I’m not crying, you’re crying.

June 25, 2019 by · Leave a Comment

Somehow we got here. The end of the school year. It’s both my favorite & least favorite time of year.

Undoubtedly the upcoming summer fills our house with excitement.  Denny and the kids and I made a pretty full list of Summer 2019 Things to Do!  The items range from the simplicity of Eat ice cream to the complexity of Go to Lake George (and if you’ve ever packed up 2 kids for a week of vacation you know what I mean by complexity).

But the approaching summer also brings a sadness of knowing this school year is ending.  It’s that dull ache of knowing you can’t go back.  It’s that realization that our kids keep getting older and we have no control over it.

Honestly weren’t we just a brand new family of 3 staring at this sweet face?!?

Two-hour old Makenzie Ruth – October 2012

But before the bus picks up Kenzie one more time as a first grader I feel like I should recap a pretty awesome year!  I haven’t been great at blogging so here is the 2018/2019 school year recap.

Back to the Beginning – September 2018

First day of 1st grade

First day of preschool

We are grateful that both kids had amazing teachers and plenty of great friends in their classes.  This year brought lost teeth & lost toys, birthdays & bike rides, Santa visits & snow days, and lessons big & small.  Kenzie learned how to tie her shoes and to tell time.  Mitchell learn to write his name and to pee standing up (like I said, not all lessons are of the same magnitude).

The day she lost her front tooth!

My SIX year old!

Concentration.

One of our many trips around the block!

Christmas Eve excitement.

Snow day fun!

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Some days were better than others. This year brought its fair share of time outs & sick days, chaos & coffee, and long nights and rainy mornings.  But despite all the ups & downs, we made it through!

Speaking of ups & downs, the night in a bunk bed was one of our best days of the year!

The flu caught us all this year and forced us to slow down.

Smiles on a rainy day

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When I look back on this year I realize that we somehow we’ve landed in this sweet spot of parenting.  We’re out of diapers, past bottles and able to participate in plenty of fun activities.

So tomorrow we bid farewell to this school year.   Thanks to a vacation day,  I’ll pick up Kenzie at school, we will wave good-bye to the beeping buses (such a cute school tradition) and we will officially kick off summer with some putt putt and ice cream.  Check & check!  There might be some tears but it’s only because we’re saying good-bye to something so great.

Sweet moments from this year

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Cheers to summer 2019!   May your days be long, may your drinks be chilled and may your memories fill you with enough happiness that you might not want to say good-bye.  After all, I’m not crying.  You’re crying.

xoxo

Erin

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P.S.  Here are some other great memories of the year worth sharing!  (aka I may never finish the kid’s scrapbooks so I use my blog instead)

Field Day 2019

Kenzie’s 1st talent show. She did an acro solo to Stupid Cupid.

Monkey is growing up too! Mitchell likes to measure him before bedtime.

Mitchell’s 1st year of t-ball

Bus stop cartwheels

A few of the best nights of the whole year. Our long-awaited trip to Disney.

Meeting Mickey & Minnie.

Roller coaster love! He made it on with about 1 cm to spare.

Magical night at Bibbidi bobbidi boutique.

These two. 🙂

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Foyer Facelift!

January 24, 2019 by · Leave a Comment

You guys, the Foyer Facelift is just about done & I’m so excited to share about it!  I just finished using gel stain and paint to redo the banister and I’m pretty happy with the results.

Here it is in 2017.  The Before…

And after!

When we first walked through this house for sale a few years ago we loved everything about the neighborhood & layout, but we knew it needed needed some love. Given my love of projects and given our even bigger love of not over-spending on a house, we knew we found our forever home!

After we survived moving with two small kiddos (phew!), we got to work! Within 3 months of signing on the dotted line our home had a new roof (we hired someone to do this – don’t be fooled in thinking we did this on our own), new appliances, some new carpet, and almost all new light fixtures & doorknobs. Honestly if you want a quick facelift on a room, switch out the old fixtures & knobs, and Voila, Instant mini makeover!

But the foyer was a bit more daunting.  I knew what I wanted to get rid of the oak look on the banister and spindles, but I needed some motivation to get it started.  With the help of coffee, Pinterest and some detailed bloggers, here’s how we tackled our Foyer Facelift.

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Supplies:

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Step 1:  Motivate yourself!

Get annoyed enough by the oak to commit to this project. Honestly it took me over a year to get motivated for this and about 45ish hours of time to finish the project but the end product is totally worth it!

Step 2:  Clean the spindles & banister.

(Before you do this, decide which parts of your banister/spindles/newel post will be painted and which parts will be stained.)

For that parts you will stain, clean it will Odorless mineral spirits.  I poured mine into a bowl and wiped it down with a Scotch pad.

For the parts you will paint, mix one part mineral spirits with one part water in a spray bottle, spray directly on the wood and then wipe it with a rag.

Done cleaning but still looking rough.

Step 3:  Tape Time!

Next is to tape off sections to prepare for gel stain.  Gotta love the Frog Tape for this part!  Tape off all the sections where the stain will come in contact with areas not stained.  The only exception to this is the spindles.  If you are going to prime and paint them, there is no need to tape them.

If you need to make repairs, do it now.  Use wood filler and putty knife to fill in holes, and follow it up with a light sanding pad to smooth it out.  Don’t forget to wipe off any dust with a wet paper towel.

Step 4:  Stain-tastic! 

Next up is to start gel staining.  I used General Finishes stain in antique walnut color and I loved working with it.  You’ll definitely need gloves & a drop cloth for this part of the project, and be sure to keep your house well ventilated.  I first applied the stain with a foam brush and then wiped it off with a rag, but I found that the orange tone of my banister kept showing through, so I wound up applying the stain with a paint brush.  I used long, quick strokes going with the grain of the wood to avoid blobs.  Wait 24 hours in between each coat and cover it with as many coats as you need to get to the desired tone.   I did 4 coats total of stain.

This is after the first attempt of wiping off the stain. I couldn’t get it to the right color using this method so I instead decided to paint on the stain.

Step 5:  Tape, again.

Next up is to protect all the freshly stained sections of the wood with painters tape.  This step is tedious but worthwhile for a good end result.

Step 6:  Prime & Paint!

Once the stained sections are taped, you can start priming and the banisters and the sections that you want to remain white.

I wound up using 2 coats of paint to finish off the project.  I used a one-inch angled brush and used long brush strokes to avoid drips and globs.

You are almost done!

Step 7:  Untape, you’re almost there!

Once painting is done, (carefully) remove the tape, do a little happy dance  and admire the new look!   You may want to use an X-Acto knife to make sure the paint doesn’t rip as you detach the tape.

One more look of the finished product!

Step 8:  Top Coat and Enjoy!

The final step is to touch up any spots and then put the final top coat on the wood.  I have not yet done this step but I plan on applying it with a foam brush

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Overall the project cost me less than $100 but it has a huge impact!   In terms of time, I would guess that I spent about 45 hours on this project but since I only worked on it when the kiddos were asleep it wound up taking about 4 months.

If you tackle this project, please share pictures!

Happy updates,

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Happy 4th Birthday Mitchell!

January 15, 2019 by · Leave a Comment

My baby is FOUR!  Happy Birthday Mitchell Dennis!  Denny, Kenzie, Mitchell & I had such a fun night doing what any four-year-old loves most… a trip through the car wash and lots of ice cream.

But I can’t help myself from becoming a nostalgic sap as I think back to the day he was born and how fast he is growing up. 

Didn’t this just happen?!?

January 15, 2015, 11:06 pm – Very 1st breath.

 

One hour old and checking out his baseball glove.

 

One day old and so squishy.

 

First sibling meetup.

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Birthdays present the perfect chance to celebrate all the milestones from the past year.  Here’s what our favorite little guy has been up to during his trip around the sun…

Meeting Mickey at Disney World!

Celebrating the freedom when time out ends.  Because boys.

Being a tourist in our own backyard with some of our favorite people.

Snow fun!!!

Hanging with Kenz!

~~ Mitchell’s Current Favorite Things ~~

Color:  Blue. 

Activities: Mitchell loves anything that involves jumping & running & being silly.  This summer he was obsessed with riding his bike around the block. He’s getting really fast and can easily keep up with Makenzie.  It was such a great summer!

Mitchell (still) wakes up most days before 6 am and just wants to play, play, play while I chug, chug, chug coffee.  He could spend hours with his PJ Mask toys and all of his cars and trucks. 

His recent favorite game is the “Santa Claus game”. He makes Denny and I fake sleep while he carries his toys in a Santa sack and leaves them in front of us.  Then we wake up & it’s like Christmas morning.

Movies:  Toy Story 2! We watch it all. the. time.  Then we watch it again.  And again.  Mitchell also loves Toy Story 1 & 3, but we all know the snot sobbing that happens at the end of TS3 so I tend to lose that DVD. 

Food:  Donuts & fruit. The kid loves apples, grapes & strawberries.

Besties:  Mitchell is a social butterfly.  Little Monkey is his best friend in the world and goes with Mitchell everywhere.

Other besties:  All of his cousins, Makenzie and Kai. Kai & Mitchell go way back to the freshman room together at pre-school. They’re the best of besties and now Kai’s family now lives only 8 houses away. It’s awesome.

Songs: PJ Masks Theme Song. The second this comes up he becomes a superhero and runs around the house.

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Over the past year Mitchell has made amazing progress in all areas.  It’s been 5 months since his last episode (Thank God!), and he continues to (mainly) use his words to deal with his frustration and strong feelings. He’s funny and sweet and often tells us that he loves us soooo much. 

Mitchell’s best summer quote came when he saw his big cousins at the pool without shirts. “Why are them boys wearing their belly buttons!?” We had a good laugh about that.

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This little guy of ours makes life more fun than we could have ever imagined.  Happy Birthday Mitchell Potato (he earned the nickname Potato during birth after he got stuck due to his large noggin and required a c-section.  The nickname stuck)!!  We Love you to Infinity & Beyond! 

xoxo

 

 

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The other side

August 3, 2018 by · 1 Comment

For the past six years, I have had the opportunity to see the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus from my office window.  It’s a pretty amazing view that has drastically improved over the last 300 weeks.  One of the biggest changes in the skyline is the addition of the brand new Oishei Children’s Hospital.  On the cold day in November 2017 when the hospital officially accepted its first patient, I spent the day gazing out my window in complete awe of what was about to happen in those four walls.  I knew it was a building that had the potential to change lives.

November 2017 – The actual photo from my office on the day the brand new Children’s Hospital opened in Buffalo.

Today my view was drastically shifted because I was on the other side…

Today Makenzie had her tonsils and adenoids out.  It’s an otherwise simple procedure except for that fact that she has a bleeding disorder, which can trigger a big problem during surgeries when not properly treated.  So here we are on the inside of the hospital walls that I have been staring at for months.  As we drove downtown today, I was no longer looking at the skyline from the perspective of an excited resident, but I was looking at the skyline as a nervous mom wondering what was about to happen from inside the walls of the hospital.

It turns out there is beauty from the inside the hospital too!  From inside the four walls of the Children’s Hospital, you can see what it means to have a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to children.  The rooms are gorgeous, the common space is cheery, and the technology is full of info important to keep our kids safe.  From inside the four walls of the Children’s Hospital, you can feel what it means to be in a place where the employees truly care about making a tough day as easy as possible.  The nurses are incredibly caring, the toys are plentiful, and everything in the building is kid friendly (including the write-on sheets – so cool!).

Waiting for surgery. Check out the write-on sheets and the Legos given to her by the nurses.

Today had its share of scary moments (does any Mom not cry when your kid is rolled away into surgery?), its share of fun moments, and its share of just slow down and relax moments.  Despite being in pain, Makenzie and I had a good time tonight coloring, painting crafts, hanging glow sticks in her room and cuddling up to read Matilda.

From the other side, I was reminded that life can be stressful, and emotional and scary at times, but also necessary (honestly 10 rounds of strep is just not cool!).  I was reminded that sometimes it’s okay to slow down and focus on nothing but family.  And I was reminded that we sometimes need to be more compassionate when we try to assume what’s going on behind the glass walls… it turns out that sometimes we just can’t truly relate until we are on the other side.

Kenz checking out the view from her 11th floor room just before going to bed. If you look carefully, you can actually see my office window. Pretty cool!

Tonight I’m snuggled up on the cozy-ish pull-out sofa in Makenzie’s room as we sleep in increments of a few hours at a time between medicine doses.  I’m grateful that the worst is behind us, and I’m grateful for all that I learned when I saw something from the other side and gained a new view in life.

It’s not a view I want to repeat often, but even the scary places in life can bring some joy. 🙂

Sweet Dreams,

Erin

xoxo

PS   Kindly excuse any spelling or typing errors.   It’s been a long few days.

PPS  The real irony of this is that the ONLY reason Kenzie’s ENT even tested her for a bleeding disorder is because I had a major bleeding problem 30-ish years ago when I had my tonsils out.  I lost so much blood I needed a transfusion, which seemed to indicate that I had a bleeding disorder that could cause problems for Kenz.  Sure enough Kenz has the disorder, but it turns out that I do not.  After testing negative twice for it, the doctors were incredibly surprised to find out that it actually came from Denny.  Moral of the story… ALWAYS share your family history with your physician.  It might just help you discover something incredibly important.

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The dull ache of mom life

June 19, 2018 by · Leave a Comment

Tomorrow is the day…

Makenzie Ruth will march into her kindergarten classroom for the last time!  Can it really be an entire 10 months since Denny nervously gave Makenzie this map to ensure she wouldn’t get lost on her way to Classroom 132 on day one of kindergarten?

How to get to kindergarten Classroom 132, instructions by Daddy 🙂

September 2017 – Kindergarten Day 1!

She arrived to school, map in hand!

Halfway through Day one of kindergarten!

It’s been such a fun year and our girl has learned SO much!   Makenzie had a great teacher and made a whole new group of friends.  Our now five and a half year old (Kenz will not allow you to forget that half year) is reading chapter books and writing sentences.  She is becoming very independent, and she spends all of her free time tumbling around the house.  She continues to be an awesome big sister to Mitchell, who is also growing up right before our eyes!

Loving on big sis.

 

But deep down, this last day of kindergarten is triggering one of those dull heartaches of being a mom.  Let me explain…

When Makenzie was a newborn baby, I read countless articles & books to try and learn all the mom secrets!  I googled everything about car seats and burp cloths and sleeping patterns.  I scoured the Internet for advice on tummy time and infant feeding schedules and baby body wash.  But not one article mentioned the deep down level of ache I would feel the first time I cleaned out her closet and realized she no longer fit into her 3 month clothes. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and on that day I realized exactly how powerless I was to time.  As much as I spent those bleary-eyed nights of Kenzie’s colicky infant weeks praying to get to a phase where I would actually sleep, I realized how sad it is to know you can’t go back.

So here we are five (and a half) years later.  Makenzie’s closet has long been cleaned of 3 month and 6 month and now 5T clothes.   She’s sleeping through the night on a regular basis (although she often winds up snuggling with us in our bed), and she’s long replaced tummy time with tablet time (but only in small amounts, I swear).  But that dull ache of mom life still visits from time to time to remind me just how quickly time passes.

They say that having children is like letting your heart walk around outside your body.  Tomorrow our oldest heart will get on the bus as a kindergartner and come home as a first grader.  The dull ache will undoubtedly remind me to slow down more often and to savor the moments, but I’m also overcome with excitement about what the next year will bring.  Makenzie is happy and healthy and excited to move along to 1st grade, and we are lucky enough to have a front row seat to watch it all!

So for all you mamas out there aching on the inside, grab some tissues, snap some pictures, and find some time for a few extra hugs.  Then hold on tight… the summer fun is about to begin!

Summer 2018, here we come!

The McGee 2018 Summer Fun List.  Here we go!

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Home Sweet Home!

April 27, 2018 by · Leave a Comment

There are few things in life that leave you feeling more nostalgic than an anniversary, regardless if it’s an anniversary of a wedding, an anniversary of a goodbye, or the anniversary of a fond memory.  This week is the one year anniversary of our new (to us) home and I’m flooded with memories of the last 365 days!   For some people, this is just a real estate transaction and a series of paperwork, but for Denny and I, our home is so much more!

I can’t believe that it’s been an entire year since we spent countless weeks packing our first home.  There were sleepless nights, there were major feelings of doubt and nervousness, and there were some serious snot sobbing sessions.  But now that we’ve been here a year we couldn’t imagine calling any other place Our Home!

Ironically Makenzie brought these pictures home this week of how she views our House (ignore the dirty windows).

Although my blog posts have been nonexistent (I promise I haven’t forgotten about my blog!), the past year has been a whirlwind of making memories, managing meltdowns and tackling projects!

As for the house itself, we’re slowly making it our own.  We’ve painted walls and shutters, we’ve hung lights fixtures and pictures, and we’ve undoubtedly made Home Depot shareholders very happy.  But beyond shingles and shades of paint, we’ve turned these empty four walls that once housed a bounce house (how else do you keep the kids entertained on moving day?) into a cozy place where we eat pizza, run late (some things never change), have dance parties, and welcome the people we love most!!  Our much-needed extra bedroom has welcomed 18 different guests, and there are more to come in the next 52 weekends!

Moving Day – April 2017! The bounce house was the first item to move to the new home.

Moving Day pizza party – Mitchell’s crib box doubled as a table.

Midway through one of the many house projects – Hello new cabinet color, goodbye oak!

And along with the changes in the house, come the nonstop changes and fun with the kids!  We’ve met new neighbors and found new adventures taking bike rides around the block.  In these four walls, we watched Makenzie prepare for her first day of kindergarten (insert more snot sobbing) and we watched Mitchell start to put together words and now sentences.  In these four walls, we’ve had our first round of holidays, we’ve sipped 365 morning coffees and we’ve had just as many bedtime stories.

My baby boy getting so big!

Ready for Kindergarten!!

Makenzie Ruth, age 4 – September 2017

(Listen closely, you can hear the snot sobbing)

1st Halloween in the new neighborhood with Poppy & Cookie Monster! So many kids. 🙂

Buddies – Christmas 2017

Christmas morning 2017!

Mitchell’s 3rd birthday weekend!

CAKE!!!

Neighborhood exploring!

As the first year of being in this house comes and goes, I’m reminded of how important it is to focus more on the people in the house than on the countless messes created by them.  Denny and I believe that our job as parents is to give the kids roots and wings, and we couldn’t be more grateful that this home is where M&M will develop their roots!

I mentioned messes, right?

Bedtime giggles. 🙂

Who knew that four little letters – SOLD – could have such a great impact on our lives.  Here’s to having the courage to make changes and here’s to the people who helped us make this decision!  Here’s to (hopefully) more than one blog post per year.  Here’s to another trip around the sun in the place you love most!

With Love,

Erin

PS  The unexpected surprise of all of this is that our first home is now the first home to a sweet young couple who kindly keep us updated on the memories they are now making in those four walls just a few miles away.

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Everything we own in a box to the left…

April 22, 2017 by · Leave a Comment

Don’t you just love when Beyonce knows all the right words to share the big news?  Everything we own is now in a box to the left, right and everywhere else because … (drumroll) …

the McGees are moving!

This is fun, right?

After much deliberation, we’ve decided that we wanted to go somewhere warmer so we are packing up and heading south!   And by south, I mean 3 miles south, but hey – south is south!  #ItsstillclosertotheEquator    #Imsotiredimusingrandomhashtagsinablogpost

I feel like a life change of this magnitude is worthy of a blog post so here goes…

About 8 years ago, Denny and I were freshly married and ready to find our first home.  On a frigid day in January we found our dream home.  We didn’t even need to go to the second floor to know that it was going to be ours.  We loved it!   An adorable colonial home on a quiet street and we called it our own!   It was the best first home we could have possibly imagined… we had parties, we had family reunions, and we had an immediate sense of belonging.  Within weeks of moving in, we also realized that we landed on a street with some of the best neighbors possible.  (Oh, how we are going to miss all of you)  And although we didn’t have family nearby, our neighbors made this feel like Home!

Many moons ago!

In the four walls of our first home we finished our wedding Thank You notes, we finished our Masters degrees and we started and finished countless home projects.  We found the bottom of at least 25 paint cans (I’m not kidding, we’ve painted every square inch of this home).  We changed light bulbs, we changed flooring and we changed back splashes.

In eight years since signing on the dotted line so much has happened.  We found out we would be having a Girl and we brought her to this home.  Exactly 24 months later, we found out we would be having a Boy and we brought him to this home too.  We had long nights of feedings and fun days of playing!  Maternity leaves, dance parties & movie nights.  In our first home we watched our babies grow.   In our first home we became a family.

These four walls have watched us grow, and learn, and cry and laugh.  These four walls have held the most magical eight years of our lives and we are immensely sad to leave.  But waiting just 3 miles away is our new home.  Our forever home!!  It’s cozy & beautiful, and the house number is Denny’s former baseball number, #33, so that can only mean something good.

The new house has more room to play, and more room to grow (another bathroom sure helps too!).  But most importantly there is room for grandparents to stay and make memories with M & M.  Denny and I both grew up near our grandparents and we really cherished that and we want that experience for our kids.  So come on up Nana & Papa and Mamaw & PapPap!  Your grandparent suite (aka bedroom) awaits!

A new journey is about to begin & we are incredibly excited (and sad and anxious and honestly just cross-eyed from packing with 2 toddlers)!  It’s just a whole lotta emotions, people!  In just five days we get a new set of keys and a new set of neighbors (can we talk about how crazy it is that one of our new neighbors is an OU grad?!?)!

So here’s to inevitable chaos & overwhelming emotions that will ensue in the coming days.  Here’s to saying good-bye to one Home and saying hello to the next Home.  Here’s to new projects and new memories.  Here’s to knowing that what makes a home is not where you live, but where you Love.

See you at the new house!

xoxo

Erin

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CRAZY Proud of Mitchell!

March 21, 2017 by · Leave a Comment

Hello friends & Hello blog,

I’ve been missing you!  Today I was reminded just how lucky we are when I saw my Memories from one year ago today…  This is what was going on in our world just 365 days ago.  It was a really scary moment in time for us and I have been meaning to give a little update on our best little boy.

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TWO year check-up! Off the charts of cuteness. 🙂

Mitchell Dennis is now TWO and doing great!  We celebrated in January with a rockin party, Elmo style!

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He was Loving his favorite furry friend!

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HUG time!!

In just 365 days, Mitchell has really come a long way and we are SO proud of him!  I was reminded a few weeks ago during an Open Play at our favorite kid spot, Rolly Pollies.  Mitchell went in the bounce house and loved it!   He was bouncing with a bunch of other giddy toddlers, climbing up the ladder and whizzing down the slide. It was a proud moment.  I couldn’t help but think back to last spring when I was next to him in a similar bounce house and it all became too much for him… the other kids, the noise, the heat, the slide… his little body responded by shutting down and then going into a seizure.  We rushed him home, cooled him down and then he slept about 11 hours. He recovered by the next morning. Us, not so much. We were a wreck.

For most of 2016 we walked on eggshells.  Some days Mitchell would be completely fine, then other days he would experience 4-5 pass-out episodes in a 24 hour period with occasional seizures and an occasional hypoxic shock states.  The episodes would tire him out so much that we would have to drop everything and get him home so that he could nap it off.  Leaving the house seemed daunting.  The Cleveland Clinic kept telling us that he would be fine and that he would outgrow it, but we were still terrified.  He was our baby boy and we just couldn’t seem to keep him safe.

Then our pre-school suggested that we call for early intervention services (thank you Childrens Kastle!).   We had no idea that this existed so we did some research and set up his evaluation.  Given his challenges, he qualified.  It felt SO GREAT to actually have some control over a scary part of life… talk about a game changer!   Mitchell started working with up to 2 therapists a week to help him improve his coping skills as well as his verbal skills, and we have noticed some really positive changes!  His therapists are wonderful and gave us the analogy of a stop light… he’s good on green, and okay on yellow, but he’s not good on Red.  If he gets too overwhelmed or stressed on Red his body shuts down and it causes an episode.  So now we have a number of tools to use to help him avoid Red Light moments.  And it’s working!!

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Big Sis helps him to sloooow down when he gets to Red Light moments. Makenzie is such a good girl!

Perhaps he is improving because of his age, but I attribute a tremendous amount of his improvement to his team of therapists.  His confidence has grown substantially – way to go buddy!   And they have given us tools and wisdom to keep our little boy on Green.

So now, we are slowly getting back to regular life.  We might sign Mitchell up for toddler soccer this summer and we may even let him ride his trike without 54 layers of bubble wrap… or maybe not.  For those of you who know Denny, you know that he is Captain Safety.  🙂    But we’re definitely figuring out how to manage fear and still have fun.  He loves hanging out with his big sis and his big cousins and he will do anything to keep up with them!

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Buddies… Ry guy and Mitch Mitch!

 

Love!

We are absolutely counting our lucky stars, and I have a feeling this summer is going to be a good one.  Here’s to spring and here’s to hope!  For those of you going through tough days, just keep swimming!

The Littlest Love of my Life!

Lots of Love,

EM

 

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2016, I’ll miss seeing your smiling face around here!

January 2, 2017 by · Leave a Comment

Hello 2017!  The holiday season is over and here we are on the first night of a brand new year.

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Good byes can be hard!

It’s a fresh slate.  It’s the brink of opportunity for more happiness, more experiences & more fun.  But I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to say farewell to 2016.

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We kicked off the 2016 year with a little boy who turned ONE!

January 2016 – my baby is ONE!

There were balloons and cake and a sweet little baby who was barely a baby.  In the past twelve months, our not-so-baby Mitchell gained courage to walk and took off on a journey of fun & exploration.  He’s had highs & lows.  Trips to the park, trips around the block, and a trip to the Cleveland Clinic.   Twenty sixteen shed more light on his syncope and we’ve moved forward with confidence and a bright diagnosis knowing that he will simply outgrow these darn episodes.  He’s moved from the freshman room to the sophomore room at school, and he’s moved from a crawler to an energetic boy who loves Elmo, chocolate & lots of affection (but only of course when he’s not busy playing).  He adds laughter to our lives every single day!

Love!

In 2016, Makenzie Ruth turned FOUR and reminded us just how fast time flies (honestly, wasn’t she just born?).   The year brought her second dance recital, her first exposure to soccer and her continued love of all things related to the summertime!

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June 2016 – Dance recital song was Bushel & a Peck!

She fell in love with gymnastics during the Olympics and she fell in love with the thought of reading & writing during her days as a Senior at her school.   She’s sweet and lovable and someday wants to grow up and be a teacher.  Makenzie is an awesome big sister and 2017 might just be the year that she gets on the big yellow school bus and heads to kindergarten (insert sobs here).

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July 2016 – Being silly in Lake George

Twenty sixteen brought about fun & happiness, and frustration & challenges.  Twelve months with two toddlers included fevers, and urgent care trips and the unanswerable question of how do we balance it all?   Two careers and too little time.  There were late nights and early mornings.  There were wet beds and scary dreams.  There were many, many coffee cups and an occasional glass of wine.  Denny and I fought against never-ending laundry, cranky mealtimes and the expense of two in daycare.  But we also teamed up to ensure a really great vacation to Lake George, outings to every kid place in town, and a ride on the Polar Express.   There were cuddles and giggles and plenty of dance parties.  For me, 2016 brought me to a place of clarity after twelve months of postpartum emotions (more about that someday in another blog post).

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As an extended family, we said good-bye to my wonderful grandfather.  We said Hello to a beautiful foster baby girl.  And we said Thank You, God! when my sweet teenage cousin was given a new chance of life from a heart transplant.  All those involved were humbled by the beauty and wonderment of this journey called Life.

Another passing year made us aware of the struggles and heartaches in the world near and far, but it made us even more aware of the need to embrace the good that will always ultimately outweigh it.

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The good!

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A wise person once told me that if you went into a room with all strangers and everyone dropped their problems into a buckets, you would realize just how much you want your own problems back.  This thought has stuck with me ever since and I hope that we can all keep this in mind as we move forward and try to make 2017 our best year yet.   Imagine how much better our world would be if we could each be more compassionate and more understanding of those around us?

So I wish you and your families health & happiness & fun in 2017!  Cheers to the good and cheers to the bad for making us appreciate the good ever more.  Cheers to the memories of 2016 and the possibilities of 2017!

With Love,

Erin

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Turkey Day Ramblings… Put aside your differences and pass that wine!

November 24, 2016 by · Leave a Comment

Breathe in.  Breathe out.  Here we are America.  The Holiday season has begun.  It’s the eve of Thanksgiving.

The eve of commemorating the 1621 celebration at Plymouth in which the Pilgrims and the Puritans came together and broke bread.  They put aside differences.  They put aside conflicting thoughts.  They put aside potentially contradictory religious beliefs.  And they got the party started.  (Cue Black Eyed Peas, Let’s Get it Started).

They passed the potatoes and they poured the wine.  (And although the textbooks don’t mention it) I’m assuming that they then slipped into sweats and made some inappropriate memories over a game of Cards of Humanity.  It was the first Thanksgiving after all, right?

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Fast forward almost 400 years and I want to challenge everyone to get back to basics and get the party started.  Whether you believe in pant suits, or spray tans or neither…  Whether you believe that Bruce is a She or Caitlyn is a He….  Whether you believe in Crest or Colgate, Hunts or Heinz, mayo or miracle whip… Whether you think it’s more the fault of “Bran” or less the fault of “gelina.”  Whether you see the dress as gold and white, or blue and black…  Whether you like apple, or pumpkin or pecan pie… let’s do it up like the Pilgrims and Puritans did hundreds of years ago.

Let’s put aside what makes us different and focus on what makes us the same… the need to be thankful!

Let’s be thankful that being thankful is the common thread for all of us.  Let’s be thankful that we all have the right to be different.  Let’s be thankful for good friends and good family.  Let’s be thankful for Mean Girls and the burn book (because who doesn’t love that movie?).  Let’s be thankful that the bad days make us more grateful for the good days.  Let’s be thankful that our differences are what continue to make this country great.  Let’s put on our fat pants.  Let’s pour the wine.  Let’s make is a great Thanksgiving!

Friends, let’s Plymouth Rock this holiday!

Xoxo

Erin

PS  I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the two awesome kiddos of mine sweetly sleeping in their beds.  They make my heart incredibly grateful every single day!  I’m also thankful for coffee (obviously), a rockin husband, great family and friends, a really cool job and Amazon Prime.

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