It's the MoSt WoNdErFuL time of the YEAR!

March Madness!!!

I love this time of year. College Basketball NON-STOP! The tournament starts this Thursday and goes until April 5. I just love it.

I am already going through my bracket deciding who I want to make it to the big game in Indy!

I'll let you know when I finish my bracket!! I have NO idea who to pick since my Tar Heels aren't in it...

Dommie's First Road Trip

My sister and I both went to Incarnate Word Academy for high school. My sister used to coach basketball there. I used to coach basketball there. My sister still works there.

So when IWA made the State tournament for Basketball, we both really wanted to go. Their first game was Thursday afternoon at 3 pm in Columbia - about a one hour and forty five minute drive from our houses. So that wasn't going to work. We kept our fingers crossed for a victory and they got it. Yay!

So IWA was playing in the championship game on Saturday night. We decided to take the drive. We put an extra car seat in our Durango and piled us in. Angela, Andrew, Cecilia, Nick, Dominick and myself. Dommie's first road trip.

The kids were so cute on the drive there. They slept like little angels!


We went to Shakespeare's Pizza when we got to Columbia. A place I had never been but always heard about. Their pizza was delicious! (Yes, I definitely cheated on my diet this weekend!).

After dinner we hurried over to the Mizzou Arena for the big game. We took our seats (up VERY high) and watched. It was such a good game! IWA was losing at half time and we were nervous. But we didn't need to be. They came out strong in the second half and won the game! The kids actually watched the game. It was cute.




Our cousin, Julia, is a senior this year so we were so happy for her to get a State Championship ring. It was so exciting!

(Julia is #5)


I'm really glad we went. Dommie's first road trip was a success!

Easter Egg Hunt

This past Saturday, IWA held an Easter Egg Hunt for the kiddos. Nick and I took Dom and my sis and Andrew took Cecilia. Both of Dommie's Grandma's came too.

It was really neat. We got there and there were some crafts for the kids. Dommie colored an Easter Egg with Cecilia. But that's all the crafts that Dom was up for.


He was such a good boy waiting for the hunt to start. Just colored and ate some food.

After awhile, the Easter bunny came to see the kiddos. I was really curious to see how Dom would do with meeting the bunny. He wasn't too excited about meeting all the characters at Disney so I wasn't sure how meeting an Easter Bunny would be. But he LOVED the bunny! He just smiled and petted the bunny and loved on him. We didn't get a great picture of how excited he was, but we did get a few pictures.




This is him looking at me and smiling. He was SO excited!

After all the kids met the bunny, the hunt began. I really liked how IWA did it. They split up the kids into different age groups. The youngest was 0-3. This was good because all the kids got to get eggs. Also, they hit enough so all the kids could get 15 eggs. This was nice too. I thought Dommie would get one or two eggs, but 15!

Dom got into it! He loved hunting for eggs. He went straight for them and kept going. I was so shocked! We forgot to bring a basket or bag for Dommie, so we had to use the camera case as an Easter basket.

Here are a few pictures of Dom getting some eggs:




After he got his limit of 15 eggs, we started walking back to our stuff and Dom spotted the Easter Bunny again. He ran, literally ran, up to the Easter bunny to start playing again. It was SO CUTE!



I am so glad Dommie had a good time. I love seeing him get so excited about things. My little man is growing up so fast!

Hair!

I made a pretty drastic change to my hair on Friday. I chopped it all off and put red and blonde into it. I love it. Absolutely love it.

I don't know why I decided to change it so drastically but I'm so glad I did. It looks good just rolling out of bed, and that was my goal! I am such a low maintenance person when it comes to my appearance that I didn't want any more time to go to doing my hair in the morning.

Here's a before picture:


Ok, that's not the closest picture but you get the idea. It was always in a ponytail and always a dirty blonde color. No fun at all.

And here's my "after" picture:


I just love it.

Sorry that last pic is a little weird. It was taken with my cell phone.

Organic?

In November, Nick and I joined a food co-op here in the St. Louis area. What that is, is a place where you can get locally grown, organic food. My sister had joined and raved about how good the food is and told me to join. I finally caved in and joined.

Here's the website if you want to check it out.

So you pay a set amount at the beginning of the month and you get a "share" of food on Thursday of each week. You can trade items if you don't need something or just add something if you'd like more food for an additional amount. All the food is locally grown and organic.

I've never been a "health nut". I eat whatever I feel like eating. Sometimes I crave healthy food, but I crave un-healthy food too! But since joining this food group, I am an organic nut!

Last week we got some organic pizza (Dogtown Pizza - available also at Urzi's on the Hill and at most Dierberg's in the "Whole Life" section) which I made for Nick and he craved more all weekend long. I also got some honey roasted peanut butter and some blackberry jam. So I got some whole grain whole wheat bread and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I swear, I've never eaten something so delicious. It was amazing.

Last week we also got some spaghetti noodles. I made the pasta one night for dinner and added some olive oil, some garlic, and some goat cheese (also from the co-op) and Nick LOVED it. My picky picky husband loved it.

I'm so glad we joined! Tonight I'm making some trout we got from there. I can't wait to try it.

This Thursday is the last week and then there's a 5 week break. Starting on April 21, the next season starts. Instead of a partial share (which is what I've been doing) we are doing a full share with friend, Mike. We are splitting it. There is so much more food with the full share and I can't wait to get started!!

I might go completely organic after all this. I never knew food could taste so good!

Newest Member of the Family

So we welcomed a new member into our family yesterday!

She's beautiful. Her name is Ruby and she is 3 years old.







She's a German Shepherd mix and she was brought to the APA because her family was moving to a smaller home. She's good with other dogs and kids. Not so great with cats though...yet.

She LOVES Brady and has been trying to play with him non stop since we brought her home. She even loves Dominick, although she gets excited and runs into him sometimes. Dommie is already starting to say "Ru-beee". However, Ruby and Peyton don't see eye to eye yet. We're working on it.

I love her. She slept in our bed last night all curled up in a ball at the end of the bed. She's such a sweetheart!!

The Hairy Elephant

So we did it. We got Dommie's hair cut. Nick was so excited about it. I had mixed emotions. We got to the place a little late (stupid construction :-) ) and our lady, Andrea, was up front waiting for us. She led us to the back of the salon and had us pick out a movie for Dom to watch while getting his hair cut. We picked out "The Wiggles" because it had a lot of music, and Dom LOVES music. Then we got to pick out his chair. There was a train and a jeep. We went for the jeep because it was closest and had a steering wheel for him to play with.

Then we got started.





He did so great. I was amazed. He just sat there and played on the jeep while Andrea did her thing. And I was very impressed with how well she did. Dom would randomly jump up and she never messed up! If I were cutting his hair, he'd be missing a big chunk of hair! Or worse, an ear! She was perfect.

In the end, she took a picture and made a certificate for his baby book that also contained a lock of his hair. The whole experience was great.

I'm not sure we'll drive all the way out there for each of his haircuts, but for this one it was perfect!







And just for fun, a picture of Dommie on his rocking horse with his new hair cut. He loves this rocking horse!!