December of Changes

The Gasbarro family knew that December would be a busy month, but wow we had a lot of changes too.  Penelope added thumb sucking as an official sport and target scooching so that she could play/steal her sisters toys.  This age was one of my favorites of Adelaide's and now Penelope's.  Finally a good schedule where we can plan activities throughout the day without worrying about how many bottles to take and the chance of explosions.  

 The football season is wrapping up and my little football nut was not so impressed with the season.  Next year should be new and exciting considering we will be sitting in the same seats but watching a new coach, owner and essentially a new team.

 Babies will play!  I had to grab my camera when I walked out of my room and I found A and P face to face playing with toys.  Makes my heart melt.

 Speaking of hearts melting, Adelaide had her first little school recital.  So cute, all of the preschool students had a recital during their normal chapel time.  Little did I know when I went to the recital it would be our first and last at this little church preschool.  Adelaide of course was very distracted as soon as she saw Penelope standing in the corner with our video camera.  She tried very hard to pay attention, but she has never been a singer and that is a majority of what they did.

 We have been trying to teach Adelaide to play more independently, but the problem is that involves giant messes for Mom.  This bedroom was perfectly clean before I changed Penelope's diaper.  A few moments later and that was no longer the case.  Moments like this make me want to go back to work and pay someone else to take care of the mess - more on that later.

 Penelope is growing at warp speed - only 5 months old and she won't fit in her bumbo for much longer.

 We love play dates and especially when they include Christan, Autumn and a special visit from a man in a red suit.  The evening began with toys, pizza and dress up.  A little while later there was a knock on the door with a special surprise.  Adelaide has been talking about Santa Claus nonstop for a month so when she answered the door and he was standing there she didn't know what to do.  The priceless part was when Adelaide went silent and wouldn't speak the ENTIRE time that Santa was in our house.  She wasn't scared, I think that she was just in complete shock.  The moment that Santa left she spoke about him nonstop.  In fact, the next morning I sat on the couch and I was yelled at because I was sitting in Santa's seat.  This Mom just can't win some days.

 The week before Christmas I received a called from one of the two companies I had speaking with about going back to work since having off with the babies since July.  The call was from Publix to offer me a position in their Human Resources Department.  For anyone who doesn't have a Publix near them, I pity you because shopping at their stores in an absolute pleasure.  You walk in their doors and everyone is happy, smiling and helpful.  So what could be better than working for a company that you already believe in and support, how about the fact that they are on my side of the bridge which would cut about 15 minutes off of my commute each way.
SO yes, long story short I accepted their offer and now I am the Retail Associate Relations Specialist for metro Jacksonville and coastal Georgia and South Carolina.  Oh and let me throw out there that I do NOT get a discount on my groceries, but I do get to work from home one day a week.  Due to all of the work changes and Adelaide was on her school winter break we weren't able to tell her teachers goodbye nor did we know that she wouldn't be returning to all of the activities that we had her enrolled in including therapy.  I hated that we needed to change her routine again, but this was an offer that I couldn't refuse.
With all of the work changes we have also decided it is time to get the house on the market and look for something a little bigger.

A begged to eat this treat from school until we got him and I let her take a bite and she hated it.

Annual Trip and Snow!

Another year of upholding the promise to take the girls to PA at least once a year.  This year we held out until December instead of going at my favorite time to go in October.  Good thing we didn't make it as we originally planned since they had a blizzard about that time.  I feel like an old lady when I truly want to talk about the weather.  The bad thing about Jacksonville is that there are very few places that we can fly to directly.  This time I actually was able to book us a direct flight to Philadelphia which we almost missed.  By almost missed I literally mean that we checked in with our bags with 36 minutes before flight time and that was after valet parking.  Being timely is not our strength these days.

First stop was in Media for our Crowley reunion.  We are very lucky that Grant has great cousins who also have great families.  We spent the afternoon getting to know Meredith who is expecting a little Crowley and our first play date with Austin.  Tori and Scott have a brand new beautiful house, Ryan and Adelaide had time to play again and Uncle Mike and Aunt Chris were as sweet as always.  

One stop down, a bunch to go which means off to Topton and East Greenville.  We spent Sunday at New Gosh (church), breakfast with Nana and an afternoon at Premise Maid (yummm).  Though I have lived away from PA for a long time I do still consider New Gosh to be my church.  It helps that we can always run into family no matter which service we make it to.  Penelope got to meet Nana Adam for the first time and Adelaide was able to perfect her Nana face (when A was a baby Nana taught her to make the silliest little face you have seen).
After our afternoon with the Adam side of the family it was extremely important to get to one of Grant's favorite parts of the trip - Premise Maid.  How could anything be better than chocolate anything and everything, blow figurines for A, hedgehog hats on babies, milkshakes and a quick read with Santa.  Adelaide wouldn't leave the Mickey alone which was outside and it was cold that day nor could she not touch every piece of chocolate in sight.

After our Premise Maid sugar high we were back to Topton.  Within our few days in Topton we ate our favorite pizza at Tonys, saw most of our family and we took a little field trip to Crayola.  Adelaide had a great time at Crayola, we did a bunch of crafts and lost our hedgehog hats just in time for our trip to Johnstown where it snowed - sigh.

Another day - another stop for SNOW.  No, I don't think you could pay me enough to move to the north where snow is normal, but when you are driving through the mountains and the fresh snow starts falling it is a beautiful sight.  Both girl were asleep in the backseat when we were about 30 minutes outside of Johnstown when I just couldn't take it anymore.  Yep, I made Grant pull over, wake up the girls and grab the camera.  This was trip marked Penelope's first plane ride, trip to PA and experience with snow.  Let me through out there that she really didn't care for it and went right back to sleep.  Oh well, hopefully she likes her first experience with sand a little more.  Johnstown happenings - new dogs, polka, dominos and our only night in a hotel for the week.

Our final stop before boarding a plane back home to FL (yes, we were on time for that flight) was in Pittsburgh.  Good Italian food, walking around Bloomfield and a few trips up Grandmas stair chair and Adelaide was in love.  We did go out to dinner one night to a place that is going to be on Restaurant Impossible in February, we weren't there for the taping so don't bother looking for us or you will be a little disappointed.  Oh and we can't forget our visit to Donatellis (think opposite of anything you have experienced at Publix).

On our way home - safe, sound and completely exhausted.  There is nothing like sleeping in your own bed after house hopping for a week.