Jayne and Tom

Springtime in North Florida is one of the many reasons we live here. The crisp, chilly mornings, crystal-clear blue skies and the smell of daffodils make every day even more memorable. Today, as we wound down the sleep back roads of Monticello, the small sign on Highway 90 was the only hint that we were near HoneyLake Plantation and about to arrive at the celebration for Jayne and Tom's rehearsal dinner. Though once you turn on their fence-linef, Spanish-moss draped lane, you know you are in a taste of the good ol' south and this only continued to get better once we arrived to the friendly hugs of Jayne and Tom's family and friends and then settled down for a great southern shrimp boil. Caroline was quite the perfect flower girl hanging on to every word of direction from the wedding planner and Jayne. Tucker on the other hand was more fascinated with the piano and water fountain. Let's hope tomorrow the front of the chapel will be more appealing to little T. One thing is for certain, its going to be another fabulous day tomorrow for the wedding uniting this meant-for-each other couple.

Cheers to the smiles of tomorrow!

A Wild Ride

Its been a wild ride these past few months, with the culmination yesteday with Cory finally buying his first N-E-W car. I must admit it is a beauty and I'm so proud that his months of research paid off and now he's the happy owner of a new 2012 BMW m6. As he was purchasing, I was in City Hall convincing City Commissioners on why they need to trust our volunteer team to build a Discovery & Adventure Garden in our upcoming Cascades Park, which I know will be Tallahassee's new hot spot. Our team's garden idea was unaminiously approved! Now to planning the Community Planting & Build Day -- Cant wait for October 6, 2012.
We've been great. Lots of travel and fun at home. Here is a snapshot from the whirlwind of the past few months. I'm looking forward to lots of rest in the next few weeks and our "staycation" in Tallahassee for Spring Break 2012!

March...

 Using items from around the house {pencils, a cleaned-out spaghetti jar, glue gun and flowers and finger paint} we created a sweet good bye "Thank You to Ms. Ashley," Tucker's speech therapist, who did miracles and took him from being -5 months in speech, to being ahead of his age group and saying sounds that 3 year olds say. He went from mute to a chatterbox in 6 quick weeks. We love her and Mary Pelagrino and Associates. We will miss her!

DECEMBER 2011....

 Some hiking with Uncle Ed when he was in town!

 Meeting our sweet cousin "baby Audrey." We enjoy Facetime so we can stay in touch and watch her grow. It was a wonderful Christmas season with family.

 Visiting our land out Sunray Road where I grew up, and stopping in our neighbor's christmas tree farm for some running around.

 A afternoon of bubbles.

 Hello. Who's there!

JANUARY....Turks & Caicos! We love our New Year's trips -- always a great way to start the year.

B-L-I-S-S! Some of the the best 10 days I've had. Absolute bliss.

 We did a lot of this...playing in the sand and water.

 More smiles than we could count, even poor Caroline who was suffering from a double ear infection had some fun -- we had to wait to get home for her to get quality medical care.  Nothing like flying home with a child who is passed out with a 103.7 fever. Nervewracking.

Oh, the conch shell. Hours of entertainment this trip with "blowing the conch shell" but it ended up getting dropped on Tucker's big toe, which = blood, crying and 9 weeks later his big black toenail falling off. Yikes!

 Our view.

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY....

 Our family celebration...with her horse-themed cake.

 The actual birth DAY wake up surprise -- Happy Birthday spelled out and lots of her favorite colors.

And her birthday party with her friends. Caroline loves snow skiing so when she requested this for her birthday party, I had to come up with a Florida-style themed ski party. It started with "ski pass" invitations inviting everyone to a party at Couch Mountain. Here friends enjoyed hot chocolate, "snow" and snowcones {it is Florida}. They also created their own snow-covered trees, made ski trail mix, went home with smores and had a great time!

 being goofy in the photo area.

 making a snow covered mountain

 Couch Mountain "Snowy Conditions"

 Snowcones- "yummers"

Everyone loves a great birthday cake

And today's weather forecast calls for snow {time to get out the toilet paper}...

FEBRUARY

And then the REAL SNOW -- Deer Valley Utah Ski Trip

And in what seems like a blink of an eye, its March 2012!

Our little Picasso

The Smell of Freshly Sharpened Pencils. Caroline has discovered the pencil sharpener. I'll admit, I'm a little compulsive about needing to use a freshly sharpened pencil or my preference of pen in the bic micro black pen so I shouldn't be surprised that she would go through a period where she wants to color with a handful of freshly sharpened pencils. Picasso better watch out. The rum,rum, rum of the pencil sharpener is probably a sound here to stay for a while. Here she is showing Nane her perfect marks.

An Original Idea?

Christmas 2009
An Original Idea. Is there ever an original idea? While shopping at Fresh Market (who doesn't love strolling the isles here), I passed these little rosemary trees that were perfectly shaped like a picture-perfect mini-Christmas tree -- and ahah, I had the best.idea.ever for Caroline's Teacher's Christmas Gifts: Make a decorated "Christmas Tree" and tie little gift cards to the tree for each teacher's individual tastes – I knew they both like to cook so hopefully the rosemary plants would be put to good use. Let me me just say, did these come out cute. At least for our teachers it was the first time they had ever received the trees. I'm the homeroom mom for C's class so all the parents went in together and purchased gift cards. Caroline and I wrapped each gift card in adorable white and red polka dot paper and then tied it to the "trees" which had been adorned with ornaments (saltwater taffy) and garland (silver ribbon wire). Basking in my "unique idea" one day, my friend (who is also a teacher burst my original idea bubble by letting me know her fellow teacher had received a gift like it before. Oh, well it was original for our class and Ms Mindy and Ms Dawnadee. Happy Holidays!