Author: Chelsea

Family Holidays 2021

February 10, 2022

Graham’s First Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year! We started the day with a FREEZING cold Turkey Strut. It was good to get out of the house and get in some exercise. We ordered most of our meal from Salem Kitchen so all we had to do was heat it up. I made a green bean casserole and homemade dressing, but otherwise we kept it low key. Aunt Jody came in the afternoon to have Thanksgiving with us and brought 2 pies and some deviled eggs. Graham tried and liked all of the food we had for our meal, he even had a bite of pumpkin pie! It was a great first Thanksgiving for G!

Christmas in Old Salem. We spent the morning walking around, listening to the carolers, and eating fresh Moravian Sugar Cake. I love the bridge in Old Salem at Christmas.

Christmas at Graylyn. We had a nice lunch at Graylyn before going to meet Santa. This was Graham’s first time seeing Santa. As you can see he was intrigued at first but then like most kids he was not a fan of sitting in his lap. Sorry, but I love the picture of him in Santa’s lap. It is a classic.

Christmas visit from Grandpa Jack.

Christmas at Reynolda House on a warm December day. Playing in the water fountain and the fields.

School Christmas Party! I love this background the teachers set up for the photoshoot, the kids did a gift exchange and everything!

We spent several days in West Virginia at Sean’s parents house this year celebrating Christmas. It was so much fun to see Graham start to be interested in Christmas. He liked the lights and all the shiny things best of all. Sean’s brother and his wife were in town for the holiday’s as well, so it was fun for Graham to be able to spend more time with his aunt and uncle. It was unusually warm so we spent a lot of time outside on walks and on the porch which was nice.

Champagne wasn’t the only thing popping this New Year’s Eve. My belly officially popped. We had a nice dinner out with friends while Aunt Jody baby sat G, and that wrapped up our holiday season this year!

We’ve been keeping a secret…

February 7, 2022

Graham is going to be a BIG BROTHER! The Easter Bunny is bringing Graham a little sister. I am due on April 17th, Easter Sunday. I know that Graham is going to be a wonderful big brother and look forward to them being so close in age. It may be a bit chaotic for a while, but how lucky are we to have two little ones that can grow up together and hopefully become the best of friends. I have been feeling great other than being tired from chasing a one year old and being pregnant at the same time. We are soaking up the time with him as an only child, but we are so excited to meet our sweet girl.

Spend the Day in Reims

February 5, 2022

Paris – Day 3

On our third day of the trip we took the train to Reims to explore the champagne region. It took a little over an hour to get there and was well worth it. This was maybe my favorite day of vacation. Reims was a fun town to see and we found it very walkable. The Museum of the Surrender allows you to experience the location where the German’s surrendered World War II. The map room is still exactly as it was on the day of the surrender. We really enjoyed this museum. It is next to a local school and we accidentally went into the school looking for it. Ooops. From here we walked to the Reims Cathedral. It is absolutely beautiful, the stained glass is unbelievable! The history here is fascinating; It was built in the 13th century and was the location for all of the coronations of the French monarchs. After this we walked to Brasserie Le Gaulois for lunch. Our waitress was great and talked about how much she loved having a chance to practice speaking English, however the food was honestly not good. Kind of reminded me of the French version of Applebees. I should mention that we came to Reims on a Monday and many places are closed so we didn’t have as much to choose from. We knew that going in to the day and were fine with it, but I do wish we had been able to try some of the places we heard about. One cool thing about the restaurants in Reims was they have great champagne selections so we were able to try a few from places we weren’t able to visit. From lunch we walked to Tatinger where we had made a reservation for a tour and tasting. Most of the larger champagne houses require reservations for a tour. We enjoyed the tour and our guide was great. We did a tasting and ended up buying some to have shipped home. From Tatinger we walked to Pomery. We did a tasting here and bought a couple more bottles. After a full afternoon of champagne drinking we found l’edito brasserie to stop in for dinner. We enjoyed the food here and our server was great! It was the only restaurant of the entire trip we went to where the server spoke no English (our problem not his – for being in France and not speaking any French), but he kept apologizing to us and was just so nice! Our last stop before the train was the local grocery store. This was a great stop as we found many of the local champagnes we hadn’t been able to try for sale here.

More from our trip : Day 1, Day 2, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6

Graham’s First Birthday Party

February 3, 2022

Winter Onederland First Birthday Party

winter onederland first birthday cake
winter onederland first birthday party decor
winter onederland first birthday party
winter onederland birthday party
winter onederland birthday party

Waking up as a one year old on his first birthday!

Graham had a wonderful first birthday party at our home on the day before his actual birthday. I decided on a “Winter Onerderland” theme. We served potato soup and chili and had a hot chocolate bar to go with the theme. I set up a cookie decorating and snowman making station outside for the few older kids that came. My coworker made the most adorable shirt for Graham to wear. I think the whole party turned out really cute. Graham had a good time with all of his new toys and books, and of course the wrapping paper. We had such a good time celebrating with friends and family! I was so thankful to be able to have a small get together safely in our home this year! As you can see from the photos the smash cake was a huge hit. All it took was one bite and Graham was ready to demolish the cake. We love our one year old boy!!

Graham is Twelve Months Old!

January 29, 2022

48 weeks – day light savings time got to us all

48 weeks – napping with Aunt Jody while Mom and Dad went to the Panther’s game. (day light savings time at it again!)

48 weeks – first time in a grocery buggy – of course it was at Total Wine

48 weeks – napping with Mommy. This will never get old to me sweet boy.

48 weeks – eating spaghetti

48 weeks – First Chic-Fil-A

49 weeks – eating stir fry and cheesing it up!

49 weeks – dinner at Moe’s – the black beans were a hit – one of your first times in a restaurant (Covid Kid)

49 weeks – Your First Thanksgiving

49 weeks- post Thanksgiving nap

50 weeks – home for a sick day with Daddy – Facetimeing Mommy at work

50 weeks – In a real pickle – stuck under the bar stool

50 weeks – lounging at the table out to lunch

50 weeks – Christmas at Old Salem

51 weeks – starting to learn how to use your cup

51 weeks – your favorite face to make

51 weeks- Reynolda Gardens

My sweet Graham how can it be that you have been ours for over a year! It has been the hardest, most challenging, sleep deprived year, that has been the most wonderful time with SO MUCH JOY! You are the absolute love of our lives and watching you grow this past year has been just the most rewarding experience. At 12 months you are cruising around with ease and getting anywhere you want to go. You’re not quite walking but it will be here soon enough. You happily eat most anything we serve you and are getting better and better at using your sippy cup and feeding yourself. You want to do it all with no help! You’re sleeping through the night very well now, which we are SO THANKFUL for. You’re doing lots of jabbering and talking. Your first word was “ba” for ball. You are almost always happy and smiling, and able to go with the flow most of the time. You still love playing ball with Bertie. Books are becoming more interesting to you. We are soaking up this time with you because you are just SO MUCH FUN right now! I’ve said it before but you were such a bright light for us in a challenging time for so many. While 2021 was certainly better than 2020 for us, we are so thankful for the light and joy you brought to us! We love you so big little one!

Graham’s One Year Photoshoot

January 25, 2022

We had family photos taken a few days before Graham’s birthday. We used Amber again and I am so happy with how they turned out. She is so wonderful to work with and so good with Graham. The location she picked and the time of day is just perfect!! Sean’s parents were in town for Graham’s first birthday party already so we asked them to join in on the photos as well. How cute is Graham in his bowtie and suspenders!?! I just love these photos so much!

Eiffel Tower Photoshoot

January 25, 2022

One of the best things we did in Paris was to book a photo shoot with The Paris Photographer. Remember how I said I didn’t love how our wedding photos turned out. Well, it is so great that we booked these photos before even getting our wedding photos back, because we have some images that we love from this special time in our lives. A colleague of mine heard about our trip and told me about The Paris Photographer. Her sister had been married in a small ceremony in Paris and they had taken absolutely beautiful photos from the ceremony. I did some research and found that they book mini sessions that are totally affordable (the wedding packages would have been out of my price range). We booked our session with Ioana and she was so much fun! The session included these 15 images, which in my opinion is plenty. She happened to get stuck in the metro on the way and ended up being very late to the session. She was texting us updates the entire time and it was totally not her fault, but I think she felt really bad so what was supposed to be a 30 minute session ended up being nearly two hours, so we had a lot of images to choose from and I just love these photos!!

Paris – Day 2

January 22, 2022

On our second day in Paris we got up and had photos taken at the Eiffel Tower with a photographer from The Paris Photographer. I have mentioned before how I wasn’t too happy with our wedding photos, so we were SO HAPPY we did this! The photos turned out great and are such a fun memory. After our photo session we went back to our apartment to change into more comfortable clothes before heading out to explore the Jewish Quarter in Marais. We had heard about the food in the neighborhood and decided to go for lunch. The crowds were crazy and there were lots of long lines, we went to L’as du Falafel first but couldn’t even find the end of the line so we went to another spot nearby where we could be seated right away. I’m thinking it was Mi-Va-Mi, and it was really quite good. We took a little nap after lunch before heading out for the evening. We decided to head for rooftop drinks at Perruche, which a very cool spot on the top of a Printemps department store. We arrived just before closing time, but they were so great and let us come in for drinks anyway! The view from here is awesome and we really enjoyed this spot!! It was a Sunday evening so it was a little tough to find a spot to eat. Apparently lots of places close up early on Sunday. We weren’t far from Champs-Elysees so we decided to walk here from drinks in search of food. Since it is a more touristy area the shops and restaurants were still open. We browsed a few of the high end store before finding Cafe di Roma for dinner. It was definitely one of the more touristy places we ate, but there were locals there too with families and children. The pizza was good and we were happy to find a place that was open!

More from our trip: Day 1, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6

Paris – Day 1

January 15, 2022

This is long overdue. We went to Paris in 2019 on our honeymoon. I don’t claim to be a travel blogger who tells you all the places to go, and takes all the glamorous pictures. I take snapshots of our real travel and real experiences. And I started this site so I would have them all collected in a place to come and look back on them. And I never posted these because, time got away from me, and then it was covid, and it was depressing to look at pictures of us travelling and having fun when we were locked down panicked about the future. So now here we are two years and (almost) two babies and a global pandemic later, and it’s wonderful to look back on these and see how much has changed in our lives since then.

We spent a week in Paris and since it has been so long ago, I’ll probably just post the pictures from each day with the highlights from the day. We stayed in the Marais District at a really great AirBnB. The host was wonderful, we were near a big metro stop, we loved exploring the area around the apartment and felt it was convenient to everything we wanted to see.

On the first day we dropped our bags at the apartment and went straight to Rue Cler. This was our first chance to learn how to navigate the metro. Sean had an app that he found that was super helpful, you could put in where you wanted to go and it would give you the best route using your current location, but overall we found the metro super easy to use. We had breakfast at a restaurant we came across and spent the morning checking out the shops along the street. We bought wine and cheese and snacks for our apartment. We had planned to try to stay up all day to get adjusted to the time change, but ultimately didn’t make it. We were up basically all night on the plane, and just crashed after our morning out. That evening we went out to explore the Marais district. We stopped in a brasserie (pretty sure it was called Cafe Charlot) along our walk for dinner and had a delicious meal. After dinner we went to Little Red Door and then to Shake N’ Smash. The Little Red Door has been rated one of the top 50 bars in the world. Pro tip – if you go there you don’t actually enter through the red door, there is a blue door to the left that you can’t see because it matches the wall. You’re welcome. We looked like idiots. But so did a whole bunch of other people trying to get in. We grabbed a few fancy cocktails, before heading home to call it a day.

More from our trip : Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6