Welcome Spring!

I know that spring doesn’t officially arrive until Tuesday, but we have been blessed here with 80-85 degree weather for the past week.  Couple that with the time change last weekend and spring has officially sprung! 

This week, we have enjoyed spending the majority of the afternoons and evenings outside in the yard, coming in when the last of the sunset has disappeared.  Trevor is old enough that we are enforcing the “when the street lights come on” rule…he doesn’t seem to mind, either.  His almost three year old mind for some reason will accept authority of an inanimate light-pole, if it was Mommy or Daddy making the time-to-come-in call, we’d be in for it. 

Along with spring time comes springtime sports and activities: 

we are no longer allowed to park in the driveway during the day…it is for chalk drawing and tricycle riding only. 

trevor loves kicking around his soccer ball in the backyard.  he wants to be just like his uncle christopher, who made the WVU men’s soccer team!  (congrats)

falling asleep with daddy after a long day outside

Absence

You may have noticed my absence from the blog…we have been going through quite the transition here the last couple of months with Shane’s return to sea duty and I am almost confident that I have my feet firmly back underneath me.  For the first several weeks I felt something like this: 

And while I may not feel like this yet: 

I am getting close. 

Another reason for the lack of posting is that I really think that the tone of my posts would change.  With Shane home for so long, we had gotten into a great routine and so things lent themselves to happy “what a great time we are having!” posts.  These days, I spend quite a lot of time pulling my (more noticeably gray) hair out….and so that is more of what you’d get….not sure if I want to air my potentially dingy laundry on such a usually happy blog. 

little artist

One of Trevor’s favorite gifts from Christmas was an art desk/easel.  He loves to color with crayons and colored pencils, but his FAVORITE is when he is allowed to paint. 

Christmas Sampling

I took way too many pictures of our Christmas celebration….way too many.  But, to catch up and start the year off right, I’ll go through our Christmas super fast. 

 

opening christmas pajamas

“Where’s Santa?”

After church, I asked a parishioner (who also happens to be our Realtor) to do us a favor by taking a family picture for us—that the favor would be easier than finding us a house.  Clearly, I lied.  Exhibits A, B and C.   

After Christmas, we packed up our stuff and headed up to CT for a week to spend time with family and celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. 

Merry Christmas Eve!

Just in case you aren’t in the holiday spirit yet, here are some pictures from Trevor’s school program this week.

Christmas may be in two days…

But we are still playing in leaf piles down here in VA…..

 

an overview…

Funny how I seem to blink and two weeks have gone by. 

We’ve been super busy getting ready for the holidays coming up, but things seem to be kicking into high gear with this weekend. 

We have the house pretty much decorated…still need to finish outside.  Our roof lights are up, and our angel is in the front flowerbed (I’ll have to get a picture of that—her positioning makes her look like she is mourning the death-by-unknown-animal suffered by my favorite hydrangea ::tear::) but I haven’t been able to choose what I want to do with the porch railings or a wreath on the front door. 

Trevor is going to be in the Advent pageant at church this year (like a Christmas pageant, only there is no baby Jesus because it. is. not. Christmas. yet.).  That is Sunday, I am not convinced he will do anything more than stand there and make one adorable donkey/cow/sheep.  That, is a silent role my son is good at. 

Tuesday is Trev’s holiday program at school….he has been doing parts of whatever is a part of the program at home, so I really don’t know what to expect, but I am sure it will be fabulous given our experience so far at West Ghent. (PS, decision to send Trevor to WGS = one of the best we have ever made)

Wednesday Shane goes on leave for about 3 weeks.  It will be great to have him home…but we will get to that more later. 

I finished my first semester of graduate school this month.  Interesting experience…very different from my accounting class experience at ODU.  Ended up with a 4.0 after a perfect score in the class….amazing what happens when you care about the subject matter, eh? 

I feel the need to include some cute Trev photos, for good measure…

opening Ornament presents from Grandma and Grandpa Chapman a special prize goes to the person who correctly identifies the movie trev is watching in the above photo. 

I hope that everyone’s holiday preparations and celebrations are coming along well.