"I guess I went and broke the family tradition..."

I'm pretty sure every family has those "things"...little "tradiotions" or ways of doing something that you don't even think twice about.
I remember growing up this is what our cranberry sauce always looked like at our Thanksgiving table....in it's very own special crystal dish, standing tall as it wiggled it's way around the table. We'd go to my mom's sister's house the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I remember one of my uncle's sister-in-laws mashing up the cranberry sauce before putting it on the buffet table. I was appauled!! How in the world could you get your slice-o-cranberry when it was all mashed up in a dish!!
Fast forward a decade or so...Seth was at one of our first holiday meals at my parents. The cranberry sauce made it's way to the table, in it's designated dish and Seth leaned over and asked me how in the world you were supposed to serve it to yourself. I guess I had never really thought about it...I would always stick my finger on the top and slice it across...that's what the little lines are the side were there for after all, right? so you'd have the perfect serving size? Seth laughed and made some kind of wise crack about how it was like scalping or something!
Since then I've learned how easy it is to make the real stuff and stop the slice-o-cranberry tradtion...so I guess Levi will only be scalping his cranberry sauce and Mimi & Pop's!

"He ain't no poodle, no pony, he's just a little..wild turkey"

So much to be thankful for this year...God who loves us and sent His Son to save us...a wonderful, hard working husband...a roof over our head...our health...incredible family...friends, new and old...and of course, our little turkey :-)

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

(there's more pictures of the Little Man here if you're interested)

"There's so much that we share...It's a small after all..."

Yesterday I had one of those "small world" moments. I met a new friend at a local coffee shop. She goes to the same church that Seth and I go to and dropped a meal off after Levi was born. I thought she looked famaliar when I saw her at the new moms class that I went to over the summer....then I bumped into her at the duck pond. Turns out she lives within walking distance of our house. So...she mentioned on Facebook that she was going to a coffee shop and I jumped at the chance to get out of the house for a bit. A few of her friends were there with their little ones...I got to talking with one of the moms. I mentioned something about moving to the area this past year...she said she had just moved, as well...from Philly. She told me where she used to work which was right across the street from Tim and Denise's church. Iasked her if she was famaliar with the church...turns out she went there WITH Denise! She said she thought I looked like Denise before we started talking...and how we sounded alike. Funny how God makes our lives overlap and our paths cross...it really is a small world!

Oh, and if you want to read about another "small world" moment you should check out my friend Erin's blog...today's post will most likely have you in tears!!

"I've been thinking about you...got you on my mind..."

My mom came over last Thursday night to spend some time with Levi and me during the day and watch the Little Man on Friday night while Seth and I went out to the movies. As I was making dinner on Thursday night, my grandmother came up in our conversation. Since becoming a mom, it seems like we talk about her a lot more often....almost everytime we're together, I think. With my dad working long, crazy hours when we were growing up, my mom spent a lot of time with her. On Thursday, it was only natural that we talk about her since it was the anniversary of her "home-going" (hard to believe she's been gone for 15 years!). After our conversation and spending some nice quality time with my mom I remembered that I started a post a while back that I never "published"...so, in honor of my grandma and my mom, here it is...
Over time Seth and I have collected some random things from a variety of people. Some of the items are sentimental...like my father-in-law's varsity sweater (yeah, sweater, not jacket), the handpainted china plates from Seth's grandmother or my grandmother's engagement ring...other things are a bit more practical...my grandparent's bedroom set, Tupperware containers that were my dad's mom's, some Native American inspired 70's plastic plates from one of Seth's former co-workers...the list could go on and on!
A few weeks ago I was combing my hair after taking a shower. It dawned on me as I took the comb out of the drawer that it was my grandmother's....how I ended up with it I really don't know. As I struggled to get the tangles out of my ridiculously long hair (I'm WAY overdue for a trim!) I thought of my mom's mom, how she would get that same comb out of her dresser (which now has my stuff in it) and how I would sit in front of her as she gently got the tangles out of my hair after a bath. She would patiently work through the matted hair so you wouldn't even know there was a knot in it. I think it's something only a grandmother has the patience and time to do. Last week, as I watched my mom put Rachel's hair up for the day, I remembered her mom...it's neat to see it passed on to the next generation. I thought about how special grandmas are....how they enjoy the somewhat mundane, everyday tasks that we take forgranted as a mom. Levi and Denises' girls are truly blessed to have a grandma that loves them and loves to care for them!

"...over and over again..."

A couple weeks ago, Seth was looking through some random articles on Yahoo. He clicked on an interview with Ralph Macchio. I'm not really sure what he was on the Today show for...I think he was in some primetime show recently or something. At the end of the video they asked him how he felt about the remake of the Karate Kid (apparently Will Smith's son is in it). It got me thinking of movies that I watched and rewatched and probably wore out the old VHS tapes! Here are a few...
Karate Kid- That's how I got started on this whole post. I had the biggest crush on Ralph...well, the biggest crush a seven year old can I have, I suppose. Every time I hear that Bananarama song I have flashbacks to the movie. We watched the first one a lot, but I think we might have watched the second one even more. That final fight where everyone starts using those funky hand things and he procedes to bash his opponent's face in. Then he says "live or die, man" and the guy says "die" and Daniel-son honks his nose....classic! I remember getting the biggest kick out of that when I was little :-)
Nadia- I was pretty much obsessed with gymnastics when I was younger. Getting library books out on gymnastics, doing school book reports on famous gymnasts, constantly somersaulting and cartwheeling around the house while sportin' my purple polka-dot leotard. This movie was right up my alley! My favorite scene was when she did her tumbling routine...it had me dreaming about going to the olypimce myself! My poor mom tried to support my dreams without completely dashing them!

Benji- for some reason I remember watching this one a lot when we were sick...
I don't know why. Like the Nadia movie, I don't really remember this one very well. All that comes to mind is a heavy set old lady, a little boy and girl and the scruffy dog running all over town and rescuing some little white dog in some rickety old house. I guess I'll have to rewatch this one someday with Levi to refresh my memory!

The Girl Who Spelled Freedom- this was one of those Sunday night movies that Disney used to do back in the '80's. It's based on a true story (they had an interview with the family at the end of the movie) about an American family that takes in a Cambodian family and the little girl goes on to win a spelling bee. There are two scenes from the movie that stick out in my mind. One is when they go to the grocery store and the immigrant family is shocked by all the food and the fact that there is so much that they can eat. The other one is when they find the little girl standing on the toilet to go to the bathroom because she was used to going in a hole in the ground and didn't know how to use a toilet (remember, I was only 7 or so when I watched the movie...figures something kind of humorous like that would stick with me!).

Parent Trap- I don't know many girls that don't like this movie! The whole summer camp, finding your twin, switching places, romantic comedy...it has it all :-) I still find myself clicking on it if I see it on TV (and Seth's not around!). Like the Karate Kid we watched the second one just as much. For some reason we really enjoyed Hayley Mills movies...Pollyana, That Darn Cat and...

Trouble with the Angels- I don't even remember how we found this movie...probably at the library or something. It's about two girls in an all-girls Catholic boarding school who are constantly finding themselves in some kind of trouble. We watched and re-watched it so many times that I have scenes of the movie memorized. It's worth watching if you've never seen it before.

So...did you wear out any VHS tapes? What's you list of over and over movies?

'Baby, what's your number?"

That's the question that Seth's asked me the past couple of nights before I go to sleep...OK, maybe he doesn't say "baby", but he has asked me my number. You see, we bought a new bed a few weeks ago and we finally set it up last Saturday.
Supposedly you should get a new mattress every eight to ten years and our's will be hitting the eight year mark in June (hard to believe we'll be married for EIGHT years!). Seth figured we would get one a little early and just call it our Christmas present. Somewhere along the way Seth got it in his head that he wanted a Sleep Number bed. I would have been perfectly happy keeping our old one a little longer or just going with the same one that we had (our bed was the most comfortable one I ever slept in). But sure enough...being the persuasive man that he is, I found myself at the mall right before Halloween buying our new bed after we had gone the weekend before to test them out. So far it's been good...Seth says he doesn't wake up as much and when he gets up in the morning his back isn't bothering him as much as it has in the past. Hopefully it will give us the better sleep that they promise it will!