What Does Your Weekend Look Like?

Because mine will be busy, busy, busy!

1. Today Annabelle and I have dress rehearsal for our dance recital.  It starts at 5:15 and I'm hoping we'll be done by 7:30 at the latest.
2. On Friday I am heading out with Annabelle's class to the zoo for a field trip.  It is supposed to rain but I'm hoping it will pass us by.  Being wet at the zoo sounds like no fun to me.  Mark also has his yearly golf outing at work.  Again golf+rain=yuck.  After that we have a wedding to go to.  My cousin is getting married and I'm hoping to have a fun time at the Pearl Street Brewery.  But we also have a 10 year vow renewal to head to after dinner at the wedding.  Basically it will be a non-stop kind of day
3. Saturday my sister is having Austin's birthday party at 3pm at a shelter at Stigelmeyer Park.  But again it's supposed to rain.  That happened last year too and it was so awful.  Cold and wet.  At 6pm, it's the first day of our dance recital
4. Sunday!  It will be Annabelle's actual 6th birthday.  I can't believe time has gone by so quickly.  But we can't celebrate too much because once again we have dance recital at 2pm.  She will get to pick where we get to eat but it won't be like all the others birthdays where we made it a whole day of fun all about her.
5. Did I mention that on top of all that I haven't bought a birthday present yet for Austin and I have zero jewlery to wear with my dress for the wedding/vow renewal?  I hope I can sneak that stuff in today!

So basically, we will have absolutely no weekend but I am sure to have lots and lots of posts for next week.  Maybe even one each day which is very unlike me:)

Memorial Weekend

Our weekend was relaxing, thank goodness.  We still did so much but we were never rushed, had some fun, and got what we needed to do finished.

On Saturday I went to the Niagara Food and Wine Festival up in Canada with my friend Stephanie.  We drank a little bit of wine and ate some yummy food, like a Nutella crepe with bananas inside.  Can you say delish?  While I was there Mark took Annabelle to a play date with her friend Tessa and then out to a park to wade in Ellicott Creek.

On Sunday we planted our front garden.  We have lived in this house for almost 10 years and had yet to actually plant anything out front.  I'm hoping everything takes well because I so wanted some color out there.

We also finished cutting down the last of the trees in the backyard, so now I'm trying to find the best possible price for grinding the nine stumps we have back there.  Unfortunately everyone I call is so bust all I'm doing is leaving 10,000 messages hoping to get some calls back.

Monday was just a day for relaxing.  We slept in, had a big breakfast and went to the Marina for some strawberry soft ice cream, my absolute favorite.  All in all, it was the perfect weekend.  Now the busyness begins!

Niagara Falls

When the weather warms up here in Buffalo, all I want to do is be outside.  I don't want to clean the house (though it's rare that I want to do that anyways), I don't want to hang around at home.  I want to go out, walk through a park, look at people's gardens, do something fun.  So that is what we did on Sunday.  We went to Niagara Falls.

It ended up being a hot, hot day with record breaking temps near 90.  I had heard a nasty rumor that the Maid of the Mist, a boat ride going up to the base of the falls, might be closing down after this year.  While it seems unlikely that they will shut down a big tourist attraction that's been running since 1846, I didn't want to take the chance of Annabelle never going on it!  At first she was nervous.  It took quite a bit of convincing that it would be fun, but once she saw the boats she was gung ho.

We took our time up in the observation tower, clicking away with the camera.  After a quick ride down the elevator we got our oh so stylish blue rain ponchos and boarded the boat.  We got misty wet and Annabelle almost convinced us to take her on the Cave of the Winds but we also wanted to watch Nik Wallenda practice his tight rope walking. 

The Wallenda's are a famous (though I had never heard of them until I started dating Mark) dare-devil family.  Nik Wallenda is a third generation tight rope walker.  He will be walking across the horseshoe falls from the US to Canada in June.  He was having free practices at the near by casino and I wanted to catch a glimpse of it.  We only watched for about 15 minutes, it was just too hot to stand in 90 degree weather to see him lie down on the rope and shake it and all the other things that he was supposed to do.

After all of that, we had some dinner at Texas Roadhouse.  Then it was time for a quick bath for Annabelle and bed.  We were tired from the long, busy weekend but it was so worth it.

Mark and Annabelle at the brink of the falls.

Up close is the American Falls and in the background is the Horseshoe Falls, in Canada.

Annabelle peers down at the Maid of the Mist boat from the observation tower.

Horseshoe Falls and the Maid of the Mist heading in.

My little fashionista.

We had to get a family shot.

The American Falls.

This is the Cave of the Winds.  We'll do that with Annabelle next time.

Running up the steps for a closer look at the falls.

I love that it looks like she's hopping over the bridge:)

The shows about to start.

He made it look so easy.

A close up.

A Loopsy Kind of Day

On Saturday, we celebrated Annabelle's sixth birthday just a bit early as her actual birthday isn't until June.  The time period around her birthday is always so filled with stuff, that we sometimes just have to go with whatever day works best for everyone.  Annabelle is still pretty La La Loopsy crazy so that was our theme for this year.  I made her a yummy cake, we ate lots and lots of food, and got to spend some fun in the sun with both families to celebrate.  It doesn't get much better than that, now does it?

Our 6 layer La La Loopsy cake, in pink, Annabelle's favorite color.

Present time!

A Mermaid La La Loopsy.

The La La Loopsy playhouse.

Day and Night Glo Station.

She blew those candles right out!

The reveal!  Everyone kept asking why the cake was so tall and then they saw!

This is why I love Pinterest so much:)

Papa and his girls.

The kids had a water balloon fight, played in the sprinkler and used the swing set all day long.

After everyone left we decided to have our first fire of the year.

S'mores are a must:)

Busy Busy

1. I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day.  The weather was outstanding here in Buffalo.  We spent the whole day outside soaking in the sunshine.  I got my brand spanking new Nook Color from Mark and Annabelle.  I still have no idea how to use it.  I may have to just read the manual but it's 179 pages long!
2. I am busy this week getting everything ready for Mark and Annabelle's joint birthday party coming up this Saturday.  It's supposed to be 83 degrees and sunny.  I think we will be pulling out the sprinkler and water balloons for the kids.
3. I still haven't bought any presents for Annabelle.  I just know there will be lots and lots of LaLaLoopsy stuff.  The kid is still obsessed.  I am making the cutest cake for her.  Her only request for the party is to be surprised, she doesn't even want to know the theme:)
4. In less than 3 weeks I have to make my dining reservations for Disney and I haven't been in the mood to look at menus or trying to plan.  It doesn't help that my parents are being no help whatsoever.
5. Annabelle and I have technical rehearsal for dance tonight.  Hers at 5:30, mine at 8:20.  It's gonna be a long day for sure.  At least I'm going to go out for lunch with my hubby since that will be the only time all day that I will probably be seeing him.
6. I don't know if I'll be able to write another blog this week but I will post pictures from the birthday party Monday or Tuesday next week:)

A New Car

Tonight I get to pick up my brand new Toyota Rav 4!  It's Black Forest Pearl with a moon roof.  Annabelle was sold when she saw the moon roof, let me tell you.  I love the color.  It's a super dark bluish-green that looks like glitter has exploded all over it.  So girly, which Mark isn't thrilled with but it is technically my car.  I get the final say on color:)  I'm super excited. 

Ain't she purdy?

Our Buick Rendezvous was starting to go.  Nothing major, the transmission sometimes would clunk and some small electrical stuff was acting wacky, but we thought we would hold out for another year or so.  I don't know what made Mark change his mind but I'm glad he did.

We started car shopping last Monday.  We test drove six cars all in one day and by the end of it all, my head was spinning.  They all blurred together.  The only one I could actually remember was the Nissan Rogue mostly because Annabelle hated it and it was one of the two cars that I seriously disliked as well.  Except Mark really liked the Rogue and I thought he would be pushing hard for it.

Luckily he decided to leave it alone and we decided the Rav 4 seemed like a nice compromise for us both.  So we spent over four hours at a dealership on Saturday trying to get the best price.  We eventually walked away because it wasn't quite where Mark thought he could get.  Then yesterday, we're at another dealer for about two hours and still no go, their price was worse than the first place.  When we got home, we had a message on the machine from the first Toyota dealer asking us to call him back.  Mark and the dealer battled a bit back and forth and then made the deal.  I was happy dancing all over the place.

I can't wait until tonight!

Poor Kitty!

We are having a rough pet week here.  Both of our fish have died and now we are left with just the babies.  There are about 10, sometimes we count more, sometimes less, but after three separate birthing experiences, we aren't sure exactly how many have survived.

But now our cat, Nigel, is sick.  We noticed he was acting weird and then stared peeing, everywhere.  We rushed him to the vet to find he has crystallization in his urine, basically like kidney stones and a uti for people.  The next day his peeing blood.  $500 later he is on 4 different prescription meds, special prescription food and he is locked into the bathroom until he gets better.

You should hear the swearing that comes out of my mouth trying to get him to eat his 4 pills twice a day!  I sound like a truck driver.  I hope he feels better soon because this is stressing me out!

I'm Baaaack

On a more limited basis.  I may only post once or twice a week, but that seems much more doable to me right now, less stressful to be witty at least five days a week.

The last month that I've been off has been busy, but the most exciting thing to happen to us is Annabelle lost her very first tooth! 

It's not a great picture but it was very early in the morning and the flash hurts her eyes.

It took a full month for it to go from wiggly to out and it was a constant topic of conversation.  Have you been wiggling your tooth?  Let me check.  It hurts to bite on it!  Etc Etc Etc...  I finally had to give her an ultimatum, wiggle that tooth out or the dentist will be pulling it.  The next morning I wake her up for school and she smiles her  brand new gap-toothed grin.  The tooth fell out in the middle of the night.  She said she felt it in her mouth so she just put it under her pillow.  I had to come up with a quick story as to why the tooth was still there and she seemed to believe it, whew!

Saturday morning she wakes up early, early, early.  6:30 am early and finds her gift from Ms. Tooth Fairy herself.

You can barely see where she lost the tooth because her new one is already starting to fill up the space.

Sparkly money and a note from the Tooth Fairy.  I found this super, cute idea on Pinterest, here.  There is now fine glitter all over the house which Mark absolutely loves (can you sense the sarcasm) but Annabelle is thrilled with her fairy money.  I'm not sure that she will want to spend it.