Seven Years..

I’ve decided that I want to try and write my kids a letter on their birthdays and give them to them when they leave for college. Since we live in the age of computers I’m going to just post a letter to them on here for the rest of you to read too. J

Dear T,

You are seven years old today… SEVEN… S. E. V. E. N. As your mother I cannot believe that I have a SEVEN YEAR OLD BOY. I’ve said this every year since you turned one but for some reason this year has been the biggest reality check.

You are no longer a little kid but an independent, active, loving, affectionate, smelly, athletic, brave, endearing, BOY. I’m not sure when it happened… when you went from being a little boy to a real boy but this past year has been a lot of firsts for you (and mom/dad). You lost your first baby tooth, played ice hockey for the first time, started taking showers everyday by yourself, you read your own books, you play your own games, and you tie your own shoes.

We also moved to a new house and you started at a new school and daycare, all the while just going with the flow like you’ve done since you were a baby. You never cease to amaze me with how easily you accept change in your life and just throw yourself into the midst of it.

You continue to be an amazing brother to R and love her endlessly. You have a profound sense of maturity when dealing with her even when she’s biting/hitting/stealing your toys you just tell her no and give her a hug. She in turn loves her Bubba more than anything in the world. When she gets scared at night or wakes up too early the first place she goes is into your room and onto “her bed” (the bottom bunk). You may complain when she wakes you up but more often than not we find the two of you playing games in your “fort” (the bottom bunk). We are so proud of everything you have accomplished and even more proud of the young man you are turning out to be.  

Here are some fun facts about your life this past year:

Favorite Color: Green

Favorite Food: PB&J or spaghetti

Favorite Friend: Caiden

Favorite subject in school: Math (technically math is second to recess but whatever)

Favorite sport: Hockey/dirt biking

We love you and can’t wait to see how much more you accomplish as a SEVEN YEAR OLD… (still getting used to that).

Love,

Mom and Dad

New Year.... New Post...

It's a really good thing I didn't commit to any daily (or even monthly) blogging goals because I fail. I fail miserably. So here's an abbreviated list of everything that has happened (in no particular order) with some details and promised posts (lol):

1) A new year happened... yea where did 2012 go cause I missed it too.. just saying. Happy New Year!  I'll be back with more on "resolutions."

2) T turned 7. I realize now how depressing birthdays are. As a kid I was SO pumped to turn another year older (fun fact: I also thought that being 25 for the rest of my life would be the ideal age), and now I dread them. I dread them for me and my kids. Obvious reasons on my own birthday... who likes getting older?... for the kids though its just farther and farther from them being babies. One would think this attitude would lead to more babies... I'm not missing it that much. SO yes I am the mother of a 7 year old boy. Another post about that...

3) Christmas/December happened. Phew... December was a whirlwind. I finished my first semester back to school since R was born.. ended with straight A's so that's awesome (go me!). Then it was full on Christmas prep time. I took the week off between Christmas Eve and New Years for the first time and it will become a yearly thing for me. I did a bunch of crafting which I will write about too. (post count so far... 3... this is getting to be a deep hole). We also had Christmas in our new house with everyone coming down for the first time. When I say for the first time I mean not just in the new house but having it at home with the entire family too. You see we live less than an hour from both sets of grandparents and therefore our presence is expected at the holidays. Before we moved we lived in a teeny tiny townhouse which definitely could not have accommodated everyone. So we did Christmas Eve with one set of grandparents and Christmas day with the other. It was exhausting but its for family and that made it fine. This year however we didn't have to go anywhere it was AWESOME.. let's say that again... IT WAS AWESOME!  I also kept it simple and had help with the food. (I gave out food assignments to the Grandmas/Aunt C). Everyone said they had a great time so hopefully this will become a yearly tradition. T was so cute and asked us on Christmas morning if we had to go anywhere, to which Aunt C replied "For the first time in your life, No!"

4) Thanksgiving... it happened. haha no, seriously though that was WAY too long ago to even attempt to recall any good details. The food was good though! :)

So yea in a nutshell that leads us to today.  Stay tuned for the above promised posts and maybe even a few more! :)

What's next in the world of the Gilsfam clan?

• Hockey... way more hockey
• A fancy work party.. I promise pictures on that. Mr. Gil will be in his brand new suit! (I'll be in a new dress but seriously I could talk for days about the suit.. just saying.)
• R turns 3... see above comment about birthdays. I mean seriously can they please get with the program on this growing up thing? We might be moving to Neverland where no one gets older... or L.A... whichever.

And that'll get us through to February...

XO
Mrs. Gil

Crockpot Applesauce

Irony… it’s a funny thing really. Trust me.. I’m just as surprised as you are that I am posting about a recipe I tried before I post about a craft project. Haha. But anyway… back to the topic at hand.

The other day [I won’t disclose how long ago] Mr. Gil bought one of those sacs of apples. He also bought those to-go applesauce things (seriously when you have kids you’ll understand how awesome those things are). Anyway, so I had 12382910 apples in my fridge and they were probably teetering on the line of going really bad because clearly I’m too lazy to slice apples when I can just give them a pouch. (judge away my friends)

SO what do you do when you have a ton of apples to use and its fall and you’re bored… you clearly google crockpot applesauce and go from there. I followed this recipe  for the most part…

 Let’s discuss “the most part”. Well I didn’t have any lemons so I nixed the lemon peel and “fresh lemon juice” nor did I have any cinnamon sticks. I did have lemon juice in a bottle and ground cinnamon… it’s the same thing.. right?! Also, I used 9 apples not 8. I had 9 and didn't want to him to be the odd man out.

Step 1: Peel and core all those 23480234 apples (or 9 whatevs)

I used my handy-dandy apple slicer-corer-peeler gadget that a friend gave me after a Pampered Chef party… so basically that means I love this thing  1) because it was free, 2) because it’s awesome (duh)!

 (Disclaimer: My opinion of this product is my own.. Pampered Chef did not pay me. HA I wish!)

Step 2: Add ingredients

Step 3: Cook on low for 6 hours and enjoy the bonus air freshener

Step 4: Mash it all up and put in a jar (and a half)

(PS: We're going to ignore that pink plastic hair curler... k? thanks!)

That’s it! Super easy and I must say yummy!

You'll be my honeysuckle . …. I'll be your honey bee

Let’s talk about honey….

About a month ago I hosted a Pooh themed baby shower that included little honey pots filled with honey. Anyway, I grossly overestimated how many “bears” of honey I would need to make all the favors. So I pretty much have honey for years. Which leads me to my next point…

Ever since I changed my birth control from the pill to the Mirena I am no longer reaping the benefits of the acne control. So that basically means that I’m a 28 year old woman with the acne of a 13 year old girl. It’s pretty great.  Picture this:

Ok maybe that’s an exaggeration BUT it’s still bad. So I did some Googling and found a source that says mixing honey with cinnamon is an acne treatment. Since I bought enough honey to treat 21832190382109 faces I’m going to give it a whirl. Can’t hurt right??? Hopefully I don’t end up with another one of these posts.

I’ll let you know how that goes. Fingers crossed that this is the secret to end all secrets and I’ll have Twilight vampire clear skin.

Updates and Weekends

Well I guess it’s a good thing that I never set a posting goal for myself like every day or every other day… cause well I just failed.

Anywho.. I know you’re dying to know where I’ve been.. so I’ll tell ya. Nowhere.. I’ve been working like crazy and schooling like crazy and momming like crazy and little bit of wifing. (Sorry babe). That’s pretty much it. I will spare you the details of working and schooling like crazy… it’s not fun for me to live therefore I will not make you live it too.

Oh, what happened to my rash you ask? Haha that’s funny because it implies that it’s gone. Well it’s not. It’s not on my face anymore which is a win. Let’s recap shall we? So I woke up with a rash, left work early, stayed home the next day to go to the clinic, Dr walks in..several weird looks later…diagnoses it as shingles or poison ivy.. call it shingles ivy if you will. Anyway, I get my drugs (clearly the point of going in the first place) and religiously take them. Ok for serious though I had to take 9 pills.. NINE pills.. the first day. Then 8, then 7, you get the idea. It was a little overwhelming. I’m done with them now and the shingles part (ie: the face) is gone but I’ve still got that ivy on my hand, oh and my other hand, oh and my back. So yea.. we’re still working on the rash. It’s still awesome to be me.

Momming.. So T is in 1^st grade at his new school and loves it. It’s so awesome that he likes his new teacher and he really seems to be happy about school. That definitely doesn’t mean he would pick school over T.V. or dirt biking.. or really anything BUT he’s happy. They still do the color charting thing that I hate but she does it differently. So instead of starting at the top and only have the option of staying up there or moving down (T is good at the moving down) she has you start in the middle where you can go up two colors or down three colors. I like this method a lot more. T is doing better with the colors but not great. He said to me yesterday that he’s too funny to get good colors. … yea I know.

R is up to her usual antics and we’re still going relatively strong on the potty training front. Still can’t quite nail down the #2 in the potty thing which is AWESOME! She’s been eating like crazy too so I’m expecting to have to go out and buy some new clothes for her soon. While we’re on the topic of clothes.. in my other life I would LOVE to make her a new season of clothes or at least make the bulk of them for her. But since I’m in this life I’ve decided that I want to make her two outfits. I don’t know what two outfits yet but I know I want to make them. I have enough fabric laying around that I could make a few things so stay tuned for that.

Wifing… I’ve had shingles ivy.. enough said. Hahaha… no seriously.

Last weekend was the Charles County fair so we took the kids to that.  It was pretty uneventful so I’ll just leave you with a few pictures to elaborate.

Can you find the SERIOUS R face?

Pink firehats! I know right!

 That would be inside a fire truck. What you can't see is his really excited grin. I love this kid.

 Take 1...

 Take 2...

 Alright fine I give up.

So that’s what’s been going on… told ya it wasn’t that interesting.

This weekend is T’s hockey meeting and my friend Jess’ baby shower. I’m SOOOO excited for the baby shower. I still need to get her something though. I really love to make things for people when they have babies but since she isn’t finding out what she is having ahead of time I really can’t think of anything. So off to Babies-R-Us I go and I’ll just resolve to make her something later. I recently pinned this:

24 Hour Quilt 

Which I could easily do for her but I want it to be in the right colors and have the right stuff. Ya know.. gender specific stuff.

Oh yea.. and dirt. That’s on the schedule for this weekend too. I think I’ll dedicate a whole new post to that since it’s going to be dirty. Hahaha I’m hysterical. J

Until then… I wish you happy weekend!

Rash On The Face.... It’s So Cool

Yep… that’s right I’ve got a rash on MY FACE. You guys…

I woke up this morning at o’dark hundred as per usual, turned the shower on, started to brush my teeth and that’s when I saw it. MY FACE! My eye is swollen and I have a rash under my left ear, around the edge of my left eye, down the left side of my face, and on the edge of my bottom lip. I immediately went back into the bedroom, woke Mr. Gil up, declared a state of emergency and that he needed to come and see this….NOW. So he begrudgingly got out of bed and confirmed my face/eye was indeed swollen. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure he was annoyed with me but I NEEDED him to see it RIGHT THEN. It absolutely could not wait. (sorry babe!)

Upon further inspection I’m fairly positive that it’s poison ivy. How did I get poison ivy on my FACE you ask? That’s a really good question. Right now my theory is that someone snuck into my bedroom and rubbed it all over my face while I was sleeping… kind of like an evil poison ivy fairy if you will. That OR when we were at the Townhouse on Sunday afternoon and I was weeding the garden I yanked some out, touched my face, and then washed it off my hands thus preventing further spreading. Not sure about that second theory though.. sounds a little too farfetched if you ask me.  

So yes.. I have a rash on my face with a swollen eye. It’s a pretty awesome day to be me. Try not to be jealous.

XO

Mrs. Gil

PS: Did you know that the title of my post is actually a song lyric?  Infected by Pimply Life.... I could not make this up. Google is an excellent resource for post titles.

Sprinkle… Sprinkle… HURRICANE!

Ok so maybe not a hurricane hurricane but it seriously felt like it!

This weekend was my husband and I’s seven year anniversary. To celebrate it he planned a whole weekend in Gettysburg, PA to include spending the day at the Wine and Music Festival. My parents agreed to watch the kids overnight so early Saturday morning we made are way up to their house (an hour away), dropped them off, and headed up to PA. We found our hotel (within walking distance to the festival!), checked in, walked over to the festival, paid our $50 (I know right!) and then went to our first wine tent. Let’s back up… Mr. Gil and I are not wine drinkers. He doesn’t like wine… like at all and I like the wine that tastes like candy.  Ok so now that we’ve established that lets move on. The first wine tent was good we pretty much stuck with the sweet wines (see previous comment about candy). Mr. Gil and I both liked the peach wine and the pineapple wine. Fast forward maybe 20 mins and three wine tents, and a spiral cut deep fried potato chip concoction later… dark black evil looking clouds start to roll in. The lead singer of the don’t-remember-type –of-music-band made an announcement about impending weather and to take shelter in the nearby theater. Mr. Gil and I of course kept eating our amazing potato thing and ignored the warning. We finish up, step outside the tent… I notice it’s sprinkling… open the umbrella and then hurricane. Ok so seriously though… I’m talking torrential down pour with what felt like small pieces of hail and 60 mph winds…. In a field with an umbrella. Were we soaked? Yep! Were we laughing at how RIDICULOUS this all is? Yep! Was I admittedly scared out of my mind at one point that I was going to get blown away like the house in the Wizard of Oz? OH YES! Especially when one of the exhibitor's tents went tumbling down the hill and landed in a destroyed mess.

SO after that whole thing came and went… we sloshed our way back to the hotel to get out of our sopping wet clothes and dried off.

The festival ended up getting shut down by the fire department due to all the destruction. SO we went to dinner, walked around the historic area, saw a movie, and generally enjoyed our day together.

All in all it was a really great weekend. I appreciate his gesture in planning this day for me more than he will ever know. After seven years of marriage and 12 years of being in love I can honestly say that I love that man more today than I  ever have. I am truly blessed to  have him in my life. We’re not perfect but we are certainly perfect for each other.

I hope you all managed to have an equally awesome and hopefully NOT as equally wet weekend!

XO

Mrs. Gil