Beasley Farm

Ashley running around the farm!

We took Ashley and drove out to Beasley Farm this morning to check out their produce barn. While I shopped for produce, Mike and Ashley wandered off to see the chickens and Katie, the farm horse. Ashley loved the chickens!

It's great to know that we have a place so close to home where we can go to support a local farm and get naturally grown, pesticide free produce. The produce at the farm is better and cheaper than what we normally find at the supermarket.

It was a little too cold today to explore much (about 51 degrees), but we're looking forward to going back again. We can't wait to take Ashley in the spring when you can go out into the fields and pick your own beans and explore more of the farm!

Disney on Ice

Ashley waiting for the show to start.

In October, Mike and I decided it was time to try to take Ashley to a show. Disney on Ice was at the St. Pete Time forum and we were pretty sure that Mickey Mouse and TinkerBell were enough to keep her attention, and man were we right!

The Disney on Ice show this year featured Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, and Goofy as travelers visiting different parts of the world and was further broken down into four segments: The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Lilo and Stitch, and Peter Pan.

Ashley has not seen the Lion King yet, but she loves Lions, so she enjoyed most of the Lion King but it seemed to lose her attention early.

The Little Mermaid was great and totally kept her attention for the whole thing. She loves Ariel! Ashley recognized her as soon as she hit the stage and got a huge smile on her face. The costumes were great! Disney really did a great job!

None of us had seen Lilo and Stitch before, but Ashley seemed to enjoy it and sat still for most of it. After Lilo, there was an intermission, and then came the longest part of the show, Peter Pan.

Ashley waiting for TinkerBell!

Ashley has not seen Peter Pan either, but she is very familiar with TinkerBell of course, so she LOVED it! She was so excited when Tinkerbell came on stage, she got a huge smile on her face and started yelling "Hi! Tinkybell! There she is!" It was so cute and it was so worth the expense. It was a great day and I can't wait to take her to another show!

Gymnastics

Ashley started gymnastics almost two months ago. So far, she is loving it (and so am I)! We go for an hour on Saturday mornings. She is in a class with other 2 and 3 year olds.

Until she is 3, Mike or I have to be out on the floor with her. Usually I go with her while Mike watches from the observation deck.

Sometimes she's a little fussy at first, but once she gets going, she has a blast. The instructor does a little warm up with the kids, then moves them on to three or four different obstacle courses using balance beams, a trampoline, cart wheel mats, wedges, a toddler sized bar, and sometimes even the rings!
She loves to do forward rolls and can already do them on the floor by herself without the use of the wedge mat! Sometimes, when she does them on the mat, she gets to excited and goes too fast. Last week she hopped up on the wedge and immediately went into a forward roll but didn't realize she was not in the center of the mat and she did her roll off the side of the mat and was about an inch away from hitting another mother standing there!
She also loves to go on the rings and the bars. She can't wait to get through the obstacle course for her turn at the bars again!
The balance beam is another of her favorites, I think we're gonna get her a beam for christmas so she can practice at home. The gym has a really cute pink one that sits on the floor and folds when not in use so it's easier to store.

Since we've been going, we've noticed she listens to us better and follows directions a little more, so that's an added bonus to getting her involved in being physically active. I try to practice with her at home a few nights a week after dinner. I got her a Cabbage Patch Kids hopscotch mat that she uses to practice her bunny and frog hops. It helps me get moving too, lol!

Ashley's Carnival!

more pics coming soon!

So, for Ashley's 2nd birthday we had a carnival party. Ashley's Carnival. It started with a simple idea that spiraled out of control!

We started with theperfectyardparty.com package which included a bounce house, cotton candy machine, bottle ring toss, bean bag toss, Plinko, sack racing, tug of war, and spin art.

Then, I added a duck pond which ended up being Brennan's personal pool.




I made the invitations to look like tickets (thank GOD for the Cricut) that said Admit One on the front and party details were on the back.

I built a ticket booth and back drops for all the games. Which, tooks several weekends of trying to find time to play with the power tools in the garage and keep my child out of it all.


For food, we had all carnival themed items: Sabrett hot dogs, corn dogs, soft pretzels, popcorn, nacho's, cotton candy, lemonade, sweet tea, bottled water, and sugar free Kool-Aid (lol). Thanks to Mike, Neil, Heather, and anyone else who may have helped get this set up!



I took paper gift bags and made personalized bags for each child to hold their tickets and goodies! I used the cricut to cut out each child's name and some balloon shapes and then glued it to the front of the bag. I used string to dress up the balloons a little. I filled each bag with game tickets and a plastic drink cup with a krazy straw.



The kids had a blast playing games and running in and out of the bounce house. Jason, Chuck, Nathan, and Melissa helped run the games.

The kids collected tons of prize tickets that they later cashed in at the prize table. Thanks to Steve and Heather for managing that for me!

Sunday and Norel brought the bubble machine and DJ equipment and played carnival music for us to enjoy all afternoon!
I rented child sized tables and chairs from Coastal Rental in Pasco so the kids had a comfy place to sit and eat under the tent! Decorations included balloons anchored in popcorn buckets and a pennant banner I made that said "Happy Birthday Ashley".







Chuck volunteered to handle the face painting for me. I was surprised the kids didn't end up looking like ICP. He did a great job painting unicorns, cupcakes, lady bugs, hearts, and spiders!



I even orderd a personalized shirt that had a cake on it and said "Ashely's Carnival" on the front, and the back said STAFF and the date!

The cotton candy was a trip. I was literally up to my elbows in the stuff. It's not as easy as it looks to twirl that stuff on those paper cones!

The cake was awesome, done by my friend Tracy! She did Ashley's first birthday cake and I'm sure she will be doing many many more!

Scotty's spin art!

All in all I think everyone had a great time, especially Ashley. She wandered around playing with her friends with balloons in her hands at all times! Everyone took lots of pictures so when she's older, I can show her what a fun birthday she had!

Yep, I'm a big dork. I set up a twitter account.

http://twitter.com/MistyI

Super quick and easy way to update. I can even text from my phone. It's kinda messed up. What is the world coming to? LOL

I really opened the account because I wanted to see the "tweets" from Phoebe, the pancake lady the morning cruise talks to all the time . I crack up everytime they call her, so I had to see her posts. Now I'm following half of the staff from the morning cruise (on The Joy FM, 91.5 fm in my area).

This could get addicting though. I see myself at work, texting updates to twitter, LOL!

VIOLATED

that's how I feel right now!

I am SO MAD that some pathetic soul felt that they had the right to smash the window of my car and STEAL my purse while I was at McDonald's getting my child a HAPPY MEAL!!
I normally don't leave my purse in the car, but for some reason tonight, I did. Mike had shoved it down in the floorboard of the passenger side when he got in the car with me and it was starting to rain when we got to McD's I just wanted to get Ashley inside so I forgot about it sitting there.

If they saw my purse in the car, surely they saw the car seat in the back, but that didn't stop them from smashing the window causing glass to fly everywhere, including in Ashley's seat! WHO DOES THAT? MY DAUGHTER COULD HAVE BEEN CUT BY GLASS!! GRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

Now I'm freaked out that someone who obviously is selfish and has no regard for other people or their property now has my driver's license, address, pictures of my daughter, and even one of my paystubs!

Shame on them and HA HA in their face! I don't carry cash and I was able to reach all of my credit card companies and banks to close my accounts. So outside of useless credit cards and a check book, all they got was my makeup, about 80 ibuprophen 800's, a Coach wallet and, sad to say, my FAVORITE purse!

Thank GOD all they got was my purse and did not try to take it while my family was in the car or harm anyone. All I can do is pray that this person realizes that they have no right to take things that do not belong to them and begs for forgiveness.

No matter what, please do not leave anything of value in your vehicle! Even if it is just to run into the store quickly. The cop said this is happening all over the place. Last week thieves hit a whole row of cars at a CHURCH! RUKM???? What is wrong with people!

So, if anyone in Spring Hill notices an ORANGE (I'm talking bright, Tony Stewart, Home Depot orange) leather Cole Haan purse (seriously, it's a pretty rare bag!), please let me know. I'd at least like to have my bag back since it cannot be replaced.

08.08.08

August 8th, 2008 marked 13 years that Mike and I have been together. Tomorrow, August 11th, will be our 6 year wedding anniversary. We didn’t really plan much to celebrate, but we did take a couple days off work to spend together and drove down to the Keys with Ashley to go to my best friend’s wedding.

We headed out Thursday morning and stopped in Orlando to hit the outlets on I Drive so we could get out and stretch our legs for a bit. I found a great deal on the Lacoste belt I’d been eying at the Saks Off 5th outlet, but that was about it.

Then we were off to West Palm Beach to visit with Mike’s sister and her kids. It was great to get to see our nieces and nephews, we don’t get to see nearly often enough. We had a late lunch at Fuddruckers, one of Mike’s favorites from childhood but we don’t have any in the Tampa Bay area so we like to hit them up when we travel.

After an all too short visit, it was off to Ft. Lauderdale where we spent the night at the Historic Riverside Inn on Las Olas Blvd. The hotel has retained most of its original 1930’s charm. We spent the evening walking around on Las Olas Blvd watching exotic cars cruise up and down the strip.

We attempted to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, but Ashley wasn’t having it and almost had a total meltdown in the middle of the place. I ended up taking her outside to watch the action on the street while Mike tried to finish eating and square away the bill. Ashley was amazed by the buses disguised as trolley cars and got excited every time one drove by. All we heard all night was “the bus” even as she was drifting off to sleep she was still mumbling, “the bus”.

The next morning we drove the rest of the way to Key West with a few stops along the way to break up the long drive. The wedding was beautiful, on Smather’s beach in Key West followed by an intimate reception at the Hot Tin Roof at 0 Duval Street. We had a fabulous dinner overlooking the water with a great view of THE SUNSET!

The next morning we wandered around downtown Key West. I couldn’t wait to see Ashley’s reaction to the chickens that wander around the island. We found a rooster and a few hens hanging out in Mallory Square. It was so cute to see how excited Ashley was! She was walking towards the chickens and following them going “come here, chicken”. Then, I had to hit up Sloppy Joe’s (at 10:30am, lol) to get a strawberry daiquiri to go in one of their large insulated mugs. I had to find some way to cool down! It was still too hot to do much, so after scoring a new pair of Kino sandals we headed to take Ashley’s first pics at the Southernmost Point. It was so hot, she wasn’t really interested, so I decided to skip on my traditional “Cheeseburger in Paradise” at Margaritaville and we headed out.

I think we’ll wait until winter or spring to take Ashley back to Key West. It’s just too hot in August and it’s really busy because of lobster season.

Tinkerbell

Thank God for the internet!

Ashley almost had a meltdown this morning throwing a fit she wanted to watch Tinkerbell on TV. She's seen all the Disney promos on TV lately for the new Tinkerbell movie and thinks I can make Tinkerbell, or Tinkeybell as she says it, appear on TV at a moments notice. Not so. That moview doesn't even come out until October 28th!

So, again, thank God for the internet. I was able to settle her down by going online and finding movie trailers and promos for the movie on youtube. It was enough to satisfy her Tinkerbell craving. I even printed a picture of Tinkerbell. It was so cute watching her stand in front of the printer waiting for the page to come out. She's on the floor doodling on her Tinkerbell pic with her new colored pencils which are stored in, what else, but a Tinkerbell pencil bag! Yay! LOL.

Welcome!

Between Ashley, and work, and all the everyday things I have to do, I don't get a lot of "free" time to sit and chat on the phone or even send emails that much. I have a lot of friends and family that I don't keep in contact with as often as I would like, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about them.
I usually "play" on myspace. It's been a great way to quickly catch up on what's going on in people's lives and to update friends on what's going on with mine. Since everyone isn't on myspace, I figured I'd give this a shot.
Hopefully this blogspot will be a way to keep our friends and family (that don't use myspace) up to date with what's going on with the Ivanics family. I don't see that I'll have a ton of time to post much or very often, but I'll try.