me it won’t be as bad as I am imagining.  So we’ll see.  Stay tuned for my tweets and pictures on a Instagram this weekend…………

Next week is my birthday!  Yes, my birthday!! Ahh! I think I already told you that, but I have to tell you again.  I really don’t have any plans except I know my momma is cooking me my favorite dinner (a family tradition) of her famous Maryland crab cakes, fried green tomatoes,  cajum squash and zucchini and corn on the cob. Oh and I am getting my very first IPhone next week!  Bye bye stupid Droid!

The following week we are going on our family vacation.  We originally had planned to go to Fairfield Glade, Tennessee.  But Daniel talked me into changing our reservations to somewhere closer.  A 12 hour drive would turn into a 16 hour drive with Cecilia and I having to go to the bathroom every 2 hours.  And I need to save my vacation time at work for my maternity leave so we decided to take a mini – five day vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia.  Both Daniel and I love Williamsburg, we went there for our six month dating anniversary and have went back quite a few times ever since.  Ci is at the perfect age for Busch Gardens and Water Country USA, she loves riding rides.  We are also taking my cousin’s daughter, Kacie, who is 14 so Daniel will have a roller coaster riding partner since I won’t be able to ride anything.

The day we return from Williamsburg, the 21^st, I will be attending the Sugarland concert at the Delaware State Fair.  I love Sugarland.  It will be the 4^th time I have seen them in concert.  I saw them open for Kenny Chesney twice and I saw them at the fair one other time.  On the 25^th, we’ll be going back to the fair to see Miranda Lambert perform. Opening for Miranda is her band The Pistol Annie’s.  I am REALLY looking forward to this concert.  I love Miranda’s music and I like that she is a real size and not size 2 like a lot of other performers out there today and that girl can sing!

Also this month? The start of my favorite reality show, Big Brother AND the Bachelorette Finale.  I cheated and I read who Emily picked, but I still want to watch the drama unfold!

I hope everyone had safe 4^th and I promise to post all about our “camping” excursion next week.

A Bitter Sweet Anniversary

This past weekend Daniel and I celebrated five years of marriage. It’s hard to believe we have been married for five years!

Here’s a look back at our wedding on May 19^th, 2007. We were both so young (23) and we were so care free. We had no idea what the world had in store for us over the next five years. A year after our wedding Daniel’s mom was diagnosed with cancer and four years to the day of our wedding she passed away after a three year battle with cancer. We became parents to a gorgeous little girl, Cecilia in 2009 and just two weeks before our fifth wedding anniversary we found out we were expecting again! We built our first house, I was promoted twice in my career field since our wedding.

You can look back at a slideshow from our wedding by going here.

Looking back these were the good ‘ol days. Days before budgets and babies. We came and went as much as we wanted. We took fun vacations twice a year and took our life and family for granted. I love our life now, I just wish Daniel’s mom, Paula was here to celebrate it with us. I hate that our anniversary is no longer a joyous occasion, we are constantly reminded what happened at 1:40 AM on May 19, 2011 when his mom took her last breath.

We tried to make the best of our five year anniversary, I broke down crying a few times. I could blame it on the pregnancy hormones, but when I am not pregnant I can be an emotional mess. We started the day by being woke up by Cecilia. She was in our bedroom at 7:30 ready to go. We convinced her to cuddle in bed for a little while and watch Disney Jr. We got up at 8, I made blueberry pancackes for breakfast and then I cleaned the house while Daniel went to visit his mom’s grave. At 2, we took Ci over to my parents and we headed to Rehoboth Beach for our anniversary dinner. Daniel let me pick where we ate at, out of all the places in Rehoboth, I chose Nicola Pizza, because I was craving one of their famous Nic-o-boli’s. LOL Sad, huh? Blame it on the baby. Pizza

After dinner we walked the boardwalk, visited a few shops and then decided to head home. We were planning on staying the night at Daniel’s family’s beach house, but after talking to Cecilia on the phone before she went to bed (She told us to come pick her up.) We decided it would be better to go get her first thing in the morning, besides we missed her!

We are planning on heading back down to the beach this weekend (with Cecilia of course) and staying the three day weekend there so we will get plenty of beach and family time in

Bring it on 2012!

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope you all had a safe and happy New Year! I know I did.

We had our Second Annual New Years Eve Party at our house this year, we wanted to have something low key, informal that our friends could attend and bring their kids.    I made tons of food (which I failed to take pictures of!), we had plenty of wine and beer to go around (also juice and soda for the DDs and kids) and we played some fun party games.

I had decided earlier in the day that I would throw Cecilia’s routine out the window (something I NEVER do) and allow her to stay up and play with the rest of the kids until she crashed.  Daniel and I took bets, I said she would be out by 10:30, he said 11:00.  We were both wrong.  At 9:30 she came to and said, “Mommy, I ready to go night night in my bed.” What can I say my girl is an early bird!

Everyone else, including the other kids (with the exception of my cousin’s 1 year old who slept in Ci’s pack n play) stayed up until midnight and welcomed in 2012!  Not long after ringing the New Year everyone said good night and headed home.  No more late nights for this crowd anymore, five years ago all of us would have partied until 3:00 in the morning, not anymore.

Please ignore the cell phone quality pictures!

Kacie (my cousin's daughter), Ci and I getting the party started!

One of my BFFs since 6th grade, Denise with her evil grin.

My other BFF from 6th grade Brittney and a drunk me!

Me, Denise and my cousin Cathy ready for 2012

New Years Day we had a lazy morning, we cleaned up from the party and then headed over to my parents around 4:00 to watch the Ravens play in their last regular season game. They beat the Bengals, swept their division and have the second seed in the play offs which means a bye-week this week. My mom made our traditional New Years dinner, ham and cabbage with black eyed peas. I love to eat ham and cabbage, black eyed peas…uhh not so much!

We had off Monday, the second so we headed down to Rehoboth Beach to meet my sister in law, niece and Daniel’s step dad for lunch at Nicola’s, a favorite of Delaware locals on the boardwalk.  After lunch we walked down Rehoboth Avenue checked out the few shops that were open on the boardwalk and then we took the girls on the beach.  Cecilia loves the beach even when it’s freezing out!  

Karra and Cecilia (with the elephant back pack) on their first Beach Day of 2012!

We had a wonderful, but packed weekend! This weekend is a lot less scheduled which I am looking forward to.  How was your New Year’s weekend?