It's official.......

.......we are moving back to Mount Airy. We have known for a while that this might be happening but now it's official. Nick's dad got a 2 year assignment in Bosnia so they asked us if we would move it and take care of their house and dogs while they are gone. Where is Bosnia you ask? Well, good question because I had no idea either so here's a little map for ya'!

It is actually such an enormous blessing for us. Nick is preparing to go back to school so 2 years of no rent is, literally, a dream come true! They have a beautiful home with a really nice yard. It will be really nice to be able to spread out a little and enjoy a yard again! Even with all the perks, we are so sad they are leaving and we will REALLY miss them! We will be moving in the end of July or early August.

It is also sad for us because we LOVE Owings Mills and we adore our ward. We have made some of the best friends here and it will be sad to leave. Fortunately, it's not too far so we will have to have you all over for some summer BBQ'S!!!

Adventures in Babysitting

Allow me to first update you on my Chuck 'E' Cheese experience. That place is insane. There are SO many kids and I found it to be pretty overwhelming. One good thing is, they stamp your hand and the hands of the children you brought with an identical stamp that no one else in the place has so no one could technically leave with your kids. Kids are just running around everywhere and adults are standing around looking just as overwhelmed as I did thankfully! My nephew is four and he is, let's say, busy. He wanted to play every game and was moving around at lightning speeds. There is no shortage of 3 feet tall people in that place so finding him was tricky at times. At one point I was soley in charge of my niece who is 20 months. Thankfully, she was kind of scared of the giant Chuck 'E' as well so I pretty much was able to avoid him! She loved the slide and the little jungle gym which I found pretty fun as well! For Tommy though, it was all about getting as many tickets as fast as he could as to buy the best prize! He is so smart for four years old! So he handed me some tokens and said, "Manda, don't lose any games or I am not giving you any more of my tokens." This is a lot of pressure for an Aunt who loves to please this little guy. I spent most of the night after that playing ski ball. I am not professional ski ball player, but I can definetly hold my own! He saw these tickets shooting out and he was like, "Manda, you are so awesome." That was music to my ears! He walked away with a pretty cool Hot Wheels thing so, all in all, pretty great night!

She loved the slide! Ski ball is a sure bet - best bang for your buck!!!

Look how happy he is - he thinks he has the coolest Aunt!

On Saturday, Nick and I headed up to my mom's to pick up the kids for a day of fun. She needed to get some stuff done and we really did want to spend time with just them. So we headed to McDonalds for lunch and playtime. The Mount Airy McD's has a pretty nice indoor play area and the kids loved it! All was fine and good until these 10 year old looking boys decided they wanted to play too and kicked my little Keira. They were way too big to be in there and then they hurt her and I wanted to yell at them so bad but there parents were sitting there and you can't just yell at other peoples kids. What made it worse is that they totally saw what happened and they didn't say anything either. Overall, the kids had fun though and I loved watching them have so much fun together. They really love playing together. My brother Tom, the dad of these kids, is my older brother and we are about the same years apart as his two little ones so it was interesting to think about us playing like that when we were little. I hope we were as good of friends and Tommy and Keira!

Keira hadn't been feeling well so we took her home and spent the rest of the day with Tommy. We asked him what he wanted to do and all he wanted was to go to the library and read some books. So we went to the Howard County Library, it's super nice, and just let him pick and some and then we would read them and put them back and pick out five more. We did this for about two hours - he LOVES to read. It's so cute! Here's a cute picture of Nick reading "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day".

I loved spending time with them and really miss them a lot. But more than that, I realized that yes, kids are hard, but it's so worth it. It was fun to be doing it with Nick and see what a good dad he will be!

Dinner and a Movie

Last night was one of those glorious, relaxing nights where we didn't need to be anywhere and all there was to do was hang out. I LOVE those nights. Once the snow settled down, we went to the gym and then decided it was going to be date night because of Nick's work schedule. So we had a free rental at Blockbuster, I wouldn't have gone there otherwise, and ordered some chinese takeout! We decided upon "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days". It's a pretty cute movie. But mostly I just loved hanging out with Nick. I know, I know, I am a dork. I like cuddling, holding hands and long walks on the beach :) Just kidding about the long walks thing! Well, anyway, I love being married and I love date nights!! Tonight, while Nick is at work, I am going with my mom to take my niece and nephew to Chuck 'E Cheese. This should be an experience. I would like to state for the record that I HATE peopel dressed like animals of any kind. It's creepy and I have never liked it. Nick and I went to Disnlyland on our honeymoon and the weird chipmunks kept creeping towards me with their big non-blinking eyes and I had to literally run away. So hopefully ol' Chuck isn't there walking around tonight or I might pass this fear on to my little niece and nephew. I will try to behave.......as long as Mr. Cheese does!!

The "babies" are coming to town!!

I have three brothers and only one is married and has kids - and these are his "babies". This is Keira & Tommy - they are 21 months & 4 1/2 and we still refer to them as babies. I guess because they are the first niece & nephew on my side or maybe because that will always be babies in our eyes - I dunno! Anyway, they live in Utah and are coming out to stay with my parents for 10 days. I am so excited. I love these kids so much and really miss them all throughout the year. They will surely be having a sleepover with us! Keira is all girl and loves her baby dolls. Tommy is so smart and loves activity books. He loves sports and they both LOVE water. Ever since they were babies they could swim all day and not get bored. If I love these kids this much, I can't imagine how much I will love my children. Anyway, stay tuned for a post on all our adventures!

Ode to Red Box

I love RED BOX. I don't know how to adequately express my feelings. What a great idea - these guys must be loaded! I love the convenience, the selection, the ease of use, the cost and mostly I love that I don't have to deal with Blockbuster any more. Sorry to defame a once honorable institution, but they just don't compare. The last time I went to Blockbuster, it cost $4.15!!! That is four Red Box movies - who do they think they're fooling!?!?!! Well, it's not gonna be us. I can pick up a movie on my way home in Eldersburg and then return in Owings Mills when I am doing my grocery shopping. If you haven't been turned on to this thing of beauty, I recommend that you do it, and soon!

Welcome to the world little man!

Five days over due and after 19 hours of labor, little Brooklyn James is here. Nick's sister Becca gave birth to our newest nephew yesteday and we couldn't be more excited. The whole family gathered at the hospital awaiting his arrival. We had no idea it would take as long as it did, so alternate methods of entertainment were necessary. Here, Nick is giving our niece, Alex, rides on a wheelchair. Luckily, we had this whole waiting area to ourselves. Michele, Nick's little sister, and him are having a little lunch at the kid's table.We were all SO excited for Brooklyn to come! And here he is with his mommy, Becca. This is about 15 minutes after she had him - not looking bad at all! Here's the new family - Zack, Becca and little Brooklyn. Zack was just an awesome coach. We are all so proud of both of them.Here's Brooklyn getting all checked out. He weighed 8 lbs. 5 oz. and was 20 inches long. He is so beautiful and we are all already so in love with him. We can't wait until they come home so we can smother him with hugs and kisses. Congratulations you guys. We love you!

A big THANK YOU....

....to my very crafty, witte, beautiful and wise friend shellie for helping me overcome my blog brick wall. Very few of you know her as she has left Maryland for a higher purpose, something about family, whatever! :-) She truly is the best though and without her I wouldn't be the blogger, scrapbooker, cardmaker I am today. So, today, I honor my friend Shellie!

What winter?

I woke up a little distraught today. I went outside to get something out of the car at like 6:00 am and I didn't even need a jacket. What happened to winter? I am not asking for a blizzard or anything but come on, we need some snow! We need to sled and throw snowballs and make snowmen. What a huge let down the "winter" has been. It should never be 60 degrees in January unless you are laying on the beach in the Caribbean with a virgin daiquiri in your hand!

I totally fogot.....

....to post about our Christmas & New Years! It was a great time. We spend all of it with family and loved every second of it. We trade back and forth for holidays so this year it was Christmas at the Longs. We went over Christmas Eve and were welcomed with tons of great food, games and company. It was really fun. We had a nice devotional and then got into our pj's and watched old Christmas movies like the original Grinch and Mickey Mouse's Christmas Carol. It was really fun. The we went to bed, came downstairs and woke up to this:

The tree was beautifully decorated and lit up with presents under it. We spent some time opening gifts and got some really great stuff. I love giving people presents! Here is nick with one of his - he probably should have taken it out of the bag first! The week between Christmas is a man's athletic dream. There were bowl games galore, so Nick was a happy camper. On Wednesday, Texas played in it's bowl game which is a sacred experience for people from Texas. Here is a cute pic of Nick in his gear. The season was also filled with a lot of Wii time. What did we ever do before the Wii?!?! I generally am not a big video game fan but I LOVE the Wii! Here is a pic of Nick and my little bro Adam. Next on the agenda - NEW YEARS EVE!! We spent that with Nick's family. We spent the day shopping and then went over to Nick's parents that night. One of Nick's family traditions is to order chinese food on New Years Eve. So we did that and it was GOOD, GOOD, GOOD. Our niece was spending the night so we hung out with her and watched The Bourne Ultimatum - great movie! Another family tradition is to bang pots and pans at the stroke of midnight so this pic was taken outside after we did that. Nick's mom also bought some little fireworks and crackler things. Pretty good time - thanks LORI! And of course, what is New Year's without sparkling cider! We toasted that night for a healty & happy year! We wish that for all our friends & family!

A Real Let Down

Nick and I are huge Keri Russell fans. We're dorks, I know. We loved her in "Felicity" and whenever she has a movie out that is ratings appropriate, we go see it or rent it. Well, Ms. Russell has been in a few movies recently and we were excited to see them, one being Waitress. Now, this movie made national "Best Movies of 2007" lists so this made it even more exciting. We rented it the other night and I have never been more angry after watching a movie. Maybe because I had such high expectations, but it was really horrible. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Here's the premise: ADULTERY!!! Keri Russell's character is a married, pregnant waitress in a very unhappy marriage and ends up having an affair. Affairs are never good but you can kind of excuse hers because her husband is a real creep and abusive. But, nonetheless, she is having an affair. The man she is having an affair with, her gynecologist, is also married - to a super cute character that has no idea. I HATE THIS MOVIE!! Why did the writers make him married? It wouldn't have taken away from the movie at all! Why is our world so obsessed with the concept that the "grass is always greener on the other side"? Just needed to vent......

Our 3 year Anniversary!

On December 28th, Nick and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary. Luckily, we both had off work and were able to enjoy a relaxing day together. We slept in until about noon (my favorite thing). went to the gym together and then got ready for our night out. We drove down to Arundel Mills mall to spend some of our christmas money and then went and saw The Great Debaters. It's a really excellent movie - one of those feel good, inspiring movies. Then we went to dinner at one of our favorite places, Caraba's! LOVE IT! Anyway, more importantly than what we did was that we were together. In a world where people fall in and out of love as often as the wind blows, I am thankful for my husband and am proud of our marriage and the life we have built! I have a smart, loving, reliable husband that makes me laugh. He makes me excited about each day and whatever lies ahead. A cute story from our past is that my mom actually hand picked Nick. I was out at Utah State and he got up in church to bear his testimony and my mom wrote me an email that night about him. This went on for months - I would get emails about him all the time. She even wrote in her journal about what an amazing guy she thought he was. Then one day the emails stopped - he had brought a girl to church with him so her dreams were crushed. Well, two years later I move home and hung out with him the second night I was home. We hung out almost every night that summer and were engaged in October. My mom likes to remind him that she chose him! Anyway, I love Nick and can't imagine a better man to have by my side!