Have a Blessed Easter!

We have been having lots of computer troubles lately. I think we have a virus, but virus removal programs can't detect or remove it. We probably will have to take it to a place to get it fixed which I hope won't be too expensive! I am getting a laptop, I am so excited! We got a great deal through Bill's work, and I was able to get some nice upgrades (including the color purple!). It is supposed to arrive on Wednesday. It has been frustrating not being able to get on AIM or facebook or even view emails properly. I'll be able to bring the laptop outside with me, which will be great because all Aubrey wants to do is play outside. The weather is slooooowly getting more springlike. Today it got up to 56!

Bill has the three day weekend off so we are hoping to get some painting done and a light fixture up. Aubrey really wants to play with her Daddy though so I am not sure how much we will get done. He has been having late meetings at work so he leaves before she wakes up and gets home after she goes to bed. She didn't see him for three days this week! :( Sunday we have a dinner with my parents and John and Alisa after church. I'll have to post pictures of Aubrey in her cute dress later when we get the computers in order!

twenty months

Aubrey is 20 months old now, can you believe it?! She is growing by leaps and bounds, and has an amazing capacity for learning. She can count to ten and just about say the alphabet (needing one or two prompts). She also has learned how to manipulate very well. If she does something naughty and is getting in trouble she tries to hug or kiss us and be cute to distract us. She also knows if I am in the bathroom I can't immediately run to stop her from doing something so she seizes the opportunity to color on her chair or open the bathroom cabinet. Mischief is her middle name....

Aubrey is extremely affectionate. We get more than our share of hugs, kisses and "shuggle, shuggles" (snuggles). Many times throughout the day I hear, "Mommy, Wuv You!" Now she is getting comfortable around Gramma and Papa D. and Uncle John and Aunt Alisa they are getting some of the love too.

Bonus photos: the spread for my Mom's birthday dinner and a picture of the cake I made.

We survived the move! I think....

I can't believe it has been so long since we moved already, I am still unpacking boxes and settling into our new house. I want to take pictures so you can see what it looks like here but the inside isn't anything like what I want it to look like yet and outside it is either snowing, raining, or super muddy. I'll get to it eventually. Here is one picture I took looking out from the living room, over the deck at the lake.

We are all slowly adjusting. Aubrey was more needy and cranky for a while, but I think she is finally settling in and understanding this is home. She loves having tons of room to run around, inside and out, and is sporting all kinds of new bruises from tripping. I think she inherited my gracefulness. Bill is in the middle of his second week at his new job and is enjoying it very much. The coworkers are nice, the work not too overwhelming, and yet plenty of responsiblity and leeway to make improvements where they need them. I am really missing my friends back in VA, and am reluctantly adjusting to the slower pace here. Aubrey and I went to Target today: 35 minute drive there, 30 minutes in the store, 30 minutes to Starbucks, 20 minutes home. A little different from my two Targets and ten starbucks in a ten minute radius. ;)

It is probably a good thing that we are further away from all stores and restaurants because Bill won't be getting a paycheck until he works for six weeks, yikes! I am going to be going shopping with my sister-in-law Alisa next week though, I am very excited about that (and praying Aubrey cooperates!)

I have so many plans for the house, and then I have spaces I don't know what to do with. We got all kinds of free cable channels on our tv so I have been watching HGTV and thinking I need to apply to one of those home makeover shows. Maybe I'll post pictures on here and ask for ideas for colors, floor coverings, storage options, etc. I know some of you have amazing taste (Liz that definitely includes you!)

Our wish list includes a canoe for the lake and a swingset for Aubrey. As long as our Townhouse rents out soon maybe we will be able to afford a few of these grand plans I have. :)

I am sitting here at the computer with the windows wide open enjoying the early spring weather. It is almost seventy degrees for the second day in a row and there is a nice breeze stirring all the trees outside. I am definitely going to miss the early warm weather of Virginia. Instead we are moving to a place that frequently has its last snow of the season in April. We will just have to embrace the fact we will have a lake to skate on and hills to sled down now. I am so not a winter person though. Oh well.

It has been really busy, as you can imagine, packing, cleaning, and organizing. It is interesting what you find when you go through the recesses of closets you haven't fully emptied since you moved in. Clothes from college, maybe even before, catalogues from 2004, nail polish colors that I don't know what I was thinking when I bought them, pictures from visits with friends you forgot you took. All this stuff slows me down, but don't worry, we have thrown away, sold, and donated a TON of stuff. We are moving to a house with so much more space, it is going to echo in there for a while.

We got really exciting news yesterday! John and Alisa are having a boy! One of the plusses of moving now is being up there for the latter part of the pregnancy (hello? babyshower!) and the newborn stage of the little guy. Thanks for waiting so we won't miss any of it (just kidding!).

Bill has next week off so that we can spend our time on packing and getting the house ready to rent. Yikes, though we have a lot to do. I get overwhelmed just thinking about it! I am sure it will be fine once I buckle down and really work hard on it, but for now it all seems a little daunting.

Qui Transtulit Sustinet

Northern Virginia has been our home for almost seven years--Bill as a bachelor, as newlyweds, young professionals, renters, first time homebuyers, and parents. I have had so many firsts here: first (post-college) job, first car, first house, first baby, first time being a grown-up really. When we moved down here after college we always said, it will only be for a while, then we will move closer to family. And now the time has come for us to transplant ourselves to Connecticut, where I grew up. Bill has just accepted an amazing job offer, and as much as we are going to miss all the friends and ties that we will be leaving behind, we feel that this is the direction that God is leading us in. We moved to the DC suburbs for my job, and now that I have a different one as mom that reason isn't keeping us here anymore.

Our house in CT is in the beautiful woods on a lake that we can swim and ski on. We will have so much more room there for guests and we expect each of our friends to come visit us--just start signing up for summer weeks! :) It is a great location between NYC and Boston, so if you want to have a vacation where you do a tour of southern New England and NY we would be a good base to venture out from. (just a little sales pitch)

It looks like will be moving the 21st of February. We are going to miss Virginia terribly, but we know, as the Connecticut state motto says, "Qui Transtulit Sustinet," or, "He who transplanted still sustains."

And just for fun, a picture of Aubrey out in the snow today.

pre-bedtime sillies

A little bit of catch up

I have really been slacking off as a blogger lately, what does that make me, a slogger? I guess it is that I have been busy without really doing anything. Having a 1.5 year old with boundless energy and endless needs keeps me on my toes.

One thing that I have committed to lately is exercising. I learned that I have to make it a priority--the first thing on my to do list, rather than the thing that I get to if and when everything else gets done. So now I run/walk 3-4 miles outside with Aubrey in the stroller or do 1/2 hour on the elliptical machine 6 days a week and workout with my exercise ball and resistance band 3 times a week. No excuses. The problem that I always run into is that I really hate working out. It makes me miserable, so I am pretty good at finding ways to get out of it. But now I am being very good about it and make it a habit so that it feels wrong when I don't do it every day. I do wish I had someone I could do it with that could make it a sort of competition--that would help with the motivation. For now I just have to compete with my laziness and the scale.

Around this time of year I always get the itch for vacation. I don't know if it is just that it has been a long time since we have had one, or winter drives us inside and there isn't all the fun picnics, hikes, swimming, and other various free outdoor activities to do, but I REALLY want to get away. I daydream and "shop" online for vacations until it becomes a reality that with a kid and dog we can't really afford to fly anywhere, so we will end up waiting until it is spring or summer and just drive to the beach. Honestly though, I don't want to be a family that does the same vacation every single year. I would rather have adventures. Bill and I have semi-seriously been talking about taking a trip out west this spring, maybe to Arizona or Colorado. Have any of you had a good trip out west? Anywhere you suggest as a fun place to visit, that isn't too hard to bring along a toddler? We do have a backpack that we put her in, and definitely plan to do some hiking, but obviously with 30 pounds on Bill's back we can't do a whole mountain.

Speaking of toddlers, Aubrey gets more like a kid and less like a baby every day. It is a little sad, but fun at the same time. She asks to do her favorite things all the time now--Walk? Outside? or Playdoh? Downstairs? I also constantly hear "help please" because she gets herself halfway under or over something and then gets stuck. If she even so slightly bumps something she runs over to me and holds it out while making kissing noises so I will kiss it and make it better for her. I think she probably learns a new word every day now, and says "welcome" when she hands you something and "okay" when you tell her something. Aubrey's latest challenge is learning colors. She knows all the words, red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, pink, but she gets them right only about 50% of the time. Often she just says a color regardless of what the color actually is. Also, we have casually started potty training. I think it will be easier to do in the summer when we don't have to take off three layers to sit on the potty. We got her a green baby bjorn brand potty that she gets excited when she sees it and says, "potty! potty!" She knows how to sit on it and say what you are supposed to do on it though, it is cute. Mostly we are just talking about it so she gets used to the idea at this point. Along with all the fun parts of having a toddler we are "enjoying" the temper tantrums now, fun times.

Well, she is handing me books and saying, please! so that is all for now.