New Years Eve 2017

Happy 11 years!

Passing through

Christmas 2017 wrap up

The Shape of Water

A lovely girls night with Nikki to a fancy dinner at Carmel and seeing The Shape of Water at the historic Tampa theater.

Pre Christmas crafting

Papa and Nana visit

A quick, sweet visit from Papa and Nana before the holidays.

Still sick

I had 1 small piece of lunch meat and I was in bed the rest of the night and all day today with severe pain and nausea.  Eric was kind enough to bring home some delicious veggie pho.  These "flare ups" and constant pain is wearing me out as we are going on 11 month of it.  I am not sure what to do and neither do the doctors.  So, for now at least I will stick to a mostly vegan diet and only intake liquids during the flare ups and pray that questions will eventually be answered.

Luminaries night

Our neighborhood had a wonderful evening full of Christmas festivities complete with Santa, train rides, balloon making, cotton candy and all free to boot.

Friday Fakeout

We thought yesterday was Tuesday.  Today is Friday.  Whoops!  So we are drinking hot chocolate out of fancy china and snacking on cookies while we enjoy this fast moving week.

Mathias Christmas List

This oil painting set pictured above from Costco is his #1 non-toy list request b/c he loves Bob Ross and this set is a mini Bob Ross set.

There were also several really neat learning/interactive sets at Costco he liked as well.

And lots of wonderful books.

We love (the kids and myself) educational and interactive items that we can keep around for a long time.

*  A Tinker Crate subscription. Click here.

*  Chuck Black Audio books

*  He loves hobbies like whittling- to be honest, I don't know what is needed for something like that but it's what he likes right now.

Brielle's Christmas List Ideas

Last year we limited the gift giving due to the size of our home and the "stuff" was getting out of control.  Well, we feel that we would like to continue with the same precedent and keep limits on the toys.  After all, this season shouldn't be about us anyway.  With that said, I have compiled a few lists of the things the kids might enjoy.

1.  Books- Brielle loves to read.  And we are huge about curating our book collection with beautiful, junk free options for the kids to read.  The photo above shows a few collections from Costco we found.

2.  Anything "turtle" - for some reason this kid is in love with turtles.  

3.  The lamplighter theater CDs - these are beautiful and fully acted out.  The kids would love them.

Click here or here to check them out.

4.  Pajamas- nightgown style size 7-8.  She loves these kinds we found at Gymboree.  Click here to see.

5.  A Kiwi Crate Subscription/Box - the kids keep asking about these.  Click here.

Allie's Christmas List

A few items Allie liked from Costco.

1.  Audio books - this girl listens to hours of audio books every week.  She has almost exhausted our library's selection.  She love fantasy/fairytale books.  Like these and these. Or this.

2.  She enjoys art (so does brielle) - painting, coloring, finger knitting, etc.

3.  A doodle crate subscription/box. Click here.  I know the ages say 9+ years but I think Allie would really enjoy the mature project that are art related in this one.

4.  Pajamas - nightgown style size 10-12.  Here or similar.

5.  She also love to bake/cook.  I found this amazing program for a kid's cooking program.  Click here to see more.  She would LOVE it.

Babies, babies, babies

Allie is always surrounded by her 3 baby dolls when she sleeps.  How she hardly moves is astounding to me.  Haha.

Recovery Weekend

We are all so very tired from such a long holiday week.  Lots of late nights, prepping, cleaning, shopping, socializing.  So this weekend has been spent (with Nikki) resting and watching Christmas movies.

Lindsey Sterling Concert

My sister's friends gifted us with tickets to see Lindsey Sterling's Warmer in the Winter concert at the Straz Center and it was so good.  The seats were excellent, the show was lovely and charming and the company was delightful.

Thanksgiving 2017

The girls helped me all week prep and shop for our Thanksgiving feast.  They made apple pie from scratch, and helped prep all of the appetizers.  Allie decorated our beautiful table and set up the buffets.

Our guest list included my mom and sister and Grandpa Dale and Nana Nancy.  We completed our day with a night full of extremely entertaining games and more food until the wee hours of the morning.

Thankful leaves

My Aunt Julie always has thankful leaves covering her doors in the fall and this year I was so excited that we had a space conducive to these types of projects.  Our sliding doors boast colorful leaves with little notes of thankfulness on them.  They make me smile every time I look at them.  

Brielle: School

Allie:Birds

Mathias:Rubiks Cube

I also LOVE their spelling!

Impromptu Christmas Decorating

Grandma Tomi

Selcouth

 "The most beautiful people wear their hearts on their sleeves and their souls in their smiles."