Sometimes life gets in the way...In a good way!

Well, I have already broke my New Years resolution of updating my blog at least 3 times a week...What can I say, sometimes life gets in the way!

Things have been pretty good here! We took an amazing (but freezing) trip to Disney for Toby's birthday. This has honestly been one of my favorite trips! Olivia loved every minute of it as usual, but this time she really knew who all the characters were and was a total ham with them! I think in general the cold/rainy weather kept people away, which was totally fine with us! I am of course now starting to plan our "big" trip for the year for Olivia's birthday! This year she will be 3, so I am definitely planning on taking her to the Boutique for a princess makeover!

We have started potty training full time now! I am so excited and will be jumping for joy when we are finally done buying diapers!

One of my other new obsessions is saving money and couponing and rebating! It is SO addictive! My goal on each shopping trip is to save more money than I spend. I usually do this, unless it is a trip that I need to buy diapers or other necessary, but expensive items. We are saving so much money doing this, that it really does make it easier for me to continue to stay home with Olivia, which is important to all of us. It does take more time and planning to shop, but it honestly is worth it! My sister-in-law and I often shop together and make a bit of a game about it as well as calling each other multiple times a day to update good deals or coupons we find online.

Other than that, there really isn't too much going on around here, we are just enjoying our time together and watching Olivia grow up before our eyes!

Happy Birthday to my hubby...now let's go see Mickey!

Just wanted to get a quick post up before we leave this afternoon....for DISNEY!!! Today is my hubby's birthday (the big 24) and his request (though he will never admit it) was to go to Disney for a long weekend! I was of course more than happy to oblige! Our plan for this trip, is pretty much not to have one (totally opposite of my usual, super planned trips I know). All that we know is that we will be at MK Saturday night for Spectromagic and Wishes, and at DHS on Sunday night for Fantasmic. We are also going to try and so some new things and tour a few resorts so we can plan future trips. I am so excited for this trip, just some nice (cold-did I mention the highs are in the 30s and 40s?) family time!

I'm off to finish cleaning the house and packing!

From the mouth's of Babes....

Since we have another upcoming Disney trip (we leave on Friday actually!!!!), Olivia and I were sitting down discussing all of the characters we would see. We had gone through her favorites (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto and Chip). Since she is now more into the princess' we moved on to naming them. This is how the rest of the conversation went:

Me: "Cinderella"
Olivia: "Rella"

Me: "Belle"
Olivia: "Beww"

Me: "Aurora"
Olivia: "Rora"

Me: "Snow White"
Olivia: "Ho White"

Yep, she called a beautiful princess Ho White! After telling this story to a few friends, one of them said "well, she did live with 7 guys"!

Sometimes when Olivia is making me go crazy I just have to sit back and think of the things she does that make me crack up, and now this is definitely one of those things!

Happy New Year!

Well, I know I haven't been on in a while (I could blame it on a myriad of things, but let's just say that my blog got pushed to the back burner for a while).

One of my resolutions this year is to really keep up with this blog and update at least 3 times week (as long as my computer is working [I will be getting a new one next month!]).
A quick bit of updating:

• It's been so long since I updated that I now have a 2 year old!!! Olivia had a great birthday in a Minnie theme of course (complete with an AMAZING cake made by my mom).
• Our holiday season was quite nice. It was pretty low key. Olivia was in her first Christmas show this year! She sang in the pre-k choir to open the Living Christmas Tree show at church, as well as being in the first 3 scenes with her "stage parents". I was a bit nervous how she would act during it all, but she was great (and the cutest kid in the show in my opinion)!
• I have become addicted to couponing websites and saving as much money as I can! Toby is even impressed that most of our grocery store trips result in saving more than spending! It is my goal this year to save more than spend on at least 75% of shopping trips...we'll see how it goes!
• Toby's birthday is on Friday and he decided (much to my amazement and excitement) to go to Disney World for the weekend so that has been consuming much of my time this past week.

I think that sums up (quite quickly) the past few months! I am looking forward to this new year and everything it has to bring!

Weekend Recap

It was quite the busy weekend around here.

I should start by saying that last Tuesday (at about 11:00pm) our washer decided that that spin cycle was an optional thing. I went to removed the load of my DH's work clothes (which he so conveniently needed to be washed around 10pm) and..... they were swimming. *I should also mention that our washer decided to do the exact same thing, exactly 1 year ago.* Having no choice (and while saying quite a few "choice" words), I became a human water-extracting machine. After 30 minutes of wringing out 6 shirts, and 6 pairs of pants by hand, I now had to empty the pool of water from the washer....by hand of course. Did I forget to mention that I was now the proud owner of 3 blisters (how did the women in the olden times do it?)? By the time I finished the chore, it was after midnight and I was not a happy camper.

With that story told, fast forward to Saturday. Wake up extra early to go to church for 7:30 (yes 7:30AM!!) mass. Some of my grandmother's coworkers purchase the mass in my great grandmothers name ( she passed away about 7 months ago at the age of 100), so I felt obliged to attend. After mass I headed to dear old moms house to tackle the MOUNTAIN of laundry. I started at about 9:30 and 12 (yes 12) loads later I was finished and headed home around 6:00. I was exhausted and ready for bed by this time, but dinner had to be made, laundry had to be put away, and the house needed to be picked up a bit before I could hit the sack.

Sunday was just as busy. For some reason, Olivia decided to wake up at 4:15 (yes, 4:15AM) and play/talk to herself until 6:15! She finally went back to sleep but in no time it was the usual 7:15 wake up to get ready to work at church from 8:30-12:30. Right after work it was off to brunch at my sister in law's mother in law's (confusing I know...). We went right to work getting things ready for my nieces upcoming, Halloween themed birthday party. Organizing an ENTIRE ROOM of Halloween stuff-check. Decorating the backyard-check. Decorate the front yard-check. Find costumes for DH and myself-check. Finish Olivia's costume-check. After all that, it was back to work at church for evening service. So what did I do at church you ask? Decorate our room for fall of course! After work, I headed home, gave Olivia a bath, put her to bed, took a nice hot shower and curled up with a book!

Now I am sitting here for a nice, calm, laid back week (and a repaired washer). I am also hoping to hear one way or another about the Mom's Panel....the waiting is killing me!!! Hoping everyone has a great week!

Here's a sneak peek at Olivia's costume...100% custom made!:

Back to Disney!!!

As the title indicates....WE ARE GOING BACK TO DISNEY!!! It just for a quick day trip, but a trip is a trip! Our niece turns 11 tomorrow so we are surprising her for a day at the park of her choice.

The plan is to call her right after she gets up to say Happy Birthday, and then casually ask if she would like to go to Disney for the day! I love doing surprise trips, and cannot wait until Olivia is old enough for me to surprise! I am secretly hoping she will choose DHS because when I go with my hubby he will not ride the good rides: Tower of Terror, RnRC... and she has never been there before so I think she will have a blast! It really will be her choice though...not like any Disney park is bad-it is all a win win situation!

Now the crummy part: I have been waiting almost a month to hear about making it to the next round of the Mom's Panel...and everyone seems to think that tomorrow will be the day the emails will be sent out! I will definitely be going crazy without being able to check my email and the Disboards until we get home tomorrow night!!!!!! I will be crossing my fingers all day, hoping for good news...what would be a better way to top off a Disney day?!

I'm off to finish up some last minute bag packing and then hitting the sack and hoping for a few hours sleep!

Well, we got back from the most amazing Disney trip yet, late Tuesday night and I am still exhausted!!!! Olivia was AMAZINGLY well behaved and only had one very minor meltdown (if you can even call it that), and she was so into everything we did! I will post a full trip report in the next few days (as soon as I finish unpacking everything.....)!

In other news (yes I know it is hard to believe that there is news in my life that is not related to Disney), Olivia had a follow up appointment at the doctor on Wednesday to make sure her, ear infections, strep throat, sinus infection and bronchitis cleared up after the course of antibiotics. Well, the left ear is still "horribly infected" (to quote the doctor), so she put Olivia on a stronger antibiotic (which of course gives her horrible diarrhea) and says if it isn't cleared up at her two week follow up we will have to start talking about tubes. Ughh. After everything we went through with Olivia being a preemie, I don't know how I will handle a surgery... Then after the surgery talk, she asks what kind of pets we have at home. None. Well then she is allergic to something because her eyes have shiners, she is a bit wheezy, and her nose is a combination of runny and stuffy all at the same time. So now she is also on an allergy medicine. Ughh. On the positive side, the allergy meds seem to be working b/c she is not wheezy and her nose is much better. I am crossing my fingers, toes (and anything else I can cross) that the ear infection will clear up so we don't have to do surgery!

Here is a quick pic from Disney....TONS more to come!