Celebrating Six Years with a Win! #WordlessWednesday

Can you believe that it's been six years since we got married?! I have a hard time trying to find where all of the time went... let alone the Caps game photos from 2005-2007 that I wanted to include!

We try to celebrate our anniversary at a Caps game every year... the home opener is always within a week of the date (October 8th) and this was the first time it fell on our actual anniversary!

Doodle had a great time with Nancy and Pop Pop while we dined at Asia Nine and spent the rest of the evening rocking the red!

Happy Anniversary, Sweetie!

I know that this may be a slightly nontraditional way to spend a wedding anniversary, but it works for us... what do you do to celebrate?!

A Lilly Inspired Party... Doodle's 2nd Birthday! PSF/GMYBS

As promised, here are a few of the decorating details of...



The Inspiration...

 

This Lilly Pulitzer Crown that I picked up from the Ocean Palm in Williamsburg, Virgina.  Doodle and I have the matching bathing suits (I picked up hers at the LP Warehouse Sale in June and ordered mine from Paradise) and since this was supposed to be a pool party, I went with the focus on the Hotty Pink and Key Lime Green colors in the Limeade Floaters print!  My Mom had picked up the Petula dress at the LP Warehouse sale so I asked to borrow it and snagged Doodle's shift off of eBay (I tried Re-Lilly and asked Jack for help, but no luck this time!)... which worked out perfectly because Hurricane Irene was blowing into town and the pool party ended up happening in the barn!

Here are a few of the details of the party:

I created her name banner using my Silhouette (card stock and the wrapping paper) and made photo plaques to hang on the walls... The banner will now go up on her bedroom door and the photos on her bedroom walls.

Just in case we haven't met yet, my name is Roars and my daughter is a Princess-and-the-Frog-a-holic.  I used the Silhouette to make her some wall art with the opening line to her favorite movie (Like she can read... at 2... I know, just go with me on this).  I put the art up on a beam along with Naveen and Tiana... I made frames with photos from the past year in them and put those up on the other ledges.

A friend of ours made Doodle's cake and it was totally delish!  Aside from Doodle being bummed that we pulled her out of the moon bounce to sing to her, she did really enjoy the resulting sugar high!  The bottom photo gives you an idea of how much pink and green ended up on that table... all matched to the LP Napkins that I picked up at The Pink Palm Bethesda.

I made these cupcake toppers to help give the cupcakes a little somethin' extra... Last year I gave Doodle Minnie Mouse ears in the photo I used, but this year I tried to match the colors.

Although I'm kinda-sorta opposed to favors, I found these water bottles at Michael's and decided to give Doodle's friends a personalized treat... each water bottle also had a bag of Swedish Fish inside.  I made sippy cups for the Under-2 crowd (and ended up loving how they turned out)!

 As you can see, I love being crafty and love putting all of that energy to good use!  Although I think it looked pretty good (I could have done a lot more, but promised my hubby that I wouldn't go crazy with it all), the most important parts of the day were that Doodle have a good time with friends (check!) and we get to spend a fun afternoon with friends (check!)... Despite the rain, I think everyone had a great time!

I can't wait to celebrate her actual birthday this weekend (we partied a week ahead of time!)...

I think I'll let her wear her birthday crown around all day!

Thank You for Partying With Us...

Even with Hurricane Irene making her way up the coast, our wonderful family and friends came out to Mountainside to celebrate Doodle's 2nd Birthday! 

There was a constant sprinkle throughout the day, so our pool party quickly turned into a barn party... moon bounce and all!

Doodle jumped right into the moon bounce and we literally had to pull her out of it to sing "Happy Birthday" to her...

Clearly she would have rather stayed in the moon bounce!

She was spoiled rotten by her family and friends... we now have more princess-themed gear than we thought possible!  I had to giggle as she started to put on all of her gifts as she opened them...

I wasn't able to take as many photos of everyone as I would have liked, but I guess that's expected when you're trying to manage a party and photograph at the same time!  Both of my parents were SO helpful throughout the day- from keeping Doodle out of my hair while we decorated, helping me set up, taking photos and then getting everything back to my house... we couldn't have done it without Kippy and MiMi/Gramme!

After the party my family (Grandparents down to Cousin Sparkles) came back to our house to hang out.  Since we rarely have everyone together, it was definitely a treat... that ended at 11:30pm with Doodle and Sparkles dancing on the kitchen table.  Oh yes, it was a fun night!

We held a mandatory family nap time yesterday (the 1st time Doodle has ever taken a nap in our bed!) and then enjoyed watching Doodle re-discover her birthday presents...





She even wore her princess dress over to Grandma's for dinner... some battles are not worth fighting (especially when it comes to clothing... if that's how she wants to dress, go for it!)! :)  We ended the weekend with watching Tangled before bed...

Needless to say, I'm exhausted... Happy and thankful for a great weekend, but dead tired.  I think I officially need a vacation.

Oh MICKEY You're So Fine... ;)

Okay, so I've been totally horrible at posting lately, so here's my attempt to fill in the gaps. Yep, I'm expecting and totally excited... I'm officially in my 15th week, so we're closing in on 4 months! I don't have another doctor appointment for a few weeks, which kinda stinks b/c I had gotten accustomed to being in there every 2 weeks or so! Regardless of if we can see it or not, baby is growing and is approximately the size of a naval orange! Ok, so oranges aren't that exciting, but seeing that it starts out at poppy seed-size, it's progress! Here's a photo from Disney this weekend (more to come below) of Jill and I at Magic Kingdom that shows just how big/little the little booger is!

For those who are wondering, the official "gender determination" ultrasound doesn't come until week 20, so it looks like we'll be finding out around the last week of April/first week of May! Clearly, the little one's parts have already been established, so its not like we can change the outcome, but I've added a fun little poll on the side of the page for you to vote for your guess... I'm not really showing, so that doesn't help much, but feel free to ask any questions that you think could sway your opinion, etc etc. Most of you know my opinion, but I'll let you get your guesses in before I weigh in!

On the non-baby front, I had a FABULOUS weekend in Orlando with the girls! Since Dayna conveniently planned to tie the knot in a fabulous location, we took advantage of the trip and had a little girls (plus Adam!) weekend! Jill's fab sis-in-law, Kelly, actually works at Disney, so she totally hooked us up and got us into the park gratis! Given my "condition," I'm not exactly Splash Mountain-bound, so we opted to spend the day at Animal Kingdom! We had a great day seeing the shows and had killer views of all of the animals on the safari! We finished the day at the Bug's Life 3-D show.... it was totally adorable and the bug-eye glasses were a total bonus! :)

Towa had to tend to her bridesmaid duties on Saturday, so Jill and I spent a few hours at Magic Kingdom and Epcot... when it came down to it, we really only had about 3 hours to play with, so we popped into Magic Kingdom for the obligatory photo opp and headed to Epcot to tour the countries and sit down for "Turtle Talk" with Crush... I highly recommend this show! After the rehearsal dinner, Jill and I bolted back to Epcot for the famous light show! The fireworks are always my favorite part and these were just great!

Dayna and Bill got hitched on Sunday... and it was B-E-A-UTIFUL! The location was picturesque, the bride was totally gorgeous, and there were just smiles all around! It was so nice to sit down with everyone (especially after all of the walking we did all weekend!) and enjoy each other's company!

And now, I'm back to the grind and totally counting down until maternity leave... 175 days to go! ;) J/k... I'm not in that huge of a rush, but I am looking forward to it!

Catching Up on the Past Few Weeks...

Joe and I decided to take a non-traditional approach to Valentine's Day this year... we essentially decided to do a nice dinner a week early, courtesy of the Melting Pot Gift Card Gmom and Gpa gave us for Xmas, and gave each other gifts as soon as they were purchased. Tous, my FAVORITE Spanish jewelry designer, opened up a store at Tyson's... Can we say GRACIAS!!?! I virtually danced into the store, basking in old memories of El Corte Ingles and the street performers that were always right outside. I, of course, spotted some new jewelry pieces that I'll eventually get, but was drawn to the handbags in the back of the store. I might as well come out and say it, Joe's not a Burberry fan. Gasp! I know... so sad. So since I've been toting around my Burberry satchel for over a year, he was kinda excited at the prospect of seeing me tote around something new. Okay, so maybe he didn't care as much about a new purse acquisition as I'd like to believe, but he did offer to get me a new bag for Valentine's Day!

Photo courtesy of my Blackberry Storm... pretty good, eh?

Okay, so we had a fabulous Meal at the Melting Pot... I know that fondue isn't for everyone, but dear god do I love this place (it may also have something to do with the fact that it was where Joe took me on our 1st real date)! I could go on for days about the gooey yummers that we had, but I'll spare you most of them... we got the Cheddar Cheese (this is pretty much the only thing I princessily demand), garden salad (which is always amazing... as it should be if I'm wasting stomach space on rabbit food during this meal), Fondue Fusion (I think that's it... we got the platter with Chicken, Shrimp, Filet, and Teriyaki Steak) with the Mojo Broth (kinda bored with Coq au Vin, so we changed it up and were pleased with it), and the Cherry Jubilee Dark Chocolate (which was yummy and a good change from the normal turtle, but seeing that it was a limited engagement thing, we'll be back to the flaming turtle one next time)!

So, by February 8th, we were pretty much done with Valentine's Day... which meant that by the 10th I was itchy to plan to do something for the next weekend (actual VDay!). I looked up the Hershey Bears schedule and saw that they had a game at home on the 14th... and with tickets at only $22 a pop, I told Joe we were going!

Side note: On Friday night I was escorted by two handsome gentleman (Joe and Jeffo) to dinner and a movie... we saw "He's Just Not That Into You" because the boys thought there was too much girl squealing in the Shopaholic preview and E from Entourage was in this one. The movie was fine, but seeing it with two boys was just hilarious... every 5 to 20 minutes one of them would lean into me and say "Do girls really think/do that?" After my consistent answer, "yes," they just shook their heads in wonder! ;)

Okay, so you know I wasn't going to trek that whole 90 minutes to Hershey and not go to Chocolate World!?! So, we headed up a little early and had just enough time to take the Chocolate World Tour, get the song in our head ("It's a Hershey Chocolate World... Wherever I go, whatever I see, Hershey!"), slurp down some milkshakes (York Peppermint and Special Dark Chocolate), before we needed to go to the game! Once we got into the game (which took a while because Joe had to take the camera back to the car b/c it had a detachable lens... hello? Bad policy!) we had a great time! Since the Caps often call up players from the Bears, we have a decent idea of the players and team. My favorite part was seeing Simeon Varlamov (Bears goalie who is out on injury, but will be back and probably called up to the Caps as soon as he's ready) walking around the concourse with some of his friends... he was in street clothes and flying under the radar, but I totally scoped him out and followed his little entourage for a bit (because I'm too chicken to ask for a photo)! Anyway, it was tres cool! We were home by Midnight with pockets full of free samples and totally exhausted (sleeping in the car while Joe drives just takes it out of me ;) )!

We had dinner on Sunday at the Ranch with the Richardson's and ended up going back over there and hanging out on Monday... by the time Monday night rolled around, I was ready for bed! :)

Here are the few photos that I have of the weekend... including a few of our cute pups playing in the snow! :)

Inauguration

I know I've been a bad blogger lately, and there's no good excuse for it, so I'm going to make an effort to catch up in the next few days... First up, Inauguration Weekend!

The week before Inauguration, Mom and Dad decided that they wanted to come down and join in the festivities... we didn't have any big plans or tickets to anything good (because I simply thought about it too late), but we didn't let that stop us from going!

We went down to the Inauguration Concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday. Somehow we were able to metro right down to Farragut North, follow the flow of people onto the mall, and somehow ended up getting through the security gates and into the actual concert area... which apparently was quite difficult as many of our friends were stuck out on the mall!

There were some definite goosebumps as the Obamas were introduced... it was all so very cool! The concert was great and luckily we had layered up enough to keep warm!







And then came Inauguration Day... Joe Sr. decided to join us, so we all met at my house at 4am to head over to the Metro. We hit a bit of traffic getting into the metro station, but once we got in and parked, we were lucky enough to get on an empty train and snag some seats! We were downtown by 6:15 and came out of the metro station to the chaos... the vendors were already out and people were trying to figure out which gates to get to! The coolest part of the early AM was that there were helicopters with spotlights circling the area... and it totally felt like a scene from Batman or a fun action movie!







Our big glitch of the day was the water main break at the security gate we needed to get through. We got in the line/crowd at 6:30am and anxiously waited for the gates to open at 7. Well, 7am came and went, 8am came and went, and finally a gate opened at 8:30 and the crowd (which at that point filled 4 blocks of space) pushed forward. We were about 20 feet away from the gate for the next 2 hours, but nobody was getting through. It was getting a little hairy with the pushing and we literally got scared for our safety and decided to turn back and try to get in another way. We later found out that they never fully opened the gate due to a water main break.

I begged and pleaded at the Residence Entrance to my building (which we're never allowed to enter through) and explained our story to the security guards and secret service... I think they got tired of looking at me (clearly, I wasn't going anywhere) and let us sneak through! Joe Sr. also pointed out that somehow we got through but Former VA Governor Allen was turned away at the door (his office is in my building)!

Once we were in my office, we had a great view of Pennsylvania Ave and ended up having easy access to the parade route! The Secret Service was very accomodating and let us out without too much trouble... To Daddy's sheer joy, Ann Curry of the Today show was set up in front of my building! Because the aforementioned gate never opened, people couldn't get to our area of the parade route and we were able to get only a few rows back from the street (without having to wait in the cold all day)!











...and then they got out of the Limo!! Joe got a few great shots of the Obamas as they walked right by us!!



It was worth the chaos and cold... We made it... we were there... and couldn't be happier about it!



Here's the slideshow of all of our photos...

Merry Kissmas!

Sully hasn't gotten down the whole "sit" thing yet, so here's Sirius in front of the tree...


Our stockings were hung by the window with care...

I know this post is rather late, but it's been quite a busy holiday season! As it has become custom in our house, Joe and I exchanged gifts around December 22nd... Once there are wrapped presents under the tree, there's just no point in waiting! ;) And, yes, we will actually wait for Xmas day when we have kids... but until then, we'll do it our way! ;)

Proving that we really think alike, Joe and I both bought each other JK Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard... as Joe said, "It's the gift of the Magi for Nerds!"

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve with the Richardson's, Christmas Day at the Kilcoyne's, and Boxing Day at the McFatridge's!

Sully had the honor of being the Christmas Elf this year since he fit into Finley's costume! ;) :)


We really had a great holiday and totally lucked out with the gifts this year... a new Blackberry, Sewing Machine, Camera Flash, Alex Ovechkin FatHead, Stained Glass Window of the Caps Eagle, Melting Pot, and so much more! We are so grateful for everyone's generosity and are thankful to have been able to spend the holidays with those we love!

Here's a slideshow of our photos:

Cel-le-brate Good Times... Come On!

Flashback to October 2005...

Can you believe we've been married for three years?! I know that the length in years isn't a huge milestone, but I sat back to think about it the other day and realized something... time flies when you're having fun! ;) At this time last year, we had a list of big milestones that we had accomplished in the previous year... mainly the new house and the new puppy! This year, we're just happy to have the house (especially in this market!) and are loving the crap out of Sirius Black! Of course, this past year has had some highlights... an All-Chamberlin Thanksgiving... vacation in the Dominican Republic... a new car (Yay Jetta!)... and a great year of Caps Hockey!

Which leads me to our anniversary celebration... instead of trying to go out on a Wednesday night (Hello?! Project Runway Pre-Fashion Week Show!), we decided to wait until Saturday and spend the whole day downtown! Kim & Josh were in town, so we had a nice lunch with them and Jeff Enama over at Rio... I hate that Kim & I live so far apart (i.e. not living around the corner from each other like we did growing up), so I totally jumped at the chance to spend some QT with her and Josh!

After lunch, Joe and I headed downtown to start the Anniversary celebration... dinner and the Caps Home Opener! Wedged between the Verizon Center and Clyde's, the Caps had a little pre-game fun going on... they had a huge block of ice with sticks in it... if you could pull a stick out, you got a prize (like a team-signed jersey or free tickets)! Yes, our chances were as good as Wart pulling the sword out of the stone, but if he could do it, maybe we had a shot...



Okay, maybe not! ;) We didn't have much luck... they were kind of sticklers with the rules, so no wiggling, no posting your foot against the ice for leverage, just one swift pull! Luckily, my spirits were lifted when Slapshot made a cameo...



We killed some time around Verizon Center before our dinner reservation... at ZENGO! I had been there a few times with work colleagues, but Joe had never experienced their Latin American-Asian Fusion wonders... so I gladly made the executive decision to have our anniversary dinner there! We had a killer meal and left full of Volcano Roll, Ahi Tuna, and Steak... and were ready for the game!

We got to our seats early enough to catch the pre-game skate and the ceremonial raising of the banner (Southeast Divisional Champions) into Verizon Center's rafters... which was pretty cool. As for the game, we beat the Blackhawks 4-2 and you can read about it on ESPN... I'm getting a little tired of writing! We had a great day... and it was the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary!

The rest of the photos are online at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Richardson.Rory/CapsHomeOpener#