It's all good . . .

41 Years Young

I have always loved my birthday, and I think it is because I just love the feeling of being remembered by those I love.  Although gifts are fun and all, what I really love are the phone calls, texts, and messages that remind me of all the people who are a part of my life.  Having a birthday with Kevin gone is always a bit hard, I'm not going to lie.  And of our almost 18 years of marriage, he has been away for quite a few of them, and so I have to work extra hard to have fun, in spite of missing him.

This year, I started things out with a really great workout - 4 miles on the elliptical and some light weights, and I felt great.  And then I got to go get a haircut, which is always so much fun, and makes me feel especially new and fresh.

After my haircut, I met my friend, Ashley, for lunch at Olive Garden.  It was so much fun, and I just love spending time with her - and the great food didn't hurt either.

I spent the afternoon talking to friends and family on the phone, but the best part was getting to talk to Kevin.  He had been away from his camp, and I hadn't had any communication in days.  Not even email, and so it was the very best birthday present I could have ever received (except for Kevin actually coming home).

My birthday evening was not as smooth or low key as my day, but I have teenagers that have homework, rehearsals, etc, and so it put a kink in what my plans would have been.  Instead, I went with plan B - dinner at IHOP using a gift card I got for Christmas, in the hopes that the kids would be so happy to eat pancakes, that they would be happy and get along.  It didn't quite work - Arthur was rotten, Lily was snippy, and Derek was a bit crazy.  Oh well.  At least I didn't have to cook, and they gave me an ice-cream sundae and sang to me.

When we got home, I got to open my presents.  It should have been really fun, especially because I got some really fun things, and I loved them all - I was spoiled.  The reason it wasn't even close to fun, is because my kids fought the entire time.  At one point, I told them all that it was my birthday, and they just needed to cut it out.  Oh well.  I did get some wonderful gifts, and I loved them all.

After all the chaos, I did manage to hug and love on my sweet kids.  Even when they drive me crazy, they really are my best gifts.

And hey, there was still leftover peanut butter chocolate cake for me to end my day with - so delicious!

Thursday, my birthday continued with a birthday luncheon my friend Amber put on for me.  It was so much fun!!  I loved getting to eat, talk to my friends, and just have a great time.  I am truly blessed to have so many wonderful friends.

And even though my friends weren't supposed to give me gifts, some of them did anyway, and they even knew me well enough to give me flowers.  Just what I needed to deal with the fact that there is STILL snow outside!!  At least the flowers can help me pretend that it is spring, and they are the perfect reminder of a pretty good birthday.

Good Times with Ellie and Melanie

About a week or so ago, I got a message from my niece, Melanie, saying that she and her baby could come out for a visit.  I was beyond excited for them to come, and on Wednesday morning, I drove down to the airport in Baltimore to pick them up.  We started off with a quick trip to Costco, since it was five minutes away, and then headed back to my house to start in our week of fun.  And we definitely had fun, especially with sweet little ten month old Ellie there to play with.

She loved getting to explore a new place, and although she was a bit nervous at first, she soon got brave enough to roam.  She even learned how to climb up our stairs - nice.  (That meant we had to blockade them, but it was no big deal.  She also liked spending time around my kids and figuring out what they were up to, especially when they were practicing piano. 

And my kids decided to introduce her to her very first Baby Einstein movie - good times!  She loved the music, although she didn't quite watch it.  

From the very start, Ellie wrapped herself around the fingers of my kids, especially Derek, who just wanted to hold her and play with her.  It was seriously the cutest.

On Thursday, Melanie and I visited the Amish Market near my house, so that we could give Ellie her first taste of the best soft pretzels in the world.  She loved them, of course.

While we were at the Amish Market, we continued our tradition of buying a selection of desserts to eat each night of her visit - cheesecake, key lime pie, whoopee pies, etc.  We also have a tradition of watching a movie after the kids are in bed, and since I had a bunch of Hallmark movies on my DVR, we had enough to last us Melanie's whole visit.  Good times!

On Friday, we woke up to snow - lame!  My kids even had a two hour delay, but the roads were fine by the time they headed out, and so we were able to still continue our plans for the day of visiting the heart of Amish Country (Bird-in-Hand, Intercourse, and other small towns outside of Lancaster).  Since we were behind our original schedule, we started things of with lunch at Shady Maple Smorgasbord, and it was so good!  The place was also giant with tons of selections, our favorite being dessert, of which we grabbed six or seven, and then split them in half so we could both try as much as possible.  It was so much fun!  Ellie also approved, but maybe that is because Melanie gave her her blueberries with vanilla ice cream - ha ha!

After lunch, we headed over to Kitchen Kettle, and we had so much fun wandering the shops, tasting delicious food, and looking at things we would love to buy, like beautiful decorations, quilts, and of course, furniture (Amish furniture is gorgeous and so well made, but pricey).  I did buy a couple small things for my house, and Melanie bought some chocolate.  And on the way home, we stopped by the outlet mall for some new clothes for Ellie.

On Saturday, the weather wasn't great again, and so we stayed inside for our fun.  One of the big things we did was for me to take Ellie's portraits.  it was the main reason we stopped at the Outlets the day before, so she could have something cute for her portraits.  And wow, did she ever look adorable!! They all turned out super cute, it was hard to pick any favorites.  Seriously.

While I was taking the portraits, Arthur really wanted to help out, and the way he thought it would be the most helpful, was to photobomb as many pictures as possible.  Not at all helpful, and so I promised him that if he would stand behind me and help Ellie smile, that I would let him photobomb some pictures at the end.  He agreed, and he loved it.  Good times!

Another big event on Saturday, was baking my early birthday cake.  Melanie and I both follow Cakes by Courtney, and are obsessed with how delicious her cakes are, and so we chose three of her recipes, and created our own cake.  The first step though, was so bake the cake, and then freeze it so that we could decorate it later.  We also made the frosting and filling, so that they would be ready to go later on that evening, when we finished it.  It was so much fun to bake with her!

Sunday was Stake Conference, and so instead of driving to our building fifteen minutes away, it meant a 45 minute trek out to Lancaster, but luckily, Ellie slept on the way.  We also sat in one of the side rooms with the broadcast on the TV, so that Ellie was free to crawl/walk/roam.  And I am glad we did, because when Arthur threw a tantrum and I had to physically remove him to put him in time out in the hall, we were only disturbing about 20 people.  

After church and dinner - and naps, it was time to eat this amazing cake!  It was chocolate cake with peanut butter marshmallow filling and peanut butter cream frosting.  WOW!!!  So good! (Even if Arthur wouldn't eat it because he has suddenly decided that he doesn't like peanut butter.  Oh well.  More for us.)

That evening, we had a great time hanging out all together, and Arthur loved having Ellie attack his belly.  We watched the movie of the Broadway production of Newsies on Netflix, and just loved soaking in the last bit of time before the girls left us.

On Sunday night, there was another big snowstorm, but luckily it was only a two hour delay, and it was another time that the roads were fine by the time we had to go anywhere.  

Once the kids left for school, I edited Ellie's pictures, we played together, and Melanie and I watched one last Hallmark movie.  Good times!!

All too soon, it was time for them to go, and so we headed down to Maryland.  Because of the time of day that they were flying out, we decided to have them ride the train down to the airport.  It is only $2, and that way we could guarantee they would get there in time, and Ellie wouldn't have to endure hours in her carseat while we were in rush hour traffic.  It was a good choice, but it sure was hard to leave my sweet girls on that train.  And yes, I totally cried on my drive home.  It was truly an amazing visit, a tender mercy, and a healing gift for my soul.  And now I can't wait until they come back again.

Playing in the Big City with Lily

Ever since we moved to Pennsylvania, so close to NYC, I have been wanting to have a girl's day there with my Lily.  And then, last fall, I saw that Michael Buble' was going out on tour for the first time in years (His little boy had been sick with cancer, and so he took an extended break.).  I love his music, and so do my kids, and so I decided to get Lily and tickets for a special Christmas present. (Lily was speechless when she opened the tickets - pretty amazing, as she is never speechless.)  As I was buying the tickets, we actually had five cities to pick between - Washington DC, Philadelphia, New York, Newark, and Pittsburg - and so I chose the day of the week that worked best, and so we had tickets for a Saturday night in Newark, New Jersey.

When it came down to our trip, it was a bit tricky to figure out, because after buying the tickets, I discovered that it was also the weekend of Derek's show, and so there were added complications.  That, and the fact that driving home the 3+ hours after a late night at a concert didn't seem very safe, and so I would need someone to watch the boys over night.  Luckily for me, I have amazing friends, and between my amazing neighbor, Kerry, taking Derek to and from the show on Saturday, Amber watching Arthur all day for me (with a short break when my friend Jennie took him to play), and Becky staying the night at our house and getting the boys to church the next morning, we were set.

And so Saturday morning, bright and early, Lily and I were on the road to New York City. The weather was clear and cold, but perfect for driving.  And yes, I drove to and into the city.  I am pretty proud of myself, and I wasn't really nervous (driving in DC and Philly on a regular basis makes it a lot less intimidating).  The GPS was awesome, and other than it needing to catch up after we drove through the Lincoln Tunnel, we made it right to the parking lot by the Manhattan Temple.  So, only three hours and 20 minutes after we left our house, we were parked and walking toward the temple.  Pretty amazing. (I love where we live!)

I attended the Manhattan Temple while Lily waited in the area that is the chapel.  The Temple, because it is in the middle of the city (right across the street from Lincoln Center), the second and third floor are the church building, and the fourth and fifth floor are the temple.  Pretty cool. I had a wonderful time there, and Lily was happy to wait and write her stories.

Once I finished, I changed out of my dress and put on my walking shoes, and Lily and I hit the streets.  We walked down Columbus Ave. until we reached Magnolia Bakery - and wow!!  So much amazingness!!  It was so hard to pick, but we decided on red velvet cupcakes and key lime cheesecake.  Next, we headed to Levain Bakery for cookies.  We both decided on the chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and it was a perfect choice.  

Funnily enough, we bought all these treats for later, and not to eat yet, because we were on out way to get lunch at the Shake Shack.  We went to the one that is right across the street from the American Museum of Natural History, and although I had to stake out and wait in line for a table, it was worth it.  I tried their chicken sandwich for the first time, and it was so delicious!  Now I am going to have to pick between that and their burgers - too hard.  And yes, Lily and I shared a shake - yum! 

Once we finished our lunch, we walked over to the Natural History Museum, because Lily has always wanted to go there.  There was a large line to get in, but once we were in, we had so much fun, and we may have gotten a bit lost.

 It is built into what looks like a castle, and there is no rhyme or reason to the different rooms - it is like a labyrinth, and it didn't matter that I had been there before. After about thirty minutes, we did manage to track down a map and figure things out.  Lily LOVED it there, and we had a lot of fun looking at animals, artifacts, fossils, and even giant meteorites.

And we eventually found the great blue whale - which is truly amazing!!

After a few hours in the museum, we had seen all we wanted to see, and we were getting a bit tired from all the walking and standing, so we decided to walk back to the car.  We headed down Central Park West, and if it hadn't been so cold, I would have had us wander through the park a bit.  We did eat our cookies along the way though, which was just what we needed. Oh, and Lily found a statue of Abraham Lincoln - fun!

Once we got back to our car, once again, I was driving through the city, but this time we were headed to Newark, which took us back through the Lincoln Tunnel.  (I seriously can't go through there without thinking about the line from Elf, "And then I walked through the Lincoln Tunnel.")

We got to our hotel in Newark, NJ pretty easily, and once we got checked in, I crashed on the bed while Lily watched a Harry Potter marathon.  The concert didn't start until 8pm, so we had time to get dinner from a pizza place down the road, eat one of our desserts, and for me to take a nap - a very much needed nap.

Before we knew it, it was time for the concert.  We walked the three blocks to the Prudential Center, and even met a nice couple who were coming from our hotel on the way to the concert as well.  It was nice to have someone to walk with, since we had heard sketchy things about Newark. When we got to the venue, we got in a giant mass of people waiting to get in.  Good times.

Once they let us in, we got some snacks and got settled.  On the good list, funnel cake fries.  Yum! And the the concert began.

And wow!  What a concert!  Michael Buble' was phenomenal in person, and he had an orchestra/band that took the whole thing to the next level.  What a singer! And he was such a good guy!  He would stop between songs and talk to us, make jokes, etc.  Lily's favorite one was a joke he made about football.  Since we were in New Jersey, he laughed about how there really aren't any NY teams, since both the Giants and the Jets play in New Jersey. And then he followed up with a statement that he could guarantee there weren't any Patriots fans in the crowd.  You should have heard the arena erupt in cheers for the truth of that one. Awesome.

After the performance, which both Lily and I thoroughly enjoyed, we headed back to our hotel to sleep.  In the morning, we had a quick breakfast, changed, checked out, and drove home.  I had researched a chapel along the way where we could stop and attend sacrament meeting, but because of getting stuck behind a super slow car going way under the speed limit, we were ten minutes late.  We sat in the hall, and were luckily still able to partake of the sacrament, and then we drove the rest of the way home, getting there right before the boys.

It was such a fabulous weekend with my Lily.  I am so grateful fr my girl, but especially for how fabulous she has been during this deployment of Kevin's.  She is helpful, kind, and really works hard to be obedient and responsible.  I am truly blessed to have her, and so I am glad that she got to have a special get-away.

Seussical Fun with Derek

Back in December, Derek auditioned for the middle school musical, Seussical Jr. and he got cast as a Who from Whoville.  They started rehearsals in December, and he worked hard for three months.  This past weekend, he finally was able to show us all the work he had done, and we loved getting to see him perform.

The show was super cute and the kids did a fabulous job.  Derek's friend, Lily, played the Cat in the Hat, and she was awesome.  My favorite character had to be Gertrude McFuzz - she was super cute and had a beautiful voice.

I went to opening night on Thursday with my friend, Becky, and her husband, and I loved getting to watch my Derek perform.

I went back on Friday night with Arthur and Lily, and they both LOVED it!  Arthur hasn't stopped listening to the songs since, and he is always acting it out.

All in all, it was a lot of work on Derek's part, and a lot of time spent getting him to/from rehearsals, but it was so worth it!  We are super proud of Derek.

Surviving the Snow

We have had a very snowy February, and the kids have loved it.  There have been many snow days and even more two hour delays because of the storms.  One day, they canceled school before the storm even started.  In fact, at 9am, there wasn't even a flurry, but then the snow began, and wow, did it come down.

The snow fell at 2-3 inches per hour, and so in only a few hours, we had about eight inches to a foot of snow.  It was crazy, and it made me very grateful that my kids didn't get trapped at school.  After the storm stopped, the kids decided to go out and play.  

The snow was the perfect kind for playing in.

They had a great time, and when they came in after they were done, there was hot cocoa waiting. When they were done, I was getting ready to head outside and try to shovel all the snow, when I got a text from my neighbor asking if I'd like her husband to clear my driveway.  It was an answer to prayer!!

In the middle of all the crazy snow days we have been having, I took the kids to go and see the new Lego Movie, which we all loved.  In fact, I laughed out loud more than once.  It was a wonderful distraction from the snow, school, and the older kids' crazy rehearsal schedule.

A Good Excuse for Carrot Cake

I spent most of my life thinking that I didn't like carrot cake, but a few years ago, my friend, Terrie, made me a carrot cake and I learned that I loved carrot cake.  Turns out what I didn't like was big chunks of things in carrot cake - like nuts, raisins, and big stringy pieces of carrot.  I loved her recipe so much, I had to get it from her, and on occasion I will indulge in making it for myself.

Well, I was hosting book club last night, which is always fun, and it was the perfect chance to make carrot cake.  Not only that, but this summer when I had a HUGE carrot harvest, I took a whole bunch of them and shredded them and then froze them in the perfect amount for my recipe.  That extra touch made my cake even more special.  I hope you enjoy Terrie's recipe as much as I do.  (And for those that care, the book I had chosen for book club was Dear Mr. Knightly by Katherine Reay - so good!)

Carrot Cake

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 ¼ cups canola oil
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 4 ½ cups finely grated carrots (I double grated mine, so I wouldn’t have chunks)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour baking pan (either 9x13 or 2 9 inch).  Sift together flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda, and set aside. In a large bowl, combine oil and sugar and beat until creamy.  Then add eggs, one at a time, until mixed well.  Add the flour mixture and the carrots to sugar and egg mixture, and beat at a low speed until blended.

Pour cake batter into greased baking pan, and bake 50 minutes, or until the cake springs back to the touch.  Cool  completely and frost.  (If using round pans, cool 15 mintues, then remove from pans and cool completely before frosting.)

Cream Cheese Icing

• 1/4 cup butter
• 8 oz package of cream cheese, softened
• 5 cups powdered sugar (sifted)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Cream together butter and cream cheese.  Add vanilla and mix in, and then gradually add powdered sugar until consistency and taste are perfect.  Frost cooled cake.  (If I do a round cake, I do 1 ½ of this recipe)

Downloadable File: Download Carrot Cake

Snow, Ice, & Valentine's Day

What a week we have had.  The kids had two snow days and a two hour delay, making it extra crazy.  Last week, in preparation of Valentine's day, we did our tradition of sending out Valentines to all the cousins.  I had the kids make them from scratch this year, and some of turned out super cute.  I am so glad we got them out in the mail before the crazy weather hit.

On Monday morning, the snow started falling, and although it wasn't too bad, it got steadily worse throughout the day. Especially because the roads were awful.  It was pretty cold too, and so the kids went out and shoveled the driveway for me, but them came straight in without taking time to play.  Something about a snow day always makes me want to bake, and so I asked Lily if she wanted to make these Swig knock-off sugar cookies.  She made them and they were so good!!

That night, the weather cleared up enough for me to go to my meeting.  By then, the snow had turned to a light rain, and it wasn't too bad on the main roads.  Unfortunately, by the time I left my meeting, the rain began to freeze to the roads, and so I was relieved when they kept the kids home the next day.  There was an inch of ice on all the roads.  I went out and chipped it all off of our driveway.  Crazy.  It was still poring rain too, but I was bundled up and it was nice to get a break from being stuck in the house.  The next day, the roads still weren't great, but luckily they were fine enough that the kids could finally go to school.  We were all ready for them to go back.

Thursday was Valentine's Day, and although things were a bit crazy that day, I was still able to do a few little things to make it special for them.  I always give the kids a box of chocolates, and we usually have heart shaped pancakes, but this year they were ok with switching things up, because we had just had pancakes a few days before, and our evening schedule was busy.

I had to get a picture of my sweet Valentines.  I was missing Kevin a lot, but I sure was glad to have my sweet kids with me.

For dessert, I made molten chocolate cakes.  Arthur was fascinated by the "molten" part of them, and he had so much fun poking it with his fork, and letting the chocolate "lava" ooze out.  And they were delicious. Derek had rehearsal that night, and so he had to wait until the next day for our special dessert.

It was a little hectic Valentine's Day, but we still managed to make it a special celebration of our love for each other.  I am so blessed to have these kids to give me love and cuddles while Kevin is away.

February Fun

It is hard to believe that we are already to the second week of February.  We have been crazy busy with all the rehearsals going on in the evenings, not to mention our normal stuff.  When things are crazy like this, I always try to search for the happy highlights.  

One of those highlights was Arthur's lesson last Sunday for our Come Follow Me family study.  He taught about resisting temptations, just like Jesus did, and that we can do it by putting on the "whole armor of God."  He then dressed in his armor, and then we threw "firey darts of Satan" at him yelling out different temptations, while he was protected with his armor.

Derek even took a turn blocking the temptations.  Pretty awesome.

It really has been a busy week or so, and it showed in my weekly step count.  And by some miracle I was in the number one slot, which never happens.  I have too many friends that love to run, or my old roommate, Christine, who lives in NYC and walks everywhere, and so I am usually far behind.

This last week, Arthur got to celebrate the 100th day of school.  He made a special necklace with one hundred beads on it to wear, and then he got to eat 100 snacks.  What a yummy way to celebrate :).

For our Young Women's activity this past week, the girls made special candy treats and put together treat bags to give to people they saw at school who needed to be lifted and cheered up.

Arthur has been doing really well lately.  He still has the random hard days, but he has had more good days than bad days lately. It is especially exciting when he gets all blues and greens on his smiley chart.

Another exiting thing happened this week with Arthur - he had his very first piano lesson.  And he loved it!  Arthur has been going along to piano lessons since he was a new born baby, and he has really been looking forward to this.  And he did a great job.

Arthur still loves to make us laugh.  Tonight, as he was separating his laundry, he was singing his very own version of a line from a "Hamilton" song - "I am not throwing away my socks!"  Derek, Lily and I were all laughing as we listened to him sing it over and over.  It was awesome, and the perfect end to a crazy week.

Snowy Adventures

This past week has been full of crazy winter weather.  Between the bitter cold and the intermittent snow and ice, it has been an adventure.  It really started on Tuesday morning, when it started to snow, and they called an early release, and so the kids were home by noon.  I had been running errands all morning, and got home right before Lily and Derek walked through the door.  By the time Arthur got home, the snow was really coming down, and it wasn't too cold yet, so they had lunch, and then I sent them out to play in the snow.  Derek even made a snowbird.

I think that Arthur's favorite part was catching the giant snowflakes on his tongue.

There wasn't a ton of snow yet, but it didn't stop the kids from sledding in the back yard.  They had a blast, and played for a long time.

When they came in, I had yummy chicken stew and breadsticks ready for dinner.  Because of the early release and the weather, all school evening activities were canceled, which meant that rehearsal for both kids, as well as youth activities, were all canceled.  That meant a quiet evening at home, and so after dinner, we played "Hoot, Owl, Hoot!" and had a great time just being together.

The snow wasn't the only thing that descended upon us.  With it, came frigid temperatures, so that nobody wanted to go anywhere.  And because of the cold and the snow, we had a two hour delay on both Wednesday and Thursday.  On Friday, it started snowing again, but it was freezing to the roads, and created a sheet of ice.  It didn't start getting bad until the kids left for school, and got progressively worse.  

Thank goodness they made it home safely, and neither Lily, or Derek, had rehearsal.  We were able to spend the rest of our time safe and warm. (Although the storm did make it so Lily's Stake YW overnighter was canceled.)  It finally stopped snowing about 7pm, and I went out and shoveled the driveway.  The snow was so crystalized, that it was light, fluffy, and super easy to shovel.

Saturday morning, it was still a bit cold, but it started to warm up, and so after lunch, the kids went back out to play in the snow again.  Lily even made a gigantic snowball!  It was crazy.  

It even warmed up enough, that I ventured out of the house to run some errands, while Lily held down the fort.  To thank her for always being so awesome, I brought home dinner for the two of us, and Derek made mac & cheese for he and Arthur.  The boys watched something upstairs, while Lily and I enjoyed our dinner in the basement and watched "Showboat," which she had never seen.  (Wow, that movie makes me bawl like a baby!)  It was the perfect end to a crazy, snowy and cold week.  And hey, by Monday, it is supposed to be over 50 degrees.  Hallelujah!

January Fun

I love the renewal and refocus that January brings, and so far January has been busy, but good.  We have had some fun too.  One Saturday, Arthur really wanted to play Mario Party, and so I played with him.  It was the first time I have played a video game in a couple years, and we had a great time.

We also reached our halfway point in Kevin's deployment, which was super exciting.  It happened on an extremely busy day, and so we decided to squeeze in a celebratory dinner in between Lily and Derek's rehearsals.  (Hers was from 3-5:30 and Derek's was from 6:30-8:30 - so insane.)   

 

Speaking of Kevin, he is doing well - tired, but good.  He works 12-14 hour days, seven days a week, but it's all good.  That is what a deployment is like.  And Kevin is also growing out his beard and his hair.  Wow, it is getting pretty crazy, or as he would like to call it, "glorious."

On Friday, Arthur's school had a spaghetti dinner and STEM night.  We all ate spaghetti and meatballs (except for Lily, who only ate rolls and applesauce, since she hates red sauce), and then headed out to the activities.  We made a marble maze, built paper airplanes, and even made a bridge for the three Billy Goats Gruff to cross over.  We had a great time.

Saturday was a great day.  I woke up very early, 4 am, and my friend, Becky, picked me up at 4:30 to head to Philadelphia to go to the temple.  We got there just in time to get in to our session, and we had a lovely time.

We walked to Reading Terminal Market to get some food after we finished.  It was freezing cold outside, and so we had planned on changing clothes, but Becky forgot her pants, and I forgot my shoes.  So she wore her skirt and walking shoes, and I wore jeans and my high heeled boots.  (And they are not meant for walking distances, as by the time we were done walking around, my feet felt like they were going to fall off.)

Becky had never been to the market before, and I knew she would love it, and she did.  We walked around, perusing every stall, and trying to decide what to have for lunch.  We decided on these amazing strombolis, and just as we were looking for a place to sit, I saw the creperie, and I just had to get one.  We shared a berry cheesecake crepe, and it was to die for.  Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.  They sliced up a piece of cheesecake and put it inside, along with fresh strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries.  And we saved our strombolis for when we got home ;).  And since we hadn't spent enough time with each other that day, we also went to book club together that night.  Good times!

In the middle of it all, Arthur always keeps us hopping.  He had just seemed like he was settling and doing better with his daddy being away, when he has spent this past week breaking down at the smallest little thing.  But even when he is hard, he is still me silly sweetheart.  Like when he gets ahold of my phone and takes selfies and makes movies.  

Or when he runs into my room and tells me that I have to come see this hilarious thing he has done, which, by the way, was throwing a balloon and having it stick to the wall.  (There has been a lot of static electricity in our house this past week or so.)  He even made sure I took a picture.

And in other Arthur news, he is going to be starting piano lessons in a few weeks, and so I have been meaning to make him his piano bag.  I had him pick out the fabric for it a few weeks ago, but I finally buckled down and got it done the other night.  I love how it turned out, especially since I didn't use a pattern, but eyeballed it and "measured" based on looking at the bag I made for Derek seven years ago.  And hey, it is reversible.

Now we are ready for February! One more month without Kevin down, only three to go.