on thursday...

just a quick post about how ridiculous my daughter is...shocking, i know :o) i have NO idea where she gets it from!
being european -
somehow, over the past week or so, thalia has started kissing us on the cheek. no big deal, really. except she kisses each cheek about 3-4 times. first the left one, then the right one, then back to the left one...it is so funny. and if you don't cooperate by turning your face, she grabs your chin and turns it for you. by the end of the kisses chris and i are all slobbery, and thalia is laughing hysterically.
on thursday -
one day, a number of weeks ago, i overheard thalia saying the names of the week. i had no idea that she knew them. well, it turns out her favorite day is thursday..."daddy, you got me wet." "when?" "on thursday!" (that happened tonight after dinner). "thalia, are you ever going to pee-pee in the potty?" "yep" "when?" "on thursday" you can't make this stuff up!
my favorite -
thalia's new favorite (no pun intended) phrase is "it's my favorite." her pink water shoes: "these are my favorite." her sonic slush: "strawberry is my favorite." blue m&ms: "it's my favorite." (this is actually a lie, because i am pretty sure orange ones are her favorite (o:) she says it in such a petite voice. cracks me up every time.
those are the two most common phrases, but thalia is really talking a lot. we had our first "parent-teacher conference" last week - weirdest thing ever by the way. anyway, thalia's teacher said that by her age, thalia should know 50 words and speak in 4 word phrases. um, have you met my daughter? i'm pretty sure she could recite the gettysburg address! i asked her the other day if she was a smarty pants and her response was "yep!"
i'm going to try to post pictures tomorrow. you'll see i finally got the ones up from our trip to albuquerque a couple weeks ago. what a great time! happy birthday gigi!! it was so nice to get away, do some hiking, have some good food...of course, i came back to work from hell. but this week appears to be a little bit better, finally. it's really hard having work suck all the life out of you. not so good at all, really. but like i said, this week is better...and for the first time this year, neither chris or i are traveling this month. think about that for a second!
alright, enough rambling from me. enjoy the abq pics, and i'm hoping to have more up by the weekend.

much love and some sleep (stupid stress dreams! plus waking up early to use my free gym pass)
c, c, and t

more baseball!

Last Sunday, we went to the 2009 AAA national champions Durham Bulls game. We had SO much fun! This was the first sporting event where Thalia had her own seat, and she LOVED it!

we got a snowcone right away, among other sweets. we ate so much sweet stuff, chris and i felt sick on monday!

you'll notice some clouds in this picture...more on that to come. mostly it was really warm and sunny, but there was some bad weather in the forecast.

thalia had a lot of fun playing with daddy...until this: now, you'll notice the clouds getting darker here. chris went and got a swedish fish slush. :o( it definitely tasted like you were drinking swedish fish - it was just WAY too intense!

this is how intense the slush was...our tongues were bright red. again, let me draw your attention to the even darker clouds. about this time, i am telling chris that i think we should leave. he, of course, wants to tough it out. about 30 seconds after the picture of our tongues was taken, this is what happened:

thunder, lightning, sideways rain! it was a crazy storm. everyone tried to cram under this small covered area, but with the rain coming in sideways, it was useless. the rain was SO cold. so we went up towards the suites, and an usher was letting people with kids go into a suite that was empty. so we watched the storm go through from a suite. when the rain started to die down, i told chris i thought we should head back to the car. at this point, chris asked thalia if she wanted to go home or watch more baseball. of course, thalia's response was "more baseball!"

we got to watch the grounds crew clean up. you can see in this picture that thalia's hair is soaked! after about an hour and a half, the game started. so many people had gone home that we got to sit right behind home plate in the first row! it was great. as we were walking out, we saw Wool E. the bull, so we set the camera on the bench arm, and timed this picture of ourselves. not bad huh?

what an adventure! we had a lot of fun, and thalia is now a baseball fan. chris got her a pink foam finger that she thinks is the coolest thing ever. i am thinking we'll be spending many more afternoons at the DBAP.

much love and more sleep,

c, c, and t

Joy comes in the morning

Even though we miss Father Jerry dearly, we know that he is happy, and wants us to be happy that he is in a better place. So in honor of him, here are some pictures of Thalia that I know he would have loved.

this is Thalia's new pool. She loves sitting in it, but is very particular about what toys can be in there with her.

after the pool, we had spaghetti and meatballs. even though she is 2, she still can't seem to get the food only in her mouth :o)

Thalia's New Hobby

when we were in michigan, gamma gave us some tomato plants. after nearly killing them, we finally got around to planting them in our barrel pot. Ms. Thalia was all too excited to help, in her "princess gloves"...pink gardening gloves with the Disney princesses on them.

of course she insisted on doing it herself. so she poked at the dirt, and then helped dig holes for the plants.

oh, that reminds me...i have another picture too. anyway, here is our little green thumb, with her poor wilting tomato plants. after the deluge of rain for 4 straight days, they are looking much stronger and perkier. i'll post more pics when we get back from new mexico.

here's the other picture. thalia and i walked up to Ace on saturday morning and she helped me pick out a basil plant. She held it the whole way through the grocery store, and when we got home walked around holding it like a baby. it was her basil! such a funny girl. so now the basil is planted with the tomatoes, and all we need is some fresh mozzarella for a great salad! :o)

more adventure pictures to come. with father jerry passing away, and a lot of announcements and stress at work, it's taken a lot of energy just to get up every day. now that i am feeling better, you get lots of pictures :o)

much love and more sleep,

c, c, and t

another sad day

Almost exactly a year ago, I had a post honoring my grandpa. It has been a tough year without him, and now almost to the day, I am writing to let you know that our dear friend Father Jerry has gone home to be with the Lord. Jerry was the priest at the church I grew up in, and he married all three of us girls. He has been a great friend for over 20 years, and his smile will always be missed. But with our sorrow comes the joy of knowing that God called him home, and the peace that when he got there, he was greeted with "Well done, good and faithful soldier." He was an amazing man of God, and a great example of walking in faith.

We love and miss you Jerry. Say hi to God and grandpa for me!

c, c, and t

Not my fault!

I have so many pictures to share, but I can't let another day go by without showing you this one!!
My little princess, enjoying her OWN seat in first class on the way back from Detroit! I usually get bumped up to first class since I flew so much over the past 18 months going back and forth from RDU to DTW. We got bumped up on the way up to Michigan, but there was someone next to us (sidebar - for last weekend, Thalia's birthday was 5/23...ha!). On the way back down, no one sat next to us. So she climbed in, buckled herself and her new mouse (courtesy of uncle barrett and aunt steffi. uncle toby asked if it was a girl or a boy, to which Thalia replied 'it's a mouse.' Too precious!!!) in, sipped some complimentary water and had a snack. Not a bad way to go for a two year old. Look at her smile! She was loving it!

Now, don't go thinking this is all my fault, spoiling her. I'm pretty sure that papou and uncle ronnie are the real instigators of all of us girls having high tastes and expectations!

More pics to come, including the lovely cupcakes I helped decorate! Tiece, you would be so proud!

much love and lots of sleep (if i could just get to sleep),
c, c, and t

just for fun (aka lots of pictures)

after being gone for a whole week in phoenix and dallas, chris took off to chicago for this past week. needless to say, it's been a pretty tough week. work always seems to be worse when chris is gone. anyway, i've realized from having this blog for so long that posting pictures of my (usual) angel makes me feel better, so it can't hurt you guys any :o)
a few weeks ago, we got to go to the gsk suite at the last home hurricanes game of the season. it was fan appreciation night (since the hurricanes stunk this year) and as a thank you for all the support, every fan got a cool hat...even thalia! so this is the three of us at the game. thalia did so good - she loves hockey! couldn't possibly be in her blood huh?

we went to the park with our church for lunch

we finally let thalia open her potato head set. this is her design!

this is how she wanted to go to school...it was 65 degrees but she wanted her bucket hat with her mittens

while i was in dallas, chris happened to find a parking lot fair that had a fire truck. so thalia got a hat and got to "drive" the truck. she talked about it for days after.

kristy and uncle martin have been coming over a lot, and thalia loves swinging with kristy.

in addition to her love of hockey and coffee ice cream, thalia also shares her dad's love for slushes, which we of course have taught her to call slurpees

for as many frustrating things we have had to deal with with this house, i am really happy to have the playset in the backyard.

aunt susie and jess came to visit, and they spoiled thalia to no end! i love this picture of the girls though.

more pictures to come. i have a bunch i forgot about from easter, plus some funny videos of thalia.

much love and little sleep (don't ask)

c, c, and t

why i love NC (and miss MI)

Lovin' NC
happy monday! let me tell you about the most fabulous weekend we had! it all started thursday when we went over to the joyner's for dinner. they have twin girls, claire and ava, who just adore thalia! and thalia loved chasing them around too. after a lovely chicken with pink sauce dinner, we took the girls outside to play on the jungle gym:

we had such a nice time...really great people to have as friends!

we followed up thursday night with a trip to the lake on friday afternoon. it was about 90 degrees, so on april 16, we had our bathing suits and sunblock on for an afternoon of sand and water! it is amazing having such a big lake so close by. now that our boat got fixed, we can't wait to take it out there and let it fly! uncle martin and kristy came with us and we took some fun pictures which will get put up soon...as soon as chris gets them off the camera! we grilled out at the lake and uncle martin and thalia stalked a blue heron for a while. pretty cool! not so cool were all the buzzard-looking birds flying around. martin thought they were going for our chicken!

speaking of birds, thalia is taking right after her mom and great-grandpa by getting to know all the birds in our yard. the other day i pointed out a female blue jay. since she was a muted blue, thalia corrected me by calling it a "white jay" :o)

on saturday we got to hang out with uncle ronnie, martha mama, jillian and jeff. we had a lot of fun just catching up and chatting.

so that's why i LOVE nc - bathing suits in april and some great new (and old) friends!

Missin' MI

ladies and gentlemen - introducing the soon arriving new addition to the family:

look at aunt steffi's adorable bump! i'm calling the baby "tini", thalia calls it "steffi's baby". even though aunt steffi and uncle barrett aren't finding out the baby's sex, thalia's official prediction is boy. (sidebar: although lately she has been calling herself a boy! for week's now she has been calling herself a girl princess. now all of sudden, daddy is a princess girl and she is a boy! what am i, you may ask? apparently, i'm just mommy). anyway, seeing steffi all grown up and preggers is really making me miss her! i was also hoping that we may get to be preggers at the same time, but that dream is quickly fading :o/. oh well, the way i see it, steffi can get all the attention on herself now, and hopefully by the time she delivers "tini" i'll be starting to get big and then I can have all the attention :o)

spending time in michigan for greek easter also made me miss it more. funny how spending time with people makes you miss them more, not less!
and yes, we had our obligatory lamb on a spit. for the neighbors' sake we did it in the backyard though, not the front! what a trip!

chris' family came with us too, so we had a lot of fun with uncle wolt (as thalia says it) and malynn (also per thalia!)

other than that, we are just living life as happy little clams! i got to spend an entire week at home, which was amazing! the joy is quickly waning as i have to head out west tonight through thursday night. i was hoping to be able to be in town for cousin elizabeth's labor and delivery of her new baby girl, but baby girl is being stubborn and i'm likely to miss it :o( but i'll get to spend plenty of time with them when i get back at the end of the week. then chris leaves for nashville and chicago for a week. so the next couple weeks are going to be crazy. i think i will have traveled 7 out of 8 weeks, and that's not including stuff that hasn't been planned after our trip to michigan! so prayers would be greatly welcomed as we live life together in pieces. it could be way worse though! i am so grateful to have chris down in NC with me!

alright, back to work for me! hope you have a great week! and don't forget to check out the pics from boston on the right.

much love and little sleep,

c, c, and t