I pushed submit.

Friends, for the past two months I have writing, revising, outlining, and slowly but surely completing my application for the Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship. The application is only four pages long, but it contains six essays, soul searching questions, and you must dig up anything and everything that you have ever done that was noteworthy in your entire life or at least the last five years.

In October I started writing, in November I revised and narrowed down my word count, and for the past four days I have been punctuating, reading, re-reading and having everyone I know put in their two cents. Dear friends, that you for putting up with me and revising my writing. I have learned so much about grammar and the semi-colon in this past week.

The deadline for the application is 11:00PM tonight, but I clicked submit at 5:05 PM, took a shower, and poured myself a glass of wine.

As I type this, my application is floating out in cyberspace waiting to be reviewed by a panel of experts and all I can do is wait. AND PRAY. and wait AND PRAY some more. This fellowship is something that I have wanted for so long. It's something I know I can do. It's attainable. But at the same time, I know rejection is still an option. I applied last year and was cut and it broke my heart. I had worked so hard to put my best foot forward and it just wasn't good enough. Turns out I am not good at accepting rejection. Sohere I am again, putting myself out there. I am Charlie Brown going after the football.

If I remember correctly, the first round of cuts happen in February. Stay tuned.

Magical.

Our little town of St. Augustine is beautiful year round. The historical monuments mixed in with cobblestone streets, gift shops, street performers, and the city plaza are worth spending an afternoon wandering, shopping, eating, and picture taking. But at Christmas St. Augustine takes on new life. The city places millions of strands of lights on the architecture, trees, shrubs, and lamp posts. Our beautiful little town becomes breathtaking. I can't help but smile and fall into the Christmas spirit standing under these lights. As a Jersey girl who spent many a Christmas staring at Macy's window displays and the Rockefeller Tree, I can honestly say NYC has nothing on us. 

 Friday night we visited the lights with good friends. We strolled through the streets, chased Pip in the plaza, and searched for the single red light among the millions of white bulbs. 

 Sweet friends and my girl in front of the Plaza Tree.

 Where else can you celebrate TGIF amongst British re-enactors and pirates?

 Pip is a huge fan of Aunt Kristin. I think if she could have, she would have ditched me, and taken off with her for the evening.

Kristin found the one red bulb! 

 So blessed. I had no idea life could really be this good. 

Advent-ures

 This year I decided to bring back Advent Activities. I love the excitement and build up to Christmas and I like that I can add to Pip's excitement and create a few family memories with special activities built into our Advent Calendar. On Saturday our activity was a trip downtown to see the Christmas parade and on Sunday I wanted to keep it more low-key, but will fun. I planned brunch and a movie date with Buddy the Elf. 

Cinnamon rolls are dangerous in this house so I do not make them very often. As a surprise I baked  them for brunch, turned on the Christmas classic Elf, and Mr. R. and I enjoyed Target's new Christmas blend coffee. 

Pip actually watched Elf for about 20 minutes. (Translation: I was able to drink my coffee while it was still hot!) Her favorite part was dancing to the song Pennies from Heaven. I guess I need to pull out my Elf Soundtrack Christmas CD!

Saturday Night, Date Night

Saturday Night we planned to stay in and put up the Christmas tree, but there were errands to run, a weekly menu to write, an advent calendar to wrap (details coming later this week), and Mr. R. had accounting homework. 

All of a sudden it was 7:00 PM and we were starving and tired.

Enter easy appetizer date night, a bottle of moscato, and DVRed Modern Family episodes to catch up on. Add in some couch snuggling and you have my version of an ideal cheap and easy date.

 On the menu: 

1. Goat cheese stuffed dates wrapped in prosciutto. These are Mr. R.'s most favorite appetizer and he's lucky that we had all the ingredients on hand. They are super easy to make, slice date in half, remove the pit and stuff with goat cheese, wrap with half a strip of prosciutto. Broil for 7-10 mins.

2. Ham and Pineapple Dip with pretzels. 1/4 pound of deli ham sliced thin and chopped in your food processor. Add one small can of drained crushed pineapple. Add one block of softened fat free cream cheese. Add one to two tbs. of powdered sugar. Chop 4 green onions and stir in.

3. Crockpot brie and cranberry dip. It's Stephanie's recipe, and she is a genius. I serve ours with sliced honeycrisp apples.

Christmas at our house.

 I love going to friends and neighbor's homes at Christmas. I love seeing their decorations, the ornaments they choose for their tree.  My friend Jill decorates hers with birs she has collected over the years, my Mom had a beach themed tree last year with shells and ornaments collected from our vacations to St. Augustine, Ocean City NJ, and Hawaii. I am a big fan of mantles. Growing up both my parents and grandparents had fireplaces and each Christmas the mantle would be full of garland, ornaments, pinecones, lights, and Christmas cards. I love seeing how other people wrap presents. It's a great way to learn new decorating ideas. Do you use traditional wrapping paper, comics from the newspaper, or handmade?

Our house this Christmas is centered around our chalkboard wall. From yesterday's post you know I turned the chalkboard wall into a fireplace complete with a mantle. I hung our stockings, added Mom's handmade felt tree for Pip, and then I started decorating. The red beaded garlands came from IKEA, and the snowflake garland was created from Dollar Tree snowflakes and kitchen twine. The printables along the mantle are free subway prints I found on pinterest. 

I have always wanted a place to hang our Christmas cards and I discovered this tutorial on pinterest. The large Santa ornament came from the Dollar Tree, the ribbon I had on hand, and the cards are held to the ribbon with clothes pins.

To decorate the outside of the house I raided our garage and the decorations drawer. The trunk used to be in our foyer it's covered with an old tartan table cloth. 

On the trunk is an 4ft tree, our dachshund lamp, dressed in a Santa hat, and a glass hurricane filled with pinecones collected in the neighborhood. The red lanterns were a leftover from Pip's 1st birthday and I am hoping from the street they look like red Christmas ornaments

. To end this post I need to give a shout out to Mr. R. who hung the lights yesterday afternoon. He really wanted to catch up on DVRed TV, but he hung lights instead. 

Some weeks are better than others.... and this week was awesome.

 Monday: While running errands at Walmart the sweet bakery lady offered Pip a cookie. She was over joyed and remained occupied for the entire shopping trip and the long checkout lines.

Tuesday: Pip and I went in search of our Christmas decorations and we put up the foyer tree and ornaments. She is overjoyed with Christmas trees and lights. She actually stops moving for a full 30 seconds to stare in wonder.

Wednesday: Snowflakes! We will be having snow in Florida this year, it just happens that ours will be made of popsicle sticks.

Thursday: We tuned into our first Christmas movie of the season and we had our first fire in the house. 

And by fire I mean the chalkboard wall was transformed into a fireplace.

Friday: We met my very best teacher friends for dinner and then we walked through the Nights of Lights in St. Augustine. 

We are so lucky to live here and get to enjoy it's beauty the entire Christmas season.

Saturday: My BFF Danielle and her family met us downtown for the Christmas Parade! Afterward we took the girls to lunch at Panera where mac and cheese was enjoyed by all. And then they took over our playroom. 

All the toys were pulled out, Pip showed off her climbing and sliding skills, and Harper had a blast driving the pink car. I love these moments with my friend and our daughters. How lucky are we?

Happy Birthday Grandmom Republican!

Today is Mama Republican's Birthday.

And we wanted to take a moment to tell her how much she is loved. Mama Republican raised Mr. R. and now that I am a mother I realize motherhood is no joke. Mama R. raised Mr. R. to be well spoken and well read. She instilled in him to love his family feircely. She taught him to be generous with his time and talent. She taught him to save his pennies and to evalutate his purchases. She taught him how to love. They say a Mother is a Son's first love and she prepared him to show love to his future wife and family. Mr. R. is kind, patient, and he loves Pip and me with his full heart. Mama R. is responsible for that.

Mama Republican taught her sons to give back. She spent years in cub scout and boy scout camps planning events, setting up camp sights, and sewing badges. Grandmom Republican dutifully took her son's to church each Sunday and she raised Mr. R. to love Jesus and want our daughter to know the unconditional love of Christ. I am so thankful she raised boys who want to accompany their wives to church on Sunday. Mama Republican we are so thankful and grateful for you. Happy Birthday!