How I Make Dinner

I have a tiny littler helper when I make dinner at night, check it out...
For some reason the dinner hour is the "I want to be held" hour also. So we do what we have to, to get things done around here. It will be better when she can face out in the front carrier too!

Fruit + Chocolate = FUN!

Saturday night we had friends over and for dessert we kicked it up a notch and had fruit and chocolate fondue. It was truly delicious and the kids had such a blast eating and dipping.

Anxiously waiting for the chocolate to warm up.
Don't' be shy!
Make sure to have FUN with your dessert!

Deck Progress

Roland worked his butt off today and look at the progress.
He is at a stand still until his back recovers and he goes for another lumber run!

How 'bout them tots!

What movie is this quote from?

PS...

...party at our house when the deck is done!

Here We Go Again

It is spring so of course there is a project going on at our house. Have you ever known us to sit around twiddling our thumbs? No way, Roland is building our new deck. If you have visited the house or read the blog you know that we have a brand new family room and in the process we tore off half of our deck so we now have no where to sit and eat outside, but not for long. Roland is building a massive deck on the long side of the new addition, in the space that was formerly only used to play ladder golf outdoors. Soon, it will be a big deck to hang out on! Last week he dug the holes and put the posts and concrete in them. They are currently drying.

5 Weeks

In 5 short weeks my little brother will graduate from...We have loved visiting you each and every time. Ithaca is a great city and Cornell ROCKS! We especially enjoyed celebrating your 21st birthday with you. (side pony and CTB at 1am!) We love and miss you J!

Friday Fav's List

Check out what our week was full of...

~ Play dates at Velocity where the kids ran around like wild animals and burned off some serious energy.

~ Shopping with four generations of Mihalyi women. My Gram, Mom, myself and Miss Leah!

~ Our first trip to the zoo of the season! We were saddened by the number of exhibits that had been ruined by our long hard north country winter, but excited about the new otter exhibit that they are building.

~ We tried PoP at Kidnastics and the kids LOVED it!

~ Playing in the ball pit was Seth's favorite part by far.
~ The idea was the make a candy necklace. He made it, but ate it before we got home!
~ I think I need to purchase a pedometer because our stroller is getting so much use that I would love to see how many miles we walk weekly!
~ Singing to Seth before bed time with a quite the crowd last night. He had 5 people singing to him AFTER he was taken out for ice cream by Poppy and Grandma.
~ Fish fries at my Dad's with cole slaw and strawberry shortcake!
~ Setting a baptism date.
~ Becoming addicted to Facebook.
~ Roland working on the new HUGE deck and loving every minute of it.
~ My friend Beth who is pushing right about now. (AKA having her baby!)
~ Purse parties this weekend with the girls!
~ Watching the whole 6th season of OTH again this past week while getting ready for the final 5 episodes of the season.
~ Talking to a friend who I haven't seen since graduation from OSU!
~ Having friends for dinner this weekend.
~ Not having to go back to work on Monday when my 6 weeks are actually up, yet taking an extra 6 weeks off. YAH!
~ Spring cleaning and organizing. I love love love to organize and clean out the house.
~ Prepping for my garage sale next month.
~ Enjoying every minute of this weather and being outside as much as possible.

Six short weeks ago I went to work just like every other week day in my life. My day was going as planned when the contractions started like they had every other day that week. I thought nothing of it because they usually stopped by lunchtime. The contractions were in full force and luckily I had my weekly appointment that afternoon with Dr. Dodard. I went in for my appointment and he told me that I was actually having many more contractions than I was really feeling and that I was 4cm dilated. He said that he would recommend that I head up to the hospital. Holy crap, this was the day I had been waiting for. The day I would meet my little girl. The day that my stomach would stop getting in the way of everything I did. It was an amazing day and Leah is an amazing little girl.

I can not complain about lack of sleep and of a fussy baby. She has her moments, but we have narrowed her fussiness down to being hungry or tired. She very rarely cries just to cry.

She goes along on each and every play date and sleeps like a champ through them. She has been everywhere. We are not house bound and we are not afraid of the dreaded GERM! I want to expose her to life and not just our four walls. She is thriving and so are we!

I feel like a brand new mom and I am grateful for every day I spend with her!

I was afraid of EVERYTHING when Seth was a baby, I never left the house, but not anymore!

6 Weeks Old!

I'm 6 weeks old now and I am loving life! I am starting to love being on the floor on my play mat, I look all around and I am starting to hold my head up much much better now. I can't wait to see what's ahead of me in the weeks to come. Look out world!

Whatever Works

This is how Leah fell asleep this morning while I was drying my hair in the bathroom!

1st Bath

Finally, finally, finally Leah's cord fell off, we thought it was stuck on for the long haul! So tonight we were able to give her a proper bath for the very first time. She was startled at first, but ended up loving it! We can't believe that she will be 6 weeks old in a day! WOW, how time is flying by.

The Giant and The Peanut

It is hard to believe that we have a little boy who isn't so little anymore. He wants to do everything on his own and exert his independence. Then we have a tiny little peanut baby girl who just wants to snuggle and fall asleep on you all the time. Life couldn't get any better! We are truly blessed!

As you can see, Seth has super duper large feet just like his Daddy. Even Leah has big feet for 5 weeks. I bought her size 1 baby shoes and they aren't huge on her. The comparison cracks me up though!

SNIRT Run 2009

On Saturday Roland and some friends went on the annual SNIRT Run. It is a 4 wheeler poker run on Tug Hill. SNIRT stands for snow/ice/dirt! I'm told that they definitely encountered snow, ice and dirt, but also dust and mud too!

There were over 1300 4 wheelers registered and the run started in Barnes Corners.

Since we were blessed with some fresh snow earlier in the week (IN APRIL!!) the trails had a combination of snow and mud depending on where you were. As you can tell, it was hard to keep on your side of the trail and our friend Rod had to lift his 4 wheeler out of the way of oncoming traffic.

The snow was deep in areas too!
Then came the dust. Check out the windmills in the background. When I went on a similar run with Roland last year we got so close to the windmills I was amazed at how gigantic they are.
Don't forget about the mud because there was plenty of that too! This is Roland's favorite part. He even has a sticker on the back of his wheeler that says "I LOVE MUD!" I'm happy to say that I wasn't on the back of the 4 wheeler with him for this part.

The next big ride is on May 2nd! He is counting down the days.

Happy Easter

Leah Elizabeth ~ 5 weeks old ~ 1st Easter

Seth Patrick ~ 3 years old

Happy Easter from our family to yours!

Hoodie

There is something about a hoodie on a 5 week old that is truly priceless and I love love love this picture! It makes my whole day!

Cookies & Eggs

On Friday morning we carried on the yearly tradition of coloring Easter eggs and this year we added making Easter cookies to our list of projects for the morning! Seth loves to help out in the kitchen so these activities were right up his alley.

Thank you Mom, for all of your help. An extra set of hands was definitely needed for these projects! We hope you had fun too!

We made the cookies thicker this time and they turned out perfectly, there aren't many left!

Tonight we will be hiding all sorts of eggs and baskets in anticipation of the Easter bunny arriving. We had a small egg hunt at Sheryl's last year, but Seth was still young and I don't think he truly understood. This year he is more than ready to find some eggs.

Today Roland is on the SNIRT Run and I sent an old camera with him so hopefully he will take some good shots of all of the action and I will be able to post some. He was super excited this morning and I was for him. He needs a boys day after the week he has had. If you work at the hospital, the YMCA or anywhere in The Bay request Pepsi please! These areas are of great concern with his job and if these accounts can remain Pepsi this would definitely lower his stress levels. The poor guy!

Let the Good Times Stroll

I think winter might possibly be gone this time or so we hope. We broke the stroller back out of retirement and went for a much needed walk!

Friday Fav's List

This week was an even bigger blur than last week, but a blur filled with fun activities! Let's see, what did we do this week...

~ Play dates on Fort Drum where the boys ran and ran and ran! YIPPEE!!

~ Leahs' 1 month check was a total success and she is thriving!

~ Overdue lunch dates with my sister as we gabbed and ate Panera.

~ Easter story time at the library. Seth got to make an Easter craft and had a blast doing it.

~ Wednesday dates with Seth at Target.

~ Rocky got an Easter grooming and smells like a brand new dog!

~ Coloring Easter eggs and making Easter cookies today with Grammy P.

~ Roland's long awaited SNIRT (Snow/Ice/Dirt) Poker Run tomorrow.

~ Maya's 3rd Birthday Party tomorrow night!

~ Feeding my WWII obsession by watching the movie "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" yesterday. BTW...if you watch it, the ending is horrible!

~ Receiving yet more little gifties from caring friends and family for the kids. Thank you to Emily for the awesome University of Miami t's for the kids, Debbie for the beautiful summer dress and Aunt Toby and Uncle Paul for the money for Leah's college fund!

~ Having a giant Easter egg hunt for Seth on Sunday morning followed by church, nap and Lowville in the afternoon.

~ I think spring is finally here and our stroller can come out of the garage permanently. The snow is melting and the temps are rising!

~ Positive thinking!

PoP

We have been taking Seth to Kidnastics since he was two and he loves to go. Every other Friday they have what is called Family Fun Night and basically the kids can just run wild and have fun. It is perfect for a Friday at the end of usually a long work week. The owner, Erin, has now started what she calls Power of Play. She has purchased all sorts of indoor playground equipment and she is opening certain days and hours just for this "play" time. Next week she is open all week long for PoP and then on a normal week she will open for PoP on Thursdays and Fridays from 9 to 6. From what a friend has told me she bought a giant ball pit and all sorts of indoor playground equipment instead of just gymnastics equipment. I can't wait to take Seth, he will love it!

~Today we are wishing very very hard that the snow will melt here in Watertown so that we can use our stroller and get outside very very soon! Wish with us please!

1 Month Checkup!

We took Leah to her one month checkup yesterday and she is doing great! She is now 23 inches long and weighs 9lbs. 8.5oz. She has grown two inches in length from when she was born and gained almost 2 lbs. She was a hit at the doctors office too! Roland surprised us and came to the appointment too! It was a nice treat!

Look Out World...

...here comes Seth the handy man!

My friend Kristen is always looking for fun things to do with the kids and while she was at Home Depot last week she found out that they have a kids day every month. So the dad's brought the boys and they built window birdhouses and had a blast building with their dads! Seth wears his new personalized apron around the house all the time and he is always asking us what he can fix. His wife in the future will love that kind of service! Now if spring would truly arrive the birds would come back and use his newly built birdhouse. He is waiting patiently!

Disney Live

On Sunday afternoon Seth and I drove to SYR to see...

He was in complete and utter awe. He sang, danced and clapped his way through the show. He was actually mad when the show was over.

All of his favorite shows were there; Handy Manny, Tiger and Pooh, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Little Einsteins. It was really fun to be able to sit back and watch him enjoy the show so much. Our next show will be Laurie Berkner right here in good old Watertown, NY on August 8th. He is already talking about it and it is only April!

Happy 1 Month Birthday Leah!

We can't believe that you are a month old already. The month truly flew by. You are now awake and alert more during the day and we know how much you love music. We look forward to seeing you smile more, hold your head up on your own and become the wonderful little girl we know you will be. To many more wonderful months with you!

Friday Fav's List

Seriously, is it Friday??? This week is a complete and utter blur and I can't believe that it is Friday already. Not sure if that means I'm exhausted or exhilarated! Let's see, what was this week made of...

~ Crazy indoor play dates with two boys with too much energy. Can't wait to set them free outdoors all summer long!

~ Taking naps when needed.

~ Successful trips to Target with both kids and having a lunch date with Seth.

~ Walks outdoors with Grammy P who helps push the stroller up hills when she can see the pain on my face. PS: LOVE the new stroller, it is utterly amazing! The pounds are melting off me!

~ 1st trips to Lowville for Leah to visit Great Gramp & Gram.

~ Watching Seth play with my Grandpa outdoors, collecting sticks and checking out all of the spring flowers.

~ Having friends for dinner on week nights. It breaks up the routine and it's fun.

~ Father/son bonding time. Home Depot is having Kids Day this weekend so Seth and Roland are going to build a birdhouse. Can't wait to see the outcome.

~ Seth's BIG SURPRISE this Sunday... I'm taking him to see Playhouse Disney! He is going to be so excited I can't wait!

Play List

I don't know about you, but I always have a play list in my head. I'm a huge music fan and I have music on all the time. At any given time I have five or more songs that I'm stuck on and I play over and over and over for that time period. So this week here is my play list...

1. I'm Yours ~ Jason Mraz

2. Just Dance ~ Lady Gaga

3. You Found Me ~ The Fray

4. Love Story ~ Taylor Swift

5. I Can Only Imagine ~ Mercyme

What's your play list this week? What keeps you going?

Taking Orders

Seth and I are taking orders for Easter decorations made with love by my littler crafter Seth! If you would like a special craft please let us know, we are working hard on them.

~ PS... Seth is having a blast working with glue and all the fun supplies!

Come One Come All

We are figuring Miss Leah Elizabeth out day by day and we now know that she likes the football hold and she LOVES music. She is just like her parents and her brother, surprise surprise! So we are in turn having a dance party either in our kitchen or in our computer room any given evening anywhere from 7 to 9pm. Roland discovered that if you hold Leah in the football hold and dance around with her, it completely calms her down. Thank heavens. The neighbors even got a glimpse of Roland's smooth dance moves the other evening so he had to shut the lights off in the kitchen while he and Leah rocked out! So if you are in the mood to dance, had a rough day at work or just want to come and see Leah. We are here and we are dancing our hearts out!! Just wait until we tell her what we went through to make her happy when she was little.