Party snippets

Pictures from Kavi's 3rd birthday party last Sunday.

Thomas the Train cake and hats! He had a blast driving his new truck with the other kids, and let other kids take turns driving too. Thankfully the weather was decent. It had rained all day Saturday and then later on in the day on Sunday, but the rain held back during the party. It rained again most of yesterday.

P.S.

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes!!

P.S.S

Two weeks from today=leaving for India! ahhh still have to buy some things in preparation. I am actually getting excited about the trip now! Praise the Lord. I think it will be a fun trip - one of my sis in laws will be getting married while we are there!

Birthday Pictures

I missed my vintage post yesterday! The day got away from me. I was cleaning and then not having my laptop to use makes putting pictures on here take longer.

And today we are bummed out because it's Kavi's 3rd birthday party on Sunday, and my mom, dad, sister Jenny, and friend Rachel were supposed to be driving down from AL today to visit for the weekend. But sadly, my dad got sick and Jenny and Rachel didn't feel completely well either. So they can't come. There has been a stomach virus going around up there, probably everywhere! I wonder, can we really escape it?

We will still have a lot of people over for Kavi's party, but it won't be the same without my immediate family. Boooo! :(

Here are pictures from Kavi's actual birthday on Tuesday, his present, his little cake, etc.

Blindfolded him for his present..."truck!"

wow...When my husband first showed him where to push to accelerate, Kavi was very nervous and said he wanted to go back inside! That's after months of him seeing these power wheels in the stores saying he wants one! But after five minutes, he got used to it and then was driving without help!

A big piece of chocolate cakemmmmm...

We are going to have a big Thomas the Train cake at his party. He loves Thomas!

Guess who's 3 years old now?

Kavi is!

Today is his birthday!!! Here's a little walk down memory lane...

Newborn

One year old!

Two!

Last picture taken yesterday, almost three! We put together his cardboard house that you can color on(bought by my parents awhile ago, we only now put it together!). Last day of being 2!
I don't have a picture of him today to upload yet but he looks the same as yesterday. :P I wil be taking pictures today though! He is about to go see his surprise present from us. (It's a power wheels car/truck to drive around!) Just waiting on my husband to finish assembling the pieces before we show Kavi.

Weekend Plans

Clearwater Beach Lightning

Originally uploaded by rocketman 2007

We were thinking of going to Clearwater Beach yesterday to go swimming. We have not gone swimming in the ocean in a really long time. Kavi never has. He has walked knee deep in the ocean when we went to see sunsets at a local beach, but we didn't swim.

But the weather didn't cooperate! There was a high chance of rain in the afternoon, so we decided not to risk making the hour and half long drive to the beach. This picture above I found on Flickr of the beach I am talking about, during a storm. This beach is on the Gulf of Mexico(we live on the west coast of Florida).

A little side story...when I was a teenager we would make the drive down to this beach once in awhile. One time we went down, it was sunny for part of the day and then the afternoon storm clouds rolled in. We ran for cover, which is sort of funny since you are still in a bathing suit that is meant to get wet, but the lightning can be dangerous. We sought cover for a short while before leaving. In the water in the distance there was a water spout. Scary! A distant column of spinning water going from the ocean to the clouds. I am glad it didn't get too close to the beach.

Back to yesterday - since we couldn't go to the beach we drove to Tampa instead and went to a mall and ate at Johnny Rocket's burger place. Today I don't think we are doing anything. Tomorrow, I plan to check out some stores.

Anyone have plans for this weekend they'd like to share?

Back on track

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned my goal for losing weight this year before I turn 30 years old. It's not an unattainable, outrageous goal. I would just need to lose about 6 lbs a month to reach it now, because my birthday is exactly 5 months from today! I got out of the exercise routine because of going to India, coming home exhausted, and then being busy for a couple weeks after that. I had actually lost a little more weight while in India because the meals are just healthier in general. But once back here, it balanced back out(or up perhaps? hehe).

I finally added more exercise to my life again last week and have done it this week so far as well. I plan to do it at least 5 days a week. That is what really helped me in the past.
Two days down this week. Three to go! I go on my exercise bike and sometimes do a couple other things after that like random jumping jacks and squats. I also wrote down what I ate the past two days and the calories if they were available.

Last night I wasn't sure if I was going to exercise. I didn't feel like it and felt like my night was too busy already. We watched the movie Avatar finally!! We kept having to pause it though, then put our son to bed, then he woke up later on, and it was just a big thing with trying to get him to sleep again. Then I also wanted to watch American Idol and see the last hour of The Biggest Loser. I tell ya it's too many things to watch at once, and I don't have DVR!! I decided while watching The Biggest Loser that I needed to exercise afterall, so I did while watching some of it. I just couldn't hear it well because my exdercise bike is loud and old and could die at any time. I had gotten it off of Craigslist a few years ago for like $10. Anyway, we finally finished watching Avatar around 10:30pm(we had started it at around 5:20pm!!!). And I felt happy that I exercised too. I liked the movie a lot by the way! I wish I could have seen it in a theater and in 3D.

Oh check out this vintage ad!! I love it! hahaha

Yeah, that's right!

India Trip Planning

We finally bought our flight tickets for visiting India. We are leaving March 24th and arriving back on April 13th. That is almost 3 weeks, a pretty long time! Our purpose for going is visiting my husband's family. We were there about a year ago so they could meet Kavi. That trip was only about 12 days total including travel, so this time we get to go longer since my husband had enough vacation time saved up at work. We will stay again at my in-laws "flat" an hour or so outside of the city of Mumbai.

Our estimated traveling time on the way there is about 22 hours, and on the way home about 24 hours. We fly from our airport in Tampa to NJ. Then straight from NJ to Mumbai, India! That's a long, 14 hr+ direct flight. I don't really like flying, but I always make it. hehe. I don't like turbulence!!

After our trip last year I wrote an entry on my other blog(that I never update anymore!). So if you would like to read about it, click here. :) I will share pictures from last year's trip before we go too.

Edited to add one picture.
Me on the last trip, wearing
Indian style clothing.

Right in my own backyard.

Before my son was old enough to be able to run around outside, we took our backyard for granted. We rarely went back there. We have a front screened in porch that we would sit in if we wanted to be outside. We also have a back porch that we never sat in, and still don't. We use it to walk through to get outside to the backyard and it needs some help! It's the forsaken porch. (In case anyone reading doesn't know or remember, we are in Florida.)

On Monday I took some pictures of trees, trying to appreciate what's right there in my backyard.

Our once empty backyard is now filling up with toys and fun things for Kavi.

For Christmas me and my husband bought our son a slide/playhouse thing. For his birthday he got that cool kiddie roller coaster from my family. He also got a kiddie t-ball and golf set, heehee.
For his birthday we bought him a swing. He went on it yesterday for the first time and loved it! It's nice and safe too. (he is wearing a mickey mouse hoodie)

Makes You Happy?

I thought it would be fun to share something and ask those who read to comment with something to share too!

What is something you like doing, that makes you happy, for instance at the end of a day?

One of mine is a newer thing. Before Christmas when I was working on Christmas gifts for people, I would put something on Netflix on the computer to watch. In the back area where I sew and make things is where our main computer is, so it's easy for to me to put something on there to watch.

I have really been into watching British miniseries-es(plural of miniseries??), about the "old days". They move sort of slow, which means if I miss a few minutes of dialogue from the sewing machine noise, it's usually fine. It takes me a couple nights to finish a miniseries, each usually consisting of 4-6 episodes and around 50-55 minutes each.

I watched Lost in Austen, a cute miniseries available to watch online on Netflix, a couple months ago. Lost in Austen is about a modern day girl in London who is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice and other Jane Austen books. She has a not-so-great boyfriend and a bad influence mother, so she wants a more simple, innocent life. She wishes her world could be like the one in the books, where men seemed to have more dignity and women were treated like ladies. And so she ends up IN the book Pride and Prejudice, through a "door" in her bathroom, witnessing the events in the book as they unfold. And she messes a bunch of stuff up in the storyline. That's all I will say. ;) So then my British, old period, miniseries obsession began.

Before Christmas and then just recently, I've watched these British miniseries-es:

North & South
Mansfield Park
Our Mutual Friend

I just love it when I am the only one still awake(I'm a night owl), and can turn those on and go into my own little world.

So do you have something you love to do, when it's just you?
If not, maybe you can find something!
Please comment, I would LOVE to read what people do!

A Two year old

So it's our son's second birthday today! I feel like I have been talking about his birthday a lot because we had his party a week ago and I shared about things recently that relate to this. But now it's official!! He is out of the 1's and into the 2's. I can't believe it!!

He got an awesome "roller coaster" toy from my family. Me and my husband picked it out as an idea and they were kind enough to buy it for Kavi. He went on it the first time on Friday evening. It's so cool, I want to go on it!

Here is a little video of Kavi on it. He learned to push the cart back up the ramp so we were just watching him and being entertained.

From Jan2010

I pray our son has a wonderful year as a two year old! We love him so much.

Busy

I'm sure many of us are pretty busy as Christmas gets closer and closer! Christmas getting closer is bittersweet for me. The sweet part- going up to Alabama for Christmas, we will see family and will surely have a blast. The bitter- I don't want Christmas to be over too soon! I still want to feel Christmassy and not have it rush by.

Today we were out for hours shopping. And it wasn't even for Christmas gifts! I was on a mission to find an item of clothing. And whenever I am on that kind of mission, it seems I never find exactly what I wanted to! But today I found a nice substitute. I wanted a pencil skirt originally because I had two shirt options already, for wearing on Christmas Eve. Difficult task!!!! So that didn't work out. But I found a cute dress and leggings instead. And since I'm a bargain shopper, I got them both for $24 and change.

I feel like a doof in leggings because I am not thin. But my dress goes to almost the knee and the leggings are just for some extra coverage and to be "hip" hahaha. But trying on lots of clothes is not fun after awhile and does not help with self-esteem. And those surround mirrors, eeeks. Target is the worst, you can see every angle as you try on clothes. Now items have to pass the Target mirror test. If they look decent enough in THOSE mirrors, then you are good.

Turkey Success

I just wanted to share a couple pictures from Thanksgiving! The day was wonderful. Our weather was really nice, a little cool outside. Much better than being warm on Thanksgiving like some years down here. We set up a table outside in our front porch (screened in). It was very nice. Today is even more chilly!

My family is visiting from Alabama, and we also had my cousin, her husband and daughter over. It was fun as usual!

I am not even tired of turkey yet. I think because there are so many things to eat on Thanksgiving, I don't get as much turkey as I wanted to. So today I am planning to snack on turkey again.

My first turkey cooking went successfully! What a relief. Here's my turkey, sorry it's still in the bag for this picture! I forgot to take a pic of it unbagged before it got carved.

Me next to my dad at the head of table, for the picture

Everyone that was here for Thanksgiving lunch/dinner, except me taking me the picture

Have a wonderful Friday! I did join in on offering some sales at my Etsy shops.
At CoffeeandCream, there is free worldwide shipping on all necklaces.
At TheCozyNest, there is a buy one get one 1/2 off section of pilows and pillow covers.

Blog readers can also receive 10% off their entire orders by mentioning "blog" in message to seller. Or just send me a message if you forget that part! Refund will be sent within 12 hours.

My day

So I'm pretty busy today as I am sure most people are! Last night I baked a pie called Mystery Pecan Pie, a Paula Deen recipe. A friend of ours made it not long ago so I got to taste it. It's so good! Looks like a regular pecan pie from the top. But the mystery part is that inside is cheesecake!!
Here's my pie:
If you would like the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/mystery-pecan-pie-recipe/index.html

I'm also cooking the turkey already today. It's in the oven now! This was my first time getting a turkey ready for baking. It's not the most pleasant thing, right? haha. Yuck! Some turkey juice got flung into my face as I was trying to pull here and there at it. I am praying it cooks well and is tasty!

My family arrives later in the evening for the weekend! yay! This time they are all coming. My nana, parents, sister and sister-like friend. All are staying here at our humble 2 bedroom abode. Somehow we manage for everyone to have a sleeping area!

Christmas Decor!!

Flashback Friday!

Last week I wasn't prepared and didn't participate, but wanted to again today! I still wasn't prepared but I have a picture I can use now. Inspired by Christopher and Tia's blog.

This is from November 2001(or 2002? I think 2001), 8 years ago!
Left to right: me, my sister, our good friend, and a friend (who we never see, she lived in a different city).
We were visiting Cleveland, TN(a little north of Chattanooga) to visit our friend Lisa. She had moved away to college up there a couple years before and we went about 3 years in row to visit, the 3rd time being for her wedding! :) We were all bridesmaids, that was the year after this visit I believe.

My thoughts on this picture:
This is when me and a lot of my friends liked wearing a lot of black and tried to look more rock and roll(hehe). My hair was black as well. Rachel, the friend with red dyed hair, hates the way her hair looks in this picture. My sister and her also said "what's up with the lipstick", because darker lipstich was in style then I guess and they hate the way it looks on them in this picture haha.

Me, my sis, and Rachel were having a blast because of being in FALL weather. Coming from FL, where we don't really get to experience much of it. We were loving wearing scarves and gloves.

We were in Panera maybe, a cozy place in the downtown area.

40 days until Christmas! Holiday plans.

Yes you read that right! Wow! That doesn't sound very far away at all. I am already getting excited for Christmas. I want this season to feel extra special and hope to do some fun things with Kavi. I want to be out and about in activities during the season so I hope we find fun(and free) things to do. We will be going to my parents' house in Alabama for Christmas.

It's my first time ever to travel to another state, or more than 30 mins away, for Christmas! So it's exciting. Growing up I always heard friends say we are going to my grandma's (or whoever's) for Christmas. I never had to say that, but now I do! I am going to my parent's house in Alabama for Christmas. It's fun but also a little sad since they are far away now. My family has had Christmas in Florida since 1984! My parents also, even though they moved. Last year they all came back down here for Christmas at our house. That means most of our Christmas holidays were not cold. I don't like an 80 degree Christmas or even a 75 degree Christmas! Please, at least 60 and lower would be better. But those were far and few between.

My family is coming here for Thanksgiving which is less than 2 weeks away now! It will be the first time I host Thanksgiving at my house which is going to be fun, but I really really don't want to ruin the turkey. I have never cooked a turkey! Why would I have when mommy always did it? :P Now I have to be a real grown up. Ack!!

Hip Hop Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

I am getting such a kick out of this!!! Me and the family, as elves, hip hop dancing.

Flashback Friday

I have been reading Flashback Fridays at ChristopherandTia and have been wanting to join in. I finally am! So here's a blast from the past. My family. From mid 80's I think.

(I'm the one on the left)

Most of my life, people we know always say I look a lot like my dad. I agree. But as I got older more people would say I favored my mom. Still we all think I look a lot like my dad. In this picture I like that me and my dad are smiling similarly and my mom and sis are smiling similarly. Notice it? And my sis was always told she looks like my mom. I had very straight hair while my sister had curly hair. As we got older, my hair got wavy and my sister's hair got even more curly. Her hair is very pretty but she has never liked it. People always tell her "I'd pay big bucks to get hair like that", which she is tired of hearing but always smiles. Me and my sister are 21 months apart(I'm the oldest). So thanks for taking a little walk down memory lane with me...

Fall Back

So how does everyone feel about setting the clocks back an hour last weekend?
(left: Fall Time Clock necklace from ArtfulGoodies)
I always look forward to it, and saying "we get an extra hour of sleep" is always exciting to say but is it real? haha. By Sunday night it just becomes the same amount of sleep. I like it, but then again I don't really like that it gets dark earlier. But it does mean cooler evenings in Florida, so that's a plus. I still am not sure why they changed WHEN we set the clocks. It used to be a different week.

a cool lion

We found these very out of date sunglasses somewhere months ago, maybe in my car's glove box. Kavi loves if he can play with them and wear them. He makes a funny face to try to keep them from falling off. While I was taking pictures of him on Halloween he had them on for some of the pictures. He is very entertaining!

I felt like I was in a creative slump for a couple weeks. I feel a little more motivated again! I made some new jewelry pieces on Sunday. I still need to sew new things though. :/
Here are some new earrings I listed:

So much to share. Disney Photos!

Monday was so fun at Disney! We went to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. This is kind of a photo loaded post! I tried to make the sizes smaller so it wouldn't take forever to load. Hope it worked! You can click pictures to see a bigger size.

Monday, Oct 26th - my 29th Birthday and DISNEY day!

We planned to leave the house at 7:30am. It's about a 2 hour drive for us. The alarm went off at 6am, 30 minutes before I planned on getting up! So I hit snooze twice, and then turned it off. I got paranoid about oversleeping but I figured my husband wouldn't sleep much longer either. I fell asleep and opened my eyes at around 7:15am, oops! :P So we left the house around 8:10am. Not that big of a deal, because I found out the Magic Kingdom would be open until 9pm Monday night! So we would still have plenty of time.

(The gate, yipee!)

We reached inside the actual park around 11:30am. (After parking, ticket booth, and ferry boat to actual entrance). I was so excited! My husband had never been. And I hadn't been in ten years! And I was curious to see how Kavi would react. He was in awe, happy, and sometimes overwhelmed. It was very fun though.
He LOVED meeting Mickey and Minnie. That was the first thing we did when we entered the park. We headed towards "Toontown" where little kiddies can play and meet the mouse! We had to wait in a line for about 20 minutes. Kavi is a shy kid sometimes so we hoped he wouldn't be afraid of Mickey. Boy, he wasn't! Below he is shaking Minnie's hand, he also gave her a high five.
He really loved Minnie. Minnie had given him a nose kiss, and then he kissed her nose on his own like ten times!! He just stared at her in between kisses! So cute haha. I'm giggling just reliving it in my mind (he's almost 21 months old now). He was so calm and content with Mickey and Minnie.

After that we ate some lunch at Cosmic Rays Starlight Cafe! Lots of choices, not high prices, and a cute futuristic atmosphere. After lunch we headed to Fantasyland where rides like It's a Small World, Peter Pan's Flight, Mad Tea Party and many more are! It's so sweet to take your husband and child on a ride that is so classic, for their first time.

(On It's a Small World)

I got a cute Happy Birthday pin from Disney at the ticket booth since it was my birthday! They wrote my name on it too. You can see it in this picture above.
Some shots of the ride, hard to get clear photos with my camera because it's so dark inside.

The Taj Mahal! Love this one.

Just other cute sectionsWe went on various rides during the day through all the areas of the park. The longest line was for Peter Pan's Flight, an adorable ride. But we waited 45 minutes, ugh! And it was hot outside. Yes this is Florida for you, hot at the end of October! We were so sweaty and gross all day.

Kavi getting tired in the afternoon, I look tired already too. So what does one do with their stroller while going on all these rides? Well there are actualy stroller parking areas! I got a kick out of it. You can believe the amount of strollers parked in rows. And it's just a system of trust. You leave it for however long, and you just go back and get it. There are areas to park your stroller everywhere! People left their drinks and such on the stroller and left it. I was worried at first but our stroller was a lot less desirable looking than many others haha. So I doubted anyone would take it! Here is one of many stroller parking areas! Other areas had even more strollers.

(after a full day of sweating + my glasses I use for distance sometimes)

In case some people want to know what rides we went on with a toddler...if I remember them all:
Small World(twice)
Peter Pan's Flight(twice)
Snow White's Scary Adventures
Buzz Lightyear(3 times so FUN)
Pirates of the Caribbean(twice)
Spinning tea cups AKA Mad Tea Party
Carousel of Progress
Tomorrowland Transit Authority
Kavi and hubby went on the Jungle Cruise - I had to leave the line for a bathroom break so they went without me. I went to the Enchanted Tiki Room animatronic bird show while they were on the boat ride.
We went to Toontown looked through Mickey and Minnie's houses. We watched some of a parade and fireworks also.

The castle was lit in different colors after dark. Hard to get a good shot but this was the best one I think!

Because I wore my birthday pin, lots of Disney staff said happy birthday to me as well as a few non-staff strangers! It was fun, I have to say! :) Makes your day feel even more magical! They even embarrassingly sang to me at the cafe we ate at and banged metal around. eeeeks! :P We left the park around 9:10pm. The fireworks started at 9pm, even though that is when the park "closes" but you can stay inside I guess for a bit. We watched most of it but near the middle of the show I thought we better start heading towards to exit. Thousands and thousands of people were crowding the streets watching the fireworks and I didn't want to be caught in that when everyone started leaving at the same time! So we beat the massive crowd out.

It was a magical, blessed day. When we walked out of the exit I felt a little teary eyed. It was a sweet feeling having my birthday and my husband and little boy experiencing the day in such a fun way! So much goodness.