surfing.

I always have loved the beach ever since I was little even growing up as a country girl, but we always went to the ocean every year. Either NJ , VA or somewhere in between. I was very lucky growing up to go to so many places.

Today at the beach , I just imagined myself surfing, felt comfortable.. now feeling like that and doing it is two different things :) I think i would enjoy it, would give me "mommy" time. Okay so a 30 something girl can learn to surf right?! Please tell me I can learn..lol . I just want to try it.

I just have so much peace at the water, it's so relaxing!

Blogs

Do you have blogs? I love reading crafty blogs, just everyday living a family life, cooking ones, anything you got :) please let me know so I can add them to my favorite sites!

Lost the "one" house

We lost the one house that we really liked. I knew I should have just put my application in that day and be done with it, but didn't want to just "jump" into the house, because we are new to the area, we are trying to explore the area and get to know which one we fit into. We didn't at first know if we would like the area out there, we kept going back to the house every night finding ourselves falling in love with the area.

The most annoying part is we called today for the keys to set up an apt. and they didn't even tell us. My husband has had the most annoying/stressful day at work (starting at a call for an emergency at 5:00am) and had to leave early so we could go see this house. I also re-arranged my daughters nap time so she could be up at 3 so we could be there by 3:45 to get the keys, we get their and they handed back our check for our application and said that house has been taken. I wish they would have just told us they were running someone's app and they would let us know. Instead, we interrupted our busy day and life to basically get burned.

I know , people keep saying well that means a better house is out there for you, but there is really limited rental and it keeps going down and down the more days we are here because a lot of people are renting because of the economy. I do however like this other house we saw yesterday, it's big , roomy but the area isn't where I wanted it to be. It could grow on me, but I don't want to have to keep moving plus wherever we move into we are signing a 2 years lease so we can get a stable home, and don't have to keep moving the kids. Renting is really harder then I thought it was going to be. If we could afford to buy a house right now we would, I know I said i wouldn't buy again but there's so many more options out there, just right now it's not a chance with our house on the market in NJ and all the money we are losing.

The perfect house is out there, and maybe that one wasn't meant to be but it sure felt like it.

preschool and home

I'm having a hard time finding a good preschool for pookie. I am having a hard time finding one that will allow her to start this year, one that isn't full, one that isn't religion based.

We are looking at homes, one just feels like home, don't know if its the newer feeling and the paint that makes it more like us or what it is, it just lacks a fenced in yard and it is a 100.00 over our price range.

Selling our house in NJ is not going anywhere!

well that's about all I have to update now!

things I hate about apt. living.

we haven't lived in an apt. in over 4 years. (well i lied in between moves we have lived in temp living) but they have been nicer apartments then this. Also we've found a house to own in those two months. I know it's only been 2 weeks but ah, I miss having a single family house.

• I miss my washer and dryer.(the apt. sized washer dryer NEVER works, the dryer takes days to dry, takes me 5 hours to do one little load)

• I miss my own bed (seeing is temp living includes everything furniture)

• I also miss my own pots, and pans, they include a lot but not everything! so annoying when trying to cook. I guess that's why they give us money to eat, but i like to save that money if at all possible.

• I miss if my kids wont sleep at night letting them cry a little. (here we share walls, I always feel like someones going to think i'm hurting my kids)

• I hate walking the dog! I forgot how convenient it is to have a yard. Now we will take neil for walks at night with us, but taking him out with two kids is a pain, always have to do it around naps, or when hubby get's home.

• I can hear everyone around me! Feel like I have voices in my head (well maybe I do..hehe)

I'm anxiously awaiting to get into a house, its just finding that perfect house for us to live in for a few years. I don't feel like doing 1 year leases, we will be down here at least 3 years, if not more. so i would love to find something to rent for 2 years! Beach living or inland living is harder decision then I thought. Well keep updates on us finding a rental house. Speaking of houses, our house in NJ is just not selling, we have dropped prices, etc. it's not moving! This market stinks and makes this mama cry. Knowing we are going to lose so much money is enough to make anyone stress.

Finding a house.

We haven't had to rent for 4 years! So renting is new for us, house hunting for rentals is I think more stressful then buying a house. We decided that we are going to rent because this past year we have had a lot of things go wrong like sewage backed up so that was 3,000 to fix, just other things that goes with owning a house! Plus we are losing about 30k on our house in NJ and we just wont have that down payment on a house.

Buying a house is stressful but you have a lot more options. I really thought when we moved here, we would be a beach loving want to live ON the beach but as I look at the houses, I don't think it's just good for 2 little girls , no yard , a lot of steps since most are up one floor because of hurricanes. I want to live inland but not too far from the beach , maybe 20 minutes (10 min. would be idea) but then again everything else is 25 minutes away. I kinda want a happy median but that isn't happening.

Also i am finding everything is in "wilmington" okay wilmington has about 20 zip codes! It's weird not to have towns. Like in Baltimore there was Baltimore, then white marsh , essex, etc etc.

We did find a house today.. we love it, i am in total love with it, it's about $100 over our price range but only 10 miles away from a beach (not the beach i'm in love with , but it will do) only 10 minutes from shopping , about 20 minutes from the riverwalk . I would love to be closer to downtown but eh, what are you going to do. There is no fenced in yard, which is killing me because it has a screened in porch and I would love to be able to sit outside in that and watch the kids play without having to worry that they were going to run out front. I don't know if we should just go for it, or just wait. If we wait we might miss out on a beautiful house! we looked at another one, it was nice, needed work done but still was "doable" for $300.00 less , the whole reason why we moved down here was to save money. I kinda want to be in a house i want to live in for a few years.. i'm really sick of moving, and a years lease is not that long. I want to sign a 2 years lease. so i'm hoping they will take about 100 off if we sing a 2 years lease.

I guess looking online before we moved here I didn't realize how big "wilmington" area is! Anyways, I'm sick of already living in an apartment, it really is nice for being free and I kinda want to take advantage of that since we are losing so much on our house in NJ.

I am feeling at "home"

At first I was feeling really mixed on moving from NJ there was a lot I wanted to move away from, but yet i felt settled there! But here, I can't explain it. I drive better (not as in a hurry) , I am finding friends, true friends I believe they will be. The girls are a real headache as they haven't seen their daddy in 2 weeks, but other then that they LOVE LOVE LOVE the beach.

Today I have started my moms group , and we had our first playgroup, 2 other moms showed up that RSVPed the people that acutally RSVPed really did come!! Shock to me, because most back out. Pookie had fun making a new friend about her age, they played and had fun, even asked if they could hang out after ( i thought it was cute) Pookie is usually shy , so it was nice that she was talking about her friend C afterwards.

Then I joined an "online forums" moms group that was really nice, they had Moms night out (MNO) I think they had 24 moms come! Was a little overwhelming but very fun, drinks, shots , it was fun! The moms were so friendly, you could def. tell who was "clicky" but that is to be expected in a big online group but you would think they would just be clicky and not be as friendly but they made me feel really welcome! Plus I love these southerns accents :) so cute!

I just really feel at home here. I really wanted to move back to Baltimore in a few years, but now I am thinking No. I think this is where my kids will grow up. I really have fallen in love with it in just a week, that has NEVER happened (besides Baltimore) in all the 15 moves I've done.

I really think this was a great move, despite hubby being away for 2 weeks , the one week I had to pack all alone with the kids and then moving here with my friend M, to help as he left for NJ the next day. I even feel really comfortable driving here, which is odd for me. I don't like changes, I hate changes in fact and NJ driving well that is just F'ed up ..lol No left turns! One thing I will miss is I never had to pump my gas (which I hated at first, but it grew on me) .

Thank you Wilmington, for being so welcoming! Oh and that's another thing, people are Friendly here ... I'm just not used to this whole we are friendly to people we don't know.

I'm hoping you are enjoying my updates on how things are going!

On a side note I really do miss the great friends I made up there, today Pookie was asking for her friend Landyn and lauren :( Also asked if mommy was seeing her friend Sandy..lol was cute!

Finally Moved

We finally moved! Ah , stressful it really was. We are in Corporate housing, its "free" so its "okay". Going house hunting soon, so YAY for that! It's very different living then NJ. People are "friendly" , I know weird concept for people to say hi to you just when your out , or cashiers actually talk to you. People are NOT in a hurry here, I have to learn patients down here. I'm so used to the hustle bustle living.

It is really beautiful down here, I always wanted to live near the beach. I still kinda feel like i'm dreaming or on a vacation, like I don't "live" here. Maybe it's because i'm not used to going to the beach and the water is actually warm! I really can feel my family growing down here. I also am not used to not a lot of indoor kids places. I guess I need to look for outdoor stuff to do.

I started my moms group down here, so far in 2 days I have 7 members, so that is exciting. I don't really want a big moms group, something small and quiet is what I want now. Maybe get about 20 good members and that will be good enough for me !

Kids, are missing "home" , my daughter wants to go back to her house, which is kinda sad. When we left the house, she said "I love my house " I don't want to leave :( , make a mama's heart break! I told her we would look for a new house that she would love just as much. They do seem to being able to going to the beach everyday and only having a 20 min drive if that. We are really beach bums, so this lifestyle just suits us!

So now take the ride with me as I discovery all the new places around Wilmington, NC!

cowgirl birthday party!

So my daughter is in love with Jessie from toy story. So I started to google cowgirl stuff.

First I started off with a cute dress and the ideas just started to go from there.

The front has a cute cow print around the waste!

Then I came across these favors.

The cookies were a hit! I got them from

http://www.bakerella.com/mix-things-up/

I did not get to do the pink M&M's (they were expensive) and plus there were a lot of boys , so I did regular M&M's (way cheaper too) . Also the pecans I only did in a few.

Here are some helpful hits when doing the Jars. The smooth jars I got at Walmart. 12 for only 7.99 , at craft stores they wanted 1.99 per jar. I also couldn't find the paper puncher that they used , plus they were really expensive. So i just got scissors for 1.99 that did the job (took a little longer ) I also did the tags tied around it. I thought it looked cuter. You can use any fabric for the lid. I did cow print for Jessies chaps.

Another helpful hit is you have to PACK down the stuff to fit it all in . The first two before we figured out how to pack the ingredient we didn't do peacans on top (plus i figured there might be some allergic to nuts) so i did some with extra choc. chip or M&M's on top. Another thing that they call for is 3/4 m&m's I did 1/2 cup and same with choc. chips. I did about 15 jars. I did only 1 per family, figured not every kid needs a dozen cookies (it actually worked out good) It did take me awhile to do them. Another thing is it asked for 1 1/2 cup of flour.. We used 2 bags of flour (just an FYI) and that was for 15 jars. Pecans we used two bags. M&M's we used 2 party bags. We also used a paper funnel , to get all the ingredients in, it worked out wonderful.

1 1/3 cup all purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup & leveled
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cooking oats
3/4 cup m&ms - I did 1/2 cup
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (also I did 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed - when you put it in the jar , take a spoon and pack it done!
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 – 1/2 cup chopped pecans ( i did about 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup)

Stir all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

Add

1 slightly beaten egg
1/2 cup butter (melted slightly in the microwave)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Use the back of a large spoon to work it all together. You may even need to use your hands to get everything incorporated.

Then roll the cookie dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, place on a parchment covered baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. I got about 26-28 cookies out of these.

It does make 20-28 cookies so I figured one per family was enough.

In the gift bags I did barrel of monkeys and a few toy story things crayons , color pages (that I got free off disney) and then a few stickers of toy story!

I had bandanna napkins to match :) and did red and black and white! there was so many cute things I could have done. Oriental trading has amazing stuff that's where we got the cowgirl hats and napkins, didn't even realize they had plates or I would have done them as well!

I wish I had more time to do everything I wanted to do! Would love to have had pony rides! but there are a lot of party favors to do and a lot of games you can do (the kids were a little young to do games) or I would have did the sandbox and then them find gold. If you google stuff you can find a lot of stuff!

I hope you enjoyed her birthday party! she had a lot of fun and the kids loved the hats they got to take. I also heard that some families made their cookies today and they loved them!

Cape May Zoo

So we went to Cape May Zoo this weekend. It's one of the things I wanted to do before we left. Can I just tell you how much this mama loved it?! We took our daughter their for her 3rd birthday! It was amazing. It was a Sunday and Labor day weekend, so I think it was a little bit crowded but totally worth it! Did I mention its FREE?! Philly zoo get's busy even during the day during the weekday. It was only about 1 hour and 20 min away not bad for a day trip.

It was big enough but small enough, they had a carousel, train , and a FREE playground. It was definitively worth the drive. Tons of shaded trees, the animals were all taken care of we saw so much security around, a lot of zoo keepers feeding the animals. A lot of different ones. My daughters favorite is the Zebra. It's her "thing" this month I guess. She wanted a zebra for her birthday so she got to go see them, since we can't have one as a pet..lol .

We walked around, I loved how it was up high , like a boardwalk through the safari part. It was neat to over look the animals. The zebras came up to the fence which was neat! I was surprised how big it really was. With a 3 year old and 21 month old , it was just big enough to keep them entertained but too long because they can only sit for so long in a stroller and not get bored. We fed the goats, which was fun. The train ride I must say is a little bit bumpy! Not sure I would do that again! But the carousel was awesome! Loved the music and it was well taken care of.

After we ate at the cafe (which was about 6.00-7.50) a value meal which wasn't too bad and it was decent food. We went to the playground afterwards. The kids really enjoyed that part! They do have a lot of picnic area's so bring a lunch. we just had lunch before we left or we would have brought ours!

I highly recommend a day trip here, or if your down in wildwood for a weekend go to the zoo!

I hope you enjoy it!