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Ho Ho Ho!! Time To Link Up Your Santa Photos

Posted on December 5, 2011 Written by Tonya

Time to link up your Santa Photos!

Click here to enter your link and be sure to visit others.

Natalie of Mommy of a Monster and I are hosting a link up to share your 2011 Santa Photos.

Grab the button from my sidebar and link up a post of you, your child(ren), or your pet sitting on the big guy’s lap.

Link up begins today and runs through Sunday, December 18. Winners will be selected at random and announced on Monday, December 19.

Yay! We got lucky this year.

We can’t wait to see your photos!

Don’t forget to grab the button from my sidebar and make sure you tweet with the hash tag #santapix.

Good luck, everyone!

Santa Photos Link Up

Posted on December 1, 2011 Written by Tonya

They can go incredibly wrong or incredibly wonderful, but no matter what your experience is, we want to see your child’s photo with Santa!

My friend, Natalie of Mommy of a Monster and I are hosting a link up to share your 2011 Santa Photos.

If you don’t celebrate Christmas, any holiday photo will do, as long as it’s festive. Old favorites will be accepted too, as long as they’re funny.

All you have to do is grab the button from my sidebar (coming soon) and link up a post of you, your child(ren), or your pet sitting on the big guy’s lap.

There will be prizes, so stay tuned for more details!!

Link up Monday December 5 – Sunday, December 18. Winners will be selected at random and announced on Monday, December 19.

We can’t wait to see your photos!

Don’t forget to grab the button from my sidebar and make sure you tweet with the hash tag #santapix.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Here's hoping this year's photo goes A LOT better!

I Am Thankful

Posted on November 22, 2011 Written by Tonya

Letters For You will resume next week.

Until then, from my home to yours, have a warm, wonderful and safe Thanksgiving holiday!

Look at what Lucas made for me at school ~ swoon ~

The best part?

As soon as he gave me this card, he said he needed to make another one and when I asked if that was because he had more things to be thankful for, he replied “Yes, Daddy!”.

I am so thankful for my family, but especially my little Lucas.

Linking up with Alicia’s Wordful Wednesdays.

The Perfect Vacation

Posted on November 13, 2011 Written by Tonya

When I think of vacation, I picture quality time spent in a poolside lounge chair with a great book, a pile of magazines and being served too many cocktails.

I also associate vacations with letting my hair down, uninterrupted conversations, new experiences, sleeping in and room service.

Costa Rica, October, 2005

I envision escaping it all: laundry, bills, TV; the mundane of my every day existence at home.

Vacations are meant to be memory-making adventures sprinkled with a little more indulgence than usual and hopefully some decent photos to bring home and frame.

Cabo San Lucas, April, 2001

My perfect vacation [and only because it has been so long that I’ve had one quite like this] would be somewhere sunny and coastal and alone with my husband.

Grand Canyon, Summer, 2008

My perfect vacation would also include:

1. Someone to pack for me, first class tickets and a limousine ride to and from the airport would all be wonderful, but I honestly don’t mind shuttles or coach seats (just so long as I don’t get stuck next to a screaming kid or a stinky fat man).

2. The ability to enjoy the vacation without any mommy guilt!

3. Having been rained on, snowed in and caught in a hurricane, the perfect vacation would include perfect weather upon arrival and for the entire length of our stay.

4. The ability to pack everything I might need and nothing I won’t, in other words, as many shoes as I want without any questions from my traveling companion and no emergency stops at a mall or drug store for something stupid I forgot at home, like a bathing suit. Yes, I have done this before. More than once!

5. Souvenirs. In the form of a special trinket, new friends or the rekindling of an old relationship with a true BFF.

Visiting my BFF, Sophie in New Caledonia, May, 2010

6. The ability to truly relax. This is so much easier said that done, especially for my husband when confined to a lounge chair. For me, if in a beach or pool setting, I could hang out in the sun all day every day, breaking only to eat, sleep and shower, but for him, it’s not so easy. I’m open to water sports and boat rides.

7. The ability to indulge in sweet treats and pretty drinks without gaining a single pound.

8. The ability to NOT get sick. I have had some of the nastiest colds in my life while on vacation.

9. Spa services. Enough said.

10. Returning home to a clean home, fresh sheets on the bed, mail sorted and someone to do the mounds of laundry.

Hawaii, August, 2011

This post was inspired by Stasha’s Monday Listicles, a linky right up my alley, as I LOVE lists! This week’s topic: 10 Things That Make A Vacation Perfect (selected by Hopes@StayingAfloat)

Some Days

Posted on November 11, 2011 Written by Tonya

Some days the sadness wins and you just can’t fight it.

Some days the questions outweigh the answers.

Some days there are more tears than smiles.

Some days it would be so much easier to pull the covers way up over your head and stay in bed all day long.

Some days holding on to the past is more comfortable than being in the present or looking forward.

Some days the thought of looking anyone in the eye is too much to bear.

Some days all you feel like doing is curling up with a box of donuts and throwing yourself a pity party.

Some days your spirit is so broken that you can’t remember the last time you laughed.

Some days feel so completely out of control that all you can do is breathe from one moment into the next.

Some days there are not enough distractions and too many memories.

Some days, thankfully, there is this:

Some days are better than others.

If you find yourself in hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill

Mesmerized

Posted on November 4, 2011 Written by Tonya

The sky was full of dark clouds and it was pouring rain when we woke up on Friday morning. Our outdoor plans needed adjusting…. fast!

Enter: The Aquarium of the Pacific

We have been once before, but not since Lucas was a year old. You can read about it here. I was bound and determined to make this visit different.

I have always thought there was something incredibly soothing about watching fish and other glorious sea creatures effortlessly move through water and clearly, so does Lucas.

He stood and starred completely mesmerized by starfish, sea horse, otters, jelly fish and stringray. The expression on his face was calm and wonderful.

It was the perfect rainy day outing for us.

Plus, we got to wear our new rain boots!

Halloween

Posted on October 30, 2011 Written by Tonya

The best things about Halloween?

1. Candy corn. I know it’s available all year long, but I only buy it during the month of October. I’m the only one in my house that likes it and so far, I’m on bag #3.

2. Multiple visits to the pumpkin patch in search of the perfect pumpkin.

3. After the sun goes down, Lucas has been ~~demanding~~ requesting that we drive around our neighborhood to see all the Halloween decorations; twinkle lights, pumpkins, spiders, ghosts and one amazing pirate ship are his favorites.

4. Carmel apples, cake pops and other yummy treats friends are braver than I to try to make.

5. Holiday arts and crafts.

6. Glow in the dark skeleton jammies.

7. Decorating pumpkins with pipe cleaners, stickers, glue and pomp pomps instead of knives.

8. Watching It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

9. Trick-or-treating and hoping for the good stuff.

10. Children dressed up as Super Man, princesses, Woody and sharks. Speaking of sharks, will you please check out the face on the shark below? I love having a child! Especially during the holidays.

This post was inspired by Stasha’s Monday Listicles, a linky right up my alley! This week’s topic: Ten Things Halloween.

I’m also linking up with Jessica (Four Plus an Angel) and Tracy’s (Sellabit Mum) Boo! in the Blogosphere Halloween Photo Link Up.

Making Wishes

Posted on October 29, 2011 Written by Tonya

Star light, star bright
First star I see tonight
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight.

Have you ever…

moved the clasp on your necklace around to the back of your neck?

found a four-leaf clover?

had a ladybug land on you?

thrown a coin into a fountain?

silently wished on a shooting stars?

blown out the candles on your birthday cake?

found a penny, picked it up and hoped to all day long have good luck?

closed your eyes, counted to three and pulled a part a wish bone?

blown an eye lash from your finger tip?

bought a special necklace made of string and waited patiently for the string to break?

hoped for the last pour from a wine bottle?

prayed to a higher power?

made deals with God?

meditated?

visualized a positive outcome?

Have you ever had a dream in your heart or wished for something special? Something big and wonderful.

Have you ever wanted something so much that you thought you might go crazy?

Sure you have, we all have.

But, did your wish come true?

How long did it take? The waiting is always the hardest part.

How many sleepless nights did you have to endure? How many tears did you shed? How long did you hold your breath, keep your fingers crossed, or on to your secret?

Wishes keep faith and hope alive, so as long as the clock strikes 11:11, I will continue wishing for my heart’s desire.

Of course, when I pause and take a look at my life, I realize my greatest wish may have already come true.

The Hole In My Heart

Posted on October 14, 2011 Written by Tonya

October used to mean feeling Fall in the air and spying Halloween merchandise on every aisle at the supermarket and being greeted by big shinny round pumpkins with glowing smiles on my neighbors front porches.

October meant the nights were getting longer and the air a little cooler. Not quite flannel jammies time, but close.

Conversations about how to spend Thanksgiving begin and Christmas shopping lists are started in October.

Now October has a new meaning.

In particular October 15, but the days leading up to it and the days preceding are tough too.

October 15 used to have no significance to me at all, just another day on the calendar.

Now it marks the anniversary of my parents’ death.

Today they have been gone for four years. 1460 days. It’s hard to believe it has been that long.

I dread the anniversary the most; more than their birthdays, more than Christmas, more than Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or their anniversary. The day I was notified my parents had died was the worst day and every October 15, I relive it. And every year I think it’s going to be a little easier, and it’s not.

I’ll never forgot sitting in my friend Suzy’s kitchen two weeks after the memorial service and watching her eyes fill with tears as she talked about her own father’s passing as if it happened the day before. He had died 30 years earlier.

In some ways this was strangely comforting to me; knowing I wasn’t alone in my grieve for a lost loved one and in other ways it made me even sadder than I already was. I realized this wasn’t something I was going to “get over”, I realized that death is as permanent as grieve and I would have to learn to live with this emptiness, the loss and the hole that was now forever in my heart.

I would have to live with the sadness each and every October and all the days in between.

Catalina Island, July 2005

One good thing occurred on October 15, 2008 on the one year anniversary, I told my sister I was six weeks pregnant with Lucas.

She’s Crafty

Posted on October 11, 2011 Written by Tonya

What does the writer do when she can’t write? She gets crafty!

Expect that I am not crafty in the least bit, which is rather embarrassing to admit as the daughter of an elementary school teacher. Growing up our living room was always riddled with colored construction paper clippings, we saved toilet paper rolls for God’s knows what and I got roped into tracing letters for bulletin board displays all the time.

And yet, for no apparent reason, I found myself in Michael’s arts and crafts store today, where I spent the better part of an hour walking up and down the aisles filling an entire shopping cart. I bought all kinds of stuff I never thought would enter my home…. pipe cleaners, glitter glue and googly eyes.

I have been feeling like I should be doing more arts and crafts projects with Lucas at home and with the holidays approaching and my severe addiction to Pinterest, I have been running across so many cute ideas.

There are literally hundreds of things I’d like to try, but today we stuck with this simple little gem:

Okay, to be fair, I made it and Lucas made this (he’s only two, people), but he thoroughly enjoyed sampling the candy corn!

To make candy corn collage, you will need:

Card stock paper
Glue
White, orange and yellow tissue paper

Instructions:

Draw a large triangle on card stock and divide into three parts (use an actual piece of candy corn for inspiration).
Rip tissue paper into 1/2″ x 1/2″ square pieces and use eraser side of pencil to glue to triangle making the stripes of the candy corn.

We are turning our candy corn collages into greeting cards. Fun and easy, just not quite easy enough for two year olds.

For more candy corn craft ideas, visit Pinterest.

Ho Ho Ho!! Time To Link Up Your Santa Photos

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