Hello Dear Friends...

Hello dear friends...

I returned from New York around midnight

 last night after spending 12 days with Carol (My MIL).

We accomplished A LOT...both mentally and physically.

Drawers were cleaned out, the basement organized,

house put on the market, paperwork completed.

While going through boxes, I uncovered parts of Ryan's past I had never seen before.

Parts of Trysten's past I had never seen before.

Parts of Ed and Carol's life I had never seen before.

I loved seeing old pictures like the one below.

Look how young my sweet husband looks!

And Trysten...what a doll.

You can see the pride on Ed's face.

Since I was going to be there so long,

Carol and I had to stock up.

On what, you ask?

On wine of course.

We spent many nights together in the family room

with a bottle of wine, talking and shedding the occasional tear or two...or three.

I will forever cherish those 12 days spent with Carol.

She's a rare bird, my dear friends.

I am very blessed.

It was very hard to leave her at the airport in Sryacuse last night.

Another "first".

My flight was delayed an hour,

so I parked myself at the only bar in the airport.

People around me were discussing their fears of not making

connecting flights due to the delay, myself included, so I decided to ask the

man next to me if he knew the latest you could

arrive at the gate and still be allowed to board.

We realized we were on the same flight out of Sryacuse

as well the connecting flight to Dallas in Chicago.

He asked what I had been doing in New York,

and I proceeded to tell him I was in New Hartford helping

my mother-in-law after my father-in-law passed away.

The bartender handed me my glass of wine

saying, "Thank you, Mrs. Soladay."

The gentlemen offered his condolences and stated that

he had been in New Hartford all day at a company called PAR Tech.

My heart dropped.

I lowered my glass, and by the look on my face, he knew what I was thinking.

He made the connection at the same moment I did.

The man said, "Ed Soladay. Your father-in-law was the president of PAR Tech."

He went on to tell me how much everyone at PAR loved and respected Ed,

and how big of a loss his death was for the company.

It's such a small world.

I finally did board both flights and made it home safely.

Because Ryan could not leave the kids at home alone to pick me up from the airport,

the car service my father-on-law has always used came to take me home.

When we pulled up, Ryan came out to help me with my luggage,

and we wrapped our arms around each other for what seemed like forever.

Twelve days is a long time to be apart...especially when the longest we've ever been apart is 3.

Did you just gag, Sass?

To say we missed each other, doesn't even do justice.

It was too late to wake the boys,

so getting them up this morning was like Christmas!

I missed those little guys so much.

Home is a good place to be.

Before I go,

I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for the kind

words, the prayers, the cards, the text messages

during this devistating time for our family.

A special thank you to my blogger girls.

Y'all are the best.

I apologize for not commenting on all my favorite blogs.

Honestly, today is the first day

I have even logged on since before I left.

You know I love y'all though!

Wow, that was long...

thanks for

sticking around, dear friends.

It's Been Awhile

I haven't felt very creative over the past few weeks,

but with the boys' Valentines Day party on Friday,

I had to kick it into gear.

Last year we made the heart crayons,

but Preston decided he was a little old for such childish creations.

Why must they grow up?

The boys and I sat down at the computer and searched for ideas.

A thought popped into my head.

If you have never checked out

www.picnik.com

click the link and do so.

We uploaded some pics to Picnik,

and this is what we came up with:

Carter begged me to include the dog at the top.

Oh well. =)

We started with a pic of the boys, and added some fun.

I love the way they turned out!

I printed them out at CVS, attached them to card stock,

put them in clear goodie bags, loaded the bags with candy,

tied them with ribbon annnnnnnnnd DONE.

Next up,

Valentines boxes.

The boys usually do their own,

but on the way home from lunch last Sunday,

Preston asked me if I would make a "cool one" for him,

followed by Carter and Trysten making the same request.

How could I say no.

Making these little monsters was actually therapeutic

in a weird sort of way.

Ok.

Exhibit #1:

Trysten's vampiresque monster

Exhibit #2:

Carter's scary monster

Exhibit #3:

Preston's alien monster

And that's it.

It felt good to get my craft on again.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day weekend.

I'm headed to New York on Friday to help Carol, my MIL, with a few things.

I told her that we'll drink lots of wine, laugh, cry, gossip and repeat.

Please continue to keep her in your prayers.

Happy Valentine's Day, friends.

Hello...

Hello, friends.

To say the past 18 days have been

hard is an understatement.

Those of you who do not know me personally,

we lost Ryan's father, Ed Soladay, suddenly on Friday, January 14.

You might remember that Ryan and I had just

spent 7 fantastic days visiting his parents in NY

just after Christmas, and as my brother said in Ed's eulogy,

we will probably remember that as our best vacation ever.

Ed was not just my father-in-law.

He was a man I loved and respected as much as my own father.

He was a man of integrity,

taught his son never to take the easy way out or rely on others

to bail him out of difficult circumstances,

taught him how to be a dedicated father and loving husband,

loved his family more than anything in the world

and was humble despite his esteemed level of professional success.

Ryan and I returned from NY last night,

and after we put the boys to bed, we sat and talked about life after his father.

It still doesn't seem real.

So many plans left undone.

So much life was still left to be lived.

Ryan told me that he was so glad he was able to share his father with me.

I feel so blessed for that time over the past 4 years.

Although he is no longer physically here with our family,

he will always be in our hearts and

his name and legacy will live on in his son, my husband.

I will always be proud to be Ed and Carol Soladay's daughter-in-law,

and Ryan Soladay's wife.

Somehow our little family will get through this time,

despite feeling like it's not possible at the moment,

because that's what Ed would want us to do.

We love and miss you, Ed, every single minute of every single day.

Be Mine!

Picture this:

I am sitting in the recliner in the family room with a blanket over my legs.

The fire is going.

My reading glasses are perched on the end of my nose.

I am.........cross stitching.

Am I old?

I always thought of cross stitching as something

only little old ladies did.

I love it.

I am addicted.

Look what I made:

It's not perfect.

Do I care?

Nope.

I downloaded a free pattern off the Internet,

and here she is.

I decided to put it in a frame,

but the only available one I had was too big.

Solution.

I cut out some fabric to fill the frame,

and simply tacked the four corners to keep it in place:

Then I put it in the frame.

Easy.

Inside the hearts, I put the initials of our 4 boys.

You like?

Yes, I do realize I have a problem....I can't stop.

Now, if only I could get paid for doing this.

Linking up with:

Weekend Recap & Valentines at Home!

Look at what it looks like outside here today!!

Holy snow!

More on that in a minute.

First, let's talk sports.

Trysten had his first basketball game of the season on Saturday.

He loved it.

His team is called the Red Raiders...although their uniforms are orange.

The whole league has orange uniforms.

Made it a little difficult for the kids to decipher their teammates from their opponents.

Well...maybe it was just me.

Carter does NOT understand why I take so many pictures.

Look at his face.

Can you tell?

Hot chocolate and basketball.

Awesome.

Okay.

Back to the snow.

Ryan brought the boys' ski clothes down from the attic,

and the party was on.

Good times!

This is where I spent most of Sunday.

With the fire going.

My mother-in-law taught me how to

cross stitch while in NY,

so I camped out in the recliner and made the little ditty below.

You'll see what I did with it in a few.

Next month is "LOVE" month,

but I decided to break out the decor now,

so we could enjoy it for more than just 2 weeks.

Sue me.

Sass, you might need a "vomit bag" with all

the shmoopiness you're about to encounter.

Just sayin.

The "IN OUR HOME..." sign was already on the mantle,

but I thought it was perfect for Valentine's Day, so I left it.

I found the directions for the heart garland on Martha Stewart's site,

So easy.

Remember my NOEL letters from my Christmas mantle?

I used the L, O and E and just bought a V (I painted and blingged that bad boy out.)

to spell LOVE.

I added a little ribbon and a rose to the O.

So easy.

Remember these candles from Christmas?

Yep.

There's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Use what you already have.

I made these tags to hang on the candlesticks.

I used these 3 red guys in a Christmas vignette.

Same black and white polka dot ribbon.

I just changed the contents under the glass domes.

So easy.

It's kind of hard to see because of the glare,

but all I did was cut out hearts from scrapbook paper,

sprinkle a few scatter hearts, wrote a Valentine themed word on the hearts

annnnnnnnnnnnd DONE.

Ryan and I bought these kissing monkeys in New Orleans,

and I thought they were perfect for Valentines.

Have you noticed I love to decorate with these little signs?

I love these chalkboard hearts.

I wrote on them with a chalkboard marker

and adhered them all over the place.

Fun!

More signs!

I made this for a lamp that needed some love.

I bought this little sign in the craft section at Hobby Lobby.

It was primed and ready to be painted.

I changed out the ribbon, sprayed it with chalkboard paint, added a heart

and wrote on it with...again...a chalkboard marker.

A $2.99 purchase from Target.

See the "LOVE" cross stitch?

I changed out the Scrabble tiles.

I know.

I'm jumping the gun on Valentine's Day,

but who cares!

Hope you had a fabulous weekend, friends!!

Linked up to:

2010: A Year of Memories

                                     Turn on your volume and enjoy!