Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Happy Girl

Hannah was acting sort of grumpy in the car a couple of weeks ago and I was trying to cheer her up. To convince her that she had to be happy, I told her I even had a song about being a happy girl and introduced her to Martina McBride's "Happy Girl". It worked that day and ever since, she asks to hear the "Happy Girl" song all the time in the car. The past week or so I noticed that she was singing along to most of the song and it's really cool and very cute to listen to! So, we captured it on video for all to enjoy!
So, without further a-do.....turn up your speakers....here's my Happy Girl!!

I did have the whole song on video, but had trouble uploading it, so this is just a snippit!! Too cute!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Fifth Anniversary Weekend

Friday was mine and Tony's fifth wedding anniversary! Amazing what has happened in the past five years! Lots of good, some not so good, but through it all, we're still going strong and very happy to have this milestone to be celebrating!

Since Friday was a work day, we didn't celebrate much other than cards. I made him a card this year - nothing too fancy, but it was from the heart, so that was good!

Saturday morning, he got up and had a "surprise day" in store for me. We dropped Hannah off at Tony's sister's house and then we drove to our date. It ended up being up at one of the beaches by Lake Erie. It was a real nice place and he had a picnic all packed for us. We put a blanket out in the park and had some snacks and a nice long chat. He wrote me a letter telling me all the things he loved about me - that was really cool!





Then we packed up our picnic and headed for a walk out on the beach. I have to say, I didn't realize that we actually had a beach that was pretty nice to walk on here in Cleveland, but we do!!! It was the next best thing to being at the ocean and Tony was right in thinking that he couldn't go wrong taking me to the beach for a little romantic mid-day date to celebrate our five years! It was really a very great day!



We picked Hannah up and then headed home. We got some more yard work done. We lined our front flower bed with new landscaping bricks and mulched again. It looks pretty nice.



Then we got showered up and ready to go out for a night-time date. We had a really nice dinner together. We shared a bottle of wine, he had surf & turf and I had a nice steak. Then we had some after dinner drinks and I managed to do some damage to a free piece of cheesecake that I really didn't (need) want!!! It was such a great day and so very special. Thank you Tony, for making me feel so loved and so special this day! It was really great to share the things we did - I'll cherish the memory forever!! And don't forget, another five and we go to Hawaii!!!!!


Sunday we got up and I did a little housework and we decided to take Hannah somewhere. It was an impromtu outing that ended up being pretty cool! We took her to the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad and they had "A day out with Thomas (the Train)". It was really cool and the best part was seeing Hannah see Thomas in real life and the wonder and amazement on her face was truly priceless! We took our ride on the train which was cool and then spent a little time doing some of the activities that they had available for the kids. It was much hotter than we had thought it was supposed to be, but it was a fun day!










We went grocery shopping together (since this weekend was all about togetherness, I let them come along!!) and then I pulled weeds around the house. I hate that job!!! But it really needed to be done. It made our backyard look so much better - or at least not half as bad as it was before. We really want to re-do our deck this year, but we decided at the very least, we'll keep it weed-free and cleaned up and knock down the railings that we have now and it will be better than what it is now until we can find someone to re-do the whole thing. Tony grilled shish-kabobs and we just hung out. I made strawberry pretzel dessert for Monday and Hannah got to lick the beaters on the mixer! This was the first time she would do it and realized how rewarding that really is!!

Tony and I sat out on the deck for a while and then went back in to watch the rest of the basket ball game - darn Cavs!!!

Today we went to breakfast and then over to Tony's sisters for a little cookout. I got a little too much sun and Hannah fell into their pool. She's fine, but forbidden from being near it anymore unless she's got floaties on! Really, she was fine and I was watching her the entire time Kendal had her near it, but as she was standing on the stairs with her feet in, she kicked the water and fell backwards right in. It was scary enough!

We just had such a great holiday weekend. I don't really want it to end! It was productive, relaxing, long enough and so rewarding! I say this holiday weekend is one of the best we've had in a really long time!

Saturday, May 16, 2009

In my daughter's eyes

So some of you may know what I meant in my last post, but some of you may not. And even if you don't necessarily care all that much, I got a ton of inspiration from what I was thinking!!

So today, I went out to get some stuff to make a picture for myself. I guess it's like a scrapbook layout (no, Erin, I'm still not getting into scrapping), however, I do intend on putting this in a frame.

My scanner won't scan a 12x12 page, so I have to sort of piece this together.



Obviously, these are two separate pictures, so the bottom looks sort of screwy, but it's really all one page and looks nice.
And in case you don't know the song and can't read the words click here to hear the song:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MUP9EUCE74 not really sure who is singing part of this or who the pictures are of, but you get the drift.
Anyway, I'm just a proud mommy with a very special little girl!!!




Sunday, May 10, 2009

I love Mother's Day

Mother's Day has become my most favorite day of the year. I just absolutely love it! I love being Hannah's mommy - there are just no words that can describe it.
We didn't even have anything planned today, but the day couldn't have been more perfect!
Hannah got me card that she picked out. It was on of the singing cards from Hallmark and sang "Get on your feet" by Gloria Estafan!!! She thought it was a great card and kept singing it all day!! Then she gave me a fabulous gift she made. It was a ceramic thing she painted at the place in the mall that said #1 Mom - it was very pink and sparkly!

She and I went to church and then grocery shopping. After that, she decided she didn't want to take a nap and she went with me to the garden center to get some flowers. She loved it there. It was really funny when she saw a table of yellow flowers and ran up to them and said, "mommy, dandilions!!"
We played outside after that since it turned out to be a nice sunny day. Then we had dinner, I gave her a bath and I just put her down to bed.

What a perfect day!!
Here are a couple pictures from the day:



Us with my sparkly #1 Mom gift!!
And this is my ultimate favorite picture! I think this is so "In My Daughter's Eyes" by Martina McBride. I just love knowing that to her, I'm everything good! She so deserves that!!!

I love you Hannah! Thank you for making me such a grateful, fulfilled, happy Mommy!!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

I'm back in town

So the really good news....I passed my test!!!

After a long week away in class every day, I got to Thursday night and studied most of the night. Well, if you can call it studying....I went through all my notes that I took over the two weeks and went through all of the presentations we had from class and basically familarized myself with all of it again. That's pretty much how I got through college and that worked, so since those were the extent of my study skills, I took another stab at that.

I got all my stuff packed up and headed back to the office. I had a really nervous stomach about the test. I just had to pass it and the pressure was on!
Our instructor left it up to each one of us as to when to start. I sent off a few reports for work stuff and then closed my email and opened up the test (it was online). As soon as you start, the 2 hour clock started. It let you skip around, so I went through and answered the questions I felt most confident about first. It didn't start pretty skipping over like the first 5!! My notes were very helpful and marking them up the night before proved to be very beneficial because I easily found the presentions for each section of material that way. Anyway, I felt fairly confident in most of my answers after the first hour. There are 35 questions total and you needed an 80% or better, which meant you could only miss 7 and pass. I was down to my last question and only about 7 minutes left and it was on something that I was darn sure we hadn't discussed. I found subject matter similar, but I knew we hadn't discussed it. I chose what I thought was the best answer and just before I hit submit, I changed my answer. That's normally not a good thing to do, but something told me my second answer was right. After I clicked submit, I had a HUGE sigh of relief as I passed, with a 91%!!!! I only missed 3 questions! Whew!

Anyway, I know that was a boring story about a test, but I was proud of myself! My flight out of Dallas was a little late, so I got home a little late too. Tony and Hannah picked me up and it was so good to see them! Hannah was real excited and so was I! I sure missed that kid and I hope I don't have to be away from her again any time soon! It's really hard!

So that's about it!

Happy Mother's Day tomorrow. It's my new favorite day of the year and I can't wait to spend it with Hannah!!!