Giving Back

One of my New Years Resolutions this year was to give back and get involved in some form of charity work.  Well that I did! Last June, only two weeks after my mother-in-law passed away from spindle cell sarcoma (a soft tissue cancer) I attended the Relay for Life Event in a local town.  I had heard of Relay for Life, but I have never attended any of their events.  In my Maryland hometown, Relay for Life was held at our high school and all I knew was that people camped out in tents all night.  Well, I was sadly mistaken at least at the event I went to.

For those of you who don’t know, Relay For Life is an overnight relay-style event where team members camp out around a track.  Members of each team take turns walking around the track for the duration of the event. Tons of food, games and activities provide entertainment and fundraising opportunities.

My boss is involved in Relay and invited my co-worker, Rian up that night.  Rian, Ci  and I, along with Rian’s cousin Chree went up and we were shocked when we couldn’t find parking anywhere near the event.  We walked a good mile to the actual event.  We could hear music blasting, people talking and as we walked up it looked like one big party.  I guarantee at least a thousand people were there, walking the track, dancing to the music, participating in scavenger hunt or just laying back relaxing at their camp site.  Seeing this many people supporting a cause that had affected my life so much recently brought tears to my eyes.   As if that wasn’t enough to bring tears to my eyes, not long after we arrived the luminaria ceremony started.

From Relay For Life’s Website:

As the sun sets at a Relay For Life event, luminaria lining the track illuminate the night and a hush falls over the event that had been filled with the sounds of celebration. Relay For Life participants, survivors and caregivers then gather together for the Luminaria Ceremony to remember loved ones lost to cancer and to honor those who have battled the disease.

As participants walk the track lined with luminara bags in reflection, a caregiver who has lost a loved one may find comfort from a fellow caregiver who has faced a similar loss. Meanwhile, a survivor gains hope and strength from others who have followed the same journey and survived. All resolve to keep fighting to save more lives so no more luminaria bear the names of those lost to the disease.

I knew then that the following year I wanted to be involved in Relay For Life.  Rian and I both committed to starting a team.  We are now the Co-Captians of a Relay For Life team.  For the past five months we have been meeting every few weeks discussing fundraising ideas with our team.  We had one successful fundraiser selling Joe Corbi’s Pizzas that just completed; we have a Dine & Donate coming up at Texas Roadhouse in Camden, Delaware on April 24^th.  If you are local and would like to attend and support our team, please let me know so I can get a coupon to you.  We are also doing a Quarter Auction at the Camden Moose Lodge in Camden, Delaware on May 18^th.  I am really excited about this event; we have a lot of great items we are auctioning off for a dollar or less!  Some of the items include autographed books by bestselling authors, autographed sports merchandise from local professional teams (Baltimore Ravens, Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia Flyers, Philadelphia Eagles), a GORGEOUS necklace from Amrita Singh valued at $250, , gift certificates to restaurants, dinner cruises, theaters and parks in the Delaware, Maryland,  Pennsylvania and DC areas and so much more!  If you aren’t familiar with how a quarter auction works (I know I wasn’t), go to Quarter Mania Party'ssWebsite and they describe it well. 

We are selling paddles for $5 or an All In Paddle for $20 (that means you don’t have to bring any quarters and you can bid on EVERY item!).  I am really excited about this event,  I hope we get a GREAT turn out.  If you are local in Delaware or Maryland and want to attend, please let me know!  Also, if you have a business and would like to donate an item or gift certificate we are still taking donations and they are tax deductable.  I will give you a letter with all of our Tax-ID information.  

I think cancer has touched all of us in one way or another.  I know personally I have lost my grandmother, my childhood friend (at the age of 16) and my mother in law to cancer.   My cousin’s amazing daughter battled and won the fight with leukemia at the age of 3! My husband lost both grandmothers and his mom to cancer.  Within our little family, five people have lost their lives to this horrible disease. I am hoping by doing my little part with Relay For Life I can help make a difference. 

I am debating on putting a link on my blog so you could donate to our team, but since this blog is public I don’t want to put my personal information (along with my team members) out there.  If you would like to donate to our team, please let me know and I will get the link to you.  Every little donation helps, whether it’s $5 or $25!

Three On Thursday: Spring Must-Haves

One of my favorite Blog Hops, Memes or whatever you want to c all them when I blogged regularly was Andrea’s (from My Chihuahua Bites) Two on Tuesday.   Andrea no longer does Two on Tuesdays, she now co-hosts with Cole at All The Small Stuff, Three on Thursdays which is even better!

This week they asked:

Share what three of your Spring "must haves" are. Do you always get a new pair of sandals? Splurge on the newest seasonal fashions? Is it not Spring without a pedicure or highlights?

My must haves for Spring, they already listed in the question, but I’ll list them anyway.

Next week I am scheduled for my first pedicure of the season (Cecilia is getting her very first pedi EVER!).  There’s not many things I find more relaxing then a pedicure (except for when they use that tool to remove the dead skin).  I love having my feet soak in hot water, massaged and my favorite part is the hot towel they put on right before they paint your nails.  

Love this new color from OPI's Texas Collection "Too Hot Pick Too Hold Em"

When you have the perfect pedicure, the next logical step is to find that perfect pair of sandals, right?  I am obsessed with the Color Block trend this spring.  I love these sandals.

Last, but not least spring time also means highlights! I desperately need highlights now, but as I said yesterday my reward for myself when I lose ten pounds is going to be highlights.  So I need to get on the ball and lose weight!

What are you three spring must haves?  Join in on Andrea and Cole’s Three onThursday!

Weigh In Wednesdays

I know I have said it on here before, but I really need to lose weight.  This time I really am going to do it.  I can’t remember the last time I was ever happy with my weight, or if I ever was.  I remember in high school thinking I was fat, because I wasn’t stick thin like a lot of my friends.  I was curvy and back then, I hated my curves.  I didn’t want boobs or a butt.. now girls embrace that!  Looking back at pictures of myself in high school and my early college years, I was NOT fat.  I’ve always had an athletic build and later on a curvy build, but I was never build.  I maintained a size 4 to 6 until I turned 20.

My goal is to lose 50 pounds, and then I will be at the ideal weight for my height.  Last year I lost twenty pounds, but I have gained all but seven of the twenty I lost back.  I have some motivation for getting in shape, Daniel and I are starting to seriously discuss baby number 2 and I want to be at my ideal weight before getting pregnant.  Next year I also turn 30 and I hear it’s harder to lose weight the older you get, so why not lose the 50 pounds before I turn 30? Also summer is coming and there will be a ton of beach days in my future and a summer vacation (more about that later), I’d love to lose at least fifteen pounds before vacation in July.

I want to do a weekly weigh in on my blog.  I am not going to post my actual weight, but I will post my progress.

Weight Lost This Week: 0

Weight Left to Lose: 50 lbs.

First Goal: 10 lbs. 
      Reward: Hair Cut & Color

Goals For This Week:

 1.          Drink at least 8 glasses of water a day.
 2.          Exercise 5 days a week.
 3.          Keep track of food and exercise on My FitnessPal.

And since no Weigh In Post is complete without a picture, I will be posting a picture of myself tonight on this post.  If anyone else wants to join in on Weigh In Wednesdays, please feel free to!

An Egg-cellent Easter Weekend

We had such a great three day Easter weekend this past weekend, I was sorry to see it end.  It started off on Friday, which also happened to be my 7 year Dating Anniversary with Daniel.  How many married couples actually celebrate their dating anniversary?  We didn’t do anything special, just spent a great day with the three of us.  Cecilia slept in until 8:00 which is late for her. We had a lazy morning and then decided to run some errands.

First stop was one of our favorite florists/greenhouses.  It is the place Daniel remembers going to growing up with his grandmother and mom to get flowers every spring and to pick strawberries every May.  We picked up flowers for our mothers and my grandmother’s grave.  Cecilia LOVES flowers and I have a feeling she inherited the green thumb from her grandmothers (both my mom and Daniel’s mom were/are avid gardeners…I could kill a cactus..I am not good with plants).  She picked out which grandmother would get what, pink tulips for my mother in law’s grave, a purple hyacinth for my grandmother’s grave and daffodils for my mom and Daniel’s step mom. 

Ci at the greenhouse with my grandmother's hyacinth

After we dropped the tulips off at Daniel’s mom’s grave we headed to lunch at our favorite sushi resteraunt.  Then we headed to my favorite place in the entire world (ok maybe not favorite, but very high up on the list)….Target!  My hubs is not a fan of Target, in fact he prefers Wal-Mart *gasp* to Target!  Since I only get an half hour lunch most days and Daniel I carpool, I rarely get to go to Target like I used to. It is great for my pocketbook, but I tend to have withdrawls.  Although I think Daniel’s opinion of Target may have changed.  We scored three adorable spring dresses for Cecilia for $21!  One of the dresses was on clearance for $2.80!   After Target it was well past Ci's nap time so we headed home. When we got home, hanging on our side door was Ci’s Second Easter’s basket (her first was from daycare on Thursday) Friday full of candy from her Pop Pop Ernie (Daniel’s step dad).  Friday night, my mom came home and we all dyed Easter Eggs.  Cecilia was already a pro at this dying thing since she dyed eggs at daycare on Wednesday, but she still had a blast dying eggs with us.  Of course she wanted every egg to be pink, but Daniel wouldn’t allow that.

Dying Eggs with Mom Mom

Saturday started off with an Easter Egg Hunt.  I love tradition and every year I take Cecilia to the same Egg Hunt I went to as a kid.  It is put on by my hometown’s Lion’s Club.  I always see familiar faces, kids that I used to hunt eggs with now bring their own kids.  Cecilia was in the 1 to 2 year age group, she was a head taller than the tallest kid in her age group.  Considering Ci will be three in a week (yikes!) she definitely had an advantage.  She got the most eggs in her age group (9) and even got one rabbit egg.  The rabbit egg means that she would get a real live bunny to take home as a pet.  Needless to say we gave that egg away to someone who actually wanted a pet rabbit.  CI was not happy with me.

She did some cuddle time in with my cousin’s daughter’s rabbit at the cemetery while we dropped off the flowers on my grandmother's grave.

Saturday afternoon after a very brief nap for Ci, we went to Daniel’s dad’s for a little family get together with his dad’s side of the family.  We don’t get to see Daniel’s aunt and cousins nearly enough, I really wish we saw them more, they are a blast to be around!  This family get together was great and as always there was an abundance of food and great wine.  My sister in law and I may have finished off three bottles of wine between the two of us.   Lauren, my sister in law recently moved an hour away and we don’t get to hang out every weekend like we used to, so when I see her we definitely have catching up to do.

Sunday was another early morning.  Cecilia was up bright and early to see what the Easter bunny had left her in her basket (Hello Kitty bubble bath, sidewalk chalk, a book, Hello Kitty PJs, a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser and a few candy items). She loved it all!!  We then got dressed and went to meet my parents and grandfather for breakfast.  Cecilia LOVED her Easter dress that my parents bought for her.  She kept calling it her “princess dress”.   

 After breakfast, Ci received another Easter basket from my parents, full of bananas, oranges, apples, blueberry applesauce, regular apple sauce and yogurt!  Thank you mom and dad for not giving her even more candy! 

4 of the 5 baksets Ci rcvd (From my parents, The Easter Bunny, Daycare & Pop Pop Ernie)

Sunday afternoon we had Daniel’s dad, step mom and sister over  for a laid back relaxing dinner.  After they left on Sunday, Daniel and I crashed.  I think we were both in bed by 9.  He fell asleep and I stayed up late reading The Hunger Games. I tried not to buy into the hype of The Hunger Games, but I caved in and I am glad I did.  I finished the first book last night and I am well into the second.  My friend is on Chapter 7 of the first book.  After she’s finished, we’re going to go see the movie.

This was the first of many busy weekends this month.  I don’t think there is one weekend until May 12^th where we have nothing planned, I love it though.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I hope everyone else had a wonderful Easter!

Operation Birthday Party 3.0 Has Began

In a little less than two months my baby will be three!  I promise this won’t turn into a sappy post (I will save that for her actual birthday!).   Before we even had kids Daniel and I made the decision not to do huge birthday parties for our kids every year.  I have a huge, close knit extended family on my mom’s side.  My mom is the baby of eight, I have over twenty first cousins and all, but four of my cousins have kids and now the third generation (my cousin’s kids) are having kids! All of us with the exception of one uncle and one cousin live within three hours of one another so that means family get togethers are huge.  We had almost 100 people at Cecilia’s birthday party and that was mostly family.  So needless to say we are saving the big parties for the big years, 1, 5, 10, 13, 16, etc…

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want Cecilia to have a memorable birthday party every year.  We still invite  our parents, Daniel’s sisters and their families, my grandfather and a few of our close friends, but it's not quite on the scale of her first birthday.  This is the first year that Cecilia truly knows what a birthday party is.  She has been planning her party since Christmas.  She has informed us she wants a Hello Kitty party, with Hello Kitty plates, Hello Kitty napkins, a Hello Kitty cake, Hello Kitty balloons and I can’t forget the Hello Kitty hats.  So guess what kind of party she will have? A Hello Kitty Birthday Party!

Her only requirements for the invitations were they had to be pink, have Hello Kitty on it and balloons!  Since I don’t have a lot creative skills I turned to my favorite go to website for all things homemade, ETSY.  I heart ETSY! Seller Bee83  had an invitation that met all of Cecilia’s requirements, I contacted her yesterday and within three hours I had this perfect invitation!

I printed fifteen them off today at my local CVS (for free thanks to a coupon code!) and in three weeks they will be mailed off to our family and friends.  I have been searching Pinterest and the rest of the internet for Hello Kitty birthday party ideas.  I hope to give Cecilia her dream Hello Kitty party!

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?

Goodbye, 2011! Hello, 2012!

Hi, remember me? Yes I am that person who has not updated her blog, in uh…months.  I have been busier than ever at work and with my family.  I am very blessed though to have a job in which I love and an awesome family.

Our Christmas was wonderful, Cecilia is very loved (and spoiled!)  I will recap Christmas in a later post. We are having a get together for New Years with some of our closest friends at our house.  Since the majority of our friends are parents it will be kid friendly.

I can honestly say I am happy to put 2011 behind me though.  While this year had a lot of ups, it was also possibly one of the toughest years for me emotionally.  I said goodbye to an amazing mother in law and the one grandmother I ever really knew.  I watched my uncle’s health deteriorate dramatically because of his ALS and a childhood friend was killed in a car accident.

There were some great parts of 2011 too.  I started a new job where I have the best boss ever (seriously I do, she bought me a Coach wallet for Christmas).  One of my coworkers at my new job is now one of my best friends, I really don’t know what I would have done without her this year. One of my favorite cousins married the love of his life and there were three births within my family and circle of friends.

2012 is going to be a great year, I know it!

I hate resolutions, but I do like goals.  So my goals for 2012 are:

To lose at least 30 pounds. I’ll be 30 in 2013, by the time I am 30 I want to be in a healthy weight according to my BMI chart.

To be more organized! I am a typically a very organized person, but for some reason that went out the window this year.

To budget better (my husband will like this one!)

To become involved in charity work!

To blog MORE!

I hope all of you have a safe and happy New Year! I will see you in 2012!