fire-truck, fire-truck

this spring donovan did lots of singing about fire trucks.  the love of the fire truck has been long lasting, but the singing started when uncle matthew found this video:





 which led to this on a daily basis....very cute!

mom's new office

part of why i lost track of blogging is because i opened my own office which took over my blogging time.  i had considered doing this for a while, and the time was right back in march.  a friend of mine and i decided it was time to spread our wings.  although i thought i was going to lose my mind during the transition process i (well, the whole family) has made it to the other side and there have been no regrets!

i work 3 days a week on tues/wed/thurs and see clients from 1pm-7pm.  donovan will start pre-school this fall so i will come home a bit earlier but work mornings while he is in school.

good-bye old office with a lake view.....hello new business!

let's start with spring.......

i have taken a hiatus from blogging, and frankly i have missed it.  so here i am to try and play catch up.  here is a slideshow of some of the highlights of our spring.

ba-ba and tookies

we have a nightly tradition that is milk and cookies. before donovan goes to bed he asks for a "ba-ba" and "tookies". here is a little video showing the whole thing go down.

big truck

yes, that is a baby in the front seat of that truck. and if you look really close you will see nothing but pure excitement.



i am in the process of moving offices and somehow i made it a family affair by packing the whole family into a uhaul to get some furniture. donovan has an obsession with trucks....or really anything with wheels so this was like a trip to disney for him! he is not a morning person (he gets that from his mom) and so we bribed him all morning with a ride in a big truck. i thought once we got to pick up the truck that we may not be that into it but boy was i wrong. who knew it is legal to put a carseat in the cab of a uhaul? frankly i do not know if it is or not but we did it, and donovan was thrilled.

a little video of the whole thing:

pre-school

some free space for worry has been resolved in my brain and now i will have to find something new to worry about because donovan got into preschool! i have worried about this time since i was pregnant because so much fear is instilled about being able to get into preschools. we checked out three preschools one of which was equivilant to college tuition, one where they served cheese balls in an economy bin for snack time, and then the methodist preschool. we decided we would like to have another child and that it would not be fair for the second child to not be able to afford preschool, if dan and i can not have cheese balls at the house then donovan can not have them at school, and so methodist it is! we were in the pool of last picks due to being half baptist and half catholic....but we made it! donovan will start preschool 2 days a week in august! woo hoo!

a little get away

dan and i got a little getaway, and donovan got a weekend with the gram and grandaddy. dan and i indulged in long meals at some of our favorite and new favorite asheville restaurants, long nights with good friends, and sleeping in. donovan indulged in constant attention and entertainment, popcorn, new toys and firetrucks. yes, you heard that right donovan got the v.i.p. treatment at the burnsville fire department.

we were excited to get back to our little guy, but he had a hard time getting back to reality with us. i am not sure if he just does not like us as much as gram or grandaddy or was just that exhausted from the weekend. either way we will not hold it against him. he is just to darn cute to hold a grudge for long.

here are a few pictures from our weekend from both perspectives ......some of them were grainy because they were cell pics from my parents keeping us up to date with the weekend.

and ps. thank you nicole bloom from two sweet sparrows for a lovely evening!

doing big boy things

donovan is doing things more and more everyday that little boys do. below are some pics of what he is up to.

trying out underwear.....not really into it but looks cute :)

loves to play ball and hockey

sit and spin!

researching preschools

old friends

i had the opportunity to catch up with a childhood friend. michael and i grew up together and due to our lives running in different directions we have only been able to catch up over emails and infrequent phone conversations.

michael and i traveled across the u.s. together after we both finished undergrad. i then went on to grad school and michael began the peace corp in panama which turned into him living out of the country more than in the country in the past 10 years. we have spoken several times in the past 10 years but i have always found it difficult to catch up on life with someone that you are use to knowing so well, but now lives such a different life than me. i find myself not being able to ask enough questions to get a grasp on what day to day life looks like for michael.

micheal is now living in boulder, co ...and is even about to buy a house. he sent me a facebook message to say he would be in charlotte for work and wanted to get together. when preparing him for what my house is like i told him donovan's name and age and what he is into now.

it is so strange to grasp that michael and i use to know so much about each other and live such similar lives, but my son said hello and gave him a high five on the first time meeting! wow how time flies. after a few days and a gazillion questions i think we were able to talk it all out and bring each other up to date.

after getting use to his lion like mane and handle bar mustache it was as if it had not been 10 years since our last meeting! ahhhhh old friends :)

we were not able to get donovan to get a picture with michael....probably due to the mustache, but we did get a pic of donovan in his syracuse gear!

holidays 2011...and into 2012

as for many of you as well, the holidays tend to be crazy for us. we do lots of pre-planning to try and be proactive in not making it crazy and then we blink our eyes and it is over and we have yet again run ourselves crazy. so here we are almost through january and i am just getting my blog up to date.

out travel season started the weekend before christmas with a trip to burnsville for the weekend. we were able to visit with my parents, aunt and uncle, cousin seth in from oregon, and granny. the trip was short but productive.

we were home for a couple of days before we left for ny for to spend christmas with dan's family. if i have said it once i have said it a hundred times.....his family is huge......which left us on the go to make sure we got to see everyone. donovan had a blast with all the goings' on. he yet again amazed us with his up beat personality despite his sleep deprivation and sensory overload....he is more and more like his father everyday :) we hit a record on our last day of driving home when we were in the car for 9 hours after an exhausting trip and we clocked donovan at sleeping for 35 minutes. the bright side of that is that he was not screaming. he did great just had to be distracted from the fact that he was strapped in one position.

we got home and unloaded, did some laundry and had a late christmas morning with donovan before our house guests arrived for a few days. dan's parents, pops and bammie, have made it a tradition to spend new year's with us while on their way to florida for the winter. this year we also hosted my brother matthew and his boyfriend seth. we had a great time cooking and eating and cooking and eating. donovan loved spending time with everyone, but demanded that matthew be a part of whatever he was doing. we had a great entrance to 2012.

hope the new year is treating everyone well!