Our 2012 Year in Review

It really is hard to believe that we're in 2013 now. Last night as the ball dropped John and I were still groggy from waking up 5 minutes earlier. There was no champagne, no wine. We barely cheered. Hahaha! All we wanted to do was go back to sleep. The year before was so different. What a difference a year makes, huh?

Looking back on this year, I realize how much Eva has grown and how God has blessed the important life decisions we've made concerning our family. So far everything is going very smoothly which lets me know that God's divine hands are involved. This is how the year of 2012 fared for the Mancini family:

 January - Eva's first experience of snow.

February - Eva's dedication 

 and her 2nd birthday

 March - Celebrating Eva being home for 1 year!

April - Eva's first church Easter egg hunt.

May - Eva met her uncle for the 1st time & she and I spent a month in Florida with her grandparents.

During this month, we also came to the realization that it would be possible for John to retire from his job 

and for us to move to Florida by June 2013. 

June - A wonderful unexpected opportunity afforded us the ability to go to Bermuda and stay with family for 10 days. Eva got to see old family members, meet new family members, and swim in the ocean for the first time.

July - Eva got her first face painting picture. 

This month we were able to go back to Florida to see my parents, celebrate my birthday 

and our 9th wedding anniversary!

August - A very busy month: We went to our first and last Ohio State fair. Eva tried cotton candy and other yummy fair junk food! We went to Cincinnati to attend an AGCI adoption picnic. The weather was sweltering. We felt like we were melting out there. This month was also Eva's last month of Mommy & Me classes. She started potty training. Also....

 She started her 1st ballet class.

We went apple picking for our favorite Honeycrisp apples! 

 September - We celebrated 2 very important Ethiopian holidays: Enkutatash - 

Ethiopian New Year and....

Meskel - The Finding of the Cross

Also this month, I started homeschooling Eva and she started a 1-day/week preschool class.

October - This was an equally busy month:

It started out with the 1st annual EOR (Ethiopian Orphan Relief) 5K run.

 Eva's 1st time going to a pumpkin patch and picking her pumpkins.

This year we went to Boo at the Zoo AND trick-or-treating!

While all of this activity was going on, I was busy packing us up for our month long business/vacation for November. For 2 weeks we stayed in a condo, so I had to pack up a mini household. That proved to be NOT an easy thing! 

November - We were in Tampa so that John could attend a 2-week law enforcement certification course. This was a MAJOR step towards our move to Florida in the summer of 2013. While we were in Tampa, Eva and I did a lot of really cool things: We went to the zoo and Eva....

 

Rode a horse for the first time.....

And rode a camel for the first time!

She even fed a giraffe!!

We also went to Glazer Children's Museum and the Aquarium. Eva met new family members and fell in love. We were blessed to be able to spend Thanksgiving with my parents, and very thankful that John passed his Florida State Exam to be able to work as a police officer in the state. 

December -  While this was not Eva's first Christmas with us as a family, it was her first Christmas in our hometown. She enjoyed every aspect of the season: the snow, watching it fall, helping her dad, grandfather and uncle build a snowman, make snow angels, and have a few snowball fights. It was a wonderful and blessed Christmas!

I pray that in 2013, God continues to bless us and move us all in His direction as a family. Happy New Year!!

Christmas 2012

From the time that we returned home after Thanksgiving until just a couple of days ago, it has been extremely hectic. From decompressing from all the traveling to getting Eva back into her classes, keeping appointments to getting the house cleaned in time for family, I feel like I am just now able to take a breath.

In years past, Christmas for our family has been in Florida. Both John and I have had our more-than-fair share of snowy white Christmases, shoveling, ice and just bitter cold. So Christmases in Florida were paradise for us.

However, for this past Christmas, I really wanted Eva to experience her first possible white Christmas. I wanted her to wake up in her bed, in her room, run into our room excited to go downstairs and open presents. You know, the whole fantasy. So blessed to have the family I have, they came from both the east and west coasts where it's warm and tackled the cold for over a week for their girl Eva.

The festivities started just one week before Christmas when my brother arrived. The next day my parents arrived. For Eva, that was Christmas! Presents were just icing on the cake. 

Usually Eva wakes up around 7:30 in the morning but this Christmas morning she woke up a little earlier. Normally I would take her back to her room but not this morning. As John was talking to her and getting her excited for opening presents, she just had a bit of a meltdown. Go figure! So, back to her room she went for about an hour until she settled down. We finally got downstairs around 9 o'clock and this is what Eva saw:

One of her aunts (John's sister) got her this adorable Little People Nativity set. I love it. And so did Eva. She was no longer interested in the gifts under the tree once she saw it. I had to coax her to start opening up gift bags and the such. She's still getting used to the concept. After opening a couple of gifts, she was ready to be done and play with her toys. It actually took a while for her to go through them and even then we had to take an intermission so she wouldn't have another meltdown.

It was a wonderful day. So relaxing. Eva had the best time and that's what was most important. No naps on Christmas! I didn't dare suggest it. I just let her wear herself out!

Merry Christmas to all. I hope you had wonderful and blessed time with family and friends this holiday season.

A Visit to Tampa Zoo

For the first 2 weeks in November, we were in Tampa, Florida. John was enrolled in a 2-week course that allowed him to make his police officer certification in Ohio equivalent to Florida. After his 2 weeks of 6 days per week, 10-hour days, he received a certificate and was then able to take his Florida State Exam, WHICH HE PASSED!!!

We stayed in a really cool resort/suite that had a living room, full kitchen, and balcony with a gorgeous view of Tampa Bay. For the first several days, Eva and I did not venture out much. We did one day of major grocery shopping, but other than that, we stayed in and got used to our new normal. 

By the end of the first week, we were both ready to do something fun. 

Enter the Tampa Zoo!!

We got there late morning and Eva had already given me her list of animals that she wanted to see. Some she got to see, some she didn't get to see. She was able to ride a couple of the kiddie rides - of course, ride the carousel - and had a few really great experiences :-)

The first one was with the giraffes. Tampa Zoo has an interactive experience that gives you the opportunity to feed the giraffes. They were so beautiful. I was more excited than Eva at the chance to see her feed them. Our first attempt was a bit of a failure. Our giraffe walked away from us and wouldn't come back. So we got some lunch, had another fun experience (I'll talk about that in a minute), got some ice cream, rode the carousel again, and then went back for another try.  
 
Fortunately, a different giraffe was ready for some attention. Eva and I ran up to the platform and bought a bunch of lettuce. I don't know why I keep thinking that Eva will somehow be freaked out by these opportunities - the girl has NO FEAR!!! She took the lettuce from me, walked up to the fence, stuck her arm out and fed the giraffe. She didn't even flinch when the giraffe's tongue licked her hand. MY GIRL :-) 
I was so tickled that I bought another bunch of lettuce and let her do it again. What an awesome experience!!

  

The second experience was in between the giraffe feedings. After lunch, we made our way to the kiddie part of the zoo, where the small rides and petting zoo are. After spending some time petting some goats, Eva informed me that she really wished she could have a "horsey ride". OK. Time for me to make another wish come true :-) Again, I thought that once she got up-close-and-personal with the pony, all bets would be off and she wouldn't want to ride it. I could not have been more WRONG! She got her little helmet on, climbed on, held the head of the saddle and talked with the girl leading the pony the entire time. My girl - The Little Equestrian.

Our last cool experience came after our giraffe feedings. Still on my little high from watching Eva feed the giraffes, we started walking deeper into the zoo when I saw this:

My thought "Ooooo, I would love to see Eva ride that!!" Little did I know I would HAVE to get on that thing and RIDE IT WITH HER. Oh boy!!! Here we go. 

It wasn't that bad. It was different......interesting. Eva liked the ride and right after it was over, wanted to ride it again :-) It was a very full day. Eva got to do some of her favorite things, got to experience some new things, see some new animals, and have an all-around awesome day. So thankful that I get to be there when these days happen!!

Halloween 2012

Our Halloween was very busy this year. And it started with activities the week before Halloween. It started with Boo at the Zoo. It was mine and Eva's first time doing something like that. What a beautiful day....sunny, warm, a slight breeze. Eva was layered up, so she was totally comfortable until around sunset when it got really chilly and she started getting cold.

This year Eva has really gotten the concept of wearing a costume, trick-or-treat, and candy :-) And she absolutely LOVES the Zoo. This was truly the best of both worlds for her! We spent almost 3 hours there, checking out the animals and trick-or-treating at all the different vendors. For dinner that night, we went to our favorite Ethiopian restaurant for dinner.  

 












The morning of Halloween, Eva had dance class so she got to wear her costume again. She absolutely loved her giraffe costume. She had her 30-minute dance class with all of her friends and at the end the whole class took a photo op. Fun!!!!

That evening started with one of two Trick-or-Treat events. The first one was at an event called Boo on Broadway. It was held in our town. A few streets were blocked off and small business vendors as well as businesses on the street passed out candy and treats to all the little ones. It was cold and rainy but Eva had a good time. There's something to be said for getting there right when an event starts. We hit every vendor and small business there was and in an hour we were back home!

 












After we got home and warmed up for a couple of minutes, we were back out trick-or-treating in our own neighborhood. We only visited about 8 or 9 of our neighbors. Eva was totally at ease knocking on a door, saying "trick-or-treat", saying "thank you", and then moving on to the next neighbor. By this time, it was totally dark outside and very cold.

We were back at home inside of 45 minutes and Eva had acquired enough candy to last her the next 6 to 8 months. Wow!!

Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin carving is always something that I've admired from afar. I always thought it was so cool to see the pumpkins all "designed" up but I never imagined how much work went into it.

Well this year I was very enthusiastic about carving pumpkins, probably because I knew this was our last "Ohio" fall and I wanted to experience and have Eva experience it. I had the templates, the tools and my right-hand man! 

John had carved pumpkins before, so he knew exactly what it would entail. Me, on the other hand....totally clueless :-) Here's how it went down:

It started out fine until John realized how thick the pumpkin was. He had to use a lot more muscle than he thought.

When it came time to clean out the pumpkin, Eva was ready to lend a hand!

 

Next, it was time to carve out the face. I had a heck of a time getting the template to show up on the pumpkin. After 10 minutes of using some tool that's supposed to score it, I had to use a marker so that we could actually see where to carve.                    

And here is the end result. Eva is saying "Hooray" for her cool pumpkin!

          

By the time we got to the second pumpkin, Baby B's pumpkin, we were WAY less tolerant with carving it out, as you can see. John was tired and wanted to be done! Hence the triangle face :-) But once we put the changing lights in them, they looked really cute.
                         

                  












Now that I've helped with carving pumpkins, I don't need to experience that again. Been there, done that, thanks for the memories :-) Maybe I'll come across something next year that will be really cute and less time consuming!