Life lately. . . .

1. ♥ Myself, Uncle Joe, Caylee and Jamie all taking a goofy picture
2. ♥ I decided Anthony needed a little whip cram on his nose, boy does he love me!
3. ♥ This is a picture of most of the grandchildren. Stephen, his fiance Diane Casey, Kyle and Tyler are missing
At the end of the month of January it's always a bittersweet time for my family, we celebrate the birth of one of the most important woman in the world, my grandmother. But we also celebrate the loss of an amazing man, my grandfather, her husband. A few years ago when my grandfather passed away we started a new tradition, we've always celebrated her birthday, but after my grandfather passed away we turned celebrating her birthday into an ALL day event! We start in the mid-afternoon by having a brunch, you know french toast, pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage and bagels! Which of course leads to sitting around all day playing cards and have great conversations. We usually end the night by having pizza's delivered which lord knows that's a lot of pizza's there is 8 adults, 12 grand kids plus 3 of the grand kids have boyfriend/girlfriends that come along too! Followed by birthday presents and a delicious birthday cake, this year, grandma got a princess cake! On top of the cake was a little crown and a magic wand! It was adorable and you could just tell that she appreciated the silly joke.

Since Anthony and I have been dating, we started a new little tradition for after my grandmother's birthday cake. Anthony and myself take all of my younger cousins (the ones that I want to go that is) bowling! Let me just tell you, everyone always looks at us like we're crazy because there are so many of us but we have a great time. Let's face it, we're young, we're crazy and we're italian. So you bet it turns out to be a really great time. Hearing the kids laugh and truly enjoy themselves make it an even more enjoyable night because I know that these are memories they'll always remember and that Anthony and I were able to share them with them.


1. ♥ I've been hitting the gym like crazy, sore as hell and always coming back for more!
2. ♥ Anthony and I have been spending as much time together as possible, love waking up next to him!
3. ♥ Back in December and late in January I got my fifth and sixth tattoo. I'm so happy with them!
So about a year ago, I had some labs drawn for my job and it was brought to my attention that my sugar was a little higher than normal. With diabetes running on both maternal and paternal sides of my family, I decied to get myself checked out. No surprise here, but I'm pre-diabetic. What does that mean? That means I'm lucky enough to not be diabetic, but if I don't fix it now, I will more than likely become it. So what does that mean? That means that the year 2013 is the year that I turn my life around. I started a diet the week before Christmas, I know you're saying who starts a diet the week before Christmas, but I did and I've been doing pretty well since then. I am now 9.4lbs lighter and on my way to an ultimate goal of 125 lbs. It's not going to be easy, I know that I am going to struggle, but I've changed my eating habits, I'm on medication to help control my eating and I'm hitting the gym 3-4 times a week for about 2 hours a day! I have an amazing support system behind me and I know that I can do this, I just have to keep focused and remember my main goal is to beat "pre-diabetes."

What else? Recently I've been spending as much time as possible with Anthony. March is approaching pretty quickly which means he'll be back to working 6 days a week again. It's difficult not being able to see him all the time when he's working, but we're hoping to be moving in together soon so things will be a bit different for us then.

The only other thing I want to blog about is my adorable new fifth and sixth tattoo! The fifth tatoo is on the back of my neck, it's an open heart tattoo. Yes just like the jewelry pieces, there was a different one that I also liked, but I settled for this one because I felt it'd look better. My sixth tatoo is a quote, this quote has a deep meaning to it in my life and I felt that something like this should only be made even more special by having it done in my mother's handwriting. The picture posted was taken literally RIGHT after he finished tattooing me, it states "open your heart to the scars of your past." I am truly so happy with the way they both turned out and they are defiantly something that I am going to cherish for the rest of my life, they were two of my best decisions ever.