Resolutions 2013

I feel that if I wrote these publicly, I'm more likely to stick with them.

It's the end of January and almost everyone's resolutions are already broken ... that's why I try not to look at things like Resolutions, but more like projects. "What do I hope to accomplish in 2013?" Whether it be a home improvement project, a change of perspective, a personal goal -- it's something I wish to accomplish.

So here I go: My 2013 Resolution/Project/ whatever List

Personal:
1. Get more personal time. Whether it be leaving kids at the health club daycare so I can just walk the track. Anything as long as I ca have some ME TIME.
2. Start my path to a new career. This means enrolling at our community college. September.
3. Get back to reading. Now that Claire's older, I don't conk out at 7PM like I did the first 6 months.
4. My own personal resolution.

Home:
1. Finish the backyard. Plant the remainder of shrubs, tear down shed, and rebuild veg garden area per plan.
2. New front door.
3. Finish the basement. This means tile up the floor, paint the walls, and if budget allows, rough in areas for storage closets. (This means cleaning out the basement... again!)

Travel:
1. Actually take a family vacation this year! Well, this is done because we just booked Florida in May!
2. Anniversary weekend! Charleston or Montreal? We're still up in the air as to our 10th anniversary destination (with no kids!!!!!).
3. Nashville in April -- will Matt be running his 3rd 1/2 marathon???
4. Someplace else ... long weekend with the kids. Fun.

That's all I can think of ... enough??

Looking back on 2012

It's taken me forever to write this recap ...

It's that time of year to look back on the year and reminisce all that was 2012.  In a nutshell this year was ... 6 months of pregnancy and 6 months of sleep deprivation. Sounds eerily like 2010. These are strangely enough the best kinds of years.

My pregnancy was uneventful and life with a toddler was so it was very much a blur. Although everything changed at 32 weeks when we were told we were having a girl -- the little Nicholas Matteo I was dreaming of vanished (sadly) and little Charlotte? Lucia? Annabelle? took his place. She (Claire) arrived 1-day ahead of schedule on June 14th. Family complete.

Wesley grew up! From 18 months to 2-1/2 is a big change! He became a big brother, started a Parents Day Out program (pre pre-school), and was potty trained. He went to Nashville with daddy on the airplane in April and saw his first downtown play - The Grinch - with Nana in December.We took music classes, library story time classes, and swimming classes.

Aside from being busy with toddler & baby classes, I took a pre-natal water fitness class throughout my pregnancy, made new friends, and had a busy spring/summer/fall filled with weekly park play dates with a new mom's group. I taught my French class until March when the session ended.  I came to love my students but I was getting into my 3rd trimester and was ready for it to end.

Around the house, changes were happening as Wesley's room became a big boy room and the small bedroom became Claire's room with an office in the closet.  We painted the brick of our house and  hired a landscape designer to redesign our front & back yard gardens.  By August we had our new patio installed, and in the fall we started planting some shrubs and envisioning our new outdoor space.

No travel, no fancy restaurants ... 2012 was pretty quiet in that regard. All I can remember is our quiet 9th anniversary dinner (our first time out without the kids) at our favorite restaurant in town, and that we sneaked in an amazing dinner at Bien Trucha after my last French class while Wesley was with his Nana. I'm still salivating from their amazing tacos.

Looking forward to another busy year as my babies grow up and our life continues to evolve and change each day.

Happy New Year (belatedly).

Fun with iPad apps

New front door

We're in the market for a new front door.  Our current front door is a metal one with fake raised panels on the exterior and a gorgeous (read: not gorgeous) faux wood paint job on the inside. I guess I could have painted over the faux paint project from the previous owners say ... at some point in the last 7 years I've lived in this house... but I never did. Now it's time for a new door.

Choices, choices, choices...

On the Simpson door website, you can "test drive" front door by uploading a picture of your house and then dropping and dragging a door. Pretty cool! Turns out that a door I normally would have loved looked pretty stupid on a 70's split level.

So I narrowed the choice down to --- well, too many. I can't decided first off if a full window, 3/4 window, or 1/4 window would look best. Then you have to decide on the panels - raised? flat? Yeesh. Like I said, too many choices.

Here they are.

Full glass

1/4 glass, flat panels

1/2 glass 1 raised panel

1/4 glass 1 raised panel

3/4 glass

1/4 glass 2 raised panels

Claire is 7 months old

Here's the official 7-month photo taken this morning...

...and a few photos from January of our little Claire-Bear ---

Yum

Who me?

Bathing beauty

Wesley singing Itsy Bitsy Spider to her