Fried Rice and Ice Cream for a Birthday Celebration!

Well, hello there blog world. This may be the longest time I’ve been away. I know I posted a few weeks ago about my conviction not to spend so much time on the computer posting and reading blogs. It’s been good to take a bit of a break, but I am so glad to be back!! I’ve got a lot to update so stay tuned these next few weeks! :)

2 weeks ago we traveled down to Tampa to visit David’s older brother, Ryan, and sis-in-law, Missy, for her 28th birthday. I must admit, I do like living in Gainesville where it is close enough to make visits to Tampa like that, but it’s also far enough away so that David and I can have our own life. An hour drive might be a little better, but 2 hours isn’t too bad either.

Ryan and Missy love Sushi. It’s their thing. For as long as I can remember, Ryan and Missy were always taking their date nights to a Sushi Bar. So, what did Missy want to do for her birthday? Eat Sushi of course! :)

David and I are not too keen on Sushi, but we were in for a treat! We have only been out for Sushi once in all of our dating and married years. I guess when I think of Sushi, I think of raw fish wrapped in cold sea weed and that does NOT sound appetizing to me at all! However, there is a whole different Sushi realm out there – and it’s delicious!

Our meal started with some Crab Rangoon. YUM! It was probably the BEST Crab Rangoon I have ever had! Then, we each had some Miso Soup and Ginger Salad – to die for!! And, finally, the Sushi arrived. We ordered Florida Rolls which had cooked crab and shrimp, rolled in white rice, cream cheese, and guacamole, wrapped in some cooked noodle like texture. OH. MY. GLORIOUSNESS. Ryan and Missy may have made Sushi eaters out of us! :)

However, the best part of all was watching Cori Belle eat. My mother-in-law ordered chicken fried rice for her meal instead of Sushi so she could share with Cori. It was probably the BEST chicken fried rice I have ever tasted. Did I say that earlier about something else?!?! :) Cori literally ate 5 bowls of it and was shoveling every piece into her mouth. At one point the bowl was empty and she picked it up to try to lick it clean. HA! My child does love to eat!!

 

 

No birthday party is complete without some birthday desert. The restaurant brought out Green Tea Ice Cream with Sushi like cheesecake wraps all around it. Those wraps were delicious! Cori really liked the ice cream and her Aunt Jamie allowed her to eat almost all of it! She probably had the worst tummy ache after all that fried rice and ice cream!! But, she was the happiest little girl on the block!

 

 

I’m so glad we got to celebrate Missy’s 28th birthday with her! It was such a fun time with some outstanding food! Can’t wait to do it again! :)

 

What I love about you … week 44, 45, & 46

 

week 44, 45, & 46

Oh, how I have been slacking these last few weeks!!

(Pardon the similarity in pictures from the last post to this one!)

I LOVE …

• Snuggling with you! When I’m holding you, all I have to say is “snuggle” and you instantly rest your head against my chest or on my shoulder to snuggle with me. My heart melts!!
• That you give unsolicited kisses all the time!!
• That you are eating more and more table food .. pasta, peas, green beans, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cheerios, crackers, french fries, skinless grapes, oranges!! You even tried little pieces of chicken from Chik-fil-a the other day and loved it!!

• That you know where your head and tummy are!

• 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• That you are a great clapper!

• Seeing you wave. You have two different kinds of waving – opening and closing your hand, and a regular wave.
• What a good listener you are. You respond quickly to a simple “no, no” and my “what do you think you are doing” look. I hope you are always this obedient! :)
• Taking you to the play area in the mall and seeing you explore!
• Praying with you before meals. We sing a song that goes to the tune of Farashaka. “Thank you God, thank you God. For our food, for our food. And our many blessings, and our many blessings. Amen, amen.”
• That you dance to music!  You sway back and forth. It’s so cute!!
• Watching you take things out of baskets and seeing you PUT THEM BACK IN!! :)
• How good you are at drinking out of your sippy cup.
• How you sit to play with both legs tucked underneath you.
• Watching you feed yourself in your high chair!
• Hearing you say MAMA, and DADA!!

There are so many things I love about you and I hope you know just how loved you are!! :)

Love,

Mom

Tiny Tot School

~CB is currently 10.5 months old~

I know, it sure has been a while since I’ve done a Tot School post! We’ve definitely been doing Tot School around our house and CB is learning new skills! As she approaches ONE next month I am excited to have a little more structure and hope to get a lot of Tot School related items for her birthday and Christmas!! :)

CB played a bunch with her Poppin’ Pals. This week we specifically worked on popping the animals out. She is very consistent at pushing the green circle to pop open the panda (as you can see in these pictures) and she even turned the yellow knob to pop out lion (wahoo!!). She claps for herself every time! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CB also played with her shape sorter and watched intensely as I showed her how to put the shapes into the sorter. By the end of the week she was able to (almost) put the shapes in. I would cover all the other holes and give her the sorter with the open hole. She would place it there, but then needed my help to get it in. Oh, how I love learning time!! :)

~Life (FUN) School~

I debated on whether or not to put these pictures in the Tot School post or the “What I love about you” post I will get up tomorrow… She is learning in them, but I do LOVE these things about her so much! So, you may see these same pics up again tomorrow! :)

CB is eating crackers now!! Real person crackers, not dissolvable baby crackers!! I just can’t believe it! She munches on them with her two bottom teeth. I just LOVE it!!

 

We’ve been reading Shake a Leg (it was in the last Tot School post) and in it, all the Sesame Street characters practice different movements. Two of them are “pat your head” and “rub you tummy.” So, we’ve been practicing! Check it out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then, afterwards, she claps!! YAY!!!

 

~Mom’s Favorite~

Just look at that cute little girl! I love the way she is sitting! I could just eat her up!

Road Trip!

This past weekend Cori and I took our first girls road trip. On Sunday morning around 6:45 am, Cori and I loaded up the car and headed south for Coral Springs to visit one my very best friends from high school. It’s about a 5 hour drive from Gainesville to Coral Springs so we had some designated stops along the way. On our way down, we stopped at Super Target in Orlando for some Starbucks for me and some breakfast for Cori. YUM for both of us! :) It was a much needed stop to make it the rest of the way. Cori was quite the cutie as we sat in the Starbucks in Target in her fleece PJ’s and beanie. She somehow got shopper after shopper to stop and talk to her!

After our breakfast stop, we drove 2 more hours where we stopped for gas and a bathroom break. Then, we finished out our trip of 6 total traveling hours. Cori was amazing in the car and I was SO thankful!! :)

You see, Ashley, my friend from high school, just had a sweet baby boy (Lochlan Michael) about 5 weeks ago and Cori and I couldn’t think of anything more fun than to drive down to meet him! He is absolutely precious – as all newborns are! Looking at him reminded me of Cori at that age, which is so easy to forget. It feels like yesterday we brought her home from the hospital and now she is 10 months old. Where does the time go!?!?

Upon arrival, Ashley, Lochlan, Cori and I headed out for some much needed lunch at a restaurant called Cheddars. It was delicious! Then, it was back to the house for a Premier Jewelry Party! That’s right… no visit would be complete without a jewelry party! :) Let me just say that Ashley got $434.00 in FREE JEWELRY!!! (Anyone want to book a party?? Just let me know!! .. Just to get a quick plug in there! Ha! :)

On Monday, we decided we need to get OUT of the house with the kiddos so we headed to the Sawgrass Mall, which is one of the largest outlet malls with all the best stores! I snagged a super cute Banana sweater for $25.00. Score!

We also spent Monday getting Mr. Lochlan on a 3 hour feeding schedule. I must say, it was so fun for me to be able to help with the crazy scheduling of a newborn. I am a BIG advocate of the “eat, wake, sleep and repeat every 3 hours” schedule. I’m also an advocate of SWADDLING and Mr. Lochlan definitely benefitted from that! I remember swaddling Cori and how it literally worked as a signal for sleep. Every time I started swaddling her she would instantly relax and close her eyes. She just knew. After a few swaddles, it worked for Lochlan too. Wahoo!! It was so sweet holding a newborn again! Cori had fun checking him out too. :)

On Tuesday, it was time for me to head back to Gainesville. As we were packing up I realized that we didn’t take ANY pictures of our time together. I guess we were just having too much fun catching up that I didn’t even have time to think about the camera! So, before I loaded Cori in the car, we sat her and Lochlan on the couch to snap a quick photo. It only took 5 tries to get this one! Ha! Look at how BIG Cori looks next to him!! But, look how sweet they are together!! :)

 

We had a great time!! Thanks for having us, Ashley! We’d love to have you in Gainesville anytime!! :)

Baby it’s cold outside!

Our first taste of cold weather here in Florida started Friday. I must say it felt good to get the jackets out! Although, I’m not sure how long it will actually last! I did get some sweet pictures of Cori Belle all bundled up and I wanted to share them! How cute is she?!?! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween!

Hey there blogger world! So, one week later, I’m finally getting my Halloween post up! :) I feel like we celebrated Halloween the whole month! Only because CB seemed to have worn her Tinkerbelle costume almost every weekend for some sort of event! We certainly got our monies worth out of that costume!!

We started the month with the purchase of a HUGE pumpkin. Dave was so excited to pick out a pumpkin this year to carve. He was even more excited when he paid 8 dollars the the biggest pumpkin we’ve ever had. So excited, that he wanted to carve it right away. I’m sure you know how that turned out – having to throw it away after only one week of it sitting at our doorstep! Dave was NOT happy about that!! Here is his work station all set up…

And, here he was with his finished product. Proud pumpkin carver! Great job honey!!

 

Dressing up for Halloween started back on Oct 15th  for our friends Pumpkin Party. I already posted about that, but here’s one more picture of my sweet Tink!

 

The following weekend, we dressed up for Oktoberfest down in the Haile Village. Cori got to watch her first dance performance that night. She was very impressed. Every year a local dance studio puts on a Thriller performance in the street of the Village. They perform every 30 minutes for a few hours throughout the night. I put Cori on my shoulders for her to watch and she seemed to really like it. The dancers do a stellar job!

Cori certainly got some good use out of her costume that night as she crawled around in the street chasing around a water bottle! :) Her poor tights were ruined! Thankfully, I had a spare pair at home!

Then, the Friday before Halloween, we went trick-or-treating with our friends Willie and Annabelle in Williston. The whole town basically shut down for all the kiddies to trick-or-treat. It was such a fun time! Willie was a dinosaur and Annabelle was a pumpkin. They were the cutest set of trick-or-treaters I have ever seen! :) Here are the 3 of them all posed on the step with Mrs. Lauren (our first stop for some good ‘ole trick-or-treating!)

 

After that, we hit up a few more houses… Here is Cori walking up to the front door with her daddy and her treat bag. She was so excited!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whatever Annabelle was doing, looked super fun!! :)

 

Here is Tink and Pumpkin scoring some candy at our next stop!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ended our trick-or-treating with one good family picture, before heading to the Ivy House for dinner!

 

During dinner, CB enjoyed a jolly-rancher (HA!) and Annabelle was checking out the sweeteners! Both of these pictures crack me up every time!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cori wore her costume one last time as we headed to a Resident dinner on Halloween. Our whole family dressed up as Peter Pan and Family!

Peter Pan, Tink, and Wendy

Cori did meet another fairy friend who spent some time teaching her how to play the piano. It was so sweet! And, look.. she finally kept her wings on!! :)

 

It sure was an eventful month for us! I hope everyone enjoyed October as much as we did! :) Until next time…

Thoughts on a page…

It’s been 3 days since I’ve blogged. I know, that’s unheard of for me, right?!? It’s actually been stressing me out!! In my mind I keep thinking that I have a Tot School post that needs to go up, a What I Love About  You post that needs to go up, a Halloween post that needs to go up, etc, etc, etc!! A girl can’t help but feel overwhelmed!!

Today, I opened my bible for some time in the word and what did I read about - Self Control! Proverbs 25:28 states, a man (women in my case!) who lacks self control is like a city whose walls are broken down. Walls around a city are protection for that city. Self control for us, is our wall of protection. We must be disciplined so we can be protected. Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 6:12, Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Oh, how I needed to hear that!

That’s where this blog post comes in. The opposite of self control in my world at the moment is wasting time (ahem, on the computer) and blogging. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with blogging. It’s my form of scrapbooking and keeping a record of my life. But, when blogging becomes sort of an idol, we are lacking in our own self control .. and that’s where the holy spirit must do some convicting in our life. I love publishing a new blog and I love doing it often!! It doesn’t mean more people read my blog because I post often, I just like putting up a new post as much as I can. Why? I guess it’s some sort of pride issue. Help me Lord!

So what does that mean, and why am I blogging about it?!?! Ha, good question! Of course I’m going to continue to blog, but you may not see a post every single day, and if I happen to miss a post like Tot School, I’m not going to stress about it! I’ll either get to it when I get to it, or I’ll get to it the following week! My number one priority right now must be on my child. There is a problem when she is playing by herself just so I can post a “necessary” blog. So, when she is napping (like right now!!) blogging is something I like to do, but when she is awake, self control must take over and all my attention needs to be focused on her! The same thing goes when my husband is home. There have been nights when he is ready to go to bed and I so selfishly say, “Honey, I NEED to get this post up before bed. I’ll be there in a few.” Jesus, help me! When words like that come out of my mouth, I’m basically saying to him that blogging is more important than he is. Honey, I’m sorry!

I don’t know what your lack of discipline or self control looks like, but I have just explained what mine looks like. Ouch! Thank you, God for the Holy Spirit who convicts us to change our ways. The author of a bible study I am doing stated, “Conviction is the feeling of discomfort or guilt we feel over a sin.” I had never heard conviction defined that way, but I think it’s a wonderful definition. I am convicted not to let blogging consume my life – posting or reading. I can certainly get carried away reading other people’s blogs too.

God has given you all you need for life and godliness – 2 Peter 1:3. Praying for all of you today to be filled with self control!

Much Love!

Danielle