Mr. President - Barack Obama

So a day late, but never too soon, Jeff and I watched the recorded Presidential Inauguration. I did sit in my car on the way to an Active 20-30 visitation and listed to the oath of office and the President's speech. I was moved to tears, inspired beyond words and in complete awe of the historical moment of our lives. I don't think I will ever forget where I was or what I was doing when President Obama was sworn into office.

As we sat tonight and watched the actual ceremony together, Jeff and I were just struck at his amazing ability to inspire. "You really have to have a heart of stone not to be inspired by him." said my husband. And shockingly enough, Jeff admitted to me that this was probably the first inauguration he had ever watched. Me, I'm a sucker for this kind of pomp and circumstance. I think I have seen or at least watched the news of most of the inaugurations in the past decade.

But this one, this one is one I don't think I'll ever forget. Congratulations to the Obama Family. May they be watched over and blessed.

Momma's so Proud

So last night, Jeff had to work late and Lexi had to come with me to my 20-30 meeting. Since I run the meetings, I knew I wouldn't be able to be attentive to her during the meeting, so I asked Loretta, Auntie Oretta, as Lexi says it, to come help out and sit with Lexi during the meeting. I loaded Lexi's goody bag up with Tinkerbell coloring book, DVD Player and movies, a toy and a few stuffed animals. Loretta wanted to buy her dinner so Lexi was stocked up with sliders and fries. Man, she was so stinkin' cute. I prepared her the night before with regards to expectations for the meeting. Told her it was going to be a special night and that her Auntie Loretta was so excited to see her, that she would sit with Loretta and not me, that she would have to be super quiet - whisper, and she would get treats and dinner and a special drink. She asked lots of question and I answered them the best I could. All in all, Lexi was an angel. If you didn't know it, you wouldn't have known she was there at all. She didn't call out to me at all during the meeting, she ate her dinner, had her drink, watched a few movies, colored a bit, sat on Loretta's lap for a while.

She did so well, I couldn't be more proud! Bummed I forgot to take pictures of the little future Active 20-30ian!

My Latest Cakes

So most of you know that I am an amatuer cake decorator. I have been slowly and steadily growing my side business and improving my talents. Here's a sample of my latest work...

Weddings

Baby Shower for a set of boy/girl twins

Wedding Shower Cakes

Birthday...

Birthday Cakes for Twins...each with her own design

I am hoping after my Active 20-30 Presidency I can take a few more cake decorating classes...especially one on using fondant.

Oh No...the Girlie Girl is coming out!

So Lexi just recently became proficient in a few things. Talking on the phone and coloring inside the lines!

She now talks on the phone with my mom and actually has full on conversations about her day and things that are interesting to her and answers questions with words instead of head gestures. So grown up!

And she is so proud of her coloring inside the lines that she has started to post her drawings up on the refrigerator.

Lexi's First Recital

Lexi had her first musical recital at preschool on the Friday before Christmas. It was so cute. This is an annual tradition for the school...but I don't remember being invited to it last year...so I think it is strictly for the Pre-K classes and their families. It was so cute and I was struck by what an amazing memory Lexi truly has. I know she has been signing Christmas songs we hear on the radio ever since Thanksgiving...but she is actually singing a lot of songs including the ones she learned at school.

Love the hand gestures!


I finally met some of the parents of her classmates. There are four of the girls who seem to be BFF's (lol) and I was able to meet some of them. It's too bad that next year, they will all be going to different Kindergartens! But until then, we are going to try to get the girls together outside of school too.

Christmas 2008

So I've finally given in and decided to create a new blog on blogspot. I had another blog on my yahoo account, but no one seemed to be able to access it and everyone seemed to be on here. So here I am. I am a year behind which I think I will try to just add to the yahoo blog and start fresh here.

This past Christmas and New Years was amazing, challenging, and well, very interesting. Working almost full time, making lots of cakes and being President of Active 20-30 has made it challenging for me to finish all the holiday preparations as I had wanted. So this year, our Christmas cards were very late. We had a friend come over to take our pictures the weekend before Christmas. The shots Lisa took turned out great and I was able to get most of the cards in the mail on Monday, 3 days before Christmas. In return, Lisa and her son, Ethan, stayed for lunch and made gingerbread houses and Christmas cookies. Lexi loved having a playmate for the afternoon...especially an older playmate.

At 4, Lexi gets that Santa brings her gifts if she has been good but the weeks leading up to Christmas, she kept saying, "I don't want Santa to come!" If we walked by Santa in the mall, she would say, "I don't want to see him." She would just wave from across the mall. She has always been scared of Santa and never wanted to sit on his lap at all. But she is starting to come around. If we tell her it is a pretend Santa, then she is braver and even went up to one to accept a candy cane. But otherwise, no Santa!

Well, on Christmas morning, Lexi woke up at 7:30 like normal. Jeff and Lexi went down and started on breakfast and then woke me up at 8:00. She was so excited. She started opening up her stocking stuffers first. Like I told Jeff when I was wrapping all the presents...it seemed like a ton of gifts, but really there were a lot of little items, lip gloss, hair accessories, clothes. The big ticket items were Bella Dancerella - a DVD, ballet barre and mat, Disney DVD's and several Barbies. She loved them all. My favorite reaction was when she opened her Ariel panties from Santa...she said, "Santa gave me panties...eeewwww, gross!" It was priceless! So wish I had my video camera on her for that moment!

Unfortnately, Lexi was not able to play with her toys as we had to get dressed and hurry over(yes, not what I really wanted to do...wanted to relax at home) to Grandma Pudoff's house. We spent the day there eating, playing World Tour and Wii. We didn't get home until 10:00 PM! What a Christmas.

The day after Christmas however, Lexi had the option of going to school or staying at home with Mom and she wanted to stay home with me. Apparently, she wanted to play with her toys and help me clean up around the house. It was so cute, every chore I had on my list, she wanted to help with! Is this just genetically ingrained into little girls to want to help with chores? Whatever it is, I'll take it!