Happy Birthday Anthony!

Wow! Today our baby is 4! I was thinking about how much I love being Anthony's mom - it is such a different experience to have a boy when your first born is a girl. I am so glad we are getting to experience it. He is such a boy - he loves to wrestle, play with trucks, balls and pretend he's fighting with whatever is handy - but yet, he is so sweet and mushy too - from the day he was born, he was that kind of baby that just melts into you and loves to cuddle. Anthony loves his big sister and has played many "girl" games (see pic of him in ballerina costume), but I think his favorite person to be with is his Daddy. Any time Jon is around, Anthony is all over him - and Jon spends a lot of time on the floor with him wrestling (and getting lots of kisses at the same time!). Anthony has lots of nicknames (but not Tony!) - when he was a baby, Sophia started calling him Nino and then morphed into Nins and Ninster and then we started calling him Bubba, which has stuck and also morphed into Bubbs, Bubbalicious and even Delicious. Ahhh, we love him so much!!!

Summer!

Finally! It's pretty much here! Sophia has her last day of school on Monday and Jon has been done for over a week.

I love summer! I wish I had off work though - it's so hard to be the only one that has to go to work :-( But, I come home to dinner every night :-)

I love country music - but especially in the summer! There are so many great songs that just sound like summer to me. I was talking about country music to Bethany recently (she's not a fan) and was telling her that what I love about it is that so many of the songs tell great stories and they express love in so many different ways - not just romantic love, but love between friends, parents and their children etc. ... and, it's nice to hear romantic songs that don't have to use the words "shorty" or "boo" :-)

Enjoy the playlist - you just might become a fan!

Prayer for SCC and family

Many of you have probably heard about the tragedy that has befallen the Steven Curtis Chapman family (if not, click here). For some reason, this has hit me really hard. First of all, as a parent, I can't even imagine the grief they are feeling (and this type of accident has always been such a personal fear of mine). Second, as a fan of SCC and his music, I just feel so personally touched by this - maybe it's part of being part of the body of Christ - we weep with those who weep. I started thinking about some of the songs that he has written and hope that he and his family can take comfort in them now. SCC is originally from Paducah, KY and when there was a school shooting there, he wrote a song, "With Hope" for the families in that tragedy. I'm sure he never dreamed how the words would be so applicable to his own life at the time. I have prayed for them so many times over these last couple of days and know that in a couple of hours, they will be having the viewing, and tomorrow the memorial service for their precious little Maria. Please pray for this family during this terribly difficult time.

Jeremy & Erin's Wedding

Jeremy & Erin got married this past Friday, May 2nd. It was a beautiful day and a perfect wedding! Everything about it was so much fun and memorable. I loved their music and so as you view the slideshow you can enjoy some of the songs they had as the soundtrack of their day. We are so happy to have Erin in our family!!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

It's hard to believe our baby girl is 6 years old! Jon and I were sitting here uploading pictures and talking about how much this little girl has changed our lives! We will never forget the first moment we saw her and felt so overwhelmed with the craziest love we've ever known! It was SO hard to pick the best pictures to share - so you may get bored long before our slide show is over! :-)

We love you Sophia!!

What's Going On?

I haven't posted since our vacation, so let me catch up...

We are getting ready to "officially" welcome a new member to the DiCo family (she's already part of us though)! Jon's youngest brother Jeremy is getting married to Erin on May 2nd. Here is a pic from her bridal shower. We are all getting excited for this wedding!















(Shannon, Elizabeth, Erin, Dawn and Fay)

Easter Sunday was a beautiful but COLD day! Can you tell from this picture?! :-)


Other Easter Sunday pictures:

cousin Baby Gordon and Sophia with cousins Georgia & Lily

And the update I've been putting off posting - our addition project has been put on hold. It's a long story but basically our contractor is not available anymore and so we have to start over. Jon is now planning to G.C. the project himself, but there are a lot of things to get in place first, so stay tuned....

NOLA - 'BAMA

We had the BEST vacation! It was so much fun to go "home" to Alabama. (Jon and I had our start there - we moved to Daphne, AL the day we got back from our honeymoon and lived there just shy of 2 years.) First, we flew into New Orleans and got to spend a couple of days with Tina and Skylar! It was so much fun to get to finally meet little Skylar - and the kids had a great time together. Tina took us to the coolest place called "Global Wildlife Center" - we went out in a modern covered wagon and fed a bunch of wild animals - it was a blast! The next day we went to the French Quarter and got all of the local fare we love - beignets, cafe au lait, pralines and muffalettas! Daryl got home from a business trip Friday evening and so we got to meet him and had a nice dinner out together w/out the kids. On Saturday, we drove over to AL and Tina came as well - Tina and I got together with a bunch of the girls we worked with at Ideal Technical Services - it was so much fun to see everyone - everyone was the same, yet so much has changed (kids etc.)!
We spent the rest of our time with Edd and Paulette. We can't even believe we had not seen them in over 6 years - and we vowed to never let that much time go by again! It was so much fun to be with them again - it was like no time had passed and we just picked up right where we'd left off. Our kids loved them and I think the feeling was mutual :-) We just had a wonderful time reconnecting and driving all over the area to see all of the many changes that have taken place since we'd last been down there in '99. We enjoyed going back to our old church and seeing some familiar faces and we also had a wonderful day out at Edd's brother's farm - our kids could turn into farm kids quite easily. We also got to spend some time with Edd & Paulette's daughter and family and our kids really hit it off! It was just an absolutely perfect vacation!

Grandpa & Grandma Visit

Before we left for our vacation, my parents came for a quick visit. We hadn't seen them since October, so it was fun to reconnect! We spent a lot of time playing cards (war!) and watching Mary Poppins. Sophia and Anthony always enjoy getting to spend time and play with them and we're thankful that they have a chance to really get to know their grandparents. Here is a pic from our time together.

Quick Update

It's been awhile since I've blogged and we're about to take off for vacation, so I thought I'd post a quick update.

Addition Plans: Last Monday our plans got approved by the township and so we're ready to go! Our contractor is planning to start the 3rd week of March, so we'll have a little bit of time after we get back from vacation to get ready. Here are a couple of "before" pics (for those of you that haven't ever been to our house)
BACK OF HOUSE (this little existing addition/balcony will be torn off in order for the new addition to go up)



SIDE OF HOUSE

FRONT OF HOUSE (this view won't change)

VACATION: We are taking off for warmer weather!! On Wednesday we are leaving to go to New Orleans, LA and Daphne, AL. When Jon and I were first married we lived in Daphne for a couple of years and so we are going to visit some of our friends from that time in our lives. When we go to New Orleans, we will be staying with my friend Tina and her family. Tina and I worked together at Ideal Technical Services and shared an office for awhile and have always had such a good time together. Tina came and visited us when she was pregnant with her little girl Skylar and I was pregnant with Anthony, so we are so excited to get to meet little Skylar. We will be with Tina, Daryl and Skylar for a couple of days and then we'll drive over to AL. There we will be visiting with Edd & Paulette - our dear friends that are like adopted parents. We haven't seen them since I was pregnant with Sophia so we are so excited for them to get to meet our kids and reconnect with them.

PIC: Here is a "self-portrait" of the kiddos. This is Sophia's latest obsession - every time I turn on the camera, I find more pics of her! (thankfully shes lives in the digital age and we don't get film developed with picture after picture of this) :-)

No Turning Back!

The project has officially begun!

The first step was removing 3 very large trees from our backyard. It was sort of sad to watch them go - but 2 of them would have had to go even if we weren't adding on, as they were dying.

Our backyard sort of looks "naked" now :-)

We go to the township on 2/25 to get approval on our plans, so as long as there are no revisions needed, the actual addition should begin later that week or the following week!