Kira's birthday and this old house!

As many of you know, I really have anxiety about hosting parties at my house. But Kira shouldn't be penalized for my inadequacies so I decided I needed to march forward and host a party for Kira's 2nd birthday. We invited local family and it really was packed in our small house, but it turned out to be better than I anticipated. I have noticed a pattern over the years, it seems a lot of the things I worry about never happen. :)

 I made chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes for Kira's birthday. I thought cupcakes would be a better idea for a 2 year old than cake. Kira almost never eats at parties anyway...she is usually too focused on people to be distracted with eating! What a social butterfly she is!

 Oh boy! Antshillvania II!!!

 This girl has WAY too many stuffed animals!

 Curious George! :)

She even got a Curious George Costume to wear for halloween this year, she liked wearing the hat most of all!

 Special Elmo chair!

she also got a little table and chairs to read her books, color and play with her puzzles.

 We continue to work away at the bottom floor of the house. Recently, with the help of dear-old-dad we replaced two of the 5 windows downstairs. Unfortunately, Tom will have to replace some of the drywall because there was termite activity (inactive now) that caused damage to the wood so they will have to be replaced with new ones when we get to this room.

 This is the window in my "coupon room." There are two rooms downstairs that we intend on finishing to be living space.

 This is a pic of what will stay the "unfinished" side of the basement. Tom ripped out the original beat up workbench and built this in it's place. I must say, he did a great job and I like that he is so particular when it comes to his projects on the house because it means that he will finish a job well!

 It finally warmed up enough for me to finish painting the final 1/3 of the floor. Definitely was worthwhile, since it cleaned it up in there and gives it a more uniform look.

This is the other side of the "unfinished" side. Tom ripped off the old pegboard, I scrubbed down the old mold on the 2x4 beams with bleach and then it was ready to have sheetrock put up. He finished spackling, then I painted it white. We also hung pegboard on the back wall. The pegboard will hold all our beach gear. We will be installing shelving on the newly sheet rocked wall to amplify our storage space.

It's been a great summer!

Well, even though I don't seem to be very good at this blogging thing, I am still going to update because there has been a lot going on and I don't want to forget it all! On top of that, Tom has been bugging me to post an update, so here goes! 

Kira continues to be a wonderful blessing and joy in our lives. One of my girlfriends asked me to watch her son on the day they moved into a new house and I was happy to oblige. As you can see, Kira loved giving Christian hugs! She is a very happy, outgoing bundle of energy and seems to make friends easily. She definitely got Tom's personality. She is talking a lot now and stringing words together so it has been neat for us to watch this new development. 

Just the other day, she was visiting at her one Grammy's house and looked at the huge clock on the wall and said very clearly, "that's a big clock!" Grammy got a kick out of that!

 We had the lovely opportunity to take a vacation at our favorite spot this summer...the beach! Kira loved going to the beach too and we got to do lots of fun things on our vacation this summer.

 Walked on the boardwalk quite a few times....

 We also brought our bikes down, took a bike ride with Kira almost every day, and one special morning, rode our bikes down to Browns for their special home-made doughnuts. Mmmmmm, yummy!

 We have lots of lovely prickers in our lawn, so Tom decided to buy a sprinkler in an effort to coax some green grass to grow. So far, all we have seen is an increase in our water bill...to be continued!

 Lounging in the pool! Here is the $8 Walmart special. Sure glad we didn't spend a lot of money on Kira's first pool because she doesn't want to swim in it! :/ She likes to throw her ball in the pool and the reach in a pick it out. Here's to hoping she will like it next year??

Of course, no post would be complete without pictures of Kira! :-)

 If it is a nice day, Kira and I will spend a couple hours at the park. Tom got a baby seat for me and attached it to the back of our bike so it is now very convenient to take her for a ride to the park.

 My little toddler!

 Almost every time we come to the park, Kira seems to find an older girl to make friends with and they end up playing together during the duration that we are there. She definitely got Tom's outgoing nature and has no problem meeting people and making friends.

 This was a visit to Chick fil a's play area with another girlfriend of mine. What a life this girl has huh? Play, play play!

 Since the performance for the musical I am directing is now about 2 weeks away, I am starting to need to be at the church more often to work on details. Kira kept herself busy this day when I was working on the set by running around the sanctuary and playing inside this school bus!

 Last night, we got the opportunity to go the The Tudor House in Bensalem. A nice perk of Tom's job is that we get to go to the school's formal events for free. It was a fun date night out! It was actually a murder mystery event...out of 290+ people there, only 5 people guessed who the murderer was!

 Tom writing down his guess!

April showers bring May flowers!

Hi everyone! As usual,  another month has flown by without me posting anything! Ah well. We have been keeping busy with projects on the house, musical rehearsals and family get-togethers! And of course Kira keeps us entertained every day with her little antics. What a ham this girl is!

 I have been dying to get outside and start working on the side garden next to the house. Mom warned me not to attempt any planting until May because I would run the risk of a frost. Well, I was able to wait til a week before May to do this so close enough right? Below on the left corner is tulips. In the middle is an azalea bush and next to that are the hastas. On the other side of the chimney is a yellow rhododendron. This picture just does not do that bush justice...it is a beautiful yellow bush, Mom went with me to a place called "Perrenial Gardens" and we both fell in love with this bush. It just has a wow factor to it!

Cheeeeeeeese!

 Of course Kira had to get in every picture I took! Below is the maple tree that was given to us by Tom's parents. I don't think it is a Japanese Maple but I could be wrong. Maybe Christian would know as he is the tree expert? :-)

 And this tree I am really excited about...it is a flowering plum and we planted it on the other side of our yard. It can grow up to 20 feet, has pink flowers in the spring and then these deep red leaves the rest of the year.

 In other gardening news, I am very sad to report that my crape myrtle did not survive the winter. The other bushes are doing well, even my winter pansies are blooming again but the crape myrtle didn't make it so now I have to figure out what to replace it with. I don't want anything super tall there but would like to have something with color. Any ideas or suggestions?

Weekend get away

Enjoyed a nice 3 day get away in Ocean City Maryland this weekend! One of the perks of Tom's job is, sometimes he gets asked to do some recruiting for the school. He gets put up in a nice hotel and all expenses are paid. The school graciously extended the offer to include me and Kira so we decided to go with him.

It was a very nice hotel, with a view of the bay right out our window.


Here we are getting ready to go into the convention center for the first time so Tom could set up...


The last day we were there it actually snowed!


There is a car under there...and right before we took this picture, Kira walked right into a big puddle and completely drenched her shoes. But she was still having a ball so it didn't matter!


We ate a a couple nice places while we were there...one was a place called The Bayside Skillet. They are known for their HUGE portions and especially for their crepes. I got a banana crepe with toasted almonds and Tom got a bacon, spinach and cheese omelet. Yum!

 The convention center, before all the schools came in and set up their booths...

 I don't know why these are turning out blurry...I guess I tried to make them too big??

The first haircut!

Have been trying to grow Kira's hair out, but right now, it is at an awkward stage where it was hanging in front of her eyes. It was also a little too long now to give her a "sprout" b/c it just straight up in the middle of her head about 4 inches! So just decided to take the plunge and have someone even up the back and cut in some bangs.

As you can see, she wasn't very happy, and didn't really understand what was going on, but the end result was worth it, because it looks cute and is out of her face! Looking at her now, she reminds me even more of how Grace looked when she was this age, it's almost uncanny!