live, laugh, dance.

We had just finished Mulan for our weekly movie night and she was loving the song that played during credits so, not entirely uncommon for Bella and I, we stopped everything for a quick dance party! She is such a nut, I love this girl!

for your viewing pleasure, there's this one showing off her 1/8 Puerto Rican passion!

you've got a friend in me... please.

I'm entirely aware of the necessity of finding other moms in the area to network with. As it stands I'm sincerely happy with the decision I've made to stay at home with the babies but if I'm not speaking in baby-talk I'm alone in my thoughts all. day. long. Turns out I'm not entirely all that interesting and I'm bored with myself. SO I've started mommy-dating.

I kind of thought it wouldn't be all that hard to meet other moms since I'm relatively outgoing and am willing to start a conversation with a stranger even if the thought that they wouldn't like me, or will be a teacher-sweater, still makes me want to throw up. Knowing I needed to be on the prowl and meet some mamas, I took advantage of an opportunity when I was at Starbucks a couple months ago and there was a woman who commented a few times on how cute Bella and Austin are (please know you can absolutely buy my love) and she mentioned she had a son about Austin's age at home. On a closer nonchalant look I saw she was doing a bible study and my gaze drifted to her side to notice, to my delight, she had a really cute purse... this, I thought, could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Justin and I have been together for over nine years (we dated for four years before we got married five years ago) so it's been awhile since I've been in the dating game so I was ridic nervous when, as I was leaving, I stopped by and gave her my phone number. and then I peed myself. so nervous. With good reason beause a week passed and nothing. I reminded myself it was the week before Thanksgiving - who calls a newbie in the midst of holiday fun? Then, the week after Thanksgiving my phone rang with a call from my new maybe-friend to meet for coffee and a play date at the mall. It was as awkward as a first date is supposed to be, but we did manage to have good conversation, she was really nice and by all accounts she seems to be a relatable mom. Thumbs up!

Until I never saw her again. I think it was my turn to call to initiate another play date but the days got away from me and a couple weeks after coffee it was Christmas, then New Years, then no legitimate excuse other than it had been too long and I was embarrassed and feeling sheepish for not calling. On my drive home from the gym today I saw the church she mentioned she attends so I figured that was a good enough reason for a random text to say that I think I saw where she attends since it took nearly five minutes of our conversation at coffee explaining where it was. I didn't say we should get together again, there was something about leaving the ball in the other person's court rattling around in my head. When she wrote back she was consistantly nice and equally noncommital about making plans soon... frickin ball in my court! ...I think I'm supposed to wait 24 hours before texting back. I don't want to appear over-eager and scare her off. Dating is harder than I remember!

There was one other mom I hoped had promise that I met at Gymboree Play and Learn with Bella... her hair was styled and cute, they were dressed cute - sans poms or appliqued animal shapes - and our girls naturally played together so I thought maybe something. Until I saw her put her Uggs on (not knockin' Uggs, love 'em!) but when she slipped the baby Uggs on her daughter I figured we were on the verge of snooty and I wouldn't be able to keep up. The baby Uggs were enough to keep from talking after class, the nerd alert was ringing from high school, and I figured I'd wait until after the next class to see how it went. She never came back so that pretty well settled it.

Happy Trails to You

Today was officially my last day of work - I was assisting on events as needed as my boss is looking for a replacement - so I sent out the officical "goodbye" email. I considered not sharing on my blog because I didn't want it to seem insincere, but it's a memory for me. So here goes...

"I know I’ve sort of kind of been gone already for a month, but as I’m finally officially leaving I couldn’t very well leave without emailing any sort of goodbye. Although I know I’ve made the right choice, and I’m blessed and excited to have time to spend with my babies, this change and transition is intimidating as all hell and I know that I’ll miss this place. I can’t do individual thank yous, because it will wreck me (and conveniently nobody is actually here today) so I wanted to sum it up in a way that will likely not make sense to anyone… but here’s hoping:

It was a pretty fantastic thing when a line from my favorite movie was mentioned in one of my favorite TV show years ago. Young Dawson was troubled because there were too many changes coming up and it was intimidating, so his girlfriend explains that the part everyone remembers about the Wizard of Oz doesn’t resonate with the rest of the movie. Everyone remembers the line “there’s no place like home” but forgets that home is a gray, dust-bowl of a place where an old lady was trying to kill your dog. Oz on the other hand is Technicolor and along the way you make friends. There are these people you never knew existed growing up. Straw people, tin people and lions – and throughout the shared journey you help each other realize that the things you want to be, you already are.

I basically just moved to Cleveland when I got this job, and like the chapter now before me, it was intimidating. But I made friends… so, thank you for being my straw people, tin people and lions. Working for the Cavaliers has been phenomenal opportunity – but I know the reason I loved this job so much wasn’t the day to day but the people who filled it. Please keep in touch, I plan to."

Happy Birthday Baby Jesus, Timeout!

Bella loves singing happy birthday to Baby Jesus before we had my family's tradition of coffee cake breakfast. It's all super sweet and melts your heart, but my favorite part is when she goes to hit the high notes, it's so cute!

Then we had a talk about where Baby Jesus from the nativity set was, because he spent a lot of the Christmas season missing. Turns out he was currently in timeout, again. He was missing for over a week at the beginning on the month for touching the Christmas tree, and apparently on Christmas Day he had done it again. tsk tsk.

here, Joseph and the three wisemen had to have been up to something because after Bella went to bed we found them all in trouble. Timeout!

Feliz Natal!

I love that we've had the opportunity to go see the same Santa with Bella so we can watch her grow with each consecutive year. and now we watch as our family grows long with St. Nick as well! It certainly adds to it that this is hands down the best Santa I've seen - and he's legitimately great with the babies. Miracle on 34th Street anyone?

2010 - Bella 2 1/2 years, Austin 9 months

2009 - Bella 18 months

2008 - Bella 7 months

MeRrY ChRiStMaS!