Thinking Back

So I was sitting here thinking about this year gone by and eventhough it had its ups and downs, sometimes it moved slowly, and other times quickly it has been quite a year.

A year ago today...
* Roland and I went out to dinner with my whole family because we had just found out that my grandfather who had been ill had been diagnosed with Chronic Pnuemonia. I was 8 months pregnant and very uncomfortable, but all I wanted to do was to be close to my grandfather. It was quite a scare for the family, but we have made it through and now he is better then ever happily drinking his Genny Cream Ales!!!

This past year...
* Seth was born and what a rollercoaster of emotions/smiles/cries/MAGIC it has been. I can't ever remember my life without him. I can't believe that in less then a month he will be 1 year old. It blows me away. He is a little man who walks and eats and smiles and laughs and learns new things everyday!

* My grandfather turned 80 years young and the WHOLE family gathered to honor him. I will never forget the plates and plates of frogs legs that he was eating when we arrived at his party. The man loves his frogs legs so truly enjoyed them that night!

* My father received the best news in the world, that he did NOT have Prostate Cancer. Someone up there is looking out for our family! We are so relieved and happy for him!

* My bestfriend Erin had a healthy little boy named Storm. After trying and trying and trying for 2 years she and Jason were finally blessed and I have never seen someone so in love with her son. Plus, Seth has a new bestfriend for life! Only 9 months apart!

* My brother made a tough life choice to leave his college and transfer to a new school. We are rooting for him and we hope that this school makes him very happy. We love you Uncle J!

* All of our parents have been the BEST grandparents/parents anyone could ever ask for. Their constant support and love had made this year so very memorable and we look forward to many years of new traditions and family fun!

* My husband my ROCK for being the most amazing Dad in the whole world. I have never seen someone so calm/cool/collected and loving and I am so blessed to have found him.

So I'd like to wish everyone out there a very Happy New Year's!

Panera

Have I expressed how in love I am with Panera Bread? We go there all the time for lunch, dinner, coffee, and take out, but the best part is that we got gift cards for there for Christmas. Thank you to my friend Erin and my brother for awesome gifts. We bought take out breakfast for Christmas morning and it was amazing. I have great things to say about all of their food and to top it off they have my favorite... Dr. Pepper fountain soda!!!!

Seth with Aunt Sheryl and Uncle Eric

In other news, Justin and Jaime came over for dinner last night and we exchanged gifts. He loved his gift of Lost Season One and Seth loved his mini baby tee ball set! He basically just loves to carry around the mini bat and ball and hit you on the head with it. I think that Ro and I will have more fun with it at this point. We are always making up games with Seth's toys.

Today Seth and I are on our own, Ro has gone back to work. We loved having him home on vacation, but all good things must come to an end, but the good news is, he only works for 2 days and then it is a 3 day weekend!!!! We are looking forward to our Christmas with my Dad on Saturday and our New Years get together with friends on Sunday night. We are having a steak and lobster dinner for the adults and something kid friendly for the little ones. It should be a fun evening!

Per Your Request!

I have a very close friend who has been going crazy because I haven't been posting my blog like I normally do. There are many many excuses but I won't bore you with them. I'm here and I will catch everyone up as best as I can!

Let's see where do I start. Seth got the second part of his flu shot a week ago Monday and I never really thought about it too much until this past Saturday when he came down with a raging cold/cough/snot/fever/HELL! So we have been trying to keep a very unhappy baby happy for the past 4 days and let me tell you it hasn't been pretty. Luckily our families have been very tolerant and very helpful. We took Seth to the docs this morning and low and behold, he has an ear infection. Here is the interesting part... The exact same thing happened to him after the 1st flu shot. So I basically think they are evil at this point and they only serve one purpose to make our holiday lives HELL! Enough of the negativity!

Our holiday festivities were wonderful and we ate/drank/gave/received with the best of them. We spent Christmas Eve at the Charlton's house and we had a great day! We spent Christmas morning home and afternoon/evening at my Gram's in Lowville. I don't know what Seth thought of everything. What I do know is that my son is INFACTUATED with ceiling fans, like crazy about them. Wherever whenever he just loves them, it's so crazy! We can be anywhere, church, Sam's Club, anywhere and he spots them. As soon as he enters my parents, Ro's parents, mt Grandparents homes he goes right to them. It is the crazied thing. So every place we went for holiday fun Seth was right by the ceiling fans the whole time.

My cousins and I on Christmas

As you all know, I bought Ro a 4 wheeler for Christmas, but I also bought him some little items. It was funny/weird though because I bought him a really nice pair or Nike Shox at the outlets. They are kelly green and navy, well he also bought me Shox, but silver and kelly green. So not only do we think on the same wavelength, but we are going to be one of those queer couples that match! AHHH!

Seth now has enough toys to keep him busy for the next year so I already warned (asked nicely) that he recieve not toys or clothes for his birthday, college money is welcome though!

Oh, that's what I forgot, we decided that we are doing a Yankees themed birthday party for him. Now, I know that The Gilbert's and The Keeler's are going to have something to say about that, but we are super excited for it!

Tomorrow we are having Uncle J and Jaime for dinner so I have to get cooking. I'm making Katie's famous Cheesy Chicken recipe, YUM! So I hope that this catches those of you who check this (JV) up for now! I promise not to take so long before the next post!

Advice

If I could ask all the Mamas that read this to give me some advice/ideas as I am a first time mom and I could use all the help anyone wants to give!

Please throw out some ideas for types of foods that I can send with Seth to the sitters. Breakfast foods and lunch foods that I can pack for him! He is very tired of the baby food and I think he is ready for a change, but I just can't wrap my head around it. I need to make a big list and have things on hand!

HELP PLEASE!

Updates and Thanks!

We took Seth back to the docs for his second flu shot on Monday and we scheduled an appointment with his normal doc so that I could ask he all my Mommy questions. We have come to the realization that he has allergies and so she said to continue with the Claritan until about March before bedtime. She also said YES, to start introducing milk slowly. So we started 2 oz. in each bottle for this week, next week 4oz. and so on. Once he masters the milk with no problem we will start to faze out some of the bottles. We are already down to 4 bottles a day. I tried giving him a small amount of formula in his cup, but he wasn't too thrilled. For me I just need to master one thing at a time. Milk then cups. He hasn't had much of a reaction to the milk, he takes it fine so here's hoping! Seth also lost a pound due to his busy busy nature. So that is an update on Seth.

Ro is doing great at work stealing all sorts of Coke accounts like a good little Pepsi Rep. He is also counting down the days until he can go 4 wheeling again! Ro and Seth went up to the mall last night and did some shopping for me, but mostly just to get out of the house while I had some girl friends over for dinner.

That leaves me, let's see... I had some friends over for dinner last night and tomorrow night we are having Katie over for dinner and gifts. I will be more then ready for a little vacation. The kids are crazy and I come home exhausted at the end of every day. I am very much looking forward to the holidays and all of the fun activities and events we have planned. I still need to finish up last minute gifts and stockings on Friday and wrap and I will be all set.

So I guess that's a wrap up for now! I'd like to say a special thank you to Nin for sending me mail love. I love the note cards and already used one on a friend. I'm also becoming obsessed with photo greeting cards like you. We got a ton this year and I run to the mail box when I get home to see what is inside!

Friends, Partying, and Cookies!

We had just the best holiday weekend that you could ask for. We feel so blessed to be surrounded by such wonderful family and friends!

Friday evening Rich, Lori, Sydney, and Addy came over for pizza. We hadn't seen Addy since she was a day old and my how she has grown. What a great baby she is and too cute!

The Starr family is always so thoughtful and they brought Seth a stuffed Rocky. It is the best, I think that at this point I like it more then Seth does!

Saturday, Roland went 4 wheeling. you would have thought that I had given him a big wad of money, he was so excited. He went with 5 other guys from Pepsi and then rode for over 2 hours, came back muddy, and exhausted. They already have another date for next Saturday and Ro is counting down the hours until he can go again!

Saturday night was the Pepsi Christmas party. We had the BEST time! It was such a fun party with great people, great food, great music, great gambling, and great pirzes to be won! As you can see, the theme of the night was GREAT! We ended up winning a Pepsi Santa figurine (I'm collecting them) and a crock pot in the shape of a football. Yes, it looks like a football, I'm really not kidding. So, Super Bowl party will be at our house this year! We had a little too much fun so Mom and Dad were paying for it a bit on Sunday morning. I already requested that my mom watch Seth overnight next year in case we feel the same way come Sunday morning!

Sunday once the hangover subsided a bit my mom came over and we made our annual Christmas cookies. We made 4 different treats. We made Peppermint Bark, White chocolate covered pretzels, sugar cookies, and peanut butter cups.

Today is my school's activity day. I have to make the same craft with 5 different groups of kids throughout the day. I now know why I don't teach high school. It is so boring doing the same thing over and over. BUT, the kids are having a blast so that is all that matters.

Happy Happy Happy...

Happy 1st Birthday to our far away friend Joey Gilbert! Eat lots of cake and smush it in your face with frosting all over! We love you and can't wait to see you all next summer for our reunion/vacation in Lake George!

Nothing much to write about today. It's Friday and that is a positive thing. We have a very fun weekend ahead of us. Food with friends tonight, Ro is going 4 wheeling tomorrow and the Pepsi party is tomorrow night, and Sunday is our cookie day! Basically the theme for the weekend is holiday fun!

I really need to finish up my Christmas shopping it is still looming over my head. The good news is that the kitchen is OFFICIALLY paid for, the remainder of the bills went out today and we are bill free. Merry Christmas to us!!!!!

As I posted earlier, Seth has been all over the TV screen daily with his holiday commercial, well I finally saw the blooper reel today and it was so cute. You see Ro and my arms fixing him and trying to get him to sit up straight.

I almost forgot another bit of BIG news. My brother Justin has decided that he wants to transfer colleges so he went on some visits this fall and chose a school, an Ivy League school I might add and he found out on Wednesday that he was accepted, Justin will now be a student at Cornell University starting in January. We wish him all the luck and success in the world!

Right Around the Corner

I can not believe that Christmas is so close and I have so much left to do yet! It will get done so I'm not stressing too badly yet. My husband was like a little kid last night so excited about his new toy. He had to show me all of the parts and how everything worked. He might even go riding with some friends on Saturday morning. Go and have fun I say!

He looks like an alien doesn't he?

So after much consideration I have decided to take Seth back to the docs next Monday afternoon. He has had a cough and runny nose for well over a month now and after going to see 2 different PA's at my docs office and both telling me to try different things and neither of them really working well I want to see my actual doctor and I also want to discuss with her bottles/milk/etc. I trust an MD better then a PA and she has been amazing with me for the past 10 months so I trust her judgement. Hopefully Seth will be able to get his 2nd flu shot that day, but I'm not looking forward to it since the 1st gave him the cold and cough. AHHH! I know he will be sick for most of the winter, but I'd like to know if maybe it is allergies or what. I'm just happy to be seeing her and see what she thinks!

I finally snapped a picture of Seth's tree in his room. He is so funny whenever he gets all upset all you have to do is bring him over to any lit up tree in our house and he points to it and says his version of tree. It is priceless!

In other news, I was able to get together with my close friend Erin yesterday for lunch and we exchanged gifts. Being the thoughtful friend that she is, she got Seth a little gift and here is a pic of him checking it out. He loved hammering anything he could find last night.

Tonight we are running to Wally World for some odds and ends that I need for our project day at school next week and tomorrow night we are haiving friends over so bring on the fun!

A Whole Lotta Nada!

Nothing much new to report. We went to my Mom's for dinner last night and ended up putting Seth's toy from them together so he got a preview of his gift. I finally caved after 3 years and bought Ro his very own 4-wheeler with a plow. I'm sticking to my motto of "You Only Live Once" so what the heck. If you could see the look on his face when I finally said just go and pick one out, it was priceless! So lastr night he picked it up and was happy as a clam. In other news, the snow is all gone and the rain has come in. YUCK! Not that I'm a huge fan of the snow, but come on it is almost Christmas and having snow on the ground makes everyone feel a little more Christmassy!

Nothing on the adgenda for the next couple of evenings. We are having our friends Rich and Lori and their daughters Sydney and Addyson for dinner on Friday night. We haven't seen baby Addyson since she was a day old so we are excited to see how big she has gotten!

I just had a lunch date with my very close friend Erin and baby Storm. He is such a great baby and too cute! We exchanged gifts and she got me the most perfect gift, I think she read my mind... a Panera gift card. She is feeding my addiction and I love it! She also got Seth a workmans kit with a hard hat and tools, so fun! I made her a mother's bracelet and ordered her personalized note cards. I love to give gifts it is the best! I like to be creative and get out of the ordinary gifts or make them when I can!

So that is all that is going on today, sorry for no new pics. It is rainy and gloomy outside, but I'm trying to stay perky regardless!!!

Holiday Fun!

Well, the Charlton's had just a great weekend! Friday night we bundled up and headed to the mall just to get out of the house and poke around. Saturday early early morning we lost power so by 8am the house was starting to get cold and we decided to flee to Grammy's house where it was warm. We headed to Dunkin Donuts for some refreshments and then spent the morning playing at Grammy P's. In the afternoon, we headed to Super Walmart for groceries and supplies. Saturday night was my school's Christmas party. Steph babysat and did a wonderful job. The house was all picked up, dishes done, and Seth slept like a dream. We were so pleased!

Sunday we went to Panera for breakfast, yes Panera again. YES, I'll admit it, I'm addicted, I love it! But, in our defense it was our first time there for breakfast. Then we headed home because I had to get ready to head to Lowville for my Gram's Concert. My 78 year old Grandma sings in her community chorus and she is the oldest member out of 75 people. It was a beautiful concert and then my grandparents took us out to dinner.

My Gram is the 3rd in the 2nd row!

My Gramp, always the jokester!

For those of you who read this and live out of our area, below is a pic of Seth from his holiday commercial. It has been on numerous times this past weekend and we have heard from so many people how cute they think he is! Of course we are biased and we love it!

We have a busy holiday filled rest of December so I'll have lots to write about! We hope that everyone has gotten their Christmas cards from us and got a good laugh out of them!

Thank You's ALL Around

I'd like to thank my wonderful support network for all of your advice this week regarding milk, dairy, bottles, etc. I so appreciate all of your wonderful posts and emails regarding the issue. What would I do with you all? Thank you also for your kind words about our finished kitchen. It is like a dream. Looking back on all of the old pictures of that ugly kitchen and then looking at all the hard work we have put into this new kitchen we could not be happier. We are so very lucky!

Last night we just hung out at the house and enjoyed all of our decorations. Grandma and Papa Charlton stopped over to see the kitchen, but really to see the BIG guy. He was in play mode and all over the place. He is so funny now because he just wants to zoom around the house, but he has no perception as to what is on the floor. He never looks down and ends up walking over anything in his path. It is so funny.

Grey's Anatomy was a rerun (darn it), but the OC has made a comeback this season and it was great! We ended up watching our guilty pleasure (Nip/Tuck) that we had DVRed from Tuesday and that was amazing as always! The writers for that show are seriously dimented!

Tonight we will try and get a little more accomplished Christmas shopping wise and tomorrow is my schools party. We are having our first teenage sitter but I just know Seth will be on his best behavior (pray please!)

Baby Luke didn't come home yesterday because they both tested positive for Strep B, but they will hopefully come home today and start their new lives!

Have a great weekend all and remember if you read this please post me a HELLO!

TA DA!

I have 2 very large TA DA's for today:

1. We went to see baby Luke and he is just the cutest so here is a pic for the world to see!

My 2nd TA DA and very exciting news is that the kitchen is about 95% done, with just a few moldings and decorating to be done. Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure. I will have to do a before vs: after blog with all the pics.

New sink, faucet, and countertops


View into the breakfast nook where there was

previously a divider between the rooms

New stove, walls, lighting...

New Fridge

A little dark but you can get an idea

We are very excited and relieved to have this project done and over with, but super excited to entertain in our beautiful new kitchen! Nothing much else is new. I'm trying to get my Christmas shopping done and enjoy the rest of the season. I better go and do my job now! AHHH!

PS: I know that many people read this blog and only about three people comment, PLEASE if you read this let me know and drop me a comment! It is easy try it!

A New Addtion

No I'm not preganant, I know how your minds all work! BUT, there is a new addition to the Charlton family. Luke Allen Charlton was born this morning at 1am, he weighs 7lbs, and he has tons of hair. Roland and I will go up and meet him tonight after dinner and I hope to share some pics for your tomorrow. The Charlton family is just growing like a weed, adding new members everytime you turn around. BUT, don't look for another one from us any time soon. We are enjoying our little guy right now.

Sorry for no new pics once again today. The countertops were put in the kitchen and they look FAB, but it took my Dad and Ro a VERY long time last night to put the new sink/disposal back in and they were in fact still working when I went to bed at 9:30pm. So I took some pics this morning, but haven't had time to upload them. The suspense will have to last until tomorrow.

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU goes out to my Dad for helping Ro with many of the tasks with this kitchen. We truly appreciate all that you do to help us out!!!!!!!!!!

Other then the new baby and the kitchen completetion our lives are finally going to slow down. Thank you to all my mama friends who either posted a comment or emailed me about the milk situation. I agree and I wasn't going to start with milk until a year so I think I will try their other suggestion though and introduce yogurt and see how he reacts. Another comment I forgot to add was that he also said to stop all bottles by 1 year. I know that I am a first time Mom but I also know that Seth isn't going to be ready to give that up completely in a month and a half. He wasn't our regular doc so I'm not taking what he says at 100%.

No Pics Today

Sorry fellow bloggers, family, and friends but I have no pics to share today. They have been taken, but I haven't downloaded them yet so I'll just do a little catch up for today.

Roland and I took Seth to the docs this am for his 10 month developmental testing and he passed with flying colors. It was interesting to see what they were looking for and what he should be doing at 10 months. They played ball on the floor, picked blocks out of a cup and clicked them against each other, picked up Cheerios, moved to sound and other types of things. He did well. Then, the doc came in and gave us some ideas as to what to do about his constant runny nose and cough that has latched on for the past 3 weeks. So we will try some of their suggestions and hopefully something will work.

I'm going to need some advice from my blogger moms and or friends that read this. The doc briefly mentioned that we need to start adding milk slowly to his formula to introduce it and we were in such a hurry to get out of there that I didn't ask him specifically for directions as to how to do this. So if anyone can give me directions as to how you go about doing this, please help me!

Our countertop is supposed to be installed today, but Ro called at about 1pm and they hadn't been there yet. I'm sure that it be done when I get home. I'm very excited to see the whole kitchen put together.

There isn't a great deal of excitement this week. Once the kitchen is done we can finally relax in the evenings. We do have a Christmas party to attend this weekend and we are having our first teenage (19) babysitter so I'm a little leary. I'm sure that everything will be fine. You take for granted having the grandparents babysit because they just know exactly what to do and you don't have to write out endless notes. Anyhow, it should be a fun night.

Well, sorry for no pics, but here is the latest update!

Over the River and Through the Woods...

...to get our Christmas tree we went! Saturday we packed up the Jeep, our warm clothes, and brought along Grammy and Grandpa Puccia to go to Hemlock Haven for the very first time to cut down our very own Christmas tree. Well, the weather ended up being too cold to take Seth out on the tractor so Ro watched Seth and I went out with my Mom and Tom and picked out our tree. It was hella cold out there so it was a good thing we didn't bring Seth, he would have froze. I felt badly though, it felt strange being out their without my men.

My Mom and I on the wagon heading out to the trees

Our tree as it is being cut

It's down!

This tree farm had quite a system to make sure that you got the tree that you had picked out or so they thought, unfortunately they lost the tree that my Mom and Tom picked out. So basically they froze their butts off to pick out a tree and it got lost. Always their luck! So they ended up just picking one out back at the shop and when they got it home they realized that it basically looks like a Charlie Brown tree. We'll always have a story to tell though about our first experience getting a tree with Seth.

Sunday Ro did the finishing touches to get ready to have our countertops installed TOMORROW! So now all we have to do tonight take the new sink out of the box so that they can cut the correct hole. I can't wait to have running water in the kitchen again, I'm more excited about this then Christmas at this point!

Tomorrow we go for Seth's 10 month developmental testing so that is exciting so see what he does and how he compares to others his age.

Oh, before I forget, he is a pic, it's not a great one, but of Seth's battle scar from his fight with Hanna at the sitters. Thank god she didn't drawn any blood.