Supper Club | January, 2012

Last October, during an evening dinner with the Giovanellos, I mentioned the idea of a supper club.  There are several girls that have been together since the beginning days at Parkwood in Miss Linda's room and now they will be graduating in June.  Most of the girls will all be going to different schools.  So, in an effort to keep them all in touch and for the families to also stay in touch, we decided to start a monthly supper club.  

In January, the Giovanellos hosted the first one.  The theme for that evening was "Italian", fitting since Kelly is a great Italian cook; her meatballs are the best I have ever had!!  The Giovanellos provided the pasta and her yummy meatballs and we provided the appetizers; pizza dip and Totinos for the kids, which by-the-way were HORRIBLE.  The Hodgkinsons brought salad, the Arsenas brought a variety of breads. and the Wessons brought some delicious desserts all made by Chad.  It was certainly a feast!!  

The Appetizers

We all learned a new trick that night, one that I had pinnned on Pinterest just days before.  Stick a wooden spoon on the top of the pot, and the water will never boil over.  Who knew??

Let's eat...Yummy!!

All the girls took their places and dug-in for a delicious dinner.  

(Aurora -with her back to us, Kayla, Julianne, Melania, Emerson, and Abigail)

The guys didn't mind eating in the living room and watching basketball in front of the TV.    

While the adults conversed (well, the women gabbed and the men watched more basketball), the kids took over the whole house.  They played in the playroom, dressed up, played hide-and-seek and created their own band with instruments.

Emerson and Melania, such cute princesses!!

All the gals dressed up!!

(Melania, Emerson, Julianne, Aurora and Kayla)

It was a great night, with fantastic food, good friends, great conversation and great playtime for all the girls.  We are so happy to be a part of this group and to continue these dinners.  

Holiday Festivities | Our Christmas Card

Am I really still blogging about the holidays in May?  Yep, it's true!  I've had these pictures uploaded to the blog as a draft for about two months, but since I've only really done Wordless Wednesday posts...I never got around to this one.  I did want to get these on the blog, though.  So here it goes.....

We received so many compliments on our 2011 holiday card.  We had a mini photo session during our Thanksgiving trip to the beach, in hopes that it would produce some usable photos for our holiday card.  Well, 600 pictures later and we had several dozen usable pictures.  I had a hard time deciding which ones to use.

Our Christmas Card

FRONT

INSIDE

BACK

Here are some of my favorites;

some of which made the card, along with those faves that didn't. 

All the pictures turned out great and straight-out-of-the-camera (SOOC) they were good, but I knew with a little editing, they could be fantastic.  My friend, Heba, was nice enough to edit some of the pictures for me.  I put these all on here so you could see how editing makes a picture look completely different.  SOOC is great, but when you add in some editing touches, they become magical!!!  Thank you, Heba, for taking the time to do this for us.  

Love this one!!!

Love these two people more than anything!!!

**Also, big thanks to Mimi for taking the time to capture some of these moments.  Obviously I am in some of the pictures this year, so she was behind the lens during those!!

Wordless Wednesday: Still in the club...

....another great report from the dentist yesterday and Emerson's still in the No Cavity Club!!!  

Her molars are now touching, which means we have to start flossing.  And, that tooth is still wiggly....Dr. John confirmed it is, indeed, "wiggly"!!

Wordless Wednesday: Sneak Peek...

....at this year's recital costume(s)!!!

Tutu is for her ballet number, and the tap shorts are obviously for the tap number.