accomplished

My goal for this weekend was to spend as much time doing "me" things as possible. I feel super accomplished with that goal and I'm feeling totally ready to start this week of right!

I spent a ton of time with my family and a bunch of time outside and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. I haven't felt this great about a Monday in a long time. Plus, today has a ton of physical activity scheduled. Hopefully a bike ride and a 4 mile run. Look at me go! My knees will be toast tonight, but it will be SO worth it to sweat out all the "bleh" I've been feeling!

A few pictures of my weekend fun:

Lots of time spent with my favorite baby. He LOVES being naked. 

My popcorn taunted me. I couldn't get it open, then I spotted this...Nom Nom Now! 

He's just getting too big! He loves Lacey the Ladybug that hangs from his playmat.

Guarding her baby brother while he naps

Family biking day on Sunday. 15 miles and I hit 22mph while pedaling, not even going downhill!

Group shots are hard when there are 4 of you!

beyond blessed

This weekend will go down in the record books as one of the best ever. A baby, a 21st birthday, celebrating a new home and successful home showings (we’re trying to sell). Glorious.

Friday morning my sister, Jess, woke up at around 2am with contractions. She waited until 5am to call us and inform us it was go time! We went to her house and walked around her yard and helped her cope as best we could. She had her scheduled doctors appointment at 9am so she got ready and went, hoping to be sent to the hospital to have this baby! Well, it didn’t go that way. In reality, it didn’t go as planned at all. She had low fluid levels, was sent for a second opinion and did end up at the hospital to have the baby, but she was being induced. Throughout her pregnancy the one thing that she really didn’t want was to be induced with pitocin. Really, she would have preferred a c-section. They decided to start with cervidil for 12 hours. She started the process at 3:30 pm and was supposed to start pitocin (because apparently very rarely women deliver off just cervidil). We hung around and coached her through contractions and had a small party in the waiting room. It got bad and she only wanted Dan and mom in the room with her. The rest of us had some pizza and laughed and chatted until after midnight. She had only progressed to 2cm so the nurse told us to go home and get some sleep because it was going to be a very long process.

I got home and slept for about 2 hours before waking up to my mom telling me she was heading to the hospital because Jess had progressed to 5cm and was getting the epidural. Ten minutes later we got a text that she was 9cm and we better hurry. I woke up my other sister and we poured our exhausted selves into the car. (4 hours sleep Thursday night and 2 hours Friday night) About 5 minutes after we got to the hospital she was ready and waiting for the urge to push. She pushed 3 times and out came my beautiful, fabulous, perfect nephew.

Dan, my brother-in-law, a very proud new dad! He is wearing a shirt he designed with the baby’s name
it read “Branson Eugene, Released June 2012”


Dad and Grandmas


Aunt Jenni giving him some love.


My stunning, amazing, rock star little sister and the bundle of joy. I love him so much.

 

I’ll be back tomorrow with some pictures of just him. I have taken 1000 pictures in 3 days.

weekend update

Another Monday and still no baby. I know ya’ll are on baby watch like I am. I’m kind of ridiculous. I love that baby boy more than anything in the world and he’s still gestating…Just imagine what it is going to be like when he actually gets here and I get to have some serious cuddle time with him!

So, we had an oddly productive weekend. On Friday Mike and I ended up at Jenni’s house redoing a big portion of their roof. Who knew I was so handy?! Tom and I work so well together. We were kind of rockstars. When I finally got home at almost midnight, I was so exhausted I fell right to sleep. When I woke up on Saturday, every muscle in my body hurt. Oye. I had no idea that roofing was so physical. Mike had a high power shooting competition in the morning and then we met up with a bunch of friends and family to go out to dinner. They had spent the day at a beer and wine festival so they were a bit tipsy and all very fun to be around.

Sunday was spent installing new light fixtures, being very silly and then spending some family time at the very muddy dog park.

We had a fabulous weekend and I’m sad to see it go, but I’m ever hopeful that today or this week will be the time for B to come into the world!

birthday weekend

Friday: 

I spent all day out at Kristyn's bakery Sugar Hoot. I was there by 12:30 and I think I left there at about 2:30 am. It was a long day, but time flies when you're hanging with one of your bffs and playing with cake!

Saturday:

I tried to sleep in a little bit but I wasn't successful. So I went with mom and Jess to go get birthday manicures. April 7 (which was Saturday) is both of my sisters' birthdays! Jenn turned 31 and Jess turned 26.  We went to the local hibachi restaurant for dinner. Jenn enjoyed 2 fishbowls and I indulged in two delicious margaritas. Over all, a great day and night!!

Easter Sunday: 

First we had a big breakfast at my house with both of my sisters and their mates. Then we went up to my Aunt Tink's house for Easter lunch and the egg hunt. We had a blast. The day was capped off by everyone singing happy birthday to us birthday girls! It doesn't get any better than that!!

ah-mazing

This weekend was really awesome. Friday night Mike and I spent hours going through his old stuff separating out stuff to donate to Goodwill. After about 5 hours we made huge progress cleaning stuff out! We both had trunks full of stuff to drop off. Everything from clothes, to books and even 2 bags of VHS tapes.

Saturday morning we slept in and then went straight to Dunkin' Donuts to get our daily dose of caffeine before heading to the gym for a run. The rest of the day was spent cleaning and lounging around until my mom and I went out for dinner. We went to a local brew house restaurant. It was completely delicious and the perfect choice.
Sunday was a fantastic start to a new week. The weather is warming up, it was 60 yesterday. We started the day out by losing an hour of sleep and therefore staying in bed until nearly 10 o'clock! Yikes. But once we got up we got ready and left almost immediately to head to the dog park. Sheldon, Cooper and Addie had never gone to a dog park before. We were a little nervous about them getting overwhelmed, but it went amazingly. They had so much fun and came home completely pooped! It was perfect.

When we got home Sheldon immediately ran to the back deck and just laid in the sun, basking in it's warmth. Mike and I grilled up some veggie burgers for lunch and rushed to the movies, only to find out the times listed on google weren't at all accurate and they weren't even showing the movie any more! Talk about frustrating! We came back home and then went to meet up with Mom and Jess to enjoy our first trip to Mary Jane's of the season.

Mary Jane's is a small dairy bar ice cream shop in the town I grew up in. They have the best soft serve ice cream I've ever had. It is definitely my favorite. Yum!

post christmas coma

Apparently I needed a day to recover from Christmas weekend. We had a fantastic weekend with family and friends.

Christmas eve was great! We spent the day out at my sister's house celebrating with my niece because she spends Christmas day with her mom. After celebrating with her and eating delicious food made by my wonderful sister we went to my cousin's house to see the kids and have some dessert. Her kids were so excited, it was completely adorable. Zach, who is 8 was tracking Santa on NORAD obsessively. It was so fun to watch him get excited about where Santa was at every single moment. Then we went home and started doing our thing. While mom finished wrapping presents I brought down and arranged the ones I had wrapped. Then I sat down with a cup of tea and watched every Christmas special on tv. It was glorious. We finally went up to bed at around midnight.

Zach showing me the NORAD app on his ipod.

Before Santa came

Addie, my sister's dog, helping herself to the canister of
dog food we keep in the kitchen.

Mike in his Christmas pjs

Sheldon snug as a bug in my bed.

My sister got to my house at around 7am, honking up the driveway and singing jingle bells to wake us up and get us ready to open presents. We made coffee and started cooking some early morning snacks.

After Santa came!!

Santa was absolutely amazing to me and I couldn't be more thrilled with the presents I received Sunday morning. I got a ton of new running gear which is awesome. Lots of cold weather gear, which is awesome because it has finally gotten COLD here in the northeast! I'll be loving the hat and gloves and long sleeves on my run tomorrow morning. I got a new tv for my bedroom. It's small and perfect. Some new clothes, first time I've been in a medium....ever I think. Santa his up Victoria's Secret hard core! I got 2 new bras and a lot of gift card money to hit up the semi annual sale. This is amazing for me. My bras were awful. I have a really hard time finding ones that fit me really well except for the very sexy push up and I get super annoyed paying $50 for a bra, so getting one for Christmas was perfect.

Mike had a very running gear Christmas too, he loved it all! I think we all really enjoyed waking up Christmas morning and spending a nice relaxing two hours to open presents, snack on a cinnamon bun and drink copious amounts of caffeine. It was honestly the perfect Christmas morning. 

t-6 days

Let the Christmas countdown begin! There are 6 shopping days until Christmas, how are you spending them? Me? I plan on wrapping, cleaning, wrapping, catching up with old friends, cleaning, and cooking my tail off.
I mentioned on Friday that I was going to spend Sunday baking with my family. A full day of beating, mixing, laughing and eating. It was really awesome. I can't even begin to describe how thankful I am to have such an awesome family. I made cookies on Friday and Saturday too. It seems like I'd have far too many but I give away A LOT of cookie trays. We give them to Mike's family (4 separate houses) and a bunch of different friends. I think I made 12 cookie trays over the course of the weekend. Since there is an abundance of cookie recipes hanging around my house, I'll be sharing them with you all week long. Check back later for my kickoff recipe, the NYT chocolate chip cookies!
Sunday was spent surrounded by my favorite people. The best part about it was sharing the traditions that I had growing up with my grandmother with my younger cousins who never met her, or who are too young to remember her.

jackon, 3, appears to have dug into the cookies before they were ready!

jaclyn, 10, telling her dad she's "gonna get him" with her cookie hands!

she apparently gets prettier every day.

my sister and twiglette (that's what we call the baby!)

working hard on making snowballs, recipe to follow this week.

tom, the only male helper we had!

seriously gorgeous ladies

devan helping jackson "rake" the powdered sugar, he was shoveling snow!

sisters! they get mistaken for each other all the time.

my mom gets mistaken for them too and she married into the family!

sisters...again!

Don't forget to check back later for my review on the famous NYT chocolate chip cookie recipe!!

heck yes!

I am too freaking excited about this week. I can barely contain myself. This weekend was kind of fabulous, amazingly relaxing Saturday followed by a Sunday Funday! Saturday I pretty much hung out around the house, listened to tons of Christmas music, did a lot of cleaning in preparation for this upcoming week, but also took some time to just hang around. I even played a little nintendo, which I haven't done in ages.

Source: ashleymaxwellphoto.com via Julie on Pinterest

Yesterday was tons of fun. I spent the day working at a bridal expo in Danbury, CT with Kristyn. It was great, I loved chatting with all the brides about their ideas for wedding cakes, and showing off the delicious cupcakes and french macaroons we brought with us. All the brides are just lovely. It is such an exciting time for them and you could really see the joy on their faces! After the expo, Kris and I went to the mall to score some deals at Old Navy because they were having some crazy 5 hour long 75% off all sweaters sale. We got there with like a half hour until the end of the sale and I have to say it was a bit stressful! There was an employee standing in the front of the store counting down the minutes left, which left us scrambling a little bit. I got exactly what I went for (Christmas presents) and only spent $14 on the two items I picked up. I was very happy with my purchases! I love when I get really great deals, it makes the present so much more exciting for me, and bountiful for them! After shopping we decided to grab dinner and had the longest dinner ever at a Uno's. We hung out and chatted for hours and it was completely wonderful. We don't get to just sit and hang out like we used to when we were roommates, which makes sense since we live an hour apart, so I was really grateful for the time we got to spend together NOT working yesterday.
It's a busy week ahead, but I couldn't be more excited about it. Shopping, baking, shopping, cooking, running, eating, shopping. I think that's what my week looks like! Sounds like a good one to me!

race recap monday

This weekend was really busy, but also a really good time. We were out and about all weekend long and when we were home, we had my sister's black lab at the house along with our pups so there was never a dull moment!
Mike, Mom and I ran another 5k yesterday. It was Mom's first one, so it was kind of a big deal. Since she plans on running Disney with me in February I keep telling her she has to get on it!!! Boy did she! There were two options at the race. You could run the 7.5 mile scenic challenge or you could run the 5k. They claimed the 5k was relatively flat, but it was definitely not flat. There were two pretty decent climbs, about 1/2 a mile each. I was so glad that I decided to run with mom and not the challenge if this is what they called "flat"! I didn't get a pr yesterday, but my pr was from a VERY flat and straight course, so I wasn't too disappointed. Mom did great though. She was right behind me for most of the race. She finished really strong! I was impressed!

Mike and I before the race. It was freezing outside. Sign next to us said 34 degrees. Yikes!

Mom getting pumped! In real life, that hoodie she has on is
NEON yellow!

My handsome Michael ready to run!

yikes. Super sweaty julie. How does one dress for these races...I need a better plan than I had yesterday!! 

My pouch is FULL. Gloves, phone, headphones...Not a good look. lol

After the race we stopped to get mom coffee then headed to the diner for some food!

I changed into that tshirt in the parking lot at the race. Sports bras
are enough coverage for getting naked in public, right??

Always that same goofy smile. Unless I do a funny dance and get a
real one with teeth! lol.

It was such a great day. I had so much fun running with mom and it just got me so much more excited for Disney!!!!

so...it snowed...

Before I get to my weekend plans, I have to scream from the rooftop here that I won the free custom shirt from Beth's giveaway over at Shut Up and Run!!!! I get the choice of a SUAR shirt, any shirt from the Family Fan Club website, or a custom shirt with any text or image I want. There are too many choices!! I can't decide. I'll have to make that decision today though...oye!

So it snowed...In fact we had record breaking snowfall! We had tons of warning, so we were able to be completely prepared. My sister and her husband came over to hang out during the storm. We played lots of games, baked some cookies and watched inch after inch of snowfall. 

We really watched in almost disbelief. The last time we had big snowfall in October was back in 1987! Actually it was 10/4/87 and I know this because it was my Aunt Betty and Uncle Mike's wedding day. It was just as bad as this storm, dumping about 10" of snow. This weekend's storm dumped 14" on my house. We had a blast watching the snow pile up.

Snow falling. This was like 45 minutes into it starting. It stuck immediately
which they did not forecast. We were supposed to start as rain

Like I said, about 45 minutes in. This snow was dense and HEAVY.

It was snowing like craaaaaazy.

My driveway at sunrise. I love my plow guys.

Measuring in the middle of my front yard. 14 inches!!!

My driveway is a beast. 300 feet up....LOVE the plow guys!!