A Whole Lotta Hoopla

I can't believe that I have not updated the blog since mid-May.  So much has been keeping us busy that finding the time to sit down and talk about it has been very limited.  So here I am...a month later with lots to share and only a small amount of time (James is already 45 minutes into his nap!).  Here is a brief synopsis of what the Mangiaracina's have been up to.

Mother's Day

This year we had a low-key Mommy's Day with extra morning sleep time for me, a home-cooked breakfast, Mother-Son nap time and a BBQ with the Grandparents.  I know that Mother's Day is looked at as a "Hallmark Holiday", but I don't care.  I love any excuse to spend quality time with my family - especially my wonderful Mom who not only is the best Mom out there (and who taught me all I know!), but the best Grandma that James could ask for.

A Quartuccio Wedding

We were cordially invited to the wedding of Kristen Quartuccio and Bill Kinslow on Memorial Day weekend.  James spent lots of quality time with Grandma M., Aunt Adriana, Uncle John, Aunt Lee Lee and Uncle Joe while Ed and I made our way to CT to celebrate the happy couple. Fun was had by all and I think the Mangiaracina's were ready to collapse by the time we left.  :)

Celebrate Fairfax

For the first time in many, many years, we were in town during the Celebrate Fairfax Festival and we took full advantage.  Ed and I secured some sitters on night 1 (thanks Mom & Dad!) so that we could enjoy the All American Rejects concert (awesome show, BTW).  On day 2, we took James to the fair and met up with friends Amanda, Kyle and Rafa to enjoy the rides, games and food. The boys had a great time as did the parents.  What's funny is that the shuttle bus ride to the fair and back may have been James' favorite part of the day. :)

Happy Birthday Ed!

This past week, Ed celebrated his 7th annual 29th birthday.  If you know my husband, you know that he is a BIG fan of his birthday so after we opened presents, we headed to Ted's Bulletin for a family breakfast and then onto the Reston Zoo.  Even though it was Daddy's birthday, we had to keep James smiling and animals seem to be the trick.  The kid even was brave enough to conquer is first pony ride!  It was a great day that ended with crab legs and birthday cake with the family.  

Sue & Ivan are Engaged!

Over the weekend we celebrated a very special couple - Sue & Ivan!!  They, along with lots and lots of family and friends, were in town for their engagement party.  My parents planned the top notch shin-dig and it went off without a hitch - and without electricity. Wouldn't you know that just as the party got started, the power went out!  We like to keep things interesting. :) It didn't matter because it was a great day celebrating a great couple.

Father's Day

We rounded out the weekend by celebrating all the great Dads in our lives.  Since Sue, Ivan and family were still in town, we were able to dole out our Dad-love in person which is always a special treat.  Our morning started with coffee and gifts for Ed who is THE most AMAZING Dad out there (in addition to my Dad and Ivan's Dad of course!).  I count my blessings everyday that I found Ed and that he is James' Dad because he is the most wonderful and perfect man for the job!  We then headed to the Quartuccio house to have breakfast with the family and give hugs to my Dad - the best Dad (and Grandpa) a girl could have asked for - and Ivan's Dad - the best Dad a guy could have asked for!  It was so nice spending time with these 3 amazing Dads (and some amazing Moms and a sister as well!) and it makes me wish that we all lived a little closer.  At least driving distance.  Can we all work on that? :)

As you can see, we have been quite busy and it does not end here.  Coming up:  a week at the beach, a long weekend in Philly, a visit from Adriana and John and a trip to Dutch Wonderland.  I'm exhausted justing thinking about it, but I wouldn't want it any other way.  #luckiestgirlintheworld 

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. :)