Every Day Is Worth Celebrating

I love holidays. I begin the countdown to my birthday months before the date. But not just my birthdays, either. I like the anticipation, the decorating, the planning and the excuse to celebrate birthday and holidays. I always have. And now that I have a family of my own, I like it even more- as we establish our own traditions and celebrations. 

We started this year out on a sick note. My husband was sick on New Years Day, when we planned to get out snowshoeing as a family for the first time.  As he was down and out my little girl and I did other things together and we later went out snowshoeing as a family.

Then came my birthday weekend, where we intended to celebrate with Sushi at a fave out of town restaurant. Again, my husband was sick. We still celebrated, just not the day we expected to.

Then came my husband's birthday, which found me in the first trimester of this pregnancy. Usually very organized, I had not been feeling well, and I ordered his present the day before his birthday (custom ordered beer glasses with his name on them), which had to be made then shipped, so needless to say he did not get his gift on time. And I slept most of the day.

Then came Easter. Although we were not sick, we were exhausted. So we cancelled our plans to go out of town to see family and instead, stayed home and rested. 

Our little girl turned three and we planned a friends party and a family party for her. We were so excited to have her cousins spend her birthday with her (this would have been a first!) and had to cancel her family party because she got the flu. She was too sick to even care.

Mother's Day arrived and we travelled to Michigan as a family. I made sure to point out this was the first holiday this year that we were all healthy and things went as planned! This was a turning point for us!! 

I spoke too soon. Father's Day was this last weekend and I got sick. So instead of making the day special for Dad, he steps up to do more than his share in taking care of our little girl and me. I slept most of the day as we travelled home from visiting friends and promptly went to sleep upon arriving home. We never gave Daddy his Father's Day gift that our little girl and I worked so hard on. I do recall eeking out a "Happy Father's Day" greeting during the few times I was awake and did accompany my family to dinner and dessert, although I was as much fun as a bump on a log. Not exactly my usual festive self. I did manage to take a couple of pictures on Father's Day..

And a few from last week, when Daddy took our little girl kayaking. And adventure they both enjoyed.

And although we are not losing sleep over it, as the Best Laid Plans are those that do not go as planned, we also make a point to celebrate EVERY SINGLE DAY. We don't save our good silverware for special holidays, we use it every day. We don't wait for weekends to have adventures, we can do those in the weekday evenings too. We don't wait for holidays to make gifts and show appreciation to those we care about, we do that other times as well. Our little girl wears her Christmas dress to school on a regular Monday and we have lunch dates just because. 

Because every day is worth celebrating. 

~Angela

Color splash run

After running the Color Run last year with my little girl, I was excited that our small town decided to host one. Better yet, my husband sponsored, planned and volunteered at the event and it supported two organizations our family cares much about: the Boys and Girls Club and Lions Club. Win, win!



My little girl remembered the Color Run from last year and has been excited for weeks, as she has accompanied her Daddy to the Color Splash planning meetings and reminded me often “I need new running shoes, Mom!”

After running a mile the week before in a kids race for another fundraising run, I was optimistic she could do that again so I left the jogging stroller at the 1.2 mile part of the course for when I anticipated she would get tired.
We walked/ran 1.5 miles (until pushing an empty stroller and holding my little girl’s hand got to be too much awkward bending for me).

Then I put her in the stroller, much to her protest, until she started yelling “Mom! Faster! I see more color!!!”


We had a lot of fun together. She and I guessed the color that we would be sprayed with at each color station (she was right 4 out of 5 times; I got none right) and our favorite station was where Daddy was, spraying us with pink!!












We ditched the stroller at the end so she could run through the finish and get more color on her own.








My husband was among MANY volunteers that helped make this race a success. Although we travel all over to participate in runs, it was fun to see our friends and neighbors volunteering at the Color Stations. Bonus was that the event was sold out, all 600 spots were full, and the event raised over $14,000 for two organizations that do a lot to help in our community. And it got a whole new group of people excited about being active.

I’ve been running for years and enjoy the stress relief, camaraderie, health benefits and post-run high that running brings. I get emotional thinking of how big of a part of my life running has been. There was the time I broke the school record in track and the friends I made in cross country in high school that I am still close with today. There are the numerous races and only marathon I ran with my family cheering me on, the friends that helped me train and brought me post-race gifts. There was the time I did my first race with my (now) husband, the pride I had when my husband qualified for and then ran the Boston Marathon, my family’s tradition of a Thanksgiving Day Run in costume. And pushing my little girl in her stroller on training runs in all types of weather, until now, she can run on her own. Running is a big part of our family’s life.

At 6 months pregnant, I’m having tailbone pain and I am hanging up my running shoes for now. I’ve shed a couple tears about this, as I will miss the Color Run with my family and friends this summer, my favorite local races and going on casual runs (my Friday morning tradition), pushing my daughter in the stroller. My daughter who know has become my trusty running partner/trainer, is always good for a “faster, mom!!!” even when I am already running my absolute fastest.
But I have realized a couple of things too- like when I had a stress fracture and could not run for a few months- this too shall pass. This is temporary. There are a lot of things I can still do- I can cheer on my family, take photos and be a superfan on the sidelines of the runs they will continue to do. I can still go for walks, go biking and swimming. And rest is something my body (and the baby inside of me) needs. So it’s for a good reason. And listening to my body rather than pushing myself, is the right choice for both of us.

~Angela

Bloom: A Tutorial

I have mentioned before that I like to change out my decor frequently so I am hesitant to spend a lot of money on accessories unless I know I will have it forever. I found this 12 X 12 simple frame at Michaels for $14.99 (plus I had a 40% off coupon so it was even cheaper!!) and put it in my entry. I thought I could change what is in the frame periodically and easily, but right now I am in spring mode.

Here is how I made the sign:

I had these letters on hand, leftover from a scrapbooking project. There were no vowels left in the set, so it was great to use up the leftover odd letters.

I used spray adhesive and glitter to cover the red letters so they would match the pink scrapbook paper I was using as sa background.

I glued on flowers and a button in place of the letters. This took the longest - deciding which two buttons to use.

This project literally took me 10 minutes to make. I love projects like this (quick, easy and finished product is just as expected).

~Angela

READ letters

I bought these letters to decorate the nursery. Since the room remains mostly unchanged after my daughter moved to her big girl room, I wanted to make something that was specifically for the new baby. I put the letters above the chair in the nursery, where I anticipate reading many books to my new little one.
Although this was an easy project, it was rather time consuming.
Materials:
Cardboard letters- any word would work! (wood letters may have worked better as the cardboard surfaces are not flat, therefore creating small bubbles)
Paint
ModPodge
Scrapbook paper ( I noticed the thicker paper did not bubble as much or tear as easily when trimmed so I would recommend that)
Exacto Knife and cutting mat
I painted the back and sides of the letter a color that all matched- it took 3 coats of paint.
Then I modpdged the paper to the cardboard and smoothed it out dry, then cut off the excess paper.
Coat the entire surface in Modpdge.
Done.
I am on the board for our local library and co-chairing a fundraiser so I made another set that will be auctioned off at the silent auction.
These are the two sets I made. I opted not to have matching paper since the side color is visible and tied everything together.







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wedding Vows displayed

Since my husband and I wrote our own wedding vows, I've been trying to think for years (we've been married over 7 years, so it's about time I figured something out!) of a way to preserve them and display them so we can see them on a daily basis. I still mean every word of the vows I wrote today and they are a reminder of what is important.









I used picmonkey which is a free online tool to upload a photos, then completely whited out the photos so I could type the text onto the white background. Then I saved the file as a .jpg to my computer to uploaded to Walgreens.com and had the vows printed on canvas. Walgreens also framed the canvases for me. I LOVE how they turned out.




I love seeing these every day.  And I still mean every word of those vows.
~Angela