Christmas Wrap up...

Christmas was fun this year... Maddie is at an age where things are exciting, magical and she actually LIKES Santa, enjoyed Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and sings Frosty the Snowman all of the time!

We did a bunch of things leading up to the big day... including our annual Christmas Cookie Bake-fest at Aunt Kristy's house this year. We started bright and early at 9 *cough* and baked, chatted, kids played and created havoc until around 5pm! It was a full day of baking including press cookies (lemon & almond) that we used to make with my Grandmother, kifli's (lekvar & apricot) using a new technique that I'm not sure I'm going to repeat next year - I'll stick with what Grandma used to do, chocolate chip, some other chocolate thing, and chocolate covered pretzels and cookies. Apparently chocolate is a big hit in our family...

Here is Maddie and Molly mixing up the dough for the kiflis. They took turns helping roll it out on the well floured dusted table.

Christmas Eve was a full day for me.. I worked all day, then came home and we had dinner, baked cookies for Santa, and once the little one was asleep, got everything ready for the big day...

Maddie all dressed up for her school holiday party on Christmas Eve.

Everyone knows that you need to wear a princess crown when baking sugar cookies for Santa. Maddie helped to roll out the dough and used various cookie cutters to make some non-traditional shaped cookies for Santa Claus including, baby chicks & ducks along with some angels and hearts. And no, you don't wear an apron when making cookies for Santa, it's better to get the flour all over you *grin*


Cookies baked, glass of milk on the table, stockings hung on the really, really crowded fireplace... all that is left is to head off to sleep!

Christmas Day didn't arrive too early thankfully, I think we got up around 7am which is sleeping in for us these days...


Nana came over Christmas Eve and spent the night. She got to see how Santa had ate most of the cookies and drank some milk, he also..oh no! He left his hat!!!

Which Daddy then wore for the rest of the morning =)

Maddie got several fun things from Santa, Mommy & Daddy & Nana that morning including this fun kids digital camera. I think she took over 80 pictures that morning. You'll also notice the backpack she now has that Santa brought her - adorable with NO commercial advertising on it! YAY!!!!


She's been walking around with it putting toys, her pencil box and notebooks in it and going from place to place with it packing and unpacking it all of the time... We'll be taking it with us to Florida - it will be a safe place for her toys (it will also limit nicely how much she can bring)


My parents, sister and her family came later on Christmas day for dinner and some family time. It was casual - which is very much what we are. Relaxing - which is what family time should be. Fun as well - Molly and Maddie played very well together and Cole joined in for some grownup conversation at the table before retreating to his handheld electronic games (which I have no idea about) I think I mortified him when I saw a necklace he was wearing with a NY team logo, which I mistakenly took for the Yankees (which he LOVES) when it was actually the Giants - silly Aunt Kim, it's football season of COURSE he'd be wearing the NY for the Giants. I'll bet he thinks I'm a sports illiterate. I'm fine with that though *grin* We did miss Kevin & his family, they couldn't make it over for Christmas. But the good thing is that we'll all be together in Florida soon!

All in all, I'd say it was a good Christmas...

I'm a bad Mommy...

So, here we are, at home, getting ready for Christmas, trying to teach our soon to be 4 yr old the importance of giving, that Christmas is not about getting presents, rather it's about giving...apparently this is where I went terribly wrong.

Maddie and I were wrapping presents for our family and she was helping put them underneath the tree. We were talking about how we were wrapping presents for the people we loved to give them on Christmas and just having, what I thought was a good time, until...

Maddie comes back from present delivery under the tree with a couple of big tears rolling down her cheek. I ask her what's wrong and her response...

"There are no presents under the tree with my name on it. No one loves ME!"

Oh my gosh! I go from trying to teach her something about giving and instead, I crush her little heart....bad Mommy

A message to all of you....

Tis the season for...

parties apparently...! We've been busy little bees going to various birthday, christmas and holiday parties (couldn't even go to all of them due to conflicts). One day was just outrageous with 3 parties scheduled in one afternoon that went something like this...12-2 in PA, 2-4 in DE, 4-6 in PA. I hope that this does not foretell of the required socializing in the future for Maddie. Last year at this time we party hopped to 2 different parties in 2 different states in one afternoon, so I do have some experience here. The concept of party hopping might seem like fun to some, but to me, it was immediately red flagged as being a bad idea. We chose one and went to it.

Here is one of the birthday parties that Maddie went to at the Hilton! One of her friends from school had a Tea party by Pretty Princess Parties to celebrate her turning 4 yrs old. Belle was there to lead the kids through dress up time, games, fairy tale stories, crafts, dancing, cake and high tea for the kids including Fine China with Tea Cups and Saucers for the kids. They drank pink lemonade and kid friendly finger food while the grown ups had their own high tea including devonshire cream and scones as well as other delights.


Here is Maddie playing dress up with her fairy wings, magic wand, crown, fairy skirt and jewelry and resting on the red carpet that each princess got to strut their stuff on to the applauds of all of the parents at the end of the "runway".

What is a super special princess party without getting a make-over. They all got their fingernails painted (Maddie chose every other color purple and blue) as well as some minimal makeup including sparkly fairy dust.

Another friend from school had a princess birthday party at her house and Belle came there too! I'll refrain from posting those photos, I mean, how many pictures of kids parties can you stand in one posting? *grin*

This past weekend we went to Maryland to Nana's house for an early Christmas with her side of the family. We all decended upon her house and had a lovely time chatting with cousins and Aunts & Uncles and catching up with people we haven't seen since the Crisfield Family Reunion in the summer.

Early Christmas in Maryland! Maddie now has the hang of opening presents in case you were worried...


Maddie and Daddy playing around awaiting the rest of the family's arrival...

We did also have a really nice lunch with Stephe one Sunday afternoon. Stephe lives right around the corner from us and is adopting a little girl from China. She'll be traveling in January - we can wait to meet her!

Coming soon....Christmas cookie baking & Christmas pictures!

I know what you're thinking...

So, where are all of the blog posts? I know, it's been almost a month and nothing, zip, nada. You feel neglected & ignored and I don't blame you one bit. Things have been really busy since I returned from my trip to California and I just didn't have the energy to sit and type. Fortunately for you, I have a case of insomnia right now so I thought, what the heck!

We've been busy little bees of late and I guess I can tell the stories best through random pictures I have taken over the last month around here. (which I know, works out best for all of you who just want to see the pictures and skip over as many words as possible - I aim to please)


We had our first official snow, which turned out to be basically a bit of flurries. No respectable person would call it real snow. Maddie was enthralled, and here she is trying to catch snowflakes on her tongue as we were getting into the car on our way to school that morning. It was quite the task to get her to get IN the car because she was having so much fun which included running around and giggling her typical giggle telling me that the snow flakes where tickling her face. So, we were a little late that day and worth every minute of being late - isn't it moments like this what life is really about?


We've also had quite a few moments like this recently too however. This is Maddie in timeout post the fit throwing. She's watching the brand new timer. As she's getting closer and closer to 4 yrs old she's been pushing testing limits more and more resulting in power struggles that she keeps losing. One of the best motivators of late is the smiley face believe it or not. Each day she gets a report from school that has a smiley face or a sad face depending on her behavior at school that day. She's VERY into it as well all smiles when she has a "happy face" to show Mommy and Daddy - as she gets to do fun things when she behaves well.

Thanksgiving Day we went up to NJ to my parent's house and spent the day there. We had a good time and a good visit. Ron's Mom came up from Maryland with us (and due to the traffic and our chosen driving route, she can claim to have been in 4 states in 1 day!) Here is a picture of Maddie with her Great-Great-Aunt Carol. Mom and I were in the kitchen where I was making the most wonderful tasting, non-lumpy gravy of all history *chuckle* when we looked out into the sunroom and watched Aunt Carol spinning her necklace showing Maddie...it was adorable (I know, I'm biased) It's was great seeing Aunt Carol (who will be celebrating her 90th birthday on a cruise ship!) I love listening to her stories!

We did stay late so Maddie got all ready for bed before getting in the car for the ride home. She was asleep before we got out of the development. She played hard with her cousins (lack of nap might have also had something to do with it)


Thanksgiving weekend is when we tend to decorate for Christmas. We don't brave the malls or early am sales at stores we "nest" so we can have fun looking at the Christmas decorations for as long as we possibly can before we have to take them down. Maddie was a big helper this year putting hooks on ornaments and putting them on the tree.


As you can tell we have a fake tree and I like it. We downsized from a 12 foot tree to a 9 foot tree. Yes, I do miss the smell of pine tree in the house, no I don't miss the sap/needles that need to be vacuumed up, yes, we've had root balled trees and planted them after but they never survived. Once this tree has run its life and lights start to go, or break...I do want to have a cut tree again.

Like I said, it is a 9 foot tree. Even with a 6'6" husband, Maddie's extra 3 feet helps to reach to the top of the tree for decorating purposes =) That and she thought it was a blast. Yes, we did have christmas songs playing while we decorated! Daddy also put up the outside lights on the house which we all thought turned out beautiful. The latest game we have is find the Christmas lights on our drive home from school. We have to find them and tell the other where it is on the right or left, I have to admit, I took the long way home tonight because heck, we were having fun (now, am I just sad or what? but yes, this is my life)


Maddie and Mommy had a special day out one weekend to make some Christmas presents doing crafty type stuff. I won't divulge what those presents are as I know some of you read this blog - but Maddie had alot of fun making them!


We did go to the mall at some point....and I'm hoping it is the only time (I don't like shopping at the mall!) But this is Maddie's "smile" which turns out more like a grimace if you ask me. This is the first year that she actually wanted to see Santa, but I guess we didn't really prepare her for telling him what she would like for Christmas. When we had asked her if she wanted to see Santa and let him know what she would like for Christmas she said she wanted to bring HIM a present for Christmas. (aww) During the visit she also couldn't think of anything she wanted (I guess that is a good thing? either she's not greedy or we spoil her too much already) So, thank you Mr Santa for suggesting a Barbie. (not having done the Santa thing before I had not known you could "pre-brief" Santa on suggestions) I hate Barbie, and now, that is what Maddie wants because Santa told her. Ugh (and no, she's not getting one)


I guess I'll leave you with this family portrait by the famed artist (at least within our house) the Great M (oh yes, this is a signed peice) Please note the different hair lengths to signify Mommy (long hair) and Maddie (short hair) as well as the mustache and really short hair for Daddy. I'm not sure what the empty circle is...perhaps it's her baby brother that lives at her horsey's house that she keeps talking about. Of course he sometimes changes into a baby sister named Anna or Annaka. But her horsey is still named Strawberry Shortcake.

Some quick things that she's said & done recently that I want to remember - you might not find this interesting/amusing, but then again, you could just stop reading =P

• She has a new song she sings to us in addition to our normal bedtime routine of Lullaby and Wee Willie Winkie it is...."You're my best friend in the whole wide world" to the tune of London Bridges (and she squeezes the entire phrase where "whole wide world" should be if you follow the tune)
• She says, when she's a grownup, when she's 38 or 24, depending on when you ask her, she'll be able to: use a knife, put her hair in a braid and ponytail *all by herself* and THEN she'll be a grownup
• When we go to a restuarant the FIRST thing she does is take the knife from her spot and hand it to one of us and say she can't have it, then spend time accusing the hostess anytime she walks by that SHE gave her a knife pointing at her and everything.
  
• She can now spell, recognize and write her name, knows her upper and lower case letters, shapes, colors, left, right, loves to cut paper and zigzags and anything crafty (love the concentration you see on her face when she's working on something)
• 16 eludes her, I know not why but she can count to 30 but always skips number 16...we're working on that
• Occasionally gets frustrated when she doesn't get it right the first time
• She loves gymnastics and dancing about
• She'd wear a dress every single day if she had a choice
  
• Another favorite game, usually at dinner or driving in the car, is sounding out a letter then thinking up as many different words that start with that letter (is it bad that she can think of more words that us at times?)
• "Moooommmmmmyyyyyyy, What's your name?"
  
• I love you - Wo ai ni

I'm HOME!

I'm very happy to be back home. It's not that I didn't enjoy the trip to California, but it was a week long! I was ready to come back home. Monterey was very pretty and the grounds at Asilomar were beautiful.

Shorebirds feeding on the beach...

Photo of the trails at Asilomar outside my room.

I did get to visit the Monterey Aquarium which is somewhere I've really wanted to go for a long time. It was a good aquarium, we were there at night for an evening reception so we didn't get to see the outside exhibits and some of the critters but it was still a good time. I'd love for Ron and Maddie to see it too! We spent one day at the Elkhorn Slough Reserve, which was election night (yes, I was away on election night, and YES I did vote by absentee ballot...only the government would schedule a week long conference over an election!)

Here is a picture of a portion of the group huddled around a 19 inch television watching the returns come in. There are no TV's or telephones at Asilomar in the rooms so we watched together in a common room.

Maddie, Nana and Daddy had a good week as well - or so they said. I tried to time my calling home between session breaks and near Maddie's bedtime. I was regaled daily on her adventures with verbose stories that went on and on and on and on...I wish I had recorded one of them! So, what evidence do I have that things went smoothly back in Delaware? Besides that all were happy and in good spirits when I got home late Friday night? Well... I did find two photos on the camera I left at the house...

Maddie sporting a new outfit from Nana!

And this photo that Nana might not be aware of...I'm betting that Ron snuck in and snapped this picture of Nana. Undoubtably tired out from Maddie, aka the nonstop whirlwind of action.

You know...I do believe that Maddie got bigger while I was away... =(

California here I come... * updated*

Ok, well, I guess I need to change the title to here I am. Yup, Kim's in rainy, coolish CA. It's just like Delaware! I'm traveling for work and flew into San Jose, CA yesterday. It was a long day of travel, I left for the airport at 4:45 am East Coast time and got to Asilomar around 4:00pm West Coast time. It's beautiful but I must admit I was hoping for a little sun =) Maybe later this week...

It's my first time to this part of CA. I have always hears how beautiful Montery is and I've wanted to explore San Francisco (not going to be able to this trip though). But I will be getting to go to the Montery Aquarium! I'll have to see how it stacks up against the National Aquarium in Baltimore. I had hoped that Ron & Maddie could join me and spend time exploring the area but that didn't work out. Maybe next year when this meeting is in San Diego they'll come with me.

So with me over here, you'll have to wait on the Halloween pictures and see the before and after jackolantern carving results! That is, unless Ron posts them while I'm away...which is unlikely with him watching a 3 yr old all day *grin*

Hope everyone has a good week! I'll try to take some pictures while I'm out here, hopefully some will have the sun and blue sky =)

*update* Photos from Halloween have been posted! They show up with an October 31st date as I had started the post but didn't finish it before I left for CA

Happy Halloween!

Our family tradition is to carve jack-o-lanterns on the 30th that we light on Halloween. We each get a pumpkin and draw a face on it to cut it out. Here is Daddy and Maddie with their "before" shots with their pumpkins. Unfortunately for Mommy, the pumpkin she had picked out from the pumpkin patch had gone bad, so she had to live vicariously through Daddy and Maddie in the pumpkin carving world.


Oh the horror of it all! Don't let this picture fool you... Maddie didn't really like getting her hands inside the pumpkin to rip out it's guts. She would reach in tentatively and pick one pumpkin seed out the whole time saying "Ewwwww". She did however draw the face on the pumpkin to cut out (which I did).


This is the pumpkin face that Maddie drew. She wanted to make a tiny, tiny nose...



The resulting pumpkins lit up for Halloween with the fairy princess ready to go trick or treating! Maddie did go trick or treating a little bit with our neighbors kids Ty and Cadance. I must say that Maddie was much more adept at the trick or treating thing this year than she was last year. She would go running up to the house, say trick or treat and then thank you with an occasional Happy Halloween thrown in there...but she would also pick out the candy that someone put in her bucket and say..."I don't like that one" *heh* We just did a short excursion and then it was back to the house where Maddie became the official candy giver-outer. In all actuality I think she enjoyed this even more than the trick or treating itself. Big kids came by trick or treating and they had to say it to Maddie before she would carefully select the peice of candy that should be bestowed upon them. Some of the costumes were cute and adorable and some were just...uhm...yeah....I mean kids in their mid-teens, not in costume with a plastic grocery bag walking up. Last year I made them tell me what they were before I'd give them candy...this year, Maddie was the gate keeper to the candy and had a much lower standard for costumes *grin*

That was our Halloween....hope you all had a good one!

Work & Fun all in one weekend...

Yes, I had to work last weekend, we had a festival. In general that is a good thing. I like festivals, I like larger events where there is a great potential to reach more people at one time. I also like that it is in the fall, beautiful leaves, not too hot...unfortunately, someone decided to turn on the rain. After what, 6 weeks of beautiful blue sky weekends, the one where we had something big planned the clouds came out. Apparently rain scares alot of vendors too *chuckle*

We did have several cancel on us, but we held it rain or shine and in the end it did go well, it didn't downpour rain (but did get a little), and we even had a bit of blue sky for a bit. Ron and Maddie came and basically spent the whole day, listening to the music, making a bird house and some crafts, going on hayrides and watching the demonstrations.


Sunday was a beautiful day (of course, that's because the festival was over!). Our friends Rae and Alan invited us and a bunch of others with kiddos over to a Halloween party. Maddie got to dress up in her Halloween costume and play with all of the kids...she had a blast as you can tell. She wanted to be a princess ballerina...I kind of guided her towards a fairy princess, well, just because I like fairies =) From the smile, I think she likes it! I also think I deserve some sort of kudos for letting her go to an outside part in basically an all white outfit *laugh* especially since she needs to wear it on Halloween!

Pumpkin pinata yielded yummy candy!


Here they are on Alan's spooky trail...watch out for the ghosts and spiders along the way!

Lining up in teams for "Pass the Pumpkin" game =)

Hail, hail, the gang's all here...

Happy Anniversary!!!

Yup...that was us, 9 years ago on a cool fall afternoon on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Believe it or not!

Oh, I have evidence...you guys were there too =)

Pumpkin Patch!

This past weekend (yes, it's fall so that means we're off doing something) we went to Milburn Orchards for some good fall fun, hayrides, pumkpin picking, apple cider and general all around good time. It was a beautiful day. With our sweatshirts we were warm enough in the cool air. I love autumn!


Maddie atop of the straw horse at the orchards. She LOVES horses. For the past 6 months she's been talking about her horsey's house where her little brother lives and some other amazing things go on there too!


The barnyard buddies were a big hit. The baby goats were fed over and over and over. One had even found its way out of the pen which delighted Maddie.


I tried to get a picture of Maddie sitting among the pumpkins but this is the best I got. She was crawling over them, laying on them, hugging them! The fact is that she can not sit still at all. She's constantly in motion =) That is a good thing unless you're trying to get a picture!!!


I think this pumpkin will do! We ended up with 3 pumpkins that we'll carve up on the 30th - We each had an apple cider donut and some apple cider. The only thing I didn't get was some corn stalks to decorate the front porch. I still have one more weekend to fit that in!

Columbus Day Weekend AKA Vacation Part 2

We did get some more time down the shore recently. We made the Columbus Day Weekend into a 5 day weekend and spent it down the shore, just the 3 of us, and we had a great time. The weather was fantastic, sunny and cool with a few clouds, but not too cold that we couldn't play in the sand on the beach. I didn't want to go all over the place...all I wanted to do was spend a nice quiet time down the shore with my family. I did have one weak moment and considered going back down to Storybookland but I refrained and came back to my sanity by remembering that I didn't want to run around but just "be". =) So, what did we do????

We explored Viking Village...

And Bay Village (no, do not fear, not all of the photos will be of us with our heads peaking through something!)


We went to the 150th Anniversary Celebration of the Barnegat Lighthouse!


Where Daddy and Maddie went exploring out on the rocks


And took a break to look at some shops...

We did get to go to the beach a couple of times...


Which involved beach coming for shells, and the most prized possession...crab claws!


Another fun passtime was building sand castles...Maddie had the small purple bucket that she could build them with...while Daddy...


Opted for the large pink bucket, created a moat and attempted a fortress to hold back the tide. The tide won =)

There was some splashing allowed on the warmer days...

As well as lots of visits to the playground!

There is just a sampling of how our long weekend went. It was a very good one.