December 29, 2006

So long, fair well, auf weidersehn, good bye



We'll miss you Karen. You were always one of our favorites.

December 25, 2006

to all a good night...

Bridget enjoying her first Christmas Day... see any resemblance?



Merry Christmas to all
and to all a good night....





December 24, 2006

Third time's a charm

This is the third time I've tried to write a post and everytime I publish it, Blogger eats it. Grrr...

Anyway, I wanted to give everyone a quick update for the Christmas Eve goings on at Ivy Trace. Babygirl is very excited that Santa is on his way tonight... well, maybe she isn't as much as her mommy is, but it is certainly fun. I even get that little tingly feeling like when you're a kid thinking about the magic of Christmas eve and even though she doesn't know it yet, she's helping to bring that magic back into our lives as well... I never really complete lost it, but you look at things differently with a brand new little one.


So far today we made appetizers, baked cookies and watched football. It's been a pretty good Christmas eve and it's about time to pack up the car and head to Steph and Jim's for the Delanty /Gianino /Fabry /Brennan /Ellis celebration. It promises to be as fun as always!

We officially kicked off our holiday season on Friday with a fabulous dinner and present opening time at Mom and Dads. It was awesome and fun as always.

I even have wrapped all my presents early this year. At least, that is, if you count wrapping until 2am last night early. But for me, that's amazing. One quick rant about wrapping paper - at what point did all the wrapping paper manufacturers get together and decide they needed to tape a new roll of wrapping paper in like 15 places? Isn't the complete plastic cover on the roll enough? I mean did we really need the tape, too? It drives me crazy you have to be so careful not to A) rip the paper or B) pull the paper off with the tape leaving behind only paper backing. I mean were they all sitting around at the last WPMC (wrapping paper manufacturers conference) and decided that tape was the way to go???

Lastly, on one sad personal note, we'd like to recognize Buddy IV who met with an untimely demise this morning. Buddy was a good fish and he will be sorely missed by us and Buddy V. We can only hope that Buddy IV is looking down on us from that big fish bowl in the sky with Buddy's I, II, and III. We love you Buddys!

Merry Christmas to all and especially to our little magic munchkins, Matthew and Bridget - may this only be the beginning of years of magic and wonder to come for you and your mommy's and daddy's!

December 21, 2006

Soon it will be Christmas day...

I can't believe it is December 21st already. Well, actually I can - I knew it would fly by as usual. Also as usual, I am completely behind. Tim and I went shopping last night and we were going to conquer it all and then, of course, by 6:30 were so starving we just had to go eat at Chili's with our gift certificate we've been saving FOREVER -then two beers and a lot of fajita's later we were ready to cache it in and go get babygirl. Grandma and Grandpa D were watching her so we could get some secret Santa presents. I hear Santa doesn't officially start making visits until they are over a year... that's just what I hear - don't shoot the messenger.

Anyway, tonight/this afternoon I plan on kicking some serious Christmas shopping ass. (Sorry, I've decided my blog isn't completely pg, I'm making it pg-13) that will be as bad as it gets. I have my Sydney's Closet Christmas lunch at Bristol's today...yummy! After that, I'm going shopping and finishing it off! The only problem is we always drink a little wine and linger around for a while, so I'm hoping we don't have another repeat of the laziness of last night after lunch today. Plus, babygirl is with G & G J today, so I have another free afternoon and I really need to capitalize - lord knows I don't want to be anywhere near a mall, old navy, barnes and noble or any of those places this weekend.

Well, better get to work, even though it's Christmas lunch day, there is still plenty of work to do no matter how little I feel like doing it!

This picture is from Bridget up at SC with me. They have a little bassinet and everything set up for her, so she can hang with mom while I work. They love her so much, it's so nice, I am really lucky to have them be so accomodating for a working mommy!

Happy almost the holiday season!

December 15, 2006

Santa and Mrs. Claus

So, we didn't get too many great shots of them together, but I still think this is too funny not to use as a blog header. For those who don't know this is Bridget and her best bud Matthew during one of their forced "we're really just here for our mommy's to take pictures" photo shoots. This one was too cute, though and soon enough you will see the results of our efforts in both the Delanty and Muldrow holiday cards.

The best part was rangling up four dogs in antlers and making them sit while we snapped away. At times, though, they actually were easier subjects than the little babes.

I'm posting just a couple from the photo shoot, but will post most of them on shutterfly soon after everyone has received the too cute christmas cards from Aimee and I. That way it will be more of a surprise!

Well, too much to do today as this is a super busy weekend with Mom D's 60th birthday party (I have some secret missions to do for that today) and then we are celebrating Liggy's college graduation on Sunday. Congrats LIGGY!!! It's a great feeling, isn't it?? Then throw in there that I actually need to buy some Christmas presents at some point and it's a little crazy!

Happy Friday to all!

December 13, 2006

Thanksgiving pics...

finally, I have posted the pics of Turkey day in Georgia... I'm still working on posting the adorable Christmas photos from Sunday, but I'm working on it... check out my photo website at delanty.shutterfly.com.

December 12, 2006

Big Birthday!


Happy 60th Mom D! Can't wait to celebrate this weekend! Love you!

December 11, 2006

Life's not always fair...

I got some really devastating news yesterday, and while I don't want to go into the specifics of it right now, I would appreciate everyone's prayers and thoughts for my extended family, they need all the support they can get right now.

Kiss your significant others, hug your kids, call a good friend and give the pets a treat. Life is precious, albeit incredibly unfair at times.

December 10, 2006

One year ago today..

My how time flies! I can't believe it was exactly a year ago, probably to the minute when I was doing pretty much exactly what I am doing right now: Sitting at my computer, checking email, doing a little work when for some still unknown reason to me, I jumped up and decided to take "the test". Without going into the gorey details, there really was no reason for me to believe I was pregnant and certainly no reason to take the test that day. It was definitely too early to be testing, if you know what I mean. But for some reason, I did it.

I leave my computer, take the test and then return to my work knowing it would be negative mainly due to the aforementioned gorey details. Plus, supposedly it takes a couple of minutes so I just left the test and came back to the computer to keep working. After about 10 minutes, curiosity got the better of me and I went back to where I had hid the test in my closet, picked it up and let out a very quiet little gasp. There in front of me was the faintest little tiny pink line. I was pretty calm, but in awe, it was almost surreal...am I seeing a line? Is that really there? No...it can't be....

I placed the test back under a stack of t-shirts, went back to the computer and proceeded to feverishly look up "faint lines" on hundreds of websites - work at this point was out the door. I still did not really believe it and to complicate matters, after an hour of internet research I find out that when you leave the test for more than 10 minutes faint lines called evaporation lines can appear when a test is not checked in the alotted time period. WHAT!? CRAP!! How long had I left it? Had it been 10 minutes? Crap, crap, crap (btw, that's the pg version of what I really said...) I had put myself in complete limbo land and now, I had to sit here wondering whether or not that was a "faint" positive line or "evap" line...and the worst part...I had no more tests. So, I put it out of my mind.. sort of.. and proceeded to finish up the project I was working on. It's such a strange feeling when you are not sure... it's a mix of overwhelming excitement, terrifiying anxiety, wanting it to be true so badly and at the same time not sure if you want it to be true. So, I had to just stop thinking about it.

After work, I made a quick getaway to do a little Christmas shopping and of course to get some more tests. I remember the feeling I had walking around Gordman's and it would just hit me that maybe... maybe... and I would just smile. Then I knew I wanted it and wanted it badly. After my trip to Wal-mart I came home with tests and immediately went back upstairs and tested again... this time I would not miss my window. In exactly two minutes, there it was again...the cute little faint line. This time there would be no "evap" line and I was sure, although, it was still so hard to believe.

Believe it or not, I just sat on that little gem of information while I proceeded to take at least 16 more tests (I'm exaggerating, but there were a lot!) of different kinds - digital ones, pink ones, blue ones, fast ones, slow ones - every last one was positive. That night, I went to Becky's Christmas party with Tommy and Libby (Tim stayed home with Riley who had hurt his leg the night before) and I fake drank Martini's and punch. Tommy even called me out on not drinking fast enough. I couldn't believe it - it was a Martini for crying out loud. Who drinks a Martini fast? So, I had to keep walking in the kitchen and pouring it out little by little. It was so weird, too, not to be able to drink that Martini, especially when it is all so new and you're still not sure you believe it...things just changed on a dime that day.

The next day, December 11th, was Mom D's birthday party at our house and I had planned on telling Tim that day, but the opportunity never really arose during the day with all the bday preparations and cleaning. I was going to go to Walgreens and get a card for him (and one more test...just to be sure) before the party so I made up some lame excuse to go and he told me that I didn't have time and why was I trying to push it to Walgreens... grrr...okay then, you won't find out you're going to be a daddy tonight. He would have to wait another day. That same night, again, somebody called me out on drinking water. Maybe I was just more sensitive to it, but I remember thinking so these people have "pregnancy-dar" or am I giving out "pregnant" vibes right now... how the hell?

Finally on Monday, the 12th, I set a hot dog bun and the controversial walgreens card inside the oven and taped a sign to the oven that simply said, "TPD, Open Me"... It felt like an eternity, he was in and out of the kitchen, back and forth and... nothing. It was probably the most nervous I've ever been in my whole entire life and the agony just kept getting prolonged. I would tense up every time he walked in there and every time he came right back out. I finally, after at least 7 trips in and out of the kitchen where he failed to notice the sign, marched in there, pointed to it and made him open it... I absolutely could not take it anymore. He opened the door and just stood there for a minute and ultimately just said "no...no... really?" I could tell he was so excited when it finally sunk in.

So, that's the way it all went down, starting a year ago right now, little did I know the extreme turn my life was about to take over the next 48 hour period and ultimately up to now. And here I sit a year later, with babygirl sitting on my lap helping me write this and I can't even begin to think about if that line had been an "evap" line...


December 8, 2006

Long Term Effects...

It's been a little while since the last post! I've just been so busy with work and our new site, which I am still not quite ready to post links to, that I've fallen down on my posting duties. I feel like I am glued to a computer screen almost all waking hours except driving and showering. I am looking at the computer screen from sometimes as early as 5am to as late as midnight some nights. I am reading while feeding babygirl, working all day long, surfing and researching while l watch Earl in the background, designing for the new business in bed with the news on in the background.

I've become attached to the computers. It's almost to the point where if I've been out or away from a computer for more than an hour or so, I get ancy to get around one. I don't know what I would have done without any power here.

Okay, enough about computers, but I do worry sometimes about the long term effects of sitting in front of this screen type, type, typing or reading constantly. We are really the first generation to grow up with computer screens in front of us and I am on the extreme end of the spectrum in relation to how much time I spend in front of them...

We got our Christmas tree last night (leave it to us to pick the coldest day of the year to bundle up babygirl and subject her to frigid temperatures). Regardless, it was a quick process and it's a frasier fir and very fresh, so that's exciting. I'm not sure when we will actually get to decorate it as we have a pretty busy weekend with holiday events and drinks with friends, but, hopefully we can do it either tomorrow or Sunday at the latest. I have sporadically worked on Christmas decorations, so I'm excited about getting those finally finished!

Lastly, babygirl is talking up a storm these days and is very vocal when she is hungry or unhappy. You'll hear about it- no question. She's also started this kind of screaming/screeching stuff that is incredibly disturbing, but again, is just her way of letting you know she needs some attention and, unfortunately, I can't help but laugh at it. I can already fast forward in my mind a couple of months when she has perfected that skill and will scream at random in public places and at quiet places. I'm sure we will be one of "those" people in church who can't control their screaming children. You can just tell that's the path she's going down. I still love it, though. It's so funny to see her discovering her voice and changing every single day. I'm excited for her first Christmas, even though she won't really understand yet, it's still a fun time for Tim and I to have her here.

Well, that's all for my quick post today - I apologize for the randomness or my ramblings. TGIF!!

December 1, 2006

Ready for the Holidays!


I needed to update the look for Christmas! Don't worry moms, she was only out there for like 30 seconds max. It was literally - set her down, snap a pic, back in the house!

Hope you like the new look. Please feel free to comment!

Happy snowy Friday day to all!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

the weather people know what they're talking about! Okay, I am officially conceding round 2 to the weather people. They didn't overshoot this one. Now, they were still a little off on snowfall totals and I think my brother's philosophy holds true in that I think we got about an inch and a 1/2 of actual snowfall. HOWEVER, I will give them that this was a major storm.

Way to go weather people! Let's keep up the good work!

I've already been outside this morning taking more pics, so I'll try and post those after my deadline this morning. Of course, I don't think anyone is in the office where I have the deadline...but whatever.


So, officially, if you're still keeping score:



Erin - 1
Weather people - 1