Happy Birthday, Mom!

On Saturday, March 20th, we welcomed the first day of Spring, and celebrated my mom's birthday. We went to a new cupcake shop at the Ballantyne Village. If you don't have a cupcake shop in your town, I'm told these are the latest trend...and they may be here to stay...just like your ice cream shops. This is a sample in their shop of a cupcake bouquet they can make...but we opted to each choose our own flavor.
Part of our samples included, lemon with lemon custard filling, nutella filled with Vanilla buttercream, chocolate with strawberry buttercream...and some kind of turtle. Very yummy!
It was our first, warm, breezy day in months with temps in the upper 70's...so we all sat outside near the fountain to enjoy our confections.
Yes, and in honor of sandal season...Elise picked out some spring colors for her nails: purple toe-nails and pink finger-nails. After we were done, she walked around and kept saying, "Mommy, these are just beautiful."

Welcoming Spring

March has been a month of trying to get warmer weather here in Charlotte. Finally, we are starting to see average temps after an unusually cold winter.
Elise and our neighbor, Kaylie were thrilled to finally get outside a bit.



One of the joys of home-ownership is fixing things when they go wrong. (Insert sarcastic sneer here.)
A few weeks ago, I was driving home and hit my garage door remote, and noticed that my door wasn't opening very fast - and as I pulled in the driveway, I could see the door was bending toward the center & getting demolished! John was away for the evening, so I called my dad to come over. Evidently, the spring that pulls the door open had broke in two, and completely pulled the door to the center as the opener was trying to work. Thankfully, we didn't have any cars in the garage...we would have certainly had damage to them. But, the picture below actually shows the door after we pushed it back out a bit to have some measure of security. I'm happy to report that after waiting 2 weeks for the door to come in, we now are even more grateful to have access to the garage for our vehicles and Elise's toys.
Last week I had one of my friends, Rachel, from Minneapolis visit Charlotte, and so we chose to visit the Latta Plantation near Huntersville, NC. I've never been, and so this was a good visit for me too. I was able to take her to some of my favorite spots here in the Queen City...Thanks for the fun!

Valentine's Weekend

We had a lovely weekend celebrating Valentine's Day. John and I had a wonderful evening out & enjoyed the freedom of only entertaining ourselves and having adult conversation.

We shared this creme' brulee cheesecake which I'm still dreaming about. We'll have to return just for dessert at some point. I should mention that our weekend started out with a beautiful white snowfall on Friday night. Around 5pm large flakes started falling as we were picking up our pizza and the movie, Amelia. My parents and brother, Curt came over to join us, and when the movie was finished - we had nearly 3 inches of beautiful, white snow on the ground. Saturday morning we got outside right away and did some sledding, snow angels and built "frosty" in the front yard. By 4pm Saturday, it was nearly all melted after a sunny, 49 degree day.
Here's our little Valentine! She was so excited to wear her "Valentine's dress."
On a whim this past week, I pulled out this pink corduroy fabric I had picked up nearly 2 years ago, and put together this jumper for Elise. Amazingly, I also had the blue flowers and matching ribbon. My only expense was the zipper....so fun! The second amazing thing, was that Elise loved to wear it. At 2, it seems she is very opinionated about her outfits. She also insisted on wearing the pink bow...even though it had gotten crushed in a drawer...oh, well.




We hope you enjoyed your weekend, too. Today is the start of another week, and my washer/dryer are working at full capacity. Happy Monday!

Playing...

Well, we got to see the sunshine today, even though it still feels like a cold winter outside. I feel like it's been one of the coldest winters I can remember since moving to Charlotte. I know, I know...many of you readers have been enduring a much worse winter, but I would guess you are ready to welcome spring as well. I picked up a pretty cotton summer dress this week for Elise...and she begged me to wear it. I told her it wasn't summer yet, but I conceded that will a long shirt & tights underneath...we could manage it today. She was just cute..I grabbed my camera. We're all ready for warmer weather and ready to be outside again.

We are getting ready to celebrate Valentines this weekend. John and I have plans to go out to dinner on Saturday night & I've been baking in my kitchen...partly to keep it warmer and also to get into the season of Love. We made chocolate heart-shaped mini cakes & Elise helped with the sprinkles. She just might turn out to be a decorator extraordinaire...she's very meticulous & neat. (Hmm, where did that come from?) For lunch, our PB&J's have also been heart-shaped. What would we do without cookie cutters?
Thanks, T&B for sending the fun valentine's socks...Elise promptly put them on and has been wearing them all day. Make sure you celebrate the ones you love this weekend!

All things beautiful & sparkly

This is the name of the game (or phase) that Elise is in right now. She loves to dress up as a princess and received many fun dress-up options for Christmas. This past week, her latest addition to her dress-up wardrobe is 4 pairs of heeled princess shoes, and each day she asks for me to help her with her necklaces, and we can't forget the sparkly earrings. (They're sticker earrings).

I just love having conversations with her...and we're full swing into the questions, "But why mommy?" I'm quickly learning that I don't have to answer all the why questions throughout the day...or I'd get nothing done. Gone are the days when we could have a conversation around Elise and she would be in complete oblivion...she picks up on everything! She's also expanding her vocab to explain herself, and this week she was meticulously trying to lace a shoestring when she said, "I'm upset, Mommy! I'm frustrating" Oh, her little world continues to expand and she's learning so much.
Grandma June came over to check in and Elise brought her a pair of tights that had snagged and had a hole in the toe. Elise had tried to remedy the problem by sticking tape on the tights & was showing my mom. Well, just like grandma's do - she helped her fix her pink tights & darned the hole closed..thanks, Grandma!

Visit to D.C

Elise, mom and I took a week long trip to visit Paul & Jodi in Alexandria. We took an alternate route through the mountains to get there...and I would highly recommend it to anyone over the I95 madness!
We had beautiful sunny skies for most of our visit, and just enjoyed PB&J's remodeled home. I hadn't been to visit since Christmas last year & I felt like I was walking into a totally new house - good job you two.

Paul and Elise were just hanging out. I think uncle Paul got his fill of the WonderPets!
We had a yummy breakfast of crepes, eggs, bacon and Illy coffee. Yum! I think I may nearly be ruined for regular coffee after the Illy experience.
Toni was able to drive down to D.C. for a quick weekend to visit us. We enjoyed scouting out some deals in Old Town - and Toni probably scored the best shopping while we were there. I think of you and your new raincoat every time it rains here, Toni, and I want to text you to see if you're wearing it...
We enjoyed pizza out at Focca Luna. There are so many great places to eat in Old Town alone, that every visit I feel like we get to try new things.
Uncle Paul built a Giant Jenga set - and this was a big hit with Elise...
We had a great evening with John and Jessica Marston & got to meet their newest little girl, Millie. It was so nice to catch up with old friends, and to have all the same connections from the small town of Mt. Lake.
Mom, Elise and I went to visit Jess & the girls for a day downtown D.C. We were treated to wonderful hot chocolate and gelato. We'll be back, Jess. We had lots of fun...I'll include a cute video of Elise and Hadley. It's really special that our girls are the same age, since I remember doing so much with Jessica growing up.

I feel like I have a new lease on life without a weekly work schedule! Of course, being a mom and maintaining our household is a full-time job in itself, but I love setting my schedule each day. I've also started doing more custom draperies and home decor' for clients. This is another passion - creating things and I love working with fabrics and adding a little extra special touch to create a beautiful room.
Sorry for the delay in updating the blog...life and the holidays can get so busy...but I'm back and I'll try to keep all you readers updated a little more frequently!

Haircut

Whaaaaa........
I took Elise into Pigtails and Crewcuts just as an experiment to get her familiar with the shop, and to see if this would be an option to get her haircut. They have very kid-friendly staff, and fun chairs (i.e. shapes of an airplane, car, etc). We walked in and were the only potential customers in the store - and right away Elise wanted to sit in the plane chair. They had Nemo playing on the screen, and so many toys...She didn't quite want to sit in the chair by herself once the cape came out, but she agreed to sit on my lap in another chair and watch some Nemo while the stylist trimmed several inches off.
I love her new cut! She has so much hair...
She was having fun before bed...and who doesn't feel great after a good haircut?
Silly girl....we love you!