Wrappers Delight

I always marvel at the Pinterest photos of entire rooms designated to the task of gift wrapping.  There are entire Boards dedicated to the art of gift wrapping and the room that it is done in.  In my world, you have to be pretty lucky to have a house big enough to turn an entire room into a place where you can go to wrap Christmas, Birthday and other holiday gifts.  I think Tori Spelling's Mom, Candy, had one in her mega-mansion and even made sure that her new mini-mansion had one as well.  She must dole out a lot of gifts!

I am not blessed with a house that is large enough to warrant a permanent space for my bows, ribbons and paper so I had to compromise.  For the past (almost) 4 years, all of our wrapping supplies have lived in a rubbermaid tub in the basement.  It was an unorganized mess and I got fed up digging through it trying to find what I needed so I set my mind to finding a solution.

There are some "gift wrapping stations" on the market that would have worked like this one from the Container Store...

... but at $189 a pop, I had to find another solution.

Enter IKEA.

I have had my eye on a certain product for a while and kept trying to figure out a good use for it in our place.  Finally, I found one.  Say hello to Alex!

This white lacquer drawer system was the answer to my wrapping prayers.  It has 5 drawers with ample space for all my wrapping supplies - and then some!  I put this puppy together all by myself and I'm loving the organization that it offers.

It settled into a corner of our storage closet in the basement and lives next to the basket of wrapping paper rolls.  Sorry the image is so dark - iPhone photo!

I wasted no time filling it up with all the goodies.  That basket on top is full of bows (because you never know when you will need easy access to bows!).  First drawer, ribbon.

Second drawer houses tissue and tags and extra boxes. There's even a "Happy Birthday" banner in there that I've been holding onto for about 7 years!

The third drawer is where we start getting into the gift bags.  Turns out we have a LOT of them.  I decided to divide them by theme so drawer three houses the kiddy/birthday bags.

In drawer four you will find the generic/all occasion bags.  Lucy managed to photo bomb this photo!

And finally, drawer five is filled with holiday gift bags - mostly Christmas but some Valentine's Day as well.

I am really happy with my new wrapping organization station and can't wait to get in there and wrap something!  It will make life much more efficient when getting ready for a party or a birthday or a holiday.  Leave it to IKEA to offer me the perfect solution...at the perfect price.  

Big Boy Bed Update

So far...so okay.  It has been 3 nights of James "sleeping" in his newly converted bed and the results have been a bit lack luster.  I'm happy to report that he is finally going to bed at normal time without 45 minutes of crying.  He is, however, still waking up in the wee hours of the morning.  Today our unscheduled wake up call hit at 4:20 am.  After a quick visit to his room and lots of "it's still night night - go back to bed", he did manage to quiet down.

For 15 minutes.

Then there was screaming.  And it continued until about 6:30 am.

My friends, I think we have entered the land of Overtired Toddler.  It is a scary place and one that should be entered at your own risk.  Luckily he is still getting a decent nap at daycare and I'm hoping that once the fear excitement of the new bed wears off, we'll be back to a normal sleep schedule.

We have had some great big boy bed moments each night.  This one tugged at my heart strings a bit.

Bye Bye Crib...

...well kind of.  Take a peek at what has been happening in the Mangiaracina house:

Going...going...gone.  As in the front rail.  We decided to convert James' crib into a toddler bed to see if perhaps he'd give us what we are craving - more sleep in the morning!

Turns out, not so much.

But he was very excited to see his "new bed" as he continued to say.

Check out his reaction here:  http://youtu.be/VLVLJR7ASzU

Since these photos were taken, we actually flip flopped the front rail so that the opening was not where his head was, but you get the gist.  Night 1 (Monday night) was touch and go.  He didn't mind laying in his new bed as long as we were in the room.  That lasted about a hot second so there was a good amount of screaming but he eventually fell asleep.  There was a quick moment of dread at midnight that was squashed immediately and he lasted until about 4:57 AM.

4:57 AM!!!!!!

The sun was not even up yet and this kid was screaming like the boogey man had entered his room, did a jig and tried to steal him.  And guess what...he was up for the day!  Like "Mama-let's-read-all-3-Jingle-books-over-and-over-until-I go-to-school" up.  No me gusta hence my morning Facebook plea!  

Tonight, he was excited to see his bed again and actually wanted to read his books in it.  There was screaming as we left the room (and after I sat in there for a longer amount of time than I want to admit), but he eventually settled himself down and I am currently looking at a sleeping kid through a newly, re-plugged in monitor.  Fingers crossed that we nix the midnight call and go to at least 6:00 AM tomorrow.  

The blackout curtains and children's color alarm clock are on order with Amazon. :)

Hello Ella!

You may have noticed from yesterday's blog post that there is a new little lady hanging around these parts.  Her name is Ella and she a sweet little peanut. My parents adopted her a few months back and she is spending time with us while they are in Florida.  

The vet is 99% sure she is a Lhasa Apso and is 5 years old.  Her previous owner passed away so my parents swooped in and grabbed her.  They had been tinkering with getting a dog, but weren't sure they wanted to deal with a puppy.  They also took into consideration that both of their grand-dogs, Lucy and Sophie, are not so keen on sharing their attention.  But after meeting this sweet girl they fell in love and now she is part of the family.

James is a BIG fan of Ella and loves to scream out her name when he sees her.  Having her here for a few days has been a huge bonus for him - what kid wouldn't want 2 dogs?!  They bonded pretty quickly and I have a feeling James is going to be very sad when she leaves.

As for Lucy...it's been a slower process.  They were first introduced a few weeks back at the dog park.  Ella's trainer suggested that we bring the girls to a neutral place so there was no fighting over territory.  I wasn't there - but Ed said it went well.  Lucy spent most of the time running around with the other dogs while Ella stayed by my Mom's side.  We took it as a win. :)

The next encounter was at a training session at PetSmart. Ella's trainer offered to give them a private lesson and teach us some techniques on how to socialize them.  They again got along which again was a win in our book.

Last test was at my parent's house and this was the big one.  Lucy had lived there for a few months when we first moved down and felt very territorial about the place.  Per the trainer's instruction, we had them meet out front on leash first.  Next step was to move them into the backyard and let them run around.  Luckily, things went well.  Lucy behaved.  Ella behaved.  James behaved.  All was good.

We took the ultimate plunge this week by having Ella stay with us at our house.  We followed the same formula as we did at my parent's house:  meet outside on leash + run around in the backyard = 2 happy puppies that are not biting each other's heads off.  And it has stayed that way...for the most part.  There have been some angry words over treats and when it is an appropriate time to play.  Luckily they are both small enough that when they do get into a scuffle, we can quickly scoop one of them up and remove them from the situation.  Over all, they are new besties.

I think Ella has had fun being here, but will be very happy when her Mommy and Daddy come home.  She is a huge Mama's girl and loves to lay on her lap.  Ed and I provide a decent substitution, but it's not quite the same.  

I'll tell you one thing, she will miss the excitement and pace of our house versus back home.  We keep her going all day long which is something she is not used to.  I have a feeling that once she gets home, she will sleep for 3 days straight.

Welcome to the family, Ella!!! xoxo

Traditions

The words holiday and tradition go hand in hand much like the words peanut butter and jelly or Sonny and Cher. Whenever the holidays come around - no matter which one - a sense of nostalgia starts swirling through the air evoking memories that we both treasure and sometimes fear (enter 1980's photos complete with flowery dresses and full-on mullets). While many of the Easter Sunday's of my past are a bit blurry, I do have the very vivid memory of Sue and I at church checking out all the horrid snazzy white shoes that were dusted off in honor of this Spring holiday. I promise we paid attention to the important parts. :)

Traditions get tricky when you get married. Not only are you joining your lives, you are also joining your traditions and sometimes those traditions don't always mesh. Take Christmas for example. Ed came from a star tree topper family while I came from an angel tree topper family. The compromise? A Santa hat that has now become our new tradition.

Easter has been a bit tricky in the ways of tradition for us. When we were living in NY, we spent the holiday with Ed's family out in Staten Island. Even after moving to VA, we traveled up to be with the Mangiaracina's for the holiday. Then came James. We stayed in VA for his first Easter since he was so little, but went up for his second.

This Easter Sunday was spent here in VA and for the first time in a very long time, we found ourselves alone. Ed's new job and my wanting to save some PTO prevented us from traveling to NY this year and the Quartuccio's were down in Florida visiting friends and family. So, we decided that it was time to create some new traditions.

The holiday began on Saturday morning with some old fashioned Easter Egg dying. James was a first timer so we decided to cover all our bases which meant a big, thick, plastic table cloth and removal of the fancy chairs. He had a BLAST! It was a messy blast, but worth every bit of dye on the floor and his hands.  

Easter morning started early - what morning doesn't - with an excited little man who got some treats from the Easter Bunny. This kid had a basket full of toys and guess what he loved the most? The freakin' balloon! He did dive into the basket after the excitement of the balloon faded and found some awesome goodies including a chocolate marshmallow bunny, a Jake and the Neverland Pirate ball, bunny cookies, a Cookie Monster and a new dinosaur. Lucky guy.

After a yummy breakfast (thank you very much), we all got dressed and headed to the Easter Egg Hunt at Ticonderoga Farms.  We visited this farm in October during their Fall Festival and had a blast so we decided to give it a try.  We were not disappointed!  We arrived just in time for the egg hunt and James dove right in grabbing egg after egg.  He is a pro, after all, since he recently partook in the Little Rocky Run Spring Fling Egg Hunt.  He even got close enough to the oversized chick to grab a photo!

After the egg hunt, we spent time roaming around the farm enjoying all the attractions.  Some of James' favs included the log cabins, the many, many chickens and roosters, the jumping pillow, and the huge slides.  This time, we went on the hay ride and got an insiders view of the farm.  James' favorite part was when it went into the water.  He kept screaming "Water! Water! Water!".  

We also encountered the giant bamboo wind chimes for the first time.  O. M. G.  He loved them!  I think Ed may need to figure out how to build these for our backyard because the kid couldn't get enough.

Fun on the farm was had by all and was followed by a quiet afternoon and yummy dinner at a local Italian eatery. We missed our families, but were able to create some new traditions that James and a future sibling (some day!) will look back on with a smile.  I can't vouch that their fashion will hold up twenty years from now, but I can say that the time we spent together was filled with love.  Happy Easter!