Back From Spring Break

Spring Break as come and gone in a flash of what seemed a day or two not a whole week. There was lots of quiet, cleaning, and bonding time with my little man. Let's start from the begining.

St. Patrick's Day celebrations started Spring Break. I took all the left over Lucky Rocks that I made before getting sick and we had a smashing party after breakfast. Connor enjoyed counting his gold coins over and over and over and over again.

Patty left Connor some Lucky Rocks

Alllllllllllllllllllllllll Smashed!

We were heading off to a party to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and I decided to make a Irish Cream Brownies. This recipe required you to make frosting from scratch. I never knew how easy it was. It tasted sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. Like the brownies were gone in 15 min good.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Playing with chalk and his new friend at the party

Once the week of Spring Break began, I started off with some deep cleaning around the house. You know... the cleaning you're embarrassed that you let slide until you realize how gross that area has become?! Yeah... I tackled those spots. Monday morning I dropped Connor off at daycare, went for a run at Ft. Smallwood Park and then started cleaning cleaning cleaning. By the time Connor came home from daycare, I was done. D-O-N-E done.... Monday was the only day last week that I didn't take Connor to the park.

A foggy run at Ft. Smallwood Park where I saw two huge deer.

Tuesday I wrapped up cleaning, caught up homework and when Connor was picked up from daycare we went for a walk at Ft. Smallwood Park with my friend Lindsey to help get her baby moving since she was almost a week past her due date. More than halfway through the walk we stopped at the playground so Connor could run around and play. I think his little legs were worn out because he was only interested in swinging.

We saw a beautiful swan on our Tuesday evening walk.

Wednesday turned out to be an AWESOME day for me. I have a group of friends online that I met through an online forum for mothers.Over the last two years a group of us has navigated to a group on FB so we can easily chat with each other and stay in touch. I was able to meet one of my friends from Maine for breakfast while she was in town for work. It was so great! People asked me, "Wasn't it weird". Honestly, no. We pretty much talk almost every day in our group so why would it be weird to talk in person?!

At The Grill for breakfast

After breakfast, I got a few things done around the house then picked up Connor from daycare early. From there, we ventured to Downs Park and met up with my sister for play time at the park.

Spring Fever!

On our walk at Downs Park Connor found that path that leads you to the dog beach.
He shouted... "A Clue! A Clue!" My kid watches too much TV :)

Thursday morning I woke up and realized that Spring Break was almost over but I just kept trucking forward. For the rest of Spring Break I was keeping Connor home from daycare so we could spend some extra time together.

Thursday at lunch we met up with some of my former coworkers that I hadn't seen in a while. Connor was quite the character at lunch and I can say that he's just not a fan of Chinese food. Sigh....... On the way home from lunch we stopped off at Olde Mill Park. That was one quiet park... no one was around and it looks like it could use a face lift. Connor kept trying to climb the bars up to the slide.... one day kid... one day.

Trying to be a big boy.

Friday we spent the morning lounging in our PJs and then decided to meet up with daycare at the park so Connor could play with his friends. The afternoon went by quickly and then Kevin and I found ourselves on a mini date night while Connor played at grandmas with his cousins for a few hours.

Saturday morning came and we made a trip to the neighborhood elementary school for Connor's first day of gymnastics!! He LOVED the activities but he hated waiting his turn in line. He cried and cried and whined over and over while we were in line. Once it was his turn the water works turned off and he was all smiles. Silly boy! He'll learn allll about waiting while in this class for the next 7 weeks! The class is a mommy and me type of class so I'm doing the activities with him. We did the Bear Crawl, Snake Crawl, rolled down the mat, hopped down the mat, walked the balance beam and swung from the bars. I can't wait for next week!

Total Monkey!

Sunday I ran around from place to place. First, I visited Lindsey's new baby boy who finally decided to grace us with his presence on Friday evening. Then I was off to Pandora Bracelet Bingo..... I didn't win a single thing! Boo.....

Spring Break is over and its back to the grind and hopefully more blogging!

An Empty Kitchen Sink

I FINALLY ended my weekend and evening with an empty kitchen sink last night. For the last several months our old dishwasher was SOOOOO bad that alot of the time dishes coming out "clean" were going back into the sink because they were still dirty. This left and awful cycle of being overwhelmed with dishes in the sink and pissed off because our dishwasher wasn't cleaning them enough. HOWEVER.... my mom and Bill bought us a dishwasher last month when they were in town for our birthdays. Kevin (with some help from my dad) installed it last week and I can finally say we've had little to no dishes left in our sink because the dishes are coming out nice and clean!

Who would have thought I would get excited over an empty sink!

Now that my kitchen sink is staying empty more often I'm going to start following The Fly Lady again. She has a great program that helps you stay on top of keeping your house organized and cleaned if you have trouble keeping up with everything (like me). I'll have to blog about my adventures with that at another time.

This weekend was pretty low key but made some good memories.

Friday after dinner we headed to Ft. Smallwood Park because, for the first time in weeks, it was cool enough to enjoy being outside. Connor enjoyed running around the jungle gym and swinging on the swings BUT I think his favorite part of the trip was playing basketball with Kevin. He chased Kevin around and tried throwing the ball. Kevin had tossed his hat to the corner and Connor kept finding it and bringing to him/yelling at him to put it back on.

Nothing But Net!

Saturday Connor went to the grocery store with me and Kevin played roller hockey in the morning. In the afternoon we decided to switch around the car seats. We installed our Graco Nautilus in the Trailblazer, moved the Alpha Omega to my car and the Cosco to the Jeep Wrangler. We always envisioned keeping him rear-facing until 2 but we feel the time has come to switch.Connor seems much happier and my sanity while driving has returned.

Because the Jeep finally has a car seat in it now, we were able to cruise in to the Eastlake picnic. We took out the front two windows and the back window but left in the two side windows for Connor. HE HAD A BLAST. The wind was blowing through his hair and he loved being able to see us. Our stay at the Eastlake party was cut short to passing storms and Connor's need to play in the mud.  Regardless of our short stay we had a great time.

Take it slow... you're gonna mess up my hair!

Sunday was very very very low key. Storms off and on canceled Kevin's make up softball tournament and we were able to meet my dad to see the new Planet of the Apes. IT WAS GOOD. Actually it was better than good.... IT WAS GREAT. I recommend seeing it. Kevin is now looking into buying the box set so I can be refreshed and he can finally watch them for the first time.

Here's to a great week ahead of us!

Vacation Day #3

Friday was Vacation Day #3! I also think it was the best of all the vacation days!

After I dropped off Connor at daycare my mom and I packed it up and went to Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis and rented ourselves a sit-on-top double kayak. The weather was perfect. No humidity, a light breeze and the sunshine was comfortable.

We ventured around the creek to a part that we had not been to yet. We watched people trying out the new Board Paddling they have and all of the nature around us. In one part of the creek we were able to see a blue heron.

Blue Heron at Quiet Waters Park

When our hour was close to being up we had to paddle against the lovely breeze and current that we caught to the other side of the creek. What a workout... Both of us had thought about packing a change of clothes for the kayaking trip BUT neither of us did. My mom did fine BUT by the time I got out of the kayak I had a soaked rear end.

After we got back to the car my mom and I decided we should go to lunch at the Severn Inn (http://www.severninn.com/). It was BEAUTIFUL and the food was FABULOUS! My mom had one of the best tasting crab cakes I've ever sampled and I had fish tacos for the first time. It was alllllll tasty. They also served our iced teas in fancy mini pitchers for each of us. All too fancy for my soaked rear end....

After Lunch at the Severn Inn

After lunch we ventured back to Severna Park and did some more shopping at Dress Barn. This Dress Barn had a Petite section and my mom was able to find some shirts for herself AND one for me too! We also ventured to Famous Footwear and a few other stores.

The day wouldn't be complete without a brow wax so we stopped on our way home. Nothing like getting your brows done with you momma while on vacation!

After dinner my mom and I took Connor to Ft. Smallwood Park (yes...we got our fill in of the outdoors while we could) and Bill and Kevin went to hit some golf balls at the driving range. The park was A LOT of fun. Connor had a blast running up and down ramps and going down the slides. It took him a little bit to warm up to the slides but he was soon enough venturing up by himself and coming down the slide by himself. He had so much fun he didn't want to leave and for the first time threw a tantrum leaving the park.

Diva stealing kisses at the park

After the trip to the park and Bill and Kevin came home we had a game night. The four of us enjoyed some beer, wine and tequila and played Tick and Hearts.

Vacation Day #3 was pretty much the best day I've had in a looooooooooooooooooong time. Life is good!