Fall: Favorite season & photo shoot

It's hard not to love this time of year. Mums, pumpkins, changing leaves...these are just a few reasons I love fall. I also love the cooler weather (I'm not fully enjoying this 80 degree heat wave) and the wardrobe that comes with it. 


We decided to take advantage of the beautiful day for a quick photo shoot in our front yard. I decided to post a few because it's been awhile since I've done any blogging, and I promised my grandparents, who just left Ohio for their home in Florida, that I would post some new pics soon.

It's hard to believe that my little baby is now a talking, walking, and, sometimes, running toddler. Every day she amazes me with what she's learned, what she notices, and what she repeats! Her favorite new word this week is socks. In Landen speak it's "ock-ies" pronounced just that way with the second syllable stressed and much higher pitched. 

For now, that's all I have. I've been a bit uninspired lately in regards to the blog. I hope that changes soon. I'm sure there's a grammatical pet peeve or fashion don't out there just ready to drive me crazy very soon!

It's a Ladybug Birthday

Landen is ONE! I cannot believe how the past year has flown by. It seems like just yesterday we were in the hospital meeting our beautiful little girl for the first time. Now she's walking, talking and getting into everything! 


This summer I took on preparing a proper ladybug themed first birthday party for my precious little girl. It all started when we bought a book for her around Christmas titled Ladybug Girl Dresses Up by David Soman and Jacky Davis. Ever since then we started calling her 'Ladybug Girl'. It just seemed natural to have a ladybug theme for her first birthday. 


Had I not been off all summer, I can't say that I would have gone to the same extent in my decorating; however, I had a lot of time to think about, prepare and shop for my decor. So here we go....

Here are some ladybug oreos along with black and red "milk chocolate gems" a.k.a. M&M's, mini oreos, and red licorice to accent the black and red theme. The ladybug bowls were found at Meijer this spring. I also picked up some roses for some extra red decor around the kitchen.

This is the beautiful cake I ordered from ele cake co. located in Beaverdam, OH. 

My mother-in-law found these little ceramic ladybug salt and pepper shakers which I used as decor on our kitchen shelves.

I found these ladybug napkins on ezpartyzone.com. I ordered them on Sunday and received them by Wednesday - quick shipping!

I also made six of these tissue paper puff balls for random decor around the house. Three were red, two were white with black dots and one was white with red dots. These were possibly my favorite part of the decorations.

I picked up a couple of bouquets of red, black and polka dotted balloons from Celebrations in town and anchored them with ladybug ceramic pots. I painted these pots red, glued black fuzzy dots, antlers and eyes to them. 

For this birthday sign, I painted letters on regular paper, glued them onto the red construction paper and strung them up on a thin wire. 

Here are Landen's gifts from mommy and daddy. I just had to keep the red, black and white theme in my wrapping! 

I decked out Landen's highchair with some tulle and wrapped her chair in part of a tablecloth so we wouldn't stain the material with cake and icing.

Landen didn't have much of an attention span for opening her gifts, but she got some great stuff from everyone. She's had a great time today trying out all of her new toys. Mommy's equally (if not more) excited for some new things to keep her busy for the rest of the summer!

After presents Landen was able to dig in to her cake. She's had some tastes of sweets here and there this summer, so we knew she was going to love all of that icing and cake. She actually didn't get too crazy smashing her cake, but she was trying to savor every sweet bit of that icing in her mouth. :) I think someone has a sweet tooth.

Later in the night after most had gone home, our little ladybug was still on her sugar high. She finally crashed around 9pm and didn't wake up until almost 8am. She was a worn out little girl!

I have to say that the day was an entirely enjoyable one. It wouldn't have been as great without all of the family and friends involved in celebrating our little one. She is blessed to have such wonderful people in her life. 

Summer Grammar Lesson: Who and Whom

I apologize for asking you to think during the summer, but I promise this one will be easy AND make you instantly sound smarter. Using the correct form of who and whom in language is something that I've always struggled with. I would always get the two confused, and I could never remember the tricks to getting it right. 


I recently purchased The Only Grammar Book You'll Ever Need, and it did a great job of setting me straight for good. I thought I'd pass on the enlightenment. First I'll explain the logic behind the rule, then I'll give you an easy trick to help you remember which to use when speaking/writing.


The Rule: 
Use who when what you're referring to is the subject of the clause you're working with. Example: Who is coming to dinner? Who is the subject and is coming is the verb.
Use whom when what you're referring to is an object (or an additional part of the sentence that helps it make sense). Example: Whom were you talking to last night? Here, you is the subject and were talking is the verb.


The Trick:
First, look at the sentence or clause that contains the who/whom in question. 


She was concerned with who would be her new boss.


Then, rearrange the clause to form a statement instead of a question (if necessary). 


No rearranging necessary here.


Next, replace the who/whom with he or him. 


He/Him would be her new boss.


If it makes sense to use he, the correct form is who. If it makes sense to use him, the correct form is whom. You can remember this because both hiM and whoM contain M's.


Hopefully this has helped you as much as it has helped me. Good luck!

Pet Peeve: Getting the name right

This post is not directed to anyone in particular and is not meant to offend anyone either. It's just something that is on my mind today and unfortunately happens to me on a regular basis. I'm talking about spelling people's names correctly. This goes for hand-written and electronic correspondence like invitations, emails, Facebook messages, etc. 
I can't even count how many times over the years my name has been misspelled in communication. Granted, I don't spell my name in the most traditional way, but when you're dealing with the name Kristie, there's about six common ways to spell it. That doesn't even count one of the most uncommon I've seen: Krysti.
Now don't get me wrong. If I receive an invitation in the mail from someone associated with my husband that may have had no way to find out the real spelling of my name, I don't get upset. It's when someone is sending me an email at work, for example, and when they type my name into the "To:" line it automatically pops up with the correct spelling. Then, when they address me in the body of the email they completely butcher my name. To me that's just careless. 
Maybe it's because I have a name that people commonly misspell that I pay special attention to making sure I spell names correctly, and I admit, I sometimes make mistakes too. As a teacher I really try to spell all of my students' names correctly when addressing them. Even if it's just writing their name on a pass to come see me. 
I had an instructor in college that emphasized the importance of students' names. He suggested that on the first day of school/class, the teacher have each student pronounce his or her name so the teacher would know exactly how to say it. I though this was a great idea. I can't say I've done this in my own classroom mainly because of the fact that I teach in such a small district, and I usually know how to pronounce my students' names because I've heard them already or I've had their siblings before. But I've taken the idea from my college instructor that our names are important to us, so it's worth taking the extra step to be sure they're spelled correctly. Two minutes of searching my student list, pulling up whitepages.com or finding someone on Facebook to make sure I've spelled their name correctly on a note, an invitation or a thank you is worth the time to me. Maybe you'll consider taking the time as well.

Where did June go?

I guess the end of school along with preparing for and going on vacation really got in the way of blogging during the month of June. Oops! 


In the month that has passed since my last blog we have gone from having a crawler in the house to having a toddler! Just today Landen took about seven steps on her own. She's still quite wobbly but walking(ish) nonetheless.


We've also just returned from a family vacation on Tybee Island (just east of Savannah, GA; south of Hilton Head). We had a wonderful time with all of the family that made the trip for part of or the entire time. Seven days of sun, seafood, sleep, and sand (ick!) was just what we needed. 


Landen got her first experience of the beach including the sand (yes, she did eat some) and the waves (thought they were hilarious). I can't say I'm much of  a beach person, so I observed from pinky-toe-deep water and tried tirelessly to keep her on the beach blanket as to not get sand everywhere! I like beaches in theory. I mean the warm sun, sand between your toes, sounds of the water rushing in....beautiful, right? In reality it's really hot and I don't like to sweat too much. The sand gets EVERYWHERE no matter what. And the water is just crawling with all types of creatures that you can't even see and don't know they're there until they nibble on you! Needless to say, we spent a lot of time at the condo pool in fresh, clean water with no sea creatures, and I could always see my feet. Hopefully Landen didn't fall too much in love with the beach because this mama will always be a pool-goer.

Shouldn't complain too much, though...since it was a beautiful setting for these fun pics! I can't decide which is my favorite.

Among one of my favorite parts of the vacation was the opportunity to visit Savannah, GA. What a beautiful city! It's a large city with such a small town feel. It's so cozy and quaint. I absolutely loved it. One afternoon we explored the River St. shops which were so fun. This is a shot of just part of River St.

One of my most favorite things about Savannah was the Spanish moss growing on the trees. It made me feel like I was walking onto a movie set. In reality I kind of was....since most of the movie Forrest Gump was filmed in and around the Savannah area.

Who wouldn't want to go back to these two beautiful places, Tybee and Savannah? Looking forward to returning someday. 

Happy Memorial Day!

It's been awhile. I know. I've been meaning to blog, but we have been quite busy around here. We had back-to-back out of town wedding weekends and the week nights are usually just as crazy. 


So finally after a few days off and being able to catch up on other neglected things around the house, I'm getting to the blog. :) 


Tomorrow is Memorial Day and we celebrated with Scott's brother, Ryan, his wife, Katie, and they're three month old son, Hayes, coming for a visit yesterday and today. It's so fun watching Landen check out Hayes. If he's crying, she's studying the source of the noise (which keeps her noise level down for a change). It's funny that our family's former tradition of late night visiting has turned into four tired parents ready for bed at ten o'clock! 


Today, the whole family attended a baby shower for one of Scott's cousins who is expecting a baby girl in September. Quite a change has occurred at these gatherings as well because over the past year six babies have been added to the family. There are babies galore....with more to come this fall! 


I'll introduce you to the baby family...

This is Annabelle, the first of the 2010-2011 baby boom.

Next came Landen.

Then we rounded out the summer with the twins, Avery and Addison.

Then this winter we welcomed Everett...

And Hayes...

Plus we're adding two more (that we know of) this fall. Let's just say that things are going to be crazy (and fun) as we watch all of these little ones grow.

Now that all the excitement is over for the weekend, I think we'll take tomorrow to just relax and enjoy the nice weather. Thank you to all of the servicemen and women past, present and future for protecting our family, American citizens, and many others around the world. 

Happy Easter!

I just wanted to share a couple of Easter photos today. Overall we had a good day...although it got off to a rough start in the morning. I'll just say that among other things, Landen's flower headband ended up in a puddle and we lost a shoe before even stepping foot into church. The day did improve though as we had a good time with family. We were all quite exhausted by Sunday afternoon after two busy days filled with family, friends and excitement.

Landen enjoyed spending some time with Uncle Dan.

Landen and Hayes (2 months) enjoyed their first photo shoot together. Well, I can't say Hayes enjoyed it. He seemed a bit terrified or not-so-thrilled to be photographed. Of course, he had a great photo shoot with his mommy at home later that day! :)

Our dear Landy is getting so big and even getting her top two teeth right now. Her turtle, although technically a bath toy, is getting a lot of "chew time" these days.

We hope your Easter was wonderful!