P52 Week 21 - Favorites

I love wine... It's my favorite adult beverage, and my favorite way to wind down from a stressful day (or like this week, a few stressful days...) I started collecting corks from wine bottles several years ago. I didn't know why, or what I  would do with them, but slowly my collection grew. As it did, people started to give me things to do with my corks.

The first thing was a "cork board" set where you supply the corks. My sister gave me this for Christmas a few years ago. It's too pretty to actually hang anything on, but I have it hanging in my dining room (which has a wine theme, of course) and people love to ask "Did you drink all those?" And the answer is yes, with a little help from my husband, but not much.

 Then, a few years later my MIL bought me this really neat wine bottle shaped holder, specifically for corks. I love this thing! I only wish it was bigger (or that I had more of them).

Now I need to start thinking of some new things to do with corks...

Sharing with P52 over at kentweakly.com. Check it out for more of everyone's favorites this week.

Sunday Funday

I love Sundays... It's our one day together as a family. We don't have any chores to do, or big errands to run. We make up the rules as we go along, and we always have a great day. I get to cook, which I love and miss right now without people to cook for more often, and we just enjoy each other.

This week was no different. After we all slept in (thank you Jordan, Mommy and Daddy needed that this week) we took a little time to wake up. Then, and Jordan's request, we played some Mario Kart (How is my 5 year old getting better than me at that? I'm going to have to put in some practice time after he goes to bed).

In the afternoon we took some time outside to enjoy the day. I have to start remembering to apply bug spray though if I'm going to keep doing this. While Charlie and Jordan got out unscathed, I ended up with about 20 bug bites all over my legs today... Can you say itchy? I guess I'm just sweeter. That must be it.

I got some great pictures of Jordan playing,
on the trampoline;

with some bubbles;

 
and on the swings.

And my Sweet Abby....

Don't get me Daddy!!!

And for dinner, a real meal... Stuffed pork tenderloin with garlic mashed potatoes and roasted broccoli.. Yum! A great end to a great day.

P52 Week 20 - Mothers

I had an original thought this week about the picture I wanted to take. Something with me and Jordan together. Here's what I ended up with.

 Honestly, I wasn't thrilled with it, but you can't always get something you love, right?

On the way home from work tonight though, I decided to go in a different direction. I was about to find myself in a rare situation. HOME ALONE! Can you believe it? No human in the house but me, myself and I... A rare thing for any mother.

And yes, we all love our children. More than life itself I might say, but I don't think I ever valued my time on my own more until it wasn't as readily available. So.... I sat down with a glass of wine and a book, put some music on and lit some candles, and was just alone... And if you do that a few times I think you'll be a better mother in the end, because if you don't take care of yourself sometimes, how can you take care of anyone else.

So have a glass of wine for me, lock yourself in the bathroom or come home an hour early from work. Just take some time for yourself to enjoy you so you can enjoy your kids more later.



P52 Week 19 - Still Life

When I saw the theme for this week I had a lot of ideas, but after Wednesday, and a great day at Disney World with just me and my baby, (see pics here) it made start to think about how precious these last few months before kindergarten are going to be.

With Mother's day just a few days away, I decided to take a picture of one of my favorite Mother's day gifts, one of my Willow Tree figurines. I started collecting these right after Jordan was born, and I have a few that I love, but this is one of my favorites.

I feel so blessed to have had such an amazing opportunity the last five years to spend such quality one on one time with my boy. He has been more amazing than I ever would have thought he could be. Yes, there might be a sibling in the future, but right now I know that I'm content being Mommy to this beautiful and wonderful little boy.

Check out more P52 pics at http://my3boybarians.com/

Disney Memories

  In February I bought a special 3-day ticket for Disney in order to take Jordan for his Birthday. We used the last of the 3 days yesterday, and had a great day! With kindergarten starting in August, it made me realize that these days of picking up on a weekday and heading out to spend time together are quickly coming to an end... I'm sure it will be well into 2013 or later until we hit Disney again, even with it in our own backyard, so we made sure to enjoy the day.

We started out in Animal Kingdom and had a blast checking out the animals on the safari and walking trails.

Then we headed to the Magic Kingdom to end out our day and did a few things I haven't done in awhile. We watched the stage show in front of the castle, staked out a claim to watch the Electrical Parade, and stayed to have a great view of the fireworks.

All in all, it was a great day with my boy, and I'm so glad we've had the opportunity to spend this kind of time together. As years go by, there will be family vacations (maybe even with some more family added in) but these days will never be around again and I'm so glad we've made the most of them.

May Flowers

Looking through my pictures, I noticed that I've taken quite a few of spring flowers recently, so I decided to post some of my favorites.

I guess this is a good way to get ready to visit the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot on Wednesday. We have one day left on our three day pass, so we a prepared to do a lot of park hopping, but Epcot will be our first stop for the day.

P52 Week 18 - Fiesta or Siesta

So, this week is totally themed with Cinco de Mayo in mind, and since that's my birthday, you'd think I'd have a great fiesta picture, but no, I've got Siesta. Since I won't be celebrating my birthday until Sunday since I work on the actual day, we didn't get to party this week.

So my P52 pic this week is of a Sea Lion taking a snooze while we visited Sea World on Wednesday. For more pictures of our day you can take a look at that post here.

Jordan loves this Sea Lion. He's the biggest of the bunch, and we look for him every time. He was on the move shortly after I took this picture, but when we got there, it looks like he was taking a moment for himself snoozing on a rock. I'm so jealous...

Sea World May 2

Jordan and I went to Sea World early on Wednesday morning for a special passholder event. We got to visit the new Turtle Trek exhibit an hour earlier than the park opened, and it was really neat.

I took a ton of pictures, but only a few turned out. I'm still working on getting my setting rights for pictures in darker places without a flash. I got a few good ones though. The turtles are so cool! Jordan loved them.

Another cool thing about the event, they had some special animals out for everyone to meet. We got to see a Woodpecker...

And pet a baby alligator. 

And a nice Alpaca that really wanted to smell Jordan's hair.

We saw some other neat things that day. A baby Harbor Seal born just two weeks earlier.

The "mustache bird", as Jordan called him.

We also got some cool pictures in the Shark exhibit.

These are baby shark eggs. Hard to see I know, but so cool to see the baby sharks moving around in there.