Isabella Marie turns 8 years old!!

Isabella turned 8!  They say time flies when you are having FUN and I am enjoying watching Isabella grow into a beautiful young lady!  On her birthday she woke up at 5:30 a.m. super excited to celebrate her day. 

I remember when I was a little girl, my mother always made our birthdays special.  She would always make a homemade cake that was beautifully decorated.  She must have spent hours decorating our cakes.  They were show stoppers.  Like the kind you would walk into a bakery and buy.  I always looked forward to her cakes and they always made my eyes light up.  And my favorite was, she would always ask what WE wanted for dinner on our birthday.  Nothing makes a girl feel more special than when she gets to pick what her meal is on her birthday.  I always chose spaghetti or meatloaf.  Those were my favorite home cooked meals that mom made.

I would like to say that I am carrying on my mother’s birthday tradition….however let’s be honest here, I don’t have the patience to decorate a cake for hours.  Nor do I want to.  For years, I have been buying Isabella’s birthday cake at a bakery.  Well this year, she put a stop to that.  I asked her what kind of cake she wanted and she said, “Mommy, I want to make my own cake!”  Because when you buy them at the bakery, the cake has strawberries inside and I don’t like that!  I took Isabella to the store and she picked out a yellow cake with pink frosting.  Giselle, Isabella and I baked her cake in the kitchen together and she LOVED every minute of it.  I have carried on the dinner tradition and this year Isabella wanted cheese pizza.  I guess I got off easy this year because I didn’t bake the cake nor did I cook dinner!

All in all, Isabella had a grand birthday complete with Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, cheese pizza for dinner and pink cake!  The day before her birthday, I took her to the store and let her pick out an entire outfit complete with shoes so she could feel super special on her birthday.  She also wanted to paint her nails, so we did that together.  She got lots of goodies for her birthday that included new clothes, a chess set, lots of Lego's and crafts, her favorite!  She was most excited about her new basketball hoop in which Grandpa Dale and Bob put together for her.  Isabella and Giselle have been playing basketball in the driveway non-stop since it was put together!  Over the weekend, we had a celebration with her Grandma’s and Grandpa’s and Aunt Jen, Uncle Mike and Tristan! For the weekend celebration, Isabella baked white cupcakes with white rainbow frosting!

Here are some pictures from her birthday celebrations!

 Here are some of my favorite photos of Isabella Marie over the course of time....

Baby girl, KEEP being YOU!  I love your free spirit.  Your effervescence for life!  Your compassion towards others.  Your love for crafts and making things with your hands.  How you always look out for your little sister Giselle.  Your LOVE.  Your beautiful SMILES.  How you love math and chess and Lego's! 

I LOVE YOU Isabella Marie.  KEEP BEING YOU! 

 Love Mom

September 1, 2016

September is starting out to be a GREAT month!  It was the morning of September 1^st around 8:30 a.m. and I had just finished washing and vacuuming my car.  As I was getting ready to get back in my car, I noticed a penny, HEADS side up!  It made MY DAY.  At that moment in time, I thought, it’s going to be a great day!  A great month! 

Finding a penny is considered good luck!  So what did I do?  I passed that penny along to someone else the same day to share the good luck.  And would you believe later that day, as Isabella was walking home from the school bus, she found a penny heads side up to!  And without even knowing about the luck of the penny, I heard her give it to her sister in the back seat of the car.  GOLDEN!

The sky was so beautiful and magical on September 1^st.  When the girls got off the bus from school, I said LET’s GO TO THE PARK.  Once we were there and playing for quite some time, it started getting really windy.  And then it dawned on me.  I have KITES in the back of my car!  They had only been sitting in the back for about 4 months.  So WHY NOT?  What had I been waiting for?  A windy day??!!  The girls and I had a magical afternoon.  Between finding pennies.  The beautiful weather.  The park after school.  And then flying kites!  What really made September 1^st was the RAINBOW we saw in the sky on the way home from the park.  MAGICAL I say.  Just MAGICAL!

And SO IT BEGINS……The First Day of Kindergarten for Giselle and 2nd Grade for Isabella

Last Monday, August 22^nd was the first day of kindergarten for Giselle and 2^nd grade for Isabella at Schilling School.  Which, by the way, I recently learned that in Will County, Luther J. Schilling School rated as number 7 as the Top 10 Elementary Schools!!  As a parent, that is exciting to learn and know your children are in a good school because we always want the best for our little ones that we hold dear to our heart.

Back to the first day of school.  For the first time in 8 years, I would be kid free.  All day.  Everyday.  I was NERVOUS.  Giselle?  BEYOND EXCITED.  The night before, she packed her own lunch without being asked.  She set her school bag by the back door with her tennis shoes and socks laying in front of it.  EVEN placed her outfit in the bathroom.  She couldn’t WAIT to ride that school bus with her big sister Isabella for the very FIRST time in her life.  She even spoke to me about how excited she was to meet and make new friends.  Isabella?  EXCITED.  Once she saw how excited Giselle was, the competitive side came out in her.  She observed Giselle being prepared and organized and decided maybe she should do all of those things too.  And she did.    

And the morning came.  We did what all parents do.  Take the first day of school picture with our children outside and see them off on the bus.  Giselle was so excited at the bus stop that she started running to get on.  I had to yell, “Giselle, can mommy have a hug and a kiss good-bye?!”  “PLEASE.” Isabella gave me big hugs and kisses and said, “Mommy, I am really going to miss you.  I don’t want to go!”

While I didn’t cry as I waved and watched the bus drive away, I did say the words out loud to myself… "You’re taking my little ones away. Both of them.  Bring them back!”  They both had a great first week at school and I love seeing their excitement each and every day.  I have even noticed that because they are not together as often during the day, they work as a team more when they are home.  WHICH IS AWESOME.  Isabella is really looking out for her little sister and I couldn't be more proud!

As a parent of young kids, it feels like there’s a constant conveyor belt of things that have to get done.  If we’re not helping to get the children changed, dressed or fed, we’re getting ourselves ready for work, running errands, taking kids to appointments, activities, birthday parties.  Even in the summer, when we try to keep things as unscheduled as possible, there are always things that you have (and want) to do.  Quality family time, making dinner, bathing children, reading stories and asking about their day.  By the end of the day, there is exhaustion.  Maybe one of this girls are having a bad day.  Perhaps there was an emergency with the house.  There’s the non-stop juggling of time.  All of this on top of shaping young lives.   Raising little girls to be women is a FULL-TIME job on its own.

With the start of school for both of my children, gone was knowing how I would spend my time.  It’s the 2^nd week of school and would you believe several friends have said to me…. So Sandy, NOW is the time!!  YOUR TIME.  To go back to work full-time and be a successful career woman again.  Like you were before!  HA HA HA!!  I think to myself. 

I already work part-time.  I’m knee-deep in parenting little kids who need me full-time.  This stage of life doesn’t last forever.  Giselle and Isabella will quickly grow up and need me less.  As unglamorous as this sounds to others, TO ME.  It sounds pretty darn GLAMOUROUS and I want to HOLD ON TO IT.  GONE are those 13 hour days as a “career woman” in the office.  I want to remember their sweet little laughs, I want to be there to pick them up if they fall, I want to be able to have and be afforded the availability to volunteer at their school.  I want to soak up this time when they think I’m the best, most fun and hilarious human that ever graced this earth.   And I will continue to do “just” THAT.

No Cavities!

Why not commemorate milestones in dental health with Recognition Certificates!  Isabella and Giselle just had their 6 month cleaning at the dentist.  They were rewarded with a certificate for their achievement in valor while encouraging them to continue down a path of excellent oral health care!!  Yeah!  Good job ladies!  Keep up the good work! 

Last Day of Camp Hollywood. Until next year!

Today was the last day of Camp Hollywood for Girl Scouts in Messenger Woods.  Yesterday, our camp was cancelled due to the weather and we made up for our rain date today!  Today was FUN DAY and we did not have to cook over a fire.  Instead, we had dinner catered in which included beef sandwiches, macaroni and cheese and lots of watermelon!  During the day, we had lots of activities that included making SANDY CANDY (yes, there is actually a candy called Sandy Candy!  HOW FUN!), crafts, Olympic games, Hollywood photos, a dance off between the girls, more SWAPS and saying our good-byes. 

Giselle was excited for camp every day and woke up, got herself dressed, prepared her backpack and was ready to head out the door.  I can’t wait to see if she is this excited for kindergarten.  Isabella really enjoyed making new friends, the water fights, the hikes and SWAPS.  Giselle and Isabella are sure going to miss their friends that they made at camp this week. For me, I am going to miss all of the girls…each and every one of them….Kennedy, Molly, Audrey, Kaitlyn, Riley, Chloe, Sarah, Victoria, Eden, Peyton, Gia, Oreo, Giggles, Sparkles, Alexis, Kim, Emma, Lindsay, Kailey, Mireyna and Vanessa! 

Volunteering this week for all of these girls (including my little ones) proved to be challenging, yet rewarding and I am ending this hot summer week with my heart filled with love and joy.  It was our first year attending/volunteering Girl Scout camp and I am really glad I got to see the “inside” of how camp works and all the hands that go into making camp run successful! 

I gave endless piggy back rides to all the girls, wiped away tears, laughed until I cried, squashed fear within the girls at times, encouraged them and so much more.  I am thankful that I was allowed this opportunity to share an amazing week with so many beautiful little girls, inside and out.  If I was still working full-time, I would have never been able to experience this adventure.  And it was an adventure, every step of the way.   I will forever cherish the memories that were created with all of the girls this week.  Until the next adventure…..You forever keep me on my toes Isabella and Giselle!  LOVE YOU BOTH!  XOXOXOXOX

Day 2: Girl Scout Camp....Hollywood STARS

It sure was tough getting Isabella and Giselle MOTIVATED for camp this morning.  After 9 ½ attempts and over an hour later, I was finally able to get them out of bed.  We came downstairs, ate breakfast and then they literally wrapped themselves up in blankets and laid on the kitchen floor until it was time to leave for camp.

Off to camp we went and once we got all set up, I noticed all of our campers were not so bright eyed and bushy tailed today either.  Everyone was tired, and it was only day 2.  Looks like the heat got to all of us yesterday.

After opening ceremony, our main goal today was teaching the girls how to cook lunch.  Most of our girls are entering 2^nd grade so because of our age group, we were assigned to make and cook in a cardboard BOX OVEN.  They called it “SIMPLE BOX OVEN CONSTRUCTION AND COOKING.”  There is nothing SIMPLE about assembling a cardboard box oven or cooking in it.  There were no instruction manuals on how to create this.  I went to training however, take everything you think you know about cooking over a fire or charcoals and throw it out the window because it doesn’t apply in the Girl Scout world.   SAFETY FIRST! I knew this was going to take some time, so we started on this by 9 a.m.  Good thing we did, because start to finish, it was well almost 3 hours.

To make our open top box oven, we cut off the flaps of the cardboard box so that the box had four straight sides and bottom. The bottom of the box is the top of the oven.  Then, we covered the box inside COMPLETELY with foil, placing the shiny side out. To use our oven, we placed the pan with food to be baked on a footed grill over the lit charcoal briquets. The grill was raised about ten inches above the charcoal and then you place your cardboard oven over the food and charcoal.

We chose our meal yesterday and it was grilled cheese sandwiches and smores cones.  Each camper got to assemble their sandwich, their smores cone and help create our cooking source.  I was surprised to learn that more than half of the girls had never camped, cooked outside and/or helped their mother or father create a meal in the kitchen.  They had a BLASTY with food preparation, cooking, eating and clean up.  AND they earned a special patch today for all of their hard work! 

After lunch, we went on another hike through the woods to identify more bugs and poison ivy.  Today, we hiked 3 miles.  Once we got back, the girls got in a circle and traded SWAPS.  Girl Scouts often make small tokens of friendship to exchange with the Girl Scouts they meet while traveling. These little gifts are called ”SWAPS,” which stands for “Special Whatchamacallits Affectionately Pinned Somewhere.”  Afterwards, they pinned them on their hats.  I loved all of their creativity with the SWAPS.  HOW FUN!  Isabella loved all the different SWAPS she received from her new friends.

And there was the day!  Yet again, time flew by!  Once we cleaned up for the day we had about 40 minutes left and the other Unit leader and I were fresh out of ideas on what to do for the remaining time.  We had about 11 gallons of water left, so we told the girls to fill their water bottles and have a water fight by squirting one another.  BEST IDEA ever and what a time filler : )  Everyone got SOAKED and you should have seen the big SMILES and the relief of cooling off!  Don’t worry, we gave their girls time to dry off before their parents picked them up!

Giselle enjoyed her Pixie group today.  They got to sing songs, make a homemade microphone and swim in a little baby pool.  I had tried to sneak away today to take some pictures of her and her group, however they are all the way in the back of the woods (we are in the front) and I just couldn’t get away.

After camp, I took Isabella and Giselle to McDonalds for a happy meal.  They deserved it after 2 days of roughing it in the woods all day!  Both girls ate and are asleep and it is 6 p.m.  I think it is safe to say they had a great day and wore themselves out at Girl Scout Camp!