BIG weekend!

My little girl is graduating from Pre-K tomorrow! Oh my goodness! She keeps asking when she is going to Kindergarten -she is eager to start! But of course first comes camp....which she is also excited about. Well our big weekend is about to begin, with her last day of school, arrival of Will's parents, then her graduation, followed by her dance rehearsal. Then Saturday is the big recital.

Yesterday, Wed... Aiden and I are normally at Kindermusik, but since we are on break for that, I took him to the park. Just the two of us. It was so much fun. Here's the A-man on the swing!


Today I watched Anna at school during Gymnastics. Her confidence has grown so much since the beginning of the year.

Tonight, Anna and I made cookies for her class tomorrow. "Last day of school cookies". She stayed up late and decorated cards for her teachers as well.... and if I didn't know any better, was a bit excited about this weekend...okay A LOT excited. Me too.

Lots to post really soon... "I'll be back". ;)

Love, Holly

Mother's Day Festivities!

What a nice weekend! I hope all moms reading this had a great Mother's Day!

Saturday we took the kids to a birthday party, and then Will was off to shoot a wedding. I hired a sitter, and Dori (my sis) and I went out for dinner, just the two of us to Season's 52. We haven't done that in so many years. We had the best time! We both brought cameras, and were so busy talking until almost midnight, that we forgot to get a picture taken. Oh well!

Today was fun, AND yummy! Everyone let me sleep in, ahh! Then I was greeted downstairs with cards, and gifts from Will and the kids. We ordered food from TooJays. Bagels and lox! Yummmm...one of my favorite things! Everyone came over here, and we just ate and relaxed while the kids played. OF COURSE, I snapped some pictures...and here they are:

The kids were SO excited to see each other, and gave a big hug!

Everyone enjoyed a yummy brunch!

That's me singing to my adorable nephew Brandon

The girls had fun dressing up

Anna gave her Grandma a pair of earrings that she picked out.

Dori, Mom and Me

Dori and I with our beautiful kids

After everyone left, I went upstairs, closed the door and watched chick flicks! It was GREAT! I never get to do that in the middle of the day. So it was a wonderfully relaxing mother's day! :)

This week is Anna's last week of preschool, AND of dance class. I honestly can't believe it. Wow. Her Pre-K graduation is on Friday, and her dance recital is on Saturday. Big weekend coming up!!!!

Have a great week everyone. I'll be back soon!
Love, Holly

Green....

John Mayer posted again about his little project. Check it out:
http://www.johnmayer.com/blog#337

Love, Hol

Losing Weight and Feeling GREAT!

Happy Friday once again everyone! :)

I wasn't able to weigh in on my usual Tuesday at Weight watchers, because of the kid's swim lessons, so I went on Thursday instead. I lost another 1.2 lbs! I'm now down almost 13 lbs. I am feeling SO great. Here are some updated pictures front and side views...

This week we wrapped up our Spring Kindermusik session, so I'm on a "break" for 5 weeks before Summer classes begin. Of course being a business owner, you never REALLY get a break, what with processing summer registrations, returning calls, lesson plans, etc... but at least that is all done in the comfort of my own home. I'm going to have to step up the workouts though because teaching Kindermusik is a GREAT workout! Just when we thought Grow and Sing Studios couldn't grow any more this month, we had a meeting today with a private school in town, and we might be negotiating with them to provide Kindermusik over there in their studio. WHOAH! It's all exciting, but OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!

The kids are doing GREAT with their swim lessons. Anna is swimming really well, and Aiden is floating and turning over. I'm really impressed with how far they have come in only 3 lessons. Aiden woke up from his nap yesterday with some SERIOUS bedhead...I had to take a picture:

This should be a fun weekend. Tomorrow we are taking Anna to her friend's birthday party. Then Will has to work, but I have gotten a babysitter, and I'm going out with Dori for dinner. We haven't done that in SO many years that we can't even REMEMBER the last time we went out just the two of us. So I'm really looking forward to it. :)

Sunday is of course Mother's day, and my family is coming over to our place to celebrate with brunch and relaxation. We normally go out, but we all decided that this year, it would be SO much more relaxing to order lox and bagels from TooJays, and chill out. So that's the plan! I of course have to budget my weight watcher points for that! :)

Tonight after dinner, we took the kids to Bruster's Ice Cream for a treat. Everyone ate ice cream except me. I decided to stay within my points and ordered a Diet Coke. Ironically the cup says "Treat Yourself". Well, I have decided to "treat myself" to another successful week on Weight Watchers. That is more a "treat" than any ice cream would be!!!

I wish all you mom's a wonderfully relaxing Mother's Day.

Love, Holly

Buzz buzz!!

I had to post this! We received Anna's dance pictures yesterday. Here she is in her recital costume as an adorable bumblebee. :) Her recital is coming up a week from Saturday!! Very exciting. Her class is doing a tap dance to a song called "Boogie Woogie Bumblebee".



The kids had swim lessons today, and did remarkably well. Especially considering it was colder than usual. I am going into my two days of Kindermusik classes, and then it's my BREAK!

Hope you enjoyed the Anna pic! I'll return soon!

Love, Holly

A Pleasant Weekend

What a nice weekend it ended up being! We had a free day with the kids on Saturday and there was nothing stopping us from doing something fun, so we headed over to Downtown Disney. It turned out to be SUCH a nice day. We did a little strolling and shopping. Then a train ride and carousel ride. Then ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, listened to a Children's Chorus do an outdoor concert, and then it was to the Ghirardelli store for some ice cream (or nonfat mocha's for Will and I). :) It was such a nice time.

Here's Anna posing with Sleeping Beauty

Anna and Aiden riding the train.

What a big boy on the carousel!

What fun!

At the Rainforest Cafe. Aiden and Will being silly.

Me and Anna at dinner

Here we are posing after dinner in front of the giraffe statue.

Oh, and the highlight of the day - ICE CREAM!

Today I did a Kindermusik birthday party, and after it was over, I met up with Will and the kids at Chuck E. Cheese. Tonight I led a teleconference for my local Kindermusik educators chapter. I am the new Local Rep and this was my first "official" task in the position. It was a really good phone meeting.

This coming week is our LAST week of classes for our Spring 2007 session. I can't believe it!!! Time flies!!! I will have a little break, while we gear up for our Summer session and then it's back to the grind! (it's a good grind, I'm not complaining at all!)

Have a GREAT week everyone. I'll report back soon!

Love, Holly

I LOVE FRIDAYS!

TGIF!!!

Happy Friday everyone!!

This was one busy week! As always I took Aiden to My Gym on Tuesday. My mother joined us so she could see Aiden do his thing!

On Thursday I took a day off from teaching Kindermusik because Anna's preschool class had a Mother's Day Fiesta! The children greeted us at the door with homemade sombreros on, then served the parents food, followed by a sing along. It was all very sweet! towards the end, Aiden (who was in the toddler club on the other side of the school) was brought to me, and he got in on the act too!

Today Rachael and I did a Kindermusik demo and then the kids started swim lessons. This year we hired a private swim teacher to come to my mom's house. Miss Simone is teaching Anna, Aiden, Kayla (my niece) and Amy (Rachael's daughter). I think all the kids did pretty well for their first time back in the water.

Here's Aiden getting comfortable with Miss Simone

Anna and I looking on with concern. :)

Here's Anna practicing some kicks.

And here she is actually having FUN!


We took it easy tonight, and were happily surprised to receive a call from Sam in Iraq. It had been about a week since we heard from him, so it was a welcome surprise, and a relief that he is okay.

Tomorrow we are FREE and CLEAR and want to have a really fun family day. Not sure what we are doing yet. We'll see.. and Sunday, I have a Kindermusik b-day party to do. So of course there's still LOTS going on!

Have a GREAT weekend!

Love, Holly

Changing the world, a little bit at a time...

I LOVE what John Mayer had to say recently on his blog...
http://www.johnmayer.com/blog#329

Happy Reading, and go LIGHT GREEN!
Love, Holly

Week 9 weigh in!

Well, I weighed in and lost another 1.8 lbs this week for a total loss so far of 11 pounds. I have 8 to go to reach my goal!! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is my updated weight loss chart. The pink star represents another 5 lbs lost and it's also my latest spot on the chart. :) I'm getting closer to that goal!



Have a great week everyone!

Love, Holly

SO much excitement!

SOOO much to catch up on!

Friday night we went out to celebrate Rachael's birthday. I of course brought along the camera, and well, I guess we got a little picture happy. We went for Sushi (I can NEVER have too much Sushi), and it was gooood!! The dinner was fun, lots of great conversation and lots of laughing...

but the interesting part happened AFTER dinner!!

We were walking out of Fuji Sushi, on our way down to Urban Flats for dessert, when this guy holding a bunch of signs comes up to us. We were thinking "who the heck IS this", but he asked us if we like chocolate. Well, HELLO, like we are going to say no? So we said yes, and casually mentioned that it was Rachael's birthday, and he leads us into an empty store that has chocolate. It's apparently a brand new chocolate shop, and he only opened 2 days before. He leads us to the center of the store where there were dispensers of various chocolate items, and proceeds to give us samples of everything.

THEN, he took Rachael over and handed her an AMAZING basket of chocolate items to take with her for free. wow!!!

That was quite a shock and sort of surreal. We left there all bewildered, but obviously amused. Will and I both agreed that at first it was sort of eerie -- I mean here's this guy, just randomly unlocks a door to a chocolate factory, and give us free chocolate. Sort of Willy Wonka - esque. Don't you think?? haha!

Anyway, then we finally made it to Urban Flats for some chocolate fondue (like we needed that????). It was definitely a challenging weight watchers evening for me, but I actually didn't do that badly!

Saturday was a long day for me. I taught Kindermusik, hosted a "free play", and then took care of the kids all day/ night because Will was triple booked on weddings & events.

Sunday (yesterday) we spontaneously took the kids to see "Jack and the Beanstalk" at the marionette theater in town. They LOVED it!!!!

Today was a big ANNA day. She went to school, and then had dance class, and THEN we took her to orientation at her new Elementary School. Will and I were very emotional. It was really surreal to be taking our daughter to the school to meet the teachers, etc. I was SO impressed with everything. The staff was really nice. The principal was as well. As we got out of the car, and walked to the school... Will and I both noticed what a BEAMING smile Anna had on her face. She was truly excited about her new school. This just made me MORE emotional, if that is possible. We checked in, and Anna received a goody bag that was decorated by a current Kindergartner. So cute.

Then the principal spoke, followed by some others, and then we were invited to explore the 4 Kindergarten classrooms, meet the teachers, etc. Anna LOVED that, and was excited to see that some things in the classrooms were the same as her school has now. :)

After that, Anna was invited to go through the cafeteria line and get a cookie and milk. The principal was there and explained to Anna exactly what to do, and how it works. Anna was very intrigued. I was so proud of her because she said hello, told him her name, and said "Thank you". What a good girl!!!

After that she of course ate her cookie,

and then we bought her an East Lake Elementary shirt. She posed with it proudly for the camera.

When we got home, Anna couldn't wait to call ALL her grandparents, and one by one tell them about her experience at her Kindergarten.

So there you have it! We have come to my current state of lounging on the couch with my laptop, procrastinating from doing paperwork, and contemplating watching Ugly Betty from last Thursday on the DVR. umm.. Yeah, that's what I'll do!

More soon, I promise!!

Love, Holly