Happy New Year (warning: picture heavy!)

I can't believe it's 2015! Obviously things have been busy as I haven't been posting at all. Here's a little bit of what we've been up to:

This little guy was sick off and on. But didn't mind going to the doctor's office because he got lolipops and stickers! Well that's one way to get them through it!

Hanging out on Redskin Sundays with our cousin. The Redskins had a HORRIBLE season so we mostly skipped watching the games and just hung out.

We celebrated (and hosted!) Thanksgiving with family and friends:

My little kitchen helper!

And celebrated a wonderful, magical Christmas. For the holidays we spent the weekend before Christmas with my family and the weekend after with Sean's. This means we had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with just the three of us! And it was awesome.

Then for New Years my parents were gracious enough to babysit Conrad for THREE NIGHTS so Sean and I could get away to Deep Creek Lake with friends. It was an amazing, relaxing, fun time in a beautiful house we all rented:

This was an awesome holiday season that I won't quickly forget and I'm so looking forward to what this New Year brings.

Feels Like Fall

I never knew that would miss summer so much until I had a toddler. I used to bemoan the heat and humidity and wish for fall but now that the cooler air is coming round, I'm so sad to see summer go. We had a great summertime routine: after work I would pick up Conrad and we'd go to the stream, walk through the neighborhood on his tricycle, go for wagon rides or runs in the jogger, go to the library or for ice cream. Now I have to find some fun indoor activities! Even though the weather is getting cooler, we still had some time to fit in some last outdoor fun times.

Pumkin Patch with Nana, PopPop, Cousin Brayden, and Aunt Sissy: My sister and I used to go here every year as kids! It was awesome to be able to bring our own sons here as well.

Our Hometown Summer Fun

Every spring and summer our town hosts live music every Friday night. It's a great time for all because we can walk there with friends and neighbors, listen to great music, have a couple beers, let the littles run around, and walk home. It's a great family-fun way to kick off every weekend.

Beach Baby Round 2!

This year's beach experience was SO MUCH BETTER than last year's! Conrad loved, loved, loved the sand, the ocean, the pool, and hanging with his family. It made things so much easier and more enjoyable! Once again, we are such a blessed family to have my wonderful in-laws around to help and provide us with this family vacation. Here's just a little recap:

Loved the sand!

Conrad and Big Pa

Cousin time!

Loved the water

Love his Me-Maw!

This litle fish!

My dinner date

Family happy hour

The Span of 83 Years

Last month my sweet grandmother, affectionately called "Gampi" by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, passed away. At 83 years old, she had lived quite a life. 5 children, 8 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren. She moved 10+ times as a Naval Captain's wife (his true "commander"!), hosted countless parties, holidays, and dinners, was Cotton Queen (she hailed from Memphis, so of course!), and taught her legacy countless life lessons.

She taught us how to ice skate

She taught us how to set a proper table

How to make the best martini ever

She taught us how to accessorize...we loved playing dress up

Speak softly but carry a big stick

How to polish silver in record time

She taught us how to speak English properly...and reminded us over and over

How to drive stick...on her huge truck of a diesel Mercedes no less

She taught us how to lose gracefully...while planning your next attack

All the "yes m'am" and "no sir's" you could imagine

She taught me how to knit. All I know is how to knit a scarf, but it's something!

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all

She taught us how to enjoy Big Band; I still have my radio set to one of these stations


While our family is extremely heart broken by the loss of such a small, strong, woman, she left us with thousands of great memories:


Crabbing off their boat on the Chesapeake

Going to dinner theaters and musicals

Paddle boating on the water at Sandy Point park

Making sure the "breakfast fairies" left us breakfast whenever we spent the night. I later learned this was so we could feed ourselves so we wouldn't wake her up in the morning - smart lady!

Swimming in their pool and then relaxing afterwards on the porch hammock eating watermelon

Researching our family genealogy and hearing stories and seeing pictures of all our ancestors

Baking cookies - snickerdoodles were our favorites!

Going to Navy football games at the Academy

Christmas mornings and her white frosted Christmas tree

There are so many more that they would take another lifetime to re-live. I hope she is looking down on us now and smiling proudly at those she left behind and I hope to make her proud each and every day until I can see her again.

Sunday Not Funday

So like all good things, our vacation had to come to an end last week. It went by WAAAAAYY too fast. And let me tell you - beach trips with baby are VERY different than beach trips without. It was prettyrelaxing, thanks in large part to my amazing mother-in-law, and taking care of a baby at the beach is better than working all day and coming home to take care of baby; however, still not the same. I'll post some pictures after I upload them.

Knowing you have to work on Mondays do not make Sundays very fun. Especially on days like today where Sean was gone practically the whole day to a Nats game so I was alone with Conrad ALL DAY - I don't know how you stay at home moms do it, IT'S HARD. And did I mention he has been teething and a straight up B-RAT the past week? I LOVE LOVE LOVE my kid so much but sometimes he drives me straight up the wall. I feel like sometimes the only way he's happy is if he's eating. Hence, these pictures:

Mmm...Bananas!

 

Nom Nom Nom

Trying some watermelon

 
 

Yummmm!

Feed me and I'm happy!

It's a tough job but someone's got to do it