As I celebrate my 35th birthday this week, I thought I would post 35 things you may or may not know…

1. I am a natural blonde. I have never colored my hair – even in my rebellious teens!
2. I love the C has the same hair as I do, although, as he gets older, he’ll probably not like it…
3. I am a hard person to be friends with – I can be moody, stand-offish, or competitive at times.
4. On the other hand, I am also loyal, I know how to have fun and I love to make people laugh.
5. I like to send people “real” mail.
6. I love dogs. I really want either a cocker spaniel or bulldog someday.
7. I still miss my Moo. I think about her almost everyday.
8. I love being a mom, I seriously love being a mom to 2 boys.
9. The hubs and I have been together 13, married almost 10. He is still my best friend.
10. I love to scrapbook. Capturing the memories for my kids makes me happy.
11. I have a strange addiction to scrapbook paper.
12. I love to read. Currently, I am addicted to teen vampire novels.
13. I love to take photos.
14. I want to improve my photography this year.
15. I set goals for myself each year, but I don’t talk about them very often.
16. I secretly love to go running if I feel like I have been sitting around all day or cooped up in an office. The act of pounding the pavement with my tunes is such a stress-reliever.
17. I never thought I would think that about running.
18. This is another one of those secret goals that I don’t talk about – I want to improve my running distance and skills this year.
19. But I won’t run if it is rainy or too cold. I’m not that into running (yet).
20. My favorite wine right now is Pinot Noir.
21. A great night to me would include wine, chatting and laughing with friends.
22. I love the spring and summer.
23. I would rather be hot than cold.
24. I wish I could work part time in the summer so I would have more time to play with the boys.
25. I love to take walks with them.
26. I am determined this summer to get us out hiking around MD. ((secret goal alert))
27. I think my son is pretty smart and am so glad that he is (finally) settling into school and working well in his class.
28. I think my friends are pretty cool. I wish I lived closer to some!
29. I am not the best of saying this to my far-flung friends, but I hope they know how much we miss them!
30. I love Athens. I am glad J doesn’t mind taking me there when we visit Atlanta.
31. I can’t wait to finish the basement and make it a GA room – A UGA room filled with my UGA pics, actually…
32. There will be some BLUE in it somewhere.
33. I still can’t believe I am in my mid-30’s. I thought it would be different than this somehow, although, now that I am here, I wouldn’t change a thing.
34. Well, maybe a few things – more time, less work, but overall, love the spot I am in.
35. I love to sleep.

Welcome 35, I guess I am ready for you!

In an effort to try new things and break out of my box a little, I decided to enter a little photography contest this month with one of the photos I took the other day. I had fun with the boys the other day and I really liked how some of the pictures I took turned out. So I decided to enter this one…

And see how it goes. This website does a photo contest each month. You can read more about it here, as well as see other entries. I am very interested in any feedback I get on the photo.

So while I am shaking on the inside for entering my photo, I am glad I finally got off the box (so to speak) and actually entered this month. So go over there and give me some love!

So as a family we have this “thing” that we do to each other – flashing the sign for “I love you”…we do it across the dinner table, across the room, at school drop off, from wherever one might feel like flashing it. The boys love it – they see it as our little secret and they flash it to me often. So in honor of this Valentine’s Day, I had an impromptu photo shoot with the boys flashing me their signs…

Bits shows me how it’s done…

C steps up his game, to show me his love.

I absolutely love that they do this with me. All too soon, they will think it is corny and not fun and will stop, so for now, I’m glad they think it’s a fun way to tell me they love me!

Oh and be sure to Click thru to see the rest of the set of photos. I got some fantastic smiles and the lighting seemed to really work for me. So enjoy and have a fab Valentine’s Day! We love you!

So you’ve probably heard, we’ve had a bit of snow over here. I could have posted every day that my office has been closed (thank you office for not making me go out in the snow!), but what was a supposed to post? Home because of the snow? And more snow. Oh and of course, it’s snowing. Well, I know you all have been there — even with these record breaking snow amounts for this area (thank you so much (read as SARCASTIC as possible)). So things are slowly getting back to normal, I do have to go back to work – and the kids have to go back to school (I think) (eventually). But here are some moments of the Blizzard of 2010 I hope to never forget…

Telling secrets in the snow

Down the lane (this looks like a card to me)

My bearded love

Snow as tall as Bits

What I could forget…

I hope you all enjoyed the ((forced)) winter break and stayed warm!

And my mad, mad photography skillz, man! We had so much fun seeing our friends in Atlanta over the holidays. Mainly because I wanted to get my hands on this little princess…

Who decided to not be born until only 8 days before we were set to be down there. They had to evict her to make sure she was out just to visit me. What? You don’t think they purposely made her come out for my visit? Well, whatever the reason, she was worth the wait and I was so excited to see the baby!

I am so excited to have another niece, another purpose to be in the little girl section, another girl to spoil (and then send home to mom)…

So welcome to the family, little one. Know you are loved.