Wonderful Summer

This summer so far has been wonderful. We have been able to spend time with family and friends and do fun things around the area. I know that I have been MIA for a little while - that is summer for you. But I hope to get back into the swing of things with the blog soon. For now, here are some pictures from our activities throughout the summer.

Dog days of summer!

Mom's Surprise 60th Birthday Tea

4th of July Party Snack - blueberries, watermelon, cheeries, raspberries and cheese

Tommy & Brandon's party

Lunch date with Miss Molly

One of the many new recipes we tried

Zoo day with Molly and Christine

I got LASIK!

2015-2016 planning time!

My favorite racer

Emma's 1st birthday party

The Simm Family

Lindsay's Wedding!

Bills preseason

Christopher took 2nd place in his category at a 5k!

Papa's 95th birthday

Fun Weekend

This past weekend was so much fun! Friday night I got to visit with the Umstead twins for a little bit. They are such cuties and recently celebrated their 1st birthday! After visiting with them, I got to see one of my other favorite cuties Molly! And BONUS - girls night with Christine. It was so great catching up and watching some chick flicks. Looking forward to our next date.

Then on Saturday Christopher and I drove out to Rochester to visit with the Simm family and finally meet little Emma. We had so much fun too. We celebrated Christmas and Jack's 2nd birthday. He was super excited to play with his new tool bench.

Dennis and Anna are also doing well. It was great to catch up with them too. We are so blessed to have great friends in our life!

Middle of January Already?

I can't believe it is the middle of January ALREADY!!! Work for me has been super busy with year-end, PwC audit, export metrics and my SOX testing due - all at once.

Christopher is enjoying his new job at Nativity Miguel School and has started a "bow tie Friday" trend. I got together with one of my close friends and found out she is EXPECTING!!! Baby Urban coming July 1st! I can't wait to be an aunt again!

Christopher's brother Chet gave us his Bandits tickets while he and the family were out of town - Thanks Chet! We had a wonderful time and got to see the Bandits start their season with a win.

Little Jameson had his neuter performed. He is doing fine and was back to his normal self in...two hours. Seriously. He is resilient and was playing, eating and bugging Marv within a few hours of being home.

The rest of the month is busy and exciting for us too. We have our friends wedding "reception" party to attend. They were married the same weekend as Dave & Abby, but in Jamaica, so their family is throwing them a little party here. We have networking events, board meetings. I am looking forward to a date night with Christine!!! Woo hooo! And we are squeezing in a visit with the Simm Family in Rochester. Looking forward to meeting baby Emma!

Happy 3rd Anniversary to the Simm's!

Our dear friends Dennis and Anna are celebrating their 3rd anniversary today! They have had an incredible three years - a house, two beautiful children and many fabulous memories in between. We are very blessed to be a small part of their life together and hope to continue our friendship for years to come!

What Happened to Us???

I am back! Sorry for the long hiatus. I have no excuse for not updating the blog in a while - so I apologize for that!

Us Musialowski's have had an exciting new year so far. To sum up the last two months:

- Jack Patrick's 1st birthday
- Elle's started TLS - a healthy living plan (so far lost 14 pounds and 12 1/2 inches - woo hoo)
- celebrated Ryan & Linz's engagement
- our friend gave birth to twin baby girls
- Marv started Agility classes
- we hosted a GAMBIT gift gathering for CHS
- started our upstairs remodeling project
- attended Canisius College Basketball games, a Sabres game, BPO concert
- visited Jonathan and celebrated his 32nd birthday
- Christopher ran in the Chilly Challenge
- Christopher had shoulder surgery

Phew - it has been a crazy start to the new year and the way things are going it looks like it will continue to be that way for while - which is okay for us. We love being busy.

Elle's TLS program - getting the New Year off to a healthy start!

Happy Birthday to Jack Patrick

Congrats to our cousin Lindsay and Ryan on their engagement. Elle was also asked to be a bridesmaid - can't wait!

Aunt Cleo gave us tickets to the Sabres game for Christmas. Although they lost, it was a good time!

Go GRIFFS. The Golden Griffins beat Niagara...TWICE. It was awesome. The Griffs are now in 4th place in the MAAC.

BPO Concert

Little Mandy played orphan Annie in her high school musical. She was fantastic.

Will you be Valentine?

We all road tripped it to visit J for his birthday. It was our first "family" road trip with Mr. Marv. He did pretty well except for the hotel stay. 

And they are off! Christopher ran in CHS's Chilly Challenge and placed 3rd in his category - way to go Christopher!

Christopher post surgery. Everything went really well. Marv helped take care of his Daddy.

How do Weekends get so Busy?

Christopher and I had another fun and jammed packed weekend. On Friday, our friends Greg and his girlfriend, Emily came into town from DC. We then packed up the car and drove to Rochester to visit with more friends, Dennis and Anna and their cute baby boy Jack. We had a great night of burgers and games. I think we could have sat there and played Apples to Apples all night.

Then Saturday morning, I met my best friend Christine out for breakfast to celebrate her birthday. We went to Break 'N Eggs, a crepe place and it was delicious. Probably because we started and ended with dessert. Christine ordered the Nutella, banana, strawberry and whipped cream crepe and I had an orange sauce crepe finished with Grand Marnier. They were both scrumptious!

Saturday afternoon was amazing. I practically did NOTHING...well...except for the grocery shopping. But even that did not take long as I had most of the items for this upcoming weeks meals.

Saturday night we went to my friend Ashley's house for a moving party for her friend Felicia. It was a blast and there was so much delicious food! Ashley had dinner catered by Chiavetta's - a grilled chicken catering company based out of Buffalo. We also got to meet a bunch of new people too. And of course catch up with some old friends.

Sunday I had a baby shower to go to for my friend Lauren. It was great to see all of my pregnant friends (I think currently 5 are expecting!) and catch up with each other. I made a diaper cake for Lauren (and my friend Sheryl too) and it turned out pretty good. It was a little harder than I expected because I did not want to individually wrap each diaper (pain in the butt for me AND for the mommy to be), so I tried to fan them out and wrap them together. I used a cake pan to help and rubberbands to keep the layers together.

Cutest favors at the baby shower - pink nail polish (it's a girl!), little feet cookie cutters and we played a lottery game for prizes! Everyone went home with a cute prize - mostly candles. 

Chocolate covered pretzels on every table - so hard to resist!

Voila! This is the diaper cake creation. It turned out pretty cute, right?

My adorable friend Christine and her baby bump!  I can't wait to meet little Molly.

Christine and I at the baby shower

Sunday night Christopher and I relaxed and ate a delicious dinner together. Christopher loves bacon wrapped steak and is trying to perfect his method of cooking them. He ultimately would like to do a bite sized version for tailgating at Bills games. So Sunday night I got to be the Guinea Pig and try his bite sized creations. What a success! They cooked fairly quickly and were delicious! I made the sides - grilled broccoli and green squash finished in a garlic butter sauce and garlic smashed potatoes (Christopher's request).

Bacon wrapped steaks, grilled squash & broccoli and garlic smashed potatoes - yummy!

After dinner, we relaxed and watched Disney's Brave. We are totally excited for our trip to Disney and have continued the vacation countdown. We are looking forward to watching more Disney movies as the day gets closer!