New Years Resolutions- 2015 edition

I am a sucker for New Years. A fresh, new start. I like making resolutions. No, I don't always keep them. But I like the idea of a new year and getting the chance to start over. You know, since you cant start over in the middle of the year (according to my brain).
So.. this is what I have come up with so far:
1- Make a weekly cleaning list and stick to it. You know, like.. Mondays are floors day, Tuesdays are bathroom day etc. Dan and I are in a terrible habit of letting the house go for awhile and then crash cleaning it top to bottom. It is really annoying actually. If we just kept up with it all week long we wouldn't have to do that.
2- Get to the office once a week. Having a job that has no requirement as far as office hours goes makes it really easy to just not go to the office. Throw in the fact that Im home with Tori and then Dan gets home at like, 3:30.. then I just want to hang out with him, do dinner together, etc. I am thinking if I have once a week I go in for like 2 hours or so where I have no distractions at all Ill be uber productive.
3- I am considering putting away my scale(still haven't committed yet).. or having Dan hide it is more like it. I am a numbers person, if I were to work out every single day and get on my scale and it said one pound more than I wanted it to, regardless of the fact that my fat is turning into muscle which is more dense and "weighs more"... and my body percentage could be going down.. I would still panic over that one pound. I have obsessed over the scale my whole life. I am thinking it could be really freeing (is that a word?) to just not even have one. As long as my clothes fit and Im working out to maintain my health, that is what my goal should be.


And now, just for fun.. some past New Years pics....

random q&a

4 names people like to call you other than your real name:
1. Ang
2. Angie
3. Angel (yeah that happens a lot!)
4. Angiebaby (because that's about as original as my nicknames get)

4 jobs you've had:
1. Business Analyst for Clipper Magazine (terrible job, hated everything about it)
2. Hostess at Texas Road House/Round The clock Diner (In high school, love them both)
3. Personal Banker for Wachovia Bank
4. Realtor (current job that I love so so so much)

4 movies you've seen more than once:
1. Zoolander (one of my daddy and I's favorites)
2. The Holiday (who wouldn't want to do that life swap? Seems like an awesome experience)
3. A league of their own (All things girl power)
4. Armageddon (Because I love Ben Affleck and sometimes I just feel like crying)

4 places you've lived:
1. Sicily, Italy... (lived there as a child for almost a year, Italian was my first language)
2. York, PA (Thank you Jesus for getting me out of there)
3. Lancaster, PA
4. N/a

4 places you've visited:
1. Montego Bay, Jamaica (I was 19.. there were 5 of us girls, it was madness)
2. Mexico...(our honeymoon)
3. Ft. Lauderdale Florida (my bestie moved there after college)
4. Myrtle Beach (an amazing beach trip we have done with our best friends Meg&Ray)

4 places you'd rather be right now:
1. Asleep
2. cuddling in bed with my daughter
3. Asleep
4. cuddling in my bed with my daughter

4 things you don't eat:
1. chicken pattys
2. oysters
3. McDonalds (see chicken patty)
4. Raw carrots (cooked is fine lol)

4 of your favorite foods:
1. Eggplant parmesan
2. Pizza
3. Cheesesteak hoagies
4. Cheese, in general

4 TV shows you watch:
1. The Walking Dead
2. Friends (yes it Is cancelled but I don't care, I will watch every episode a million times)
3. Kardashian anything
4. Teen mom (stop judging, I love all things reality)

4 things you're always saying:
1. "There ya go!"
2. "You're welcome" (complete with an annoyed eye roll)
3. "Yea, no"
4. "stop hitting Mommy in the head" (life with a toddler)

When Tori met Santa

I love the Manheim Township Library. This is where I take Tori for her 'Toddler Time' events and it is so beautiful. The staff is so nice and its a great way to spend an hour a week so Mommy and Tori get out of the house and Tori gets some time with kids her age. Tonight, they had Santa there. Santa, it was free, there were crafts.. all you had to do was register so I jumped on it quickly. If there is one thing the library Santa was going to give us that the Mall Santa wasn't is a cheap picture haha. The library event was free so other than Dan sticking a $5 in the donation bin, it was a cheap event for Mommy, Tor and Daddy. I wasn't sure how Tori was going to do this year. Last year she was only 8 or 9 months old so when she sat on Santas lap she just kept staring at him. She wasn't scared at all, more so because she was too young to understand what was happening so she just sat there and stared at him. Every single picture they got of her you could only see the side or top of her head so needless to say, we didn't buy any. This year, at almost 2.. I knew stranger danger was going to kick in(and it did). As soon as we got to the library my anxiety went through the roof as there was literally no parking. We made our own parking spot and then headed into the library.
 *INSERT STRANGE INCIDENT*
We are walking into the library, its dark out and very light rain.. and I see this little boy (probably 6 or 7) following this man to a car.. the man says to him "Ok, that is my van over there.. the white one, come with me and Ill take you to your mommy"... WHAT THE HECK?! Instantly I ask Dan if he just heard that and he said no so I tell him what I just heard and he starts sort of freaking too like what should we do? So strange. It could be nothing. Or it could be something. I mean.. don't you always hear of these sort of abduction cases happening like that? "Come to my car.. Ill take you to your mommy".. so Dan runs over behind the car and gets the license plate number of the van. We go inside, talk to the staff.. tell them what we hear.. and after a couple of them get together and talk they figure out what the situation was. There was a boy there with his grandma, she ended up getting sick or hurt or something while there and had to call someone to pick him up because she was taken to the hospital.. so pretty much a neighbor or distant relative or someone of that sort came and got the boy. RELIEF. I am really glad we handled the whole thing like we did because I really couldn't stop thinking about it. It made me so uneasy and Im glad we were as proactive as we felt fit.
*BACK TO TORI AND SANTA*
The line moved super quickly to see Santa (thankfully... Im not good with crowds.. they make me anxious). She would NOT sit on Santa's lap she was not letting me put her down lol.. so instead, she sat on Mommys lap while next to Santa. That girl, she loves her momma. After we got a couple of pictures of that (which turned out hilarious) we gave Daddy a library tour. He had never been there before so we showed him where Tori colors, where Tori climbs, where Tori likes to sit, where Tori reads stories(lol).
It was a fun and exhausting night. The amount of work and errands I had to do today were not even sort of normal and Tori was such a trooper all day. I am glad we got to do something fun as a family to finish off the evening.

Thanksgiving

I am late on this post. Thanksgiving was like, a week and a half ago and now we are onto Christmas but Thanksgiving was too fun not to mention.
This was the first year that Dan and I hosted. Our old house was this super skinny, tall house that could barely fit me, Dan and Tori into the dining area, let alone 10-15 people. This is our first holiday season in our home and we are just too excited to not volunteer to have everyone over. So anyways, we were in charge of the turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes. Dan made all of those items. I am more of a baker, I stuck with simple cupcakes that were decorated to look like turkeys which made my niece Izzy and the neighbor kid so excited because I used candy corn for the décor and well, they love candy corn.
Dan brinded(sp?) the turkey and it turned out awesome. My dad is not usually a turkey eater and he couldn't stop raving about it. He even said it was better than my moms, which my mom immediately followed with "good, then Dan can make the turkey next year too". He also had vegetables and such cooking with it. Yummy, yummy. My mom made stuffing in the form of balls which was pretty cool, my gma brought some ham and green bean casserole. Like every Thanksgiving, all of the food was delicious. For the dinner portion it was me, Dan, my parents, my gma (aka Mammy) and Dan's mom. Then came the dessert. For this part, my brother and his fiancé (Summer) and my niece Iz came, then also my sister (aka Banana or Donna as her birth certificate says)... with her husband Kenny and my other niece Sam. There was SOOOO much good dessert. I was in heaven. Oreo balls, chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake... the list goes on. Needless to say, I couldn't move for like, 2 hours because I was so full.
After dinner and dessert we got out Scattergories which was hilarious. First off all, the ongoing joke is my brother and mom sharing a brain (which has not been proved otherwise) but surprisingly my brother did pretty well. Summer did the worst (summer, if you are reading this, you know I had to mention that haha I love you).
It felt so good to laugh and be silly with my family. I don't know about anyone else, but the past few years, the holidays have felt different. It was almost like they became a chore. We had to go to this house, then this house.. then make it to that other one first thing in the morning, etc. And then other than the running around and trading gift cards, the day just didn't feel special anymore.
This year, Thanksgiving was a breathe of fresh air. My dad watched football, my neurotic (in the best way) mom was cleaning and running around like a crazy person, my Mammy was playing with all of the kids, we laughed at my brother who seriously is just a funny dude, my sister rolled her eyes and laughed at the craziness that is our family, Summer and I goofed off and tortured each other like we are sisters, Dan laughed and appreciated all that was happening around him (compared to his small and much more tame family). The little girls played together, like for real played... slapped, tickled, threw the ball, colored. I love our growing family so much. Cant wait for Christmas.

21 Months

My baby girl is 21 months old!
She is going to be two SO SOON. CRAZY.

Tori now:
-Says so many more words: "Tail" (and even knows when she sees one and then points to her butt and also says tail, so cute), knows the word "hair" and where it is...etc
-Loves to dance and sing in the car. We have legit dance parties. It is my dream.
-Is really stubborn. When she makes up her mind about something, it is not over until she does it. This is really tough.
-Pinches and smacks. Something else that is really hard to deal with. We tried the 'time out' chair.. and then she ended up liking it and now just sits there for fun. Mommy fail.
-Is such a lover. She loves hugging and kissing.
-LOVES to color. It is my go-to thing for her to do. If she colors something in the kids club or the library she cannot leave until she gets it and gives it to me.
-Is obsessed with stickers and they are all over the house.
-Loves the snow. And by loves the snow I mean she likes to look at it and she likes to be in it but she doesn't like walking in it or touching it.
-Mommy is still her favorite (which I love).
-The girl is always sick. Seriously. Always has a runny nose. Drives me nuts.
-Her "monk monk" aka monkey is her most favorite stuffed animal.
-Loves Daniel Tiger (still). He saves us when we need time to ourselves.. you know, to throw on makeup... do the dishes, etc.
-Says "cheese" when she is getting her picture taken (which is often) and even looks at the camera (Sometimes lol).
-Makes the funniest "mean face"
-Loves to play the copy cat game while at the dinner table
-Loves to get chased
-Loves to get scared
-Obsessed with balls and always tells you what she is going to do with the ball "Throw" "Kick"

Victoria is the smartest, cutest girl I know. Another month of watching her beautiful mind grow and learn. I am the luckiest to be her momma.

These are pictures from our Xmas card photo shoot. Man I need a real camera!