My cousin, Doug, has the cutest daughter, Hannah. I finally got to meet her this weekend. Wow, just look at those beautiful blue eyes.

It makes me feel old to see my younger cousin with a child...but the two of them look so adoreable, don't you agree? We decided that Hannah is my first cousin, once removed. I have no idea if that's right, but it sounds good enough to me.

Like her father, Hannah is very mellow. She didn't get fussy once. I'm sure her mother has a different opinion, but I was in awe of how fun and laid back she was.

Aunt Patty dug out some old baby albums so we could compare baby photos. I thought she looked a lot like Patty and a bit of Doug. She's a beautiful girl.

Mary and I headed over to Uncle Bill and Aunt Patty's for some family time. We had, what I would proclaim as the best French Toast breakfast EVER!!! Rosie came over to see us, so we had a little photoshoot going on.

It was so great to see them. I miss them terribly.

Todd and Diane had a beautiful wedding ceremony and reception despite it being a super freezing day in Columbus.

I have to give Brian the title of digital camera master because my technique was less than steller...guess the lighting wasn't the best.

I acutally got paid for making a scrapbook page! Whooohooo! Well, technically this wasn't the first time I got paid for a page, but this is the first time I've had one in print.

It's in the new Creating Keepsake's Idea Book and it was cool to see my work in there (it's on the bottom right of the magazine that I'm holding in my best Price Is Right girly pose).

The page is about how we ruined this beautiful cake for my father by putting 60 candles on it. AND he actually blew them all out! My father's face looks a bit red in the magazine, but hey, you can't have everything perfect.

Wow, she's 24 today! Hard to believe.

Happy Birthday, Cat...I hope you have a wonderful day.

I miss you!

I get very excited about home improvement projects. At this point, we've been living in our house for more than 2 years. The number of things that I want to change is slowly declining. One of the biggest things I've wanted to get done finally got accomplished this weekend, and get this, it was SO EASY.

Closet doors for our guest bedroom. They look so awesome. It's very silly to get excited about such a thing, but after looking at an empty closet for so long it looks great. It feels like a complete room now.

Why did it take so long, you ask? We thought we had an unsusal size opening for the closet. None of the bi-fold door kits came in the right width. Brian had it stuck in his head that they should be bi-fold doors. He even wanted to order these custom made ones on the internet for over $500.

I put my foot down.

Dragged Brian into home depot and showed him my idea of buying 2 of the six-panel doors and the little sliding rail kit. It took a while to hunt down the doors in the exact width that we needed, but hey, the home depot came through!!! It didn't take long to sell him on the idea since it was considerably cheaper than the custom doors.

Now, what can I get Brian to do next???

Cat came to visit me. It was so great to see her. It's hard to put into words how thankful I am that I have her in my life.

We decided to go to Salem, since it is so close to Halloween. It wasn't all that exciting, but we spent the afternoon hanging, which is all really matters. I had to be talked into the photo with the ghostbuster guy. Cat says that photo is going in her xmas newsletter. Yippee!!!

Our trip to Italy was amazing. I finally got around to putting our pictures online. Enjoy: photos

Today I turned 31. Not very excited about that. I wasn't too keen to celebrate it this year. Brian took me shopping for a new outfit over the weekend, so I thought that was all that I was getting.

But WOW, did this surprise me!!!!

My video Ipod is WAY cool. After using an ipod shuffle, this is a major upgrade. We put an episode of Veronica Mars on it just to see what a video looked like. Pretty neato! Now Brian just has to configure Freevo to convert our tv shows into ipod format so that I can copy them over and watch at will.

What a fun thing to get on your birthday!!!!

Look what I made. In case you couldn't guess, it's a cosmetic bag. I'm quite the sewing gal, aren't I?? Quite proud of this little thing...mostly because of it's cuteness. It has been a long time since I sewed anything that didn't belong over a window. Yes, I can sew straight lines and that's all curtains ever require (or at least the ones at my house). Maybe I'll be more adventurous and try something more complicated. My only problem is, how do you top this??? It's so darn cute!

We took the boys downtown to explore the freedom trail a bit. Eric wanted a picture of himself by that statue of Everett and I'm not sure why, but it makes me laugh when I see it.

No trip downtown is complete without a stop in the North End. We ate at one of our favorite places and had fun trying to get Andrew to eat that entire helping of lasagna.

Those crazy Wades sure know how to smile for the camera!

Eric and Andrew drove out for a visit. It was a trip filled with funny faces and lots of bad Wade jokes. We get it from our Dad.

Aside from lots of eating and playing old Nintendo video games, we did make it out of the house a few times. Our first adventure was to the DeCordova museum and sculpture park. Eric has been before and it's a favorite of his. Surprisingly lots of the outdoor sculpture had changed since the last time we had gone.


Brian and Eric got a little bit carried away with posing with this gigantic baby. Andrew pretty much refused to look so retarded. It may have something to do with the fact that they liked playing with the new camera.

Brian stole my high five idea. I did it but the photo didn't turn out probably because it was Eric's first attempt at using a digital camera.




Had to include the rare photo of both Brian and me.

We hadn't done anything to our 3rd bedroom for two years. We decided it was time to do something, so I thought a buckeye theme room would be cool. Scarlet and grey are the best colors.

I'm not sure Brian was on board at first, but he went along. Then when we were buying stuff to decorate the room, he got into it. I think finding the fun red chair was the turning point. Thanks to a new Ikea in Massachusetts finding all the right stuff was easy. (BTW, I found out the other day from my hairdresser that people from Massachusetts are called Massholes...how nice!)

Now I smile everytime I go into the room instead of frowning at all the junk that had piled up. We got this done just in time as Eric and Andrew are coming to visit this weekend.

What do you think? A little too much? Okay, I admit it...the Brutus pillow may be a bit much, but it was a gift and he just looks like he belongs there!

Tax free weekend is quite an ordeal around here in Massachusetts. It doesn't seem like a huge savings to me, but I think people like the idea of sticking it to the government. Our tax free purchase is this cute little camera. It was quite the process to get the right price, but after a sale price, 10% off coupon, gift card, rebate AND tax free...this baby was quite the bargin.

Who knew that Casio makes one of the best point and shoot digital camera?!?! We found it ranked #1 in PC Magazine's best digital list. AND a photographer that we really respect also highly recommends it. While everyone is looking at Nikons and Cannons, we were into this gem. It has some really great features, but I really like the size, picture quality and the fast start up time. I had an old point and shoot digital that doesn't even come close to this camera. While my Nikon SLR is for good quality photos, it's not always the easiest thing to tow around. This beauty fits in your pocket and has a great battery life. I'm in heaven. Hopefully it'll encourage me to take more pictures, which will only help this lame blog.

I told Brian he can be in charge of the Casio during our trip to Italy. Aren't I nice?

I'm not sure if it's a curse to be ranked #1 preseason, but it sure does feel nice. I'm talking about R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Can't believe football is almost here. I can't wait, it seems like it has been too long. Go BUCKEYES!

Growing up I loved the Anne of Green Gables series. Timeless classics. I recently started reading them again. Wow, I wait on pins and needles to see what Anne Shirley is up to next. And oh, Gilbert Blythe. My heart flutters. Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote these books at the turn of the 20th century, so I guess the copywrite is expired so you can find electronic versions all over the internet.

My sister, Cat, is seven years younger than me. It was trying at times sharing a room with her as we were growing up. But not everything was filled with arguments and despair. We both loved these books. We would stay awake for hours when we should have been in bed. Me, reading about Anne's adventures, while she brushed my hair. That's probably one of my favorite memories about growing up. Now, my sister is perfectly delightful and I can honestly say she is a true "kindred spirit".

My mother dislikes geraniums. I think she may have tainted them for me. I've never thought of planting some until this year. Last summer I noticed some on my drive home from work and realized how nice it is that they are always in bloom. I thought I'd give them a shot. I put a few in this container by my back door and they have thrived. There's always tons of blooms on it, and just seeing it when I come into the house makes me happy.

In this photo it had just rained, so the blooms are a little weighed down. I love how they droop over the pot like that. It just seems so graceful to me.

So, my sister tells me the other day that she reads my blog. Um. There's not much to read. I know a few other people that might be checking in here from time to time, so it's making me feel real guilty that I don't post more often. Honestly, I'm pretty boring so reading this can not possibly be that much fun. But moving on...I learned a new photoshop trick:








So, which one looks better? Simple color replacement and the photo really pops. Makes it look more cheerful. This is a shot of the 4th of July fair that is here in Lexington every year. We didn't make it there this year, but this was last year. Actually funny story there. Brian was testing out some motion sickness medicine. He usually can't handle the rides, but the meds seemed to be working for him. We got on this one ride that had us lying on our stomachs and going around and around. Picture me as superman who can only fly in a circle. It was terribly uncomfortable. Well it all got to me, and right after we got off I threw up. What a wuss. Guess I'm getting too old.