During a recent visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame last September, I was mesmerized by the beautiful engravings on some of the hockey trophies. It was kind of hard to get a good pic of them since they were all behind glass and far away hah, but this one gives a good idea of what you'll find there. So beautiful!

Oops! I made a garden

Despite my WORST efforts toward nurturing a garden this year, I have managed to harvest a few vegetable plants. I really do love gardening, but this year has been brutal. We have been away on vacation just about every other weekend, and I've been a little bit of a diva when it comes to working in 100+ degree heat. That being said, (and with the help of my husband and mother in law) I have grown a cucumber plant, 3 tomato plants, and a bunch of basil! woo!!! Oh, there are some hot pepper plants that survived too, but I dont have pictures. Everytime I tried to take a pic of that, a yellow jacket would buzz around my face! Jerk! I am also waging a war on the yellow jackets by my house, but that is a whole other story.

Lilianna's first birthday!

Wow, a whole year, come and gone. I can't believe it! Lily's party was so much fun, nice and relaxing...just her style! So I will probably be updating my blog more, now that Lily's monthly newsletter wont be coming every month. This will be the best way to peek into our life to see what we are up to. :)

Hello!!!!!!

Hi blog, I miss you!

It is my favorite time of year for blogging. Every year, I snap pictures of the flowers and plants around the yard to see how much they have grown. Last year, the results were incredible. It's so exciting to see how far the plants and trees have come. Especially our weeping cherry tree, I already see some cherries on it. When Darin bought it, it was sick, but I'm so happy to see it looking so healthy now. Last year, I combined ALL the tulips into one spot, and some smaller tulips bloomed already, but then these giant huge ones came and look amazing.



I am so impressed this year with the bee balm and lupine. I planted these as tiny baby plants last year, and they are about 10 times bigger this year (no joke!) I hope they attract TONS of butterflies this year

Baby plants, 2010


Just one year later!

Inspiration

I searched the internet this morning for good advice and inspiration for life. And just to make sure I write these down somewhere...

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our Attitudes.

Charles R. Swindoll



I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou



Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it's my least favorite quality. It doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. I'm telling you. Amazing things will happen.

Conan O'Brien

Bongos!

Its about time I post some video for the out of town friends :) Lily loves hitting the table so much, we decided to get her some bongos :) She loves them! oh! The password is BongosFEB2011

Bongos! from Angela Ficorelli on Vimeo.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Lily was an absolute doll this morning. Every month I send out an enewsletter featuring the growing-ups of Lily. At the end of each month, I go through and collect a bunch of Lily pictures and realize that I dont have ANY pictures of me and Lily!! So then I try to do a quick photoshoot with the little doll, and its not always easy.

This month, I'm starting early. One of my favorite things is to hold Lily and look in the mirror and sing, Baby and Mama, Baby and Mama! Cheesy, I know :) but you find yourself doing these things when you're a mother, but very few of us decide to blog about it. Anyway, I decided to snap some shots of this little moment so it would last longer.