Winter Holidaze

With the weather finally starting to break into spring, its time to recap our winter festivities.  We make an attempt to celebrate as many little holidays as possible, so we pass the time during the winter making crafts and planning little parties.  Here's a quick run-down of how we revel through the long winter months.

For New Years, we had dinner at Cityview (since now closed, sad!) with the Kochs, Sleeks, and Stuvers.  We had great food, good drinks, and lots of good conversation.  Then Ninna and I headed back to our house while our men picked up the kiddos at Gigi&Pappy's house.  They made it back just in time to see the ball drop and the four of us (plus Uncle Juice) stayed up laughing and chowing down on slow-cooker pork&sauerkraut into the early morning of the new year.

We helped our friend, Lila, celebrate her first birthday in early January

We celebrated Orthodox Christmas on January 7th.  My maternal grandma was Serbian Orthodox and Gigi is Russian Orthodox - so we have double reason to celebrate.  'Orthodox Santa' stops by our house with a small gift and we spend the rest of the day visiting both sides of our family to eat pierogies and drink Slivovitz.

And then made a hike out to Dadda's alma mater, Washington & Jefferson, to see the Boy's basketball game and have dinner with all our friends (or also known as the time Grey dumped 1/3 of a bottle of ketchup on his spaghetti...whichever you want to call it).

Uncle Jon, Grey, Gem, and Dadda

We had our own celebration at home in honor of Miss Tay's first birthday in early February.  Miss Tay is our friend who was born with hydrocephalus.  She has reached a major milestone by celebrating her first birthday and we figured it was a great reason for us to celebrate her first year too with birthday cake for dessert at home.

We had our own Lunar new year party by making paper lanterns and eating out at our favorite Chinese buffet restaurant.  Happy Year of the Snake!

In mid-February, I participated in the Women's Empowerment day that was organized by some of the junior girls at our old high school.  In honor of the day, students and women were encouraged to wear no make-up all day.  High school girls and teachers all attended school with fresh clean faces.  I didn't have anywhere to go - but still participated at home.  Grey thinks I'm beautiful just as I am - he's one of the good ones :)

We enjoyed Kings' Cake for breakfast on Mardi Gras - Grey found the baby!  Lucky boy!

Then we celebrated Gemma's first Valentines day.

And then our baby girl turned one. One, already. Why do babies grow too fast and make their mumma heartsick.

Then we cheer'sed with champagne (and juice for the kids) for Kayla & Ryan's engagement!

And headed to dinner at Hoss's for steak and ice cream for the holiday on March 14th. (hahhaha!)

We celebrated St. Patrick's day by making a paper rainbow craft with cut up construction paper & glue stick (Greys' fav kind of craft!) and drinking green milk all day.

And then we participated in Earth Hour by putting the kids to bed without any electricity.  Gemma was memorized and calmed by the candlelight and Grey was disappointed to learn that the iPad was included in 'electricity.'

Finally, we celebrated Easter with our families and each ate our weight in candy and chocolate (sheesh!)  We're counting this as a winter holiday as Easter fell in March this year - which is usually still winter here in PA.

And now that we've hit April, we're already into our Spring festivities- starting with Grey's 3rd birthday - which is TODAY, April 8th!

Here's to more laughing, good eats, and fun with our family&friends this coming season.

-hope you all are enjoying beautiful weather where ever you are today - it is about 60 here in western PA and I can barely contain the grin on my face!  Spring is here!! [i hope!]

how to: make your big sister scream on the top of her lungs

that's easy!  Get engaged!!!!

That's right, my little sister Kayla is getting married!!?!?!!?!!!  She facetime'd us on the evening of March 6th - which wasn't all that exciting because she normally facetimes the kids.  So I just put the two of them in front of the iPad and stay behind the scenes.  Kayla talked to them for a minute and then this exact conversation transpired:

Kayla:  Where's your Mum?
Me (as I grab iPad away from innocent, blessed children):  What?!?!  I'm about to scream!
Kayla (as she lifts up her hand to the camera):  Look what I got :)
Me:  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Kayla:  hahhahahaha
Me (to B):  Honey, I love you, but please take the children up to their bath immediately.  I need to talk to my baby sister now.  Goodbye, I love you, thank you, bye.

And then we giggled and talked for another 20 minutes until her future brother-in-law beeped in.
And then I promptly called our baby-baby sister and this exact conversation happened:

Me:  Hi.  You knew and didn't tell me?!?!
Tasha:  hahha, I know, sorry.
Me:  How do you always know things before everyone else?  (see here)
Tasha:  Because I'm a snoop.
Me:  True.

A few days ago, I opened the mailbox to find a letter inside addressed to me in a handwriting that looked very familiar.  I ripped it open (while sitting in the car) and realized it was from Kayla and she is already a way cooler bride than I ever was - duh.  She sent each of her bridesmaids a 'contract' for our duties leading up to the day.  And instead of going all bridezilla on us (like this crazy person), she made it so sweet and adorable that I could not stop smiling.  She also included pictures of the two of us together and I nearly burst into tears.

Then this exact phone conversation happened:

Me: HELLO!
Kayla:  Did the postman come today?
Me:  Um, YES!  Are you the most adorable bride ever?  And you know I'm blogging about that, right?


My sister, Kayla, is a lucky girl for lots of reasons (like having me for a big sister - hah! and her handsome, nice fiance who buys her a big, shiny ring, and her kitty Miles that we all seriously love), but mainly right now she's lucky because she is part of the "I am having my wedding while Pinterest exists" generation...which I was not.

Source: someecards.com via Michelle on Pinterest

So now, you should all feel very grateful to Pinterest that they recently enabled 'Secret boards' otherwise, you would be subject to a lot of wedding/bridesmaid/flowergirltutudresses/bacheloretteparty pin-mania.

Source: thebloggersupstairs.wordpress.com via Cristina on Pinterest

So let's have a giant hip, hip, hooah! (Kayla's a National Guard Vet) for my brave, beautiful, awesome, kick-a$s, little sis.  I can't think about this much longer because then I start hyperventilating and my face starts hurting from smiling.  Oh sheesh, its going to be a long year!

no way are we going to be able to be better than the speech they did for me.  ah!  the pressure!!

Easter 2013 with the Studer zoo crew

We enjoyed a beautiful Easter this year with lots of colorful fun - and a little sunshine too!  We started the holiday with some egg-coloring with our favorite friends, the Fiores.  I love seeing all the kids together and act so sweetly to each other.  When Kate took Charlie out of his car seat, Grey said, "Can we pet him, Mum?"

We had a fairly clean egg-coloring experience and the older two really seemed to enjoy it this year.  They were very patient and we were very proud and grateful for such an easy, mess-free, tantrum-free activity! 

 While the big kids were patient and delicate with their eggs, Gemmi-bear was a wild egg-dunker with her hands sort of girl.  Luckily, my Mum was there to help her and give her some one-on-one attention (and clean up!  Thanks Mum!)

We ended up with some pretty cute eggs and some happy little bunny foo foo's.  hah.  It was a great way to kick off of the holiday weekend - thanks Fiores for spending the afternoon with us!

We are very lucky to live in the same town as all of our family, but that also means that the holidays have a potential to be very hectic.  Fortunately, our families know how crazy that can be - so they are willing (thank you!!) to span out the celebrations across various days (just like we did for Christmas).

So on Saturday (Easter eve), we spent the day playing, eating, egg-hunting, and enjoying some general merriment with my side of the family.  When I was young, we always went to my grandma's house for holidays and we took family pictures under the Easter egg tree in the front yard.  And now that the house is my parents, my mom still decorates that same tree with Easter eggs for our customary photo op.

hambone.

Then it was time for egg-hunting and a game of kickball (to enjoy the sun we've missed so much) before the delicious dinner accompanied with favor bags filled with each of our favorite kinds of candy.

On Easter morning, the kids were excited to discover that the bunny had filled up their baskets with all sorts of surprises like the Piggy Paint Birthday Bash Gift Set (natural nail polish) and a Hatch'em (Growing Pet Dinosaur).

who is into Pop Rocks big time right now?  This kid.

after consuming approximately 16lbs of jelly beans.

after 24 hours of soaking!

But Daddy might have been happiest of all to discover that the Easter bunny had brought him the Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2012 with Top Shot Elite for the Wii.  That's okay though because the bunny did me well too with excessive amounts of ALDI chocolate (my fav) and a new iron & ironing board (when did I become so boring?)

Then it was off to Mimi's house (Brandon's grandma) for a delicious dinner while the kids played themselves punch drunk with their cousins.  We also got to sing Happy Birthday to Mimi since her birthday is April 1st!  Gemmi sings, "Hap.  Hap.  Hap."

Then it was off to Gigi & Pappy's house to follow the bunny footprints to more Easter baskets!  (our children are very lucky and excessively spoiled).  Gigi and Pappy fed the kids while Brandon and I napped (!!) on the couches.

It was another great holiday that we were reminded how very lucky we are to be loved by such great family and friends.

And my babies sure looked cute in their chevron outfits.  Gem's dress is from The Naptime Project etsy store and Grey's tie is from What a Fancy Pansy etsy shop.