I love you more than....

Olivia is starting to understand the concept of numbers and values. I often tell her that I love her more than a million, trillion, gazillion....in which she responds, "well I love you more than 30." LOL, I won't take it personally...in her world 30 is a BIG number. Sometimes, she'll add in a word along with her numbers, like tonight she said, "well I love you more than 10 bubblegums!" Wow...now that's love!

This age....

This age, 4 1/2 years, is just the best. Olivia is so darn cute and sweet. She comes up with the funniest things and is understanding things that I am amazed at. She just started asking us all these hypothetical questions. She asked us the other day, "if you were lost and didn't have a mommy or daddy or a kid, what would you do?" Not sure where that came from, but it's so interesting to watch her little brain start to process these things. Yesterday during dinner, she initiated saying grace...and just said the cutest little prayer. All full of thank-you's for everyone in her family. She's also full of wit and humor. She's my little comedian...always putting on a funny face or doing a silly dance to make people laugh. She's also big time into her Mommy - that in my opinion, is a long time coming! Love it that she wants to snuggle and cuddle with me!!

Thanksgiving Holiday Recap....

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving with my brother and his family in Florida. We had a great time. Here are some pictures that highlight the trip...

They live on a lake, so this is Olivia checking out the dock. We were always on the look out for gators...but only saw a small one during a boat ride...thank goodness, because Olivia was quite nervous about meeting an alligator. Little does she know, but she ate fried gator, we told her it was chicken, LOL!

The day after Thanksgiving we took out my brother's boat on the lake and took a little spin. It was such a nice day. We drove through a little water way. It was beautiful.

That evening, we went into town because they were having a holiday festival. Olivia was brave enough to sit on Santa's lap.

On Saturday we ventured our way over to Disney World. It was very crowded, but we all had a great time. We stayed until the fireworks that night. The castle was breathtaking at night and all decorated for the holiday.

A tired family at the end of a long fun day!

We had great time and thanks everyone for their hospitality!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Richard B. Hamlin.


My Dad would have been 82 this past Saturday, November 24th. He passed away several years ago and we all still miss him everyday. My Father was a very endearing man. Everyone he met loved him. The characteristics I most admired in him were his positive thinking, his enthusiasm for life, and his gentle and loving personality.


So here's a happy birthday to you, Dad! I love you forever!

"No Kissing Boys..."

During bath time, Olivia informed me of the following....

Mommy: "Olivia, have you been kissing any boys at school?"

Olivia: "No, Mommy, they try to kiss me and I say, no...no...no!"

Mommy: "That's good, no kissing boys except for Daddy, PaPa, Grandpa, and Uncles."

Olivia: "Okay, but the boys at school give the girls stickers if they kiss them."

What?........

Memories...

Do you remember these Sesame Street videos from your childhood? I sure do! They are fun to watch again with Olivia.

Look-a-like?

During my meeting in Dallas yesterday, I had a few people at separate times tell me that I look like Renea Zellwiger and Laura Dern. I have heard the Zellwiger comparison before, but not the Laura Dern. I don't see a big resemblance. The only thing I see as the reason why they may think I look like them are my eyes...crinkly, small, no eyelid eyes! LOL!



Dan has heard before that he looks like Tom Hanks and Keven Spacey. I do see the resemblance in Tom Hanks.

Although, if we had our wishes...we would look like these two people...

The Frog and Toad...

Today we went to see a play based on the classic Children's books, Frog and Toad Are Friends, at the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, MD. http://www.strathmore.org/. This was the first time we went here and was very impressed with the theater. The play was a musical and was really well done. Olivia was captivated for the entire show. It was a good day.

The Kindergarten Mission....

The Mission: To enroll our children in Creme da la Creme Private Kindergarten for 2008

The Challenge: 50 Pre-K children with only 24 open Kindergarten spots.

The Strategy: Colin and Amy do reconnaissance drive bys at 6pm, 8pm, 9:30pm. Teresa and Tim do a drive by at 10:30pm. Dan starts line at midnight and calls every hour on the hour to Brandon and Colin to let them know if any other parent dares to stand in the line.

The PlayOut: Dan holds strong, sitting in the cold from midnight until 2:30am....because wife will not allow him to sit in car for fear that he'll fall asleep and miss out on our coveted #1 spot! Another parent shows up. Amy shows up and is #3 in line. Brandon shows up and is #9 in line. Trace-Ann shows up for morale support of the team! By 5am, all 24 spots are taken. 6:30am the doors open to let the frozen Popsicle parents inside where we all get numbers and have to walk through a path lined with cones! All is calm, we write our check for an ungodly amount and thank our lucky stars that Olivia, Lex, and Andrew are all registered! Phew....mission complete!

My Second 5K....

This morning, Amy and I ran the Purceville 5k Turkey Trot. This was my second 5k in the last month and I'm so proud of myself for doing this! It was easier running this time then the first and I improved my time by about 20 seconds...yes, I know not a lot...but every little second counts when running! So we ran it in about 34 minutes and 41 seconds. It was a nice day, a little chilly...but not that bad at all!


After the race, my sister and I went to the Northern Virginia Christmas Market at the Dulles Expot. Bought a few items, but for the most part it was too many country crafts...which we both aren't into anymore. After the show, we lost her car...and had to walk around for 20 minutes until we found it, LOL!

Quote of the day:

"What we see in others, ourselfs, and in life depends mainly on what we look for...so look for the good in everyone, the best in yourself, and the joy in life."

Recent Lay Outs

I haven't posted recent scrapbooking layouts in a long time, so I thought I'd share some tonight...

Let's Celebrate....

My 100th post on this blog! I love this little blog. It's been so fun to capture day-to-day life, the little and big things...all the 'stuff' that life is made of and if you don't write it down or capture it in some way, you'll forget all about it. I am so thankful to be able to read back through my posts and know for sure that...

"Life isn't a destination, it's a journey. We all come upon unexpected curves and turning points, mountaintops and valleys. Everything that happens to us shapes who we are becoming and in the adventure of each day we discover the best in ourselves and others." {author unknown}

So cheers to this 100th post...any hope for many more to come!

Please Stop....

Please Mr. Scrapbooking Industry Publication Giant, will you stop publishing every month new books about scrapbooking? I can't take it anymore! Every month, there is a new book that I end up coveting, needing, wanting immediately. I search, I look high and low, I stalk...until finally I find the book either online or in a store and then I must, absolutely must purchase it immediately...regardless of the price, regardless if I already have something similar, regardless of the fact that I know that it will sit on my shelf for months waiting to be read. It's a true sickness I tell you!

I hoard these books like there is no tomorrow. Like I'm afraid of some unlikely event that I won't have something to read when I have some down time. No, I'm not just saving for some rainy day where I'll have a couple of choice reading materials, no, it's more like saving for some tsunami to happen that will sweep me and my books off to a desert island stranded forever, then I'll be happy that I had 30+ unread books ready for my attention...just me, the sun, and my books. Good Lord, I need help!

Oh and by the way, now I need this book...ugh!

Full Weekend....

Had another full weekend. Saturday morning, I hosted a play date for my working mothers group. It was a very full day because we had a woman come and do a cool art project with the kids and then our friend, http://www.thehipstudio.com/, organized photo shoots with each of the kids just in time for Christmas cards! So very generous of her to do this, I'm sure she was completely worn out by the end of the day. Spent the rest of the day, running errands, cleaning house and going grocery shopping.

Today Dan and I went to Cox Farms for their annual pumpkin madness. This was their last day of the season and it was centered around smashing, squishing, and destroying all the pumpkins left over from Halloween. They had a giant cherry picker and dropped pumpkins from it....I have no idea why this whole concept of watching pumpkins being smashed to smithereens is so appealing, but it was! The hole place is a big outdoor fun house for kids! We had a great time...Olivia loves this place and after 3.5 hours it was like pulling teeth to get her to leave.

We Were RAKed....

We were the recipients of a Random Act of Kindness {RAK}....

Friday night, all our friends and their kids (about 9 adults and 6 kids) went to see The Bee Movie. It was a great movie, with some really funny parts for both adults and children.

Afterwards we all ventured over to a pizza place next to the movie theatre. We practically took over the place with our gang of kids. They were as good as you can expect a group of age 6 through 4 year olds to be. We joked among ourselves that maybe we should tip our fellow customers for having to witness our mob in action and then joked that we provided a great natural 'birth control' method for some of the younger couples watching our little scene unfold.

So all in all we had a great night and went to pay the bill afterwards. That is when we learned that an older gentleman that was sitting behind us in a booth, who was by then gone, paid for our entire bill ...$90+! We all couldn't believe it! It was so incredibly nice to experience such a random act of kindness. Apparently he told the waitress that it was a 'great thing we were doing'. Not sure what that means, other than the fact that we're glad that we didn't annoy at least one customer in the place. We all now are going to "Pay it Forward" in our own little way throughout the week.

Halloween Induced Insanity....

Have other pictures to post on Halloween, but couldn't resist uploading this one immediately. This captures perfectly the Halloween induced frenzy of candy and activity that Olivia had all day yesterday!