Monday, December 31, 2018

Year in Review

I always love having these as a quick recap of our year!  

2018 was a really tough year in our world.  Certainly not as tough as a lot of families have had to endure but for our own reasons, we had a wild year.  Kevin is doing some things at work, going from 1 to 2 children was a lot harder than I think I expected given the timing of it and balancing work with being a pretty present parent was hard.  I am proud of what I and we accomplished this year though.  Is that okay to say?  I know that it'll get easier!

Also, there is always more going on behind the scenes than what you see here on Classic Annie!  This blog is mostly my pretty picture of what's happening, so always remember that when you see all of these wonderful blog posts here and on other blogs (and on Instagram)!  Don't compare yourselves to others (so easy to do in this social media world)!  Okay here it goes....

January - we had a snow day and we went to DC!

February - we went to Maryland and Molly Anne moved to a big girl bed!

March - I went to Dallas and the rest of the month we stayed around here playing soccer and going to egg hunts!

April - we went to Pawleys, Easter and my besties from college were in town!

May - Grady was born on the 9thBirth story here

June - Grady and I took a day trip a couple of hours away to see a best friend I grew up with!  Otherwise, we were in park and adjusting to a family of 4!

July - Luke Bryan concert because duh, Molly Anne turned 3 and we went to Maryland for 2 weeks!

August - Kevin and I went to Scotland and Ireland!  Molly Anne started at her new school.

September - we went to Pawleys and I went back to work after Labor Day ahh!

October - Kevin and I snuck a day in at Ballantyne Spa and we had a fun Halloween

November - Grady was 6 months and we went to Maryland last minute for Thanksgiving!

December - Molly Anne's Christmas parade and pageant at school were amazing, I went to Vegas for a night and we had a nice Christmas!

It will be interesting to see what 2019 holds!  I always am excited to start a new year and hope it brings better health for our family and lots of happy memories! 

Sunday, December 30, 2018

Rest of This Week

The day after Christmas, Kevin worked and we put away Christmas!  Well I sorta worked too.  We kinda just hung around the house.  Mom, Grady and I did sneak out to some children's clothing shops during Molly Anne's nap (Dad stayed with her).  She'd not be happy to know we left her here while we did that. Girlfriend doesn't want to miss a single thing!

Thursday, Molly Anne went to school to get some normalcy in her life.  Dad, Grady and I took her and she loved that!  Then Mom, Grady and I went to the mall to return a couple of things and to look around.  We ended up going to a couple other gift type shops too.  Then we picked Molly Anne up and wouldn't you know that we arrived right before they had a fire drill.  Grady was not impressed with the loud sound! 

Ready for a day of shopping with Nannie in the outfit they gave him!


The thumb sucker, taking after his Daddy who evidently did that too!

These two did some computing and were/are very much best buddies!  Molly Anne got to ask Poppa ALLLLLL of the questions that she asks me on a daily basis.  It was nice to have a substitute haha!


Three of her highlights - the unicorn sleep mask, unicorn ball popper and the robe (on sale, we got Medium)!

While we were fixing dinner one night and Grady hadn't had his cat nap, he fell asleep on Kevin.  I was so jealous.  

Isn't that heavenly or what?!

For a couple of nights, Mom helped me with our bookshelves.  Rearranged, took out shelves and got some new things at a few local shops.  We went to some shops nearby us on Friday.  Dad took Molly Anne to school and my parents picked her up.  What a treat that was!  I got a little alone time with this boy!


Dad hung a bunch of artwork in Molly Anne's room which is awesome looking and I'll have to share soon.  This pooch got in her bed after I told him to.  He stayed like this for a bit while we were in there.  

Friday night we went to our club again and had dinner!

And yesterday my parents went back to Maryland.  We loved having them here and I always hate when they leave.  I was the one with tears streaming down my face in the driveway yesterday morning!  Molly Anne was pretty hurt up about it too!  

We played and played with some new things and that made it a little easier.  We need to plan a trip up and have it on the books....that'll definitely make it easier.

Oh and we switched Grady from the lean back highchair (the one attached to the chair that I've never liked and always thought was sorta pointless) to this one and it's perfect for him!  I don't think we even have a need for the IKEA high chair that we have.  This one is awesome and Molly Anne was way done with it.  I don't even know why we have kept her in it for so long other than to reach the island a little easier!

Christmas Eve and Day

Our next door neighbors (not our good friends we hang with all of the time, the others) brought Molly Anne and Grady a gift which was overly kind and thoughtful.  They both love this dancing Elmo!

Mom and I were making crab soups and we looked over and saw Poppa talking to Grady, it was sweet!



On Christmas Eve, we drove around looking for Rudolph's nose!  We finally found him and Molly Anne lost her mind!  Oh this reminds me, on the 23rd, after Grady went to bed, my parents, Molly Anne and I drove around looking at lights too!  Looking for Rudolph's nose is a longtime tradition in our family!  

Then my Dad read them Twas the Night Before Christmas!  I saw somewhere on our local Mom's board to have your Dad read it to his grandchildren and video it so I did!  


Oops, none of the tree or garland lights were on after Santa left!  Kevin and Molly Anne had sprinkled her reindeer food, that she made at school, out front and she also left cookies for him!  Our next door neighbor shared some of their cookies which were the real deal and we did some slice and bake too haha!

She was sooooooo excited Christmas morning!  She went to her stocking first!


She finally found the unicorn flip flops that Santa brought!  They were the only thing she asked for!  Right before she put them on, she said, "let's see how cute I look in my unicorn flip flops!"  Ahhh!  So funny!  They are a little big but Santa did what he could in November/December looking for unicorn flip flops I bet!


This boy had fun too in all of the craziness!

The robe that Nannie and Poppa gave her.  They also gave her an easel which she has loved playing with and a zillion other things!  I think my parents gave her more than we did! ;)  #grandparents


Grady got in on it all too! 

 I think this picture was from a few days before Christmas.  Where is Molly Anne?!  


Grady loves his new chair that Nannie and Poppa gave him!  

Kevin's parents and niece came over for a visit after nap time!

My children don't know how lucky they are to have all four grandparents!  I will tell them though!

I mean I know I'm a bit biased but...!!

Our fam!





Checking out the train!

The king of the castle, always has been and always will be!

And this is her tree that she decorated earlier in December!  She put all of the ornaments on the same branch and the top leaned down after 5 balls were on it haha!  She loved sleeping with it on in her room every night then I'd turn it off before I went to bed!

And that's a wrap on our Christmas.  It was all taken down and cleaned up the next day.  The tree was out by noon on the 26th (thanks to Mom and Dad!) and everything out by that night, except a couple of things we had to get bubble wrap for.  That was all put away by the following day.  

I did organize my Christmas decorations differently this year.  I bought 7 new bins from Target and used washi tape to really organize the decorations.  I used all new paper towels to wrap the ornaments and threw away all of the old, nasty ones.  I am donating some decorations we won't ever use in this house and everything is very tidy on our 3rd floor!  Feels good!  

One more post from the rest of this past week then I'll do our Year in Review!

Ballantyne, Ritz, Bears

Sunday the 23rd, after my brother's fam left and nap time, we went over to the Ballantyne Hotel to see the gingerbread houses.  I usually don't wait this late in the month to go see them but I literally had zero time this year.  That's a whole other story.  Anyway, my parents and I took the children and I'm glad we did it.  The line was so long that we only got to see a few as we walked from one end of the hotel to the other.  




Molly Anne oddly remembered that we ALWAYS have taken her picture by this tree in the hotel lobby!  Isn't that crazy?  She said, "let's go see the tree Mama!  Her memory is unbelievable.



Monday the 24th, we got up and scooted uptown early!  We always valet at the Ritz and check out the gingerbread house first!  Molly Anne was obsessed with the train!  By the way, we have the Polar Express train for around our tree....if you have or will have a 3 year old next year, make sure you have a train around your tree!  Even Grady loved it at 7 months old haha!  



Then we walked over to the bears in the Bank of America building!



Grady was real thrilled.  Actually I held him for a good 20 minutes to let him watch but literally all of Charlotte showed up for the 10am performance on Christmas Eve so we jetted out.  It was too chaotic and Molly Anne didn't do well with everyone all over the place. She was fine, but wasn't having that much fun.  The Ritz train was much more her speed this year.  

This was before people got there. 


Oh, before we left, we always take pictures in front of this tree too.  


And it went like this....

And like this...


And like this...  Grady is like I love you Mama and Molly Anne is like, I am three!  Pretty standard!





This was outside of her classroom one day I picked her up in the last couple of weeks!  Too funny, right?!