Toast 2 Mom

A Fast Five!

It's hard to say this and believe it...but see this picture below, I think when that was taken life was actually less busy? I don't know, it's hard to imagine that with a three month old and a two year old, things were easier than today. I do know one fact for sure, the days these days feel like they fly by WAY faster than they did back then. For it seems that all the time time now I miss a milestone here and a milestone there simply due to the fact that the days just race by and I lose track of time. 

There is another reason I have chosen this picture to post today. It represents the very first photo I had on this blog five years ago. Yes, three days ago marked my five year anniversary to starting this blog!! Very exciting! I thought about it about a week ago. And like most weekends, our past weekend was a whirlwind. So come time to celebrate my blogging milestone - well I missed it. 

A LOT has changed in five years. Look at these babies I used to have. Then it was diapers, nursing, ABC's, stroller walks, and daycare. Now it's grade school, swim team, math homework, reading and sleep-overs. 

When I began this blog five years ago, I was late to the blogging world. I saw it as an opportunity to keep my writing juices flowing. I wanted to network with others like myself. I hoped it would become a reading favorite to many - and perhaps be successful in some way. Though as it turns out, while my creative ideas were big, the best part to this blog has been my opportunity to snapshot and capture, as best as I can, how fast this little life we have goes by. I've been able to cherish each precious moment with my precious babes. 

I still wish I had more time to get more information down. But this will have to do. 

So to anyone who continues to read about our little life, thank you for your interest! We are grateful. And I am thankful to have had this platform over the last five years. 

Cheers!

A New Sweet Journey

I pretty much assume anyone that reads my blog knows me - and probably knows by now that yesterday I launched my new business - Sydalie's Cookies.  If you did not know - tada!! 

This was the tease I referred to a few days or so ago. I really wanted to write something here yesterday - but the day just was insane. And today was about the same. I'm not complaining - becuase the response to my new gig has been so very positive. 

This weekend I'll be selling my new cookies at an open house tour in our neighborhood. Homes that have recently been remodeled were chosen for this tour. Our home happens to be one of those on the tour. So with the house tour, the cookie business, end of the year school activities, swim team, dance recital practices and day to day - time is flying by! 

I'm very excited about this new journey and excited to market my product with hopefuly a very big crown this weekend! Until Sunday night, I might not come up for air. 

Check out my web site and visit my page on Facebook! And below are my business cards - which I just love!!! My awesome and super design-savvy friend Joelle helped me design them. Check out her business here.  

Letters to Mail

A dreary Friday - and a good day to practice our handwriting. 

This Time, Four Years Ago

I am a little bit obsessed with documenting my days. When I'm not using this blog to capture moments, I am writing down everything that I did for the day in my calendar. It's kind of a problem because I can't seem to find the right method of documenting my days without doing double work most of the time.

I really like to write things down. I think it looks and feels a bit more authentic to see what I've done by my handwriting - on paper, with a pen. Though in today's day and age, and having the convenience of a calendar on my phone - and coordinating the busy days - my phone seems to be more efficient. Well, it's kind of more efficient. I always have my phone; so in that way recording my plans and such, it just makes more sense to do it electronically. But I still struggle to type short little notes on my phone versus the quickness of writing with pen.

And in all of this detail on my struggles of "how is the best way for me to document my days," I digress.... One of the biggest reasons I love to write down what I've done for the day is to often look back and see what was going on that day, that year.

Being that today is a rather special day, I couldn't help but wonder, what was I doing the last Leap Year. A few things I could recall, but it was more special than I thought. 

On Leap Year, 2008, my sweet Cheekers was celebrating her first month of being born. The other thing I know that was going on that day was I was in Illinois visiting my family. At the time I was on maternity leave, and that was the opportunity to travel and show off my new baby!  That day was the tail end of my visit; so my girls and I joined my Mom, Step-Dad, Dad and Step-Mom for a good-bye dinner at Outback Steakhouse. If I recall correctly, my children were absolutely perfect during the whole dinner. :) 

And today, Leap Year 2012... today was a school day for Sydney. Cheekers and I joined Sydney at her school for lunch today. After school we went to the gym. Wednesday's are swim lesson days. After the gym, we came home. The girls kept me entertained in the kitchen while I experimented in the kitchen with a new recipe I found on Pinterest. They played "the Barbie Princess Fairytale" game while I whipped up din-din. 

So while today doesn't seem all that exciting of a day, I bet in four year it will seem like a wonderful day. The next Leap Year I will have an 8 and 10 year old. I only hope their wish is to play "Barbie Princess Fairytale"....and be in the same room with me. 

Happy Leap Year!

A Shiny New Apple

Tonight I am coming to you live from my new birthday present.... I am now an Apple girl. I got a new MacBook Pro for my birthday from the Hubby. It is very exciting - and a little intimidating. So far the main thing I have noticed are the incredible graphic differences. This new computer is SO crisp. I had no idea. 

I will be attending a few classes in the near future to get a bit better understanding of how to manipulate my new friend. I know it is very slick. I want to be as slick as she is. Hopefully we'll become good friends.

It was a very nice weekend here. Friday, the girls and I had a playdate after school. On Saturday, we went and got my new computer. That night we hosted some friends for dinner. It was our first time to have just a small gathering in our new kitchen. Today we tried to enjoy the nice weather. We played outdoors, had a birthday party, went swimming at the gym and got our Sunday stuff done.

I just sat down an hour ago and began to walk through my new toy. And I thought the best way to break her in would be to blog...been a while. 

We have a lot of fun things planned this week.I will try to take good pictures, write good words and learn new things this week to share. 

Happy Sunday night!

Too Long to Title

Here it is Sunday. Here it is already May. I was trying to think of a title for my thoughts today - but they're all over the place. I should have written days ago. I hate it when I wait too long - and then have to mash all of my happenings together into one piece. But that is what I have to do today because other duties are calling me.

On the horizon we have another trip coming up. Sydney's swim team practice starts every day this week. I have several personal goals I need to address. And I desperately need to work off the Easter candy - that I finally threw (most of :) away in the trash this morning.

First things first - the girls and I were away last weekend. The nice news is we got to spend Easter with my family in Illinois - and they made it wonderful for the girls. The bad news was the reason why - my grandma passed away. It was unexpected and an extremely sad few days for me. I have a gigantic list of happy memories from spending my time as a child on my grandma and grandpa's farm. It is those memories I will hold close forever. The light from this is she did not suffer - as she had to while watching my grandpa fight for several years until he finally passed. She was a lively, very chatty, spirit until the end. I'm proud of the life she lead after my grandpa passed away. And I know she's making a lot of new friends now in heaven.

It was a new level of life's experiences to share the celebration of my grandma's life with my daughters. Cheekers is too young to notice. Sydney is of the prime questions age to ask a lot about life...and death. She's an old soul anyway, and I found myself even more intrigued by the person she is at the in-depth questions that stirred in her little five-year old brain.

Below is the most recent photo I had of my grandma and the girls. We will miss her dearly...and think of her often.

Onto other more cheery (or cheeio, rather) stuff.  The girls and I have had quite the princess weekend. Daddio has been away now also for a few days. The girls and I celebrated the royal wedding on Friday by Sydney wearing her princess crown to school. Her teacher said she did not take it off all day. I would have been surprised if she did.

That night I surprised the girls with more princess fun. I took them to see Disney Princesses on Ice. Oh boy! Disney did it right again... and a side note, thank you Disney for making your show items so flashy, exciting and completely overpriced - $15 for a snow cone, come on?! I managed to convince the girls that the show is what we're there to appreciate. At some moments, it wasn't pretty with whiney, complaining princesses of mine wanting more - but they didn't get anything and thanked me anyway with big hugs after the show.

Yesterday, I hired a sitter for a few hours to attend a show called Listen to Your Mother. The show was a group of mothers selected to read their own essays about motherhood. It was an amazing group of stories - some sad, some funny - most inspiring.

I love my blog, I really do. And most of the time I dream of it being more. But I struggle to get the time, energy, motivation - umphf to get "that" done". The ladies that shared their stories yesterday put some thoughts into my mind at least. One of those thoughts is that there is no reason I couldn't be one of those moms reading my own essay on stage next year. I need to continue more with my thoughts....I just do!

Today it is absolute "catch up" day. I hadn't vacuumed my house in, ummm, awhile. I had literally four baskets of laundry to fold and put away. I even had stuff to unpack from my trip - and we got home four days ago. I had to catch up!

The lovely news is some friends are having us over for dinner tonight....so Mommy doesn't have to cook! :)

Like I said, looking ahead on the calendar seems a bit crazy right now. I hope I can do myself right and prioritize accordingly to do the things that make me happy. With my grandma's recent passing and a day filled of inspiring words by mothers like myself - it seems like that's something I should put high on the list.

Have a great Sunday! And Happy May Day!

Grandma and the Girls - Spring, 2010
 

Green Balloon

This is a three-part story.

Part I

Yesterday Cheekers and I ran errands while Sydney went with Daddio to help a friend move. One of our errands was the grocery store. Yesterday we went to the grocery store that hands out green and purple balloons. (Another store hands out red, white and blue balloons.)

Cheekers wasn't particularly in a bad mood during our errands, but she wasn't in an extra happy mood either. Then she got her balloon. When we got to the section of the store that has the balloons, she said, "oh, I want green one!" So we got the green one and continued on.

We shopped around, we selected our food, we checked out and went out to Vanna to go home. All the while Cheekers kept a tight hold on her green balloon.

I put the groceries in Vanna and then began to buckle in my girl. The green balloon was tied in an expandable knot so it could fit easily on her wrist. Putting her into her car seat, I had to slide the balloon off of her wrist in order to get her arm through the seatbelt. When her arm was in, and she was all buckled, I put the balloon back on her wrist, she smiled - and we were ready to go.

The  next thing that happened went in slow motion - like the movies. I pressed the side door button to Vanna to close Cheekers' door. Then I turned and walked around the front of the van to go to my door. I turned and looked back when I got to my headlights and I noticed - the balloon was sticking outside of the van door. Oh no. I ran back over to the door to open it, to get the balloon back inside. Before I could get there, it was too late.

At the same moment I opened the van door, the balloon string broke in the door and the green balloon began to softly float into the air. I watched the balloon floating away while the door finished opening. Then I turned and looked at Cheekers. Her once bright smile, just a mere seconds ago, before the door closed, was now a sullen face. Her eyes caught the green balloon floating into the air.

She looked at me, and with curled lips said, "Mommy, you did that on purpose." My heart dropped. Doing things "on purpose" versus "on accident" gets brought up in our household quite a bit. "Oh Sweetie, I am so, so sorry. Mommy definitely didn't do that on purpose. Your green balloon just got caught in Vanna's door before Mommy noticied. Oh Cheeks, I am so sorry."

She and I watched the green balloon float. Moments passed, and balloon got higher and higher, past the trees, high in the sky. Then Cheekers said something I will never forget - "well, it's something for the birdies to play with." (cue the tears.)

My girl, realizing her green balloon was no longer hers; but at least her birdie friends would be able to have some fun in the sky. 

Part II

Last night the Hubby and I had a date. Our original plan was to go to a movie, but it was sold out. So we ended up going out for sushi. Dinner was a better plan because it gave us time to catch up on all the little stories we seem to miss or forget by the end of the day. I told Hubby the story of the green balloon. He was moved like I was by our girl's kind heart.

After dinner, we decided to go drive downtown to go walk around. We were driving on the highway, chatting. Hubby took an exit I was unsure of. I said, "where are you going?" He said, "I saw something, you'll see." We drove the opposite direction we had been going until he made a u-turn to turn back on the same road again. By this point, I was thinking - what is this all about?

We were driving and driving some more, then Hubby came to an abrupt stop, on the fast-traffic, multi-lane road. He pulls over and gets out. I look in my rear-view mirror to watch him over in the grass on the side of the road. It's dark. Then I seem him come walking towards me, carrying a green balloon. It wasn't just a green balloon, it was a green balloon with the same market's name that Cheekers and I were at earlier that day. There are only two of those markets in town, and were at least five or six miles away.

The green balloon Hubby found was attached to a wooden spoon. It was not attached to cut off ribbon. But still a very cool moment.

Last night when we got home, I put the green balloon on the floor in Cheekers' room.

Part III

This morning I heard Cheekers making noise in her room. She doesn't get out of bed until I come in to get her. I walked into her room, and we talked a little bit about her evening with her sister and the babysitter. Then she looked over by her dresser and noticed something. She hopped down from her bed. Her room was still a little dark.

Walking over to the balloon, she said, "what's this Mommy?" I said, "I don't know Cheeks, what is it?" She said, "Hah, it's a balloon.....but what color is it?" She picked up the balloon and walked toward the window where there was more light. "Hah, it's a green balloon, like mine!"

Then she said, "Did the birdies bring it back to me?"

I said, "yep, Baby, I think they did."

The End.