Tag: family

What’s New?

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A lot has been going on here lately. I know I’ve been MIA for awhile.  First, I’ll start with all the new things going on with us. I know I started my last blog post with a teaser that I had some exciting news to share and a big announcement. As you might have imagined it was a pregnancy announcement and unfortunately this pregnancy didn’t go as planned and we found out around 9 weeks that we had a missed miscarriage. Nothing is more shocking then expecting to go in for your first sonogram and getting that kind of news with no warning signs. We were devastated and its been a long couple months getting back to normal, but hopefully everything will work out for us when the time is right. For now, we are just enjoying our beautiful summer with Ada, we’ve been doing a lot of traveling for work and just spending time with family and friends. I’m not going to go too far into what else we’ve been doing because its just a lot of nonsense, but I’ll share a bunch of pictures to make it more enjoyable!

We celebrated a warm Easter Sunday with family at my parents house! Complete with a family photo shoot!DSC_1022

 

We took Ada on her very first plane ride to Tampa, Florida to visit Dan’s brother and their new baby girl Penelope. Ada loved every minute with her new cousin. We can’t wait to see them again this upcoming week when they come home. Tampa 2

No trip to Tampa would be complete without a trip to the beach!Tampa

Or a trip to “Disney”. We took her to Disney Springs because its free, she’s only 2 she doesn’t know the difference yet! We’re hoping to take her to see the real thing this Fall when we go back to visit.Disney

I also stood by my best friends side as she married her new best friend!! Fortunately I really like him!

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Photo credit to Alissa & Michael Photography

We got to spend a lot of time together with out of town friends! Weddings are great for bringing people back together!DSC_0287

And we are getting ready to help another special friend tie the knot in September, we celebrated her shower in mid-June and I cannot wait to stand by her side as well while she, (who is one of my oldest childhood friends) marries one of my closest friends from High School.DSC_0093

And lastly, we had a fantastic weekend celebrating the 4th of July and a great kick-off to summer with our friends!!DSC_0196

Happy Summer!!

How did you celebrate the 4th of July?

 

 

Some more Fall fun

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We took Ada to the Pumpkin Farm again this year this past weekend. I was a little underwhelmed this year. It was a little expensive to get in. Ada was free but Dan and I were $7 each, and we weren’t doing anything but walking around. Then we had to pay another $13 for a pumpkin which I thought was a lot. There were tons of activities and food, but again nothing was included and we would have had to fork out more money for carney rides, food and drinks. Sorry kid. Ada enjoyed the pumpkins of course, as she is still obsessed with them this year. She also liked the animals in the petting farm. The inside barn is all decorated with halloween stuff that you can buy. They have some pretty crazy, scary halloween displays for people who like to go all out with decorating. It started to rain a little, so we ducked in there to walk around for a little bit, but Ada was completely terrified of most of the stuff in there and wanted to leave. So we just headed out!

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I think next year we will skip the Great Pumpkin Farm that is getting a bit over-commercialized and we’ll make the drive out to the real farms like the one from my last post (link). It was so much more fun! It did help that the weather was much better that day, but in general, it was a better experience.

 

Baby Savannah {Newborn Pictures}

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I was pretty excited my sister trusted me enough to take newborn pictures of my new niece Savannah and while they aren’t as good as a pro, I thought I did a decent job getting some beautiful pictures! It was a lot of fun playing with her for the afternoon and she did so good, she slept for most of it and was awake for some so we got some pictures of both. We had to stop to feed her once at the beginning, but otherwise Savannah was a little doll. Right up until the end when she pooed all over my fur blanket. Still not really sure how I’m going to get that one clean! Here are a few of the finished edits I did! Enjoy!

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Ada’s birthday getaway

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Ada’s birthday was on a Tuesday this year and I couldn’t take the day off work, she was at my parents on her actual birthday. They ordered pizza for lunch and I came over to join them for my lunch hour. My sister and Savannah also came, so we had a little party! It was also the first time Ada got to meet her new cousin Savannah and hold her!

 

Meeting Savannah

The weekend following her birthday we took her to the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester. (link) It was so much fun! Its about an hour drive from us, so we got a hotel room for the night, took her out to dinner and went swimming in the pool.

The museum was amazing, we could have done two full days there and still not seen it all. She loved the Wegmans grocery store, where she could push the cart around, shop for groceries and then cash out at the registers.  The Sesame Street set was great, she recognized all her favorite characters of course!

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After the museum we all needed a quick nap at the hotel and then  we took her out to dinner. We couldn’t find anything super child friendly that appealed to Dan and I, (we hate chain restaurants) so we risked it and took her out for sushi! She did great! She loved the edamame, I tried shelling it for her, but she found it more fun to try and eat the bean out of the pod, so that kept her busy, she also loved playing with the chopsticks, but who doesn’t??

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The following morning we checked out, took her to breakfast and drove home before the Bills game started! We had a great weekend celebrating my two year old and hope to make this a fun tradition!

 

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I’m an Auntie!!!

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My first little niece finally arrived last night!! We welcomed Savannah Marie into this crazy world at 8:11 pm on September 18th! Just 4 days before my Little Ada’s 2nd birthday, making them almost exactly 2 years apart! I am so happy Ada has a little girl cousin so close in age. It takes a little pressure off me wanting our second baby to be a girl, I wanted her to have a sister so bad since I know how special it is to have a sister you are close to, so at least now she’ll always have her cousin!

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She’s a tiny little peanut weighing only 6lb. 9oz., My sister and brother in law are doing great after 25 hours of labor. Everyone was very tired.

Today was Ada’s 2nd birthday party, (which I’ll catch up on later). Things were a bit hectic at our house this morning as I was preparing to have 10 toddlers, 2 infants and 24 adults in my tiny house. Dan’s Dad was in from out of town and fortunately they were staying with us, so we were able to leave Ada behind and run up to the hospital before her party and meet the baby! My sister was bummed she couldn’t be at Ada’s party, but Ada won’t remember, from now on we may be doing joint parties!

I am so excited for my sister to join the mommy club!! And so proud of her for enduring the longest labor ever!! I had no words of encouragement for her on that since Ada was born in a matter of about 7 hours, start to finish! (I got really lucky), but she did amazing and now she has the most exciting, tiring and rewarding days of her life ahead!

Apparently the pressure is back on me for the next baby again! Dang! Here’s a few more pics I took while we visited!

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Summer Photo Shoot

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Earlier this summer we won a free photo session with Shannon Glurich Photography . I was so excited about this for two reasons, I really wanted to do summer photos but Dan didn’t want to pay for them and I never win anything! We had the most perfect evening ever down at Beaver Island State Park. We did it before sun set and the light was amazing. Here are a few of my favorite shots! Thank you Shannon for the great family pictures!

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Weekend recap

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It was a fun weekend and really, really hot! We spent some more time playing outside with the hose and in the kiddie pool. The Thunderbirds we’re in town this weekend for the Niagara Falls Airshow. We debated going because it was so hot and traffic can be really bad in and out of the airbase, but we decided to risk it and try to go. My sister is 7 months pregnant so I was worried about her, and of course a toddler in any uncomfortable situation is a nightmare.  We went and had a lot of fun though!

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We had brunch with Dan’s family Sunday and for breakfast we had ostrich egg that his cousin brought. I’ve never seen an egg so big before. We poked a hole in the bottom and drained all the egg out so that we could preserve the shell. da thought it was pretty cool.

Huge Egg

And before we knew it, it was Monday again and we are back to work. Summer is going by too fast but we sure are enjoying it!

4th of July

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Another fun summer weekend on the books! This is my absolute favorite of the year! I just love the 4th of July, it just makes me feel like summer. This one was a bit different, but still packed full of activities!

We started out by going to the baseball game Friday night, which was partially a bad idea since a 19 month old and a 2 ½ year old can hardly be expected to sit still for a game. I can hardly sit through one! We ended up spending a lot of time walking around! At 10pm they shot off fireworks and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra played music to the show! It was great and they did a phenomenal tribute to our soldiers and American history, by far the most patriotic thing I’ve ever done for independance day!

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Saturday the 4th, we took the kids to the beach, and they loved it! Ada has gotten over her fear of sand and she was all about it!

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That night, my sister and her husband Dan came over and we drove downtown to go watch the fireworks at canalside with like 15,000 people. It was a bit crazy but we made some good parking decisions and walked which was a life savor! It was another really great weekend!

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Also Happy Birthday to my Sister-in-law Becky!!

Summer fun!

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We have really been enjoying our summer lately. This is my favorite time of year leading right up to 4th of July! There is just so much going on and so much outside fun and sun time! This past week we’ve been taking full advantage of all the fun activities going on. There was a food truck rodeo happening last Thursday and everyone from my office decided to meet out and bring our families.

summerLast night we went downtown where the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra was playing in the park, It was packed with people, food trucks, ice cream and more!

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We spent most of the weekend just eating popsicles and playing with the hose in the back yard! We also brought out the kiddie pool and sat poolside for awhile. Just a super fun summer livin’ kinda weekend. I wish everyday could be like this!
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A road trip to PA

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We just got back from visiting Dan’s dad in Pennsylvania, not far from Philly. We decided to leave Friday evening after work, it’s about a 6 hour drive from us, so I of course was worried about Ada in the car for that long. We left just after 7 pm, and she played and sat quietly for the first hour, we stopped to grab some dinner for Dan and I around 8 and I put Ada in her jammies and once we got back in the car I gave her milk and put Mickey on, trying to stick with the bedtime routine as much as I could in the car. She passed out right away and we were happy sailing all the way there. It was great! She woke up shortly before we got there around 1am. I was hoping to quietly carry her in and put her down, but all the excitement of our arrival woke her right up and she was wide awake. Going back to bed in an unfamiliar place didn’t go well and I think we were up until close to 4am. The rest of the nights got better as she got more comfortable being there. The first night is always the worst!

We had a lot of family time. We haven’t been down to visit them in a few years so it was overdue and we made our rounds to visit everyone.  It was so hot outside so we had to modify some of our activities. On Sunday we took Ada to the Crayola Factory Museum that was about an hour from where they live. She had a blast and the museum was really great for kids of all ages. She tends to be a bit young for most things at places like that, but they really did have something for every age!

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She also loved racing the boats and making her own crayons! She also really liked the climbing area, although it was for kids a little bit older, she was getting pretty brave, but eventually got scared of all the big kids and gave up.  Here she is with Daddy and Grandpa!

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She gets pretty spoiled by Grandpa and she got this jumbo coloring book (above), which she absolutely loved since coloring is pretty much her favorite thing to do. So she spent the rest of the evening laying on the floor making pictures for everyone!

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The Crayola Factory Museum was definitely a highlight, we all had a really great time, and there was lots to do around the area as well that you could walk to. We’ll definitely make it a point to go back again when she gets older!