Welcome to the world little one!

Athena Rose-Marie was born at 2:35 am weighing 7 lbs and was 22 inches long! She is absolutely precious and her auntie and uncle are completely in love with her!

*Breaking News*

We got a phone call at 3:30 this morning...our niece was born!! We are SO excited! We're heading to the airport now to pick up some family flying in for the wedding, then we're going straight to the hospital to meet her!! I'll definitely post a photo (or ten) when we get back! :D

Lots of running around

So I've been busy since I've been home. Monday, we crossed everything off our to-do list for the day before noon! It was a really productive day. Yesterday, we made a few more lists and ran a bunch of errands. Today, my sister and I had our last dress fittings. Then, we dropped most of the decorations off at the reception hall and made the final payment, went to the mall, had lunch with our parents, went tanning and grocery shopping!

My hubby spent the day with one of his brothers and his wife who is due to have a baby girl any time now. Apparently, she thought she was in labor last night and went to the hospital. They checked her cervix, told her she was 8cm dilated and that they were keeping her in the hospital. They checked her a little while later and then told her, "we're really sorry but you're only 3cm dilated so you have to go home." ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! This poor girl is so ready to have this baby and they make that big of a mistake?! UNBELIEVABLE! So apparently her contractions are getting closer together now and I'm hoping we'll have a little niece by tomorrow! :D

Tomorrow morning the hubby and I are driving to the airport to pick up my gram, uncle and aunt who are flying in from South Carolina for the wedding. We had a big snowstorm today but it's supposed to stop tonight so hopefully they don't have any problems with their flight.

The groom is on the 7 hour drive home as we speak. It's getting closer to the big day and we're all really excited! And surprisingly, the stress level in the house is still relatively low. Friday, my mom, sister and I are getting manicures, pedicures and massages in the morning before the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner so that should be nice and relaxing too.

We've been running around like crazy, so I know that was a jumbled, choppy summary, but it will have to do for now! Make sure to check back for lots of photos on Sunday!

Slumber Party

We're back at my parents' house again. My sister gets MARRIED next Saturday, so we're here for a week to help with all the last minute details.

Last night my sister and I had a little slumber party with our cousin's daughter, Natalie, so she could have a night out with her husband. She is just the cutest thing ever and I had to share a photo I took of her when she was taking a tubby last night!

Posting will be sporadic this week, I'm sure! Monday I have to get our other car inspected (I'm hoping it's not a disaster like the other one was) get my hubby a new cell phone battery and go to the bank. Wednesday, I'm going with my sister for her last dress fitting. The groom and a bunch of family are flying in Thursday. Friday, we have manicures, pedicures, and massages in the morning, followed by the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at night. Then the festivities really begin!

The age old toilet seat dilemma

I apologize for the lack of posts lately. Who knew that being unemployed would keep me so busy?!

Anyway, I have a funny story for you. But first, let me give you a little background. My hubby and I have been together for just over 8 years. We have lived together for the majority of those years. My hubby is 1 of 5 children. He has 3 older brothers and 1 younger sister. Growing up in their house, there were 5 males to 2 females. As you can imagine, the toilet seat was probably almost always up in their house. I, however, grew up in a house of 3 females to 1 male and our toilet seat was always down.

When we first started living together the toilet seat was a bit of an issue but I tried to be patient. Then one night, I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, proceeded to sit down and fell DIRECTLY INTO THE BOWL! I'm sure you're laughing, and I can have a good laugh at it now, but that night, it was not even the tiniest bit funny! Since that night, my hubby has ALWAYS put the toilet seat down. ALWAYS. For that, I am very grateful.

Anyway, the other day I walked into the bathroom and this is what I saw:

So I grabbed my hubby, pulled him over to the bathroom, and said, "What is this?!" He thought I was mad at this point, started to get defensive and said, "So I forget once..." I just burst out laughing. I thought it was HILARIOUS. They say it takes doing something 21 times to make it a habit. After 8 years, I thought it was the funniest thing that he left the toilet seat up!

Of course, I only thought it was so funny because it was the middle of the day and I was awake and alert enough to notice that it was up before I sat down!

A Part of History

Well, there's no doubt that today is an historic day. In less than 2 hours, Barack Obama will be sworn in as our 44th president! It is also my 26th birthday! I have to say, today is a pretty amazing birthday gift. I'll probably be glued to the television until early afternoon, but I am filled with hope and so optimistic that this year will be a promising year not only for me but for our country and the world.

Oh HAPPY DAY!

Are you singing the church song from Sister Act II now, because I am! ;)

My hubby had an interview on Tuesday and was offered the job last night!!! WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! He hasn't accepted yet because he has to meet with him sometime next week to find out the details (salary, insurance, you know the good stuff!) but we are both VERY excited. I knew he wouldn't have a problem finding a job, but finally having a little security is reassuring. It will be about a 15-20 minute commute for him, but we don't have to move, which is something I was dreading the possibility of!

I took a cool photo of my hubby yesterday, so I thought this was a good post to share it with you.

Catch up...

This past weekend we were in our hometown again. Saturday was my soon-to-be brother-in-law's stag. While all the boys were out having a good time, my sister, one of her college roommates, my mom and I assembled the wedding programs for hours! We got them all done though and I am pretty pleased with how they came out.

Sunday was Natalie's birthday party. I know I already showed you some photos from her birthday dinner on her actual birthday, but she's just so darn cute I couldn't resist sharing some from the party!

My cousin and her husband made this themselves!

Natalie playing with my sister's Blackberry. She's starting young!

Eating one of her cards! Yuuuum!

"Kissing" her new monkey. I say "kissing" because to her kissing
was more like sticking it's whole face in her mouth. When she
goes to kiss you she comes at you with her whole mouth
open and licks your whole face! *hahahahaha*

She did much better digging right into the cake this time!

Monday was spent driving back again, unpacking and buying some much needed groceries! And yesterday, I spent most of the day working on a birthday present for my uncle. I'm not going to tell you what it is now because it will be much better with photos and is worthy of it's own post! So when it gets here, I'll be sure to share with all of you!

Out with the old

The best way that I've found to lift my mood or feel better is to do something for someone else. Yesterday afternoon, my hubby and I were just sitting around the house and decided to clean out our closets. We usually do this twice a year, but it had been awhile so this was as good a time as any!

As you can see, we each filled a trash bag with clothes that didn't fit or that we didn't wear anymore. I filled mine a little bit more than my hubby did, but I was quite proud of how much he got rid of. He doesn't like to part with anything.

All these clothes will go to the Haiti Plunge Program through the COTY Project first. Haiti Plunge is a project that I've had the privilege of participating in twice, and that my dad, aunt, and uncle have also participated in. Anything that they do not want will go to the Salvation Army.

So our closets have a little more space, we have 2 big bags of clothes to give to people that have very little, and our moods got a little bit of a lift for helping other people. I'd say it was more than worth the time and effort it took to sort through everything!

Oh how I love my sweatpants!

Today is my 3rd official day of being laid off. I have to be honest, though I did shower, I have spent the last 2 days in my super comfy sweatpants and a sweatshirt. When you don't have anywhere to go, it's hard to get yourself to put a pair of jeans on!

Today, I had a different attitude however! I decided that if I let myself wear sweatpants too many days in a row, it would get harder and harder to actually get myself dressed. So, I took a shower and put on some jeans and a sweater. It's nothing special, but I do feel more awake and more productive already.

I give a lot of credit to stay-at-home moms and people who work from home, who actually get dressed everyday! It is definitely tempting to put on those comfy sweatpants, but this is me making a concerted effort to avoid frumpiness!

Moving forward

Well, as of today I am officially laid off. I kept myself pretty busy today though. I had an appointment this morning, spent a few hours trying to get through to unemployment, not to mention an hour on hold once I did get through, and worked on the place cards and table numbers for my sister's wedding.

I am pretty positive about things right now though. I'm taking every day as it comes and I know there are great things out there for me. So I put one foot in front of the other and move forward.

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Yesterday was my cousin's daughter's 1st birthday! My cousin got called into work, so I watched Natalie all day and we had a great time! :) She is such a cutie and such a good little girl, I just love her.

We all went to my gram's house for dinner last night. Natalie had only napped for about 30 minutes all day so she was really tired by dinner time. But since she's never one to turn down food, she ate all her dinner and most of her cupcake. It was so fun to watch her as we sang to her and as she ate her cupcake, and I got some really cute photos.

Why did they light my cake on fire???!?

What on earth is this singing?!?!

Yummmm...cake!

Happy New Year 2009!

I hope you all had a fun New Year's Eve last night! I enjoyed a nice, relaxing night at my parents' house with my parents, hubby, sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law. I was the only one to actually make it to midnight though! *hahaha* My hubby was sick and sleeping by like 8:30 pm, but I woke him up a minute before the ball dropped. I woke him up more because I didn’t want to ring in the New Year alone, than for the fact that I didn’t want him to miss it! ;) We wished each other a happy new year, kissed and went to sleep!

Today was a pretty low key day too, although we did have some excitement tonight. As we were sitting on the couch watching some college football, my parents' tree slowly started to tip over. I ran and grabbed it before it went through the window! My hubby, dad and I got it standing back up, only to have it fall again 10 minutes later. We got it standing up one more time and 20 minutes later it was falling again, so we made the executive decision to take it down. It was a really pretty tree this year and my mom certainly won't be happy when she gets home from work tonight, but it's not like we didn't try to keep it up. Below you can see it in all it's glory on Christmas morning.

Luckily, only 3 ornaments broke during this fiasco and they were just generic glass balls, nothing sentimental. We got the rest of the ornaments off the tree, took all the lights off, and then my hubby and dad got it outside. We had all the ornaments stacked up on the coffee table while we were taking the tree apart. They looked really pretty haphazardly piled up so I snapped a photo.
So that was my excitement for New Year's Day! Now we'll just have to survive the wrath of Mom when she gets home from work...