a mom's view

Gladiators

2012-01-30T20:39:00.001-05:00

Saturday night we went to the Gladiator’s game with my family. It was my parents, Papa and Peggy, Uncle Hawk and Lissa, Becca, Tommy, and his nephew Jake. We had a great time. I spent most of the time talking or having my kids climb on me so I didn’t really see much of the game.

It was a much needed family night!

Trial Run

2012-01-30T20:32:00.001-05:00

Guess what we have been practicing around here?

Back at Sam’s two year check up the doctor asked if I was going to start potty training. I said “NO!”. I had no desire to even tread in that water yet. Well, Sam has decided that he wants to check it out. See what all the big kid fuss is about. We went to Target to buy the “big boy underpants” and he occasionally spends the afternoon in them. He does really well! After the first couple of days he stopped having accidents.

We are definitely not rushing this but it would be pretty cool if he was potty trained before I had to buy another box of diapers.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

2012-01-27T08:32:00.000-05:00

For some reason, Reese has been wearing her tap shoes all day, every day.

If, by chance, she has taken them off for a few seconds, Sam snatches them right up.

He cracks me up so much! He copies every thing Reese says or does. Most of the time she tolerates it. However, she does not like when he is wearing her tap shoes.

The Dentist

2012-01-26T13:29:00.001-05:00

Reese had her first dentist appointment yesterday. I am not a huge fan of the dentist so I have been putting this off. I decided to not make a big deal about it so that she wouldn’t see or feel my anxiety over it.

She was so brave about going and had a smile on her face the whole time. It might have been the fact that she had me all to herself too. Sam went to play at his buddies Harrison and Davis’ house. He had a blast. Thanks, Jenny!

The hygienist was so great. She was very sweet and definitely put Reese (and me) at ease. And Reese! She was perfect! She was such a big girl. I was SO proud of her. I could stand to learn a few lessons from her myself.

Waiting for the dentist and watching “Daddy Daycare”. That movie is too cute!

Unfortunately, Reese has a little cavity on one of her molars. The dentist said he didn’t even notice it when he was looking in her mouth. He saw it later on the x-rays. We definitely have not been flossing with her and I think it caught us because it is on the inside of the tooth between the two molars. Honestly, flossing wasn’t even something I thought about yet. I feel soooo horrible. What kind of mommy let’s her four year old get a cavity?!? We will definitely start flossing now and hopefully Reese will do well with the filling.

This is a picture they took of Reese after having her x-rays done. It is a picture of the picture but I had to share it. She had the biggest grin on her face.

I am so proud of Reese though and the way she behaved yesterday. I do not give her enough credit some times. I thought it was going to be a pure drama fest but I was so wrong! She even told Sam she loved going to the dentist!

Sweet Loves

2012-01-23T13:59:00.001-05:00

It is so nice to see the kids interact in a sweet way. Lately they have been very sweet to each other. Don’t get me wrong, they have their moments, but overall they play well together. Reese has definitely taken over the big sister role. She protects Sam, looks out for him, and bosses him around.

This weekend when we were furniture shopping Sam would not stay with us. Finally we were over it and and said we were leaving. Sam just stayed put where he was as we were walking towards the door. Reese kept calling his name and would run back towards where he was but she also didn’t want to get left behind. She had this look on her face that was completely torn. It really was so sweet!

When Sam gets in trouble he always runs to Reese for a hug and she always has her arms open wide saying, “Come here, Buddy!”. They are so sweet and I love this picture of them!

Super Hero

2012-01-22T22:54:00.001-05:00

There hasn’t been much going on around here lately. We have just been back in the swing of life after the holidays and I have been bad about even pulling the camera out. I am making it a goal to try to get some more pictures over the next couple of weeks because I really don’t want to miss out on the sweetness going on around here.

Friday night we had our neighborhood friends over for pizza and a movie. The girls have not played together since before Christmas because they go out of town for the whole two weeks of break. They were so excited to see each other. They all sat down to have a picnic and watch the movie while the parents played catch-up at the table. They are planning a Disney trip right now so there was a lot of Disney talk happening.

Saturday morning we laid around for a bit and then went out for lunch and to go shopping for Sam a big boy bed. We didn’t make any purchases but found several we liked. By this age, Reese was already in her big girl bed because we were weeks from having Sam. I am just keeping him in his crib for as long as possible. Would it be horrible for him to start kindergarten still in a crib?

When we returned home it was nap time so we got both kids ready for a nap, I put Sam down and we surprised Reese with a trip to the movie theater to see Beauty and the Beast in 3-d. She did very well all week with her chore chart and that was her reward. She loved going but didn’t love wearing the glasses. She would take them off for a while and then wear them again. We had a great “girl party” and then we picked the boys up and went furniture shopping a little more.

After church today the kids took a nap and Lance went in to the office for a little while. Ok, I took a nap too. It was fabulous! After the kids were up we were lazy for a while watching movies (I read a book) and playing on the computer/ipad/iphones.

A couple of weeks ago Reese’s class was talking about the letter ‘M’ and their teacher gave them all masks. Reese came home and decided she wanted to be a superhero. So she wore her mask and I tied a blanket around her as a cape. Well, Sam was fascinated by this and has been eyeing that mask any time it is left alone. Reese eventually got tired of the mask and was fine to let Sam play with it.

Tonight, Sam ran up to me with the mask on and yelling, “I a superhero!”. He is such a fun and silly kid!

I could not have planned a better way to end my evening with the kids.

Storytime

2012-01-17T14:41:00.001-05:00

When Reese was little I took her to story time at the library every week. We would meet our friends there and we made new friends there. Poor little Sammy has not been to story time. Today a friend asked if we wanted to go so we did. Sam did so well. He sat on the rug and did exactly as he was supposed to. He listened to the books, sang the songs, and was so well behaved. I was sooooo proud of him! We will definitely be going back more often!!

- Posted from my iPhone

Good Daddy

2012-01-13T11:24:00.001-05:00

On Christmas eve, Reese wanted her fingernails and toenails painted but still had some old polish on them. I had already painted my nails so I could not remove her old polish. Lance stepped in like a good Daddy and removed it for her. It was sweet to see him doing something I know he wanted nothing to do with.

- Posted from my iPhone

Routine

2012-01-12T16:52:00.001-05:00

This week Reese was back to school. While we had a wonderful break from our everyday routine, I was ready for the routine back and I think the kids were too. Reese was so excited to be back at school with her friends. Sam was not quite as excited to be back at the gym but he was happy to have that special time alone with me afterwards again. However, each day he has said that he misses Reese. I have not taken one single picture this week except for a few on my phone. Those consisted of Sam hiding in the laundry basket while playing hide and go seek and a picture of Reese so she could see her hair. She actually let me play with her hair. I always ask if I can play with it and she says no. Her sensitive head wants nothing to do with hands in her hair unless it is necessary. She also played with my hair. It was a lot of fun.

While Reese was at school one day this week I realized that in a couple of months I will be registering her for Kindergarten. My heart started beating faster during this realization! I can’t believe that 2012 is here already. I am not ready to send her to big kid school yet. I remember when she was born and figuring out what year it was that she would start school. I never imagined it to get here so soon. Hopefully the rest of the school year will drag on a little longer than the first half did.

I swear over the break Sam grew, learned, and started talking even more. He has been cracking us up this week with things he has been saying. Yesterday I gave them some apple slices for snack and he wanted some peanut butter to go with them. He kept saying, “Peanabelly pleeeeease?”. Once we figured out what he was saying, Reese and I just giggled and giggled which caused him to say it more. By the time I had the peanut butter out, Reese was belly laughing.

Clown Shoes–Part 2

2012-01-08T20:20:00.001-05:00

Remember when Reese thought it was funny to wear “clown shoes”?

It was super nice outside on New Year’s day. When we were working in the garage making the frames for the mirrors the kids were playing out in the yard. Before they came outside I told them they both had to put shoes on. When Sam came outside these were the shoes he was wearing. And they were both shoes for your left foot. What a mess!

Cold Zoo Trip

2012-01-06T15:28:00.001-05:00

On Wednesday, some friends and I took our kids to the zoo. It was cold (high was 49 degrees) but we bundled up and had a great time. We arrived around 11:30 and I parked in the front row of the parking lot. I have never done that before…even getting there early before the zoo opens. All of that to say, there was no one else at the zoo. We had the place to ourselves. And it was perfect! We were all bundled up enough that it was perfect in the sun and not too chilly in the shade. The kids had a blast running around together (they had a little more freedom than usual because of the empty zoo) and I had fun visiting with the mommies.

The “babies” of the group. From left to right, they go youngest to oldest.

The “big” kids.

Sam had a new buddy in Harrison. They were sweet holding hands.

All the little rugrats. They are just too cute!!

I am so glad we didn’t chicken out because of the weather. It was a perfect day at the zoo.

New Year’s Goal

2012-01-03T20:51:00.001-05:00

When we originally bought our house we thought we would only be here a couple of years and then move on. Well, six years and a bad economy later, we are still here. We really wanted to be out of our house before Reese started kindergarten to be in a better school district but that is not going to happen. So we will make the best of it for now.

Our goal for this year is to do a ton of home improvement so that hopefully we will be able to sell this house sooner rather than later. We started that excitement on New Years Day. Thanks to Pinterest we had our first project and were off to Home Depot for the supplies.

In our bathrooms we just had the basic builders mirrors and we wanted to dress them up a bit.

We started with the half bath down stairs since it is smaller…less area to mess up. After we knew what we were doing (sort of) we moved on to our master bathroom.

After getting it all cut and glued, we put some tape on it to make sure it stayed in place while it dried.

Finally the next day we were able to take the tape off and see what it looks like. Apparently I didn’t take a picture post tape in the half bath. I love how they turned out.

I still need to caulk the corners and then I am going to paint them (this will be a nap time job). I think I am going to paint the downstairs one a dark color but haven’t decided on the master frame. I kind of like it white because I feel like it makes the bathroom lighter.

Now we just need to replace those ugly lights…and about a million other things in our house. Ha! We are off to a good start though and it was a fun project.

Aquarium Visit

2012-01-03T20:29:00.001-05:00

For Christmas, Lance’s parents gave us season passes to the Aquarium. Reese and I were very excited about this so today we took our first trip (as season pass holders) down there. We got there right before 10:00, when they open, and it was the perfect timing. We went straight to Guest Services to get our pictures made for our passes and then we were off.

We decided to see if Sam could make it with out the stroller today and he did great! I was so proud of him and he loved running around with Reese. I think Reese enjoyed it too.

Remember our last minute trip to the aquarium last year?We were actually there as a guest of a friend of a friend. We were able to have a sneak peek at the dolphins for some marketing things they were doing before the exhibit was open to the public. We were to have our pictures made and possibly used for some of their marketing pieces. Well, it didn’t turn out too well. We were supposed to stand there smiling while the dolphin swam up to us at the window. BOTH kids started crying when it happened. For some reason the dolphin scared them coming so close to us. Needless to say, we did not end up in any marketing for the new dolphins.

Well today we were able to go up to the dolphin area pretty early on and there was no one else around. It was just the three of us and the lady working there. There were two female dolphins swimming around and my kids were in love! The older one was swimming laps around the tank and would slide right up to the window for us to see her up close. Both kids were pressed up against the glass and at one point she even slowed down and looked like she was trying to give Sam a kiss. That was the only time he flinched and then he giggled.

Sam thought the moving sidewalk was fun.

Funny that there were tons of fish to see but the kids were most excited about playing with the little touch computers that tell you about the fish.

The last thing we did was go to the dolphin show. No pictures were allowed during the show. The people part of the show was kind of lame but the dolphins were amazing. It was fun to see them jumping and playing. When we left both kids said that the dolphin show was there favorite part.

What a fun day! We can’t wait to go back again.

Christmas at Papa’s

2012-01-01T14:54:00.001-05:00

NYE was a packed-full-of-fun kind of day. After our Noon Year’s Eve party we celebrated Christmas with my dad’s family at my Papa’s house. There were so many of us there which was awesome but we definitely missed our cousins who were not able to make it in to town. Again, I was bad with taking pictures but was able to get a few good shots.

The little monkey’s with their Sweet Papa.

Reese wanted to sit in his lap while we opened presents but once she got going she had to stand up and enjoy it all.

Look at all that fun! We are spoiled rotten!

My aunt Lissa made Reese this cute purse!

Later Sam snuggled with Grammy on the porch and ate a brownie. I am honestly not sure what all my kids ate that day. I don’t think there was one healthy thing that went in to their mouths the whole day.

I really wanted to get a family picture for the last day of 2011 but neither little monkey was interested.

These are the two we got and then they were done. Oh well, it represents us honestly. Ha!

What a wonderful day to wrap up the year.

Noon Year’s Eve

2012-01-01T14:39:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we had a party at our house for some friends and their kids to celebrate the new year. However, none of us were interested in celebrating the new year with our kids at midnight so we had a “Noon Year’s Eve” party.

I don’t remember where I saw the idea last year but the second I saw it I knew I wanted to host a party like that. I immediately put the idea in my notes on my phone so I wouldn’t forget. I didn’t take too many pictures because I was having a great time visiting with everyone.

Some of the girls immediately changed in to dress up clothes.

Since Sydney, Australia was so far ahead of us there were already countdowns to 2012 on You Tube so we used one of those to countdown to noon. There was also a fireworks show after the countdown that the kids enjoyed watching.

We had noise makers that I am sure the parents loved on their way home!

Reese had a blast. We had three girls there whose name is Maddie/Maddy. When Reese woke up on NYE she said, “Today is a Maddy filled day!”.

It was definitely a fun time and I think we will make this a tradition!

A Look Back ~ 2011

2011-12-31T23:03:00.001-05:00

We had a busy and fun 2011! What fun it is to look back at this blog and see what all we did. Here are some highlights from the year.

January:

We had the biggest snow storm in years. It was crazy and tons of fun!

February:

Sam had tubes put in his ears.

March:

Reese had her hair cut for the first time ever.

April:

Reese and Sam really started playing together.

May:

Sam gets his first haircut.

June:

Reese has her first ballet recital. Precious!

July:

We spent a wonderful week at the beach. We love the beach!

August:

Reese started preschool for the last time. I can not believe she will start kindergarten in 2012.

September:

Sam enjoyed his new alone time while Reese was at school. He also missed her!

October:

We had tons of fall fun!

November:

DISNEY!

December:

We rode the “Polar Express” in Chattanooga.

What a wonderful and blessed year we have had. I can’t wait to see what 2012 looks like!! Happy New Year!

Pottery Painting

2011-12-29T09:45:00.000-05:00

A while back we bought a deal from Living Social for a local pottery painting place. I thought it would be fun to take Reese there to spend some special time with her. Well, on December 19th I realized it was going to expire that day so off we went at 5:00 to paint some pottery. It was stressful. Not the fun time I thought it would be. Sam was with us and in a stinker mood and they closed at 6:00 so we had to hurry. Reese picked out two star ornaments and got to work. (I only got a picture of Reese’s star.)

She really enjoyed it and I hope I can take her back another time…alone and not in a hurry.

Princesses and Mickey

2011-12-28T21:39:00.001-05:00

Remember when we wrote letters to Cinderella and Mickey? Late last week we received a response from those. They were not exactly what I thought we would get back but the kids were excited. We hung them up with our Christmas cards and they are still there now.

Christmas Wrap-Up

2011-12-26T22:22:00.001-05:00

We had a wonderful Christmas filled with family and lots of love. However, I didn’t take many pictures. The weekend went by way too fast if you ask me.

Friday started our Christmas weekend. Reese and I made cookies for Santa and I cleaned up around the house. Santa requested chocolate chip cookies so that is what we made.

That afternoon the kids had just woken up from their naps and were snuggling up on the couch to watch a movie and eat at snack. I was in the kitchen cleaning when we heard the garage door opening. We were so excited to have Daddy surprise us by coming home around 3:30!! He had some last minute shopping to do and asked Reese if she wanted to go. She, of course, was very excited to do that so it made Sam want to go, too. That was my first Christmas present! Ha! I had three whole hours to myself. I cleaned the downstairs and then sat down to enjoy it. That night we had pizza and movie night picnic style and watch some Christmas specials we had Tivo’ed.

Saturday morning we headed to church. Our church held service on Saturday morning instead of Sunday. After church we headed out to my parents house. The second we walked in the door Reese was busting at the seams to open presents. So it wasn’t long until we were doing just that.

My parents told them to close their eyes while they brought all the presents in to the family room.

Look at that sneaky Sam with his eyes open behind his hands.

Reese tore in to her presents.

While Sam took each present to Gigi to have her help with opening. Each present he opened he got the most excited look on his face.

After presents Sam hung out with Tommy. They played ball, airplane, and Sam climbed all over him.

The kids were spoiled by all of their gifts and so were we.

Before we left we put the kids in their pajamas. We drove to go see some lights and then headed home. Reese was the first one to go to sleep. She was worn out! Sam fell asleep a little while later but much closer to home. Reese woke up as we were getting off the exit to our house. When we got home we quickly put out the milk and cookies and then took the kids to bed.

The one thing Reese asked Santa for was a “coloring castle”. Seriously, if there is one thing that was made for Reese it was this gift! It has everything to do with Princesses and art. It is her dream house. Santa knew Reese would not want Sam to color on her castle so he brought Sam a Mater to color on. I am not sure Sam was as excited. He was, however, very excited about his little power wheels.

Reese was the first one to wake up at 7:45. She snuck in to our room, climbed in our bed, and then whispered, “Santa came!”. We told her we had to wait until Sam woke up to go downstairs. Around 8:00 he still wasn’t awake so we started making a little noise to wake him up. It worked. Reese ran in to his room and squealed, “Sam! Santa came!”.

However, he was not thrilled to be awake yet. We tried to get the kids to sit here to have their picture made but Sam was not having it so I had to help.

They were both thrilled when they ran downstairs to see their gifts. After seeing all of Santa’s gifts it was time to open up presents from each other. Reese bought us gifts at her Secret Santa shop at school again this year. Those were the first gifts we opened. Lance and I died laughing when Sam opened up his Princess white board from Reese. It was sooooo funny! Sam just went along with it and said, “Ooooh! Princess!”. He seemed just as excited as Reese was.

After opening gifts we ate breakfast, played with our new toys, and enjoyed some time together. Then it was time to head out to Lance’s family. I thought I took a lot more pictures than I did there but as I looked through them I had one picture of Dalton and six pictures of Sam. Ha! Apparently we were having too much fun. The kids were once again spoiled (as were we).

Sam’s favorite gift was this Rock and Roll Mickey. Reese received tons of arts and crafts from everyone this year and will be loving that all year long!

We had such a wonderful time with all of our family and feel so very blessed. Not only for all the gifts but for the real reason for this season!

Today we were in our pajamas until 4:00! It was so awesome! We took down all of our Christmas decorations inside and reorganized some of our kitchen. The house is still a wreck though! I need to figure out where all of the new stuff will go. After that we headed to the mall to have my new watch sized and then to Hobby Lobby for some Christmas shopping. We bought some decorations for next year and some frames for some canvases we have. It was a perfect day to finish off a wonderful weekend.

Christmas Happenings

2011-12-22T13:56:00.001-05:00

I haven’t updated all of our Christmas happenings so here you go.

The Saturday we were back from Disney we went to a local parade with our neighbors.

We had Lance’s friend from high school, Eric, and his family over one night. The kids all played very well together and were so silly.

Last Friday the girls in Reese’s class had a cookie exchange. They were so cute together and had a lot of fun.

They also played a game where they each received a gift.

Sam even had a blast with all of the girls which means I got to have some mommy time with the other moms.

This is the kids watching the light show at the house lights we went to see last weekend.

Tuesday Reese had her Christmas show at school. I only brought my small camera so I didn’t get any good pictures. That is Reese in the top row in the center. They sang several songs and Reese was so funny. She was very excited during the show. When she sang you could see every word she was saying. If she didn’t know the words her mouth was still moving. It really just sounded like the kids screaming as loud as they could more than singing but it was precious.

After the show they had a little Christmas party. When we got to the room they were doing a craft.

I was assigned cupcakes to bring so I went with these cute reindeer cupcakes from Pinterest.

Once they were done with the craft and eating, it really got wild in there. The girls in her class are just silly!

They love each other so much and play so well together.

Today was Reese’s last day of school. I swear this has been the longest week ever. I am so glad she is finally home with us for two weeks. Today they had pajama and a movie day. She was very excited to wear her pajamas to school. Since Reese was leaving her pajamas on, Sam decided he wanted to leave his on too. I was totally fine with that and we have had a lazy day around here to go along with the pajamas and rain.

I LOVE these two little monkeys. I was trying to be creative and have them spell out LOVE but it just didn’t come out the way I was hoping. Sam’s little arms are just too short. Ha!

We are looking forward to the upcoming weekend! Family and fun, here we come!

How Great Thou Art

2011-12-21T14:05:00.001-05:00

Amazing!

Two Funnies

2011-12-19T08:44:00.000-05:00

Last night when we got home from Chattanooga, Lance went in to the office to get some things done (he is still trying to catch up from our Disney trip, I think). I decided to take the kids to dinner and then to see some Christmas lights a friend had told us about. There is a man in a neighborhood with tons of lights set up to music. It was pretty impressive and the kids enjoyed it.

As we were pulling out of the neighborhood Reese said, “That was fun, Mommy! Thank you!”. I told her that was sweet of her to say and then she said, “I love you more than bananas!” We had a good laugh about that and then tried to think of more things that we loved each other more than.

Once we were back home I gave the kids a bath. Our shower nozzle is one of those that you can take off so that we can spray Reese’s head full of hair easier. When doing this it causes tons of bubbles in the tub so I always have them stand up to get sprayed off when we are about to take them out of the tub. As I was spraying Sam, he covered up his private area and said, “Oh, my peanut!”. It was so funny! We have never called it that before, I have always used the correct term with him, but we may have a new term now.

Riding the “Polar Express”

2011-12-18T22:43:00.001-05:00

Saturday we went to Chattanooga (or Chagganoota, as Reese would say) to ride the “Polar Express”. We did a package deal through the Chattanooga Choo-Choo for a nights stay in the hotel, a train ride, and several activities. The kids had fun and we had fun watching them. My parents came, too, so that added to the kids excitement! The only problem we had was that none of us remembered a camera so all of these pictures are from our iPhones.

The first thing we did when we arrived was go to the Elf’s Workshop. Also known as Reese’s Heaven. It was eight tables set-up with different crafts. There were elves at each table to help the kids with their craft. When I asked Reese if she needed help, she would say no. When the elves asked she would let them help her.

Sam was happy to have Gigi there to help him. I was surprised at how entertained he was by all of the activities, too. He was NOT entertained by the elves though. He wanted nothing to do with them.

The last table the kids went to was to write a letter to Santa. Once the letter was written they put it in the box to be sent to the jolly old elf himself.

After a few poses in front of this wall painting, we headed to see Santa.

The lady who was working the table for Santa had this precious Yorkie. He was so chill and the kids loved him. If you have been around Reese and a dog at the same time, I know you are shocked by this picture. However, she is coming around to small dogs…and this dog was tiny and wrapped in a blanket looking like an elf. Who could pass up a chance to hold him?

Sam, once again, was not interested in Santa so he hung back while Reese went to see him.

Santa was sweet just like a Santa should be. While we were standing in line Reese said, “Mommy, that is not the same Santa.” I told her Santa must have a bunch of helpers because he can’t be in different places all the time.

Granddaddy and the monkeys being silly in a telephone booth.

Next we were off to a model train museum. Nobody was that impressed…especially Reese.

After a quick break in our rooms we headed downtown to get some Mellow Mushroom for dinner. When we were leaving Reese said she wanted her picture with this statue. As I was taking her picture she yelled out, “Papa Johns!”. That got a few giggles from people around.

Finally, it was time for our reason for the trip. The Tennessee Valley Railroad has its own version of the Polar Express.

We dressed the kids in their pajamas (just like the movie).

We waited for a while before we could get on the train and Sam looked like such a big kid with his hands in his pockets and hood up.

We got on the train and even though we were not the first ones in line the fronts seats on the train were open and they sent us to them. We shoved the six of us in to four seats because we didn’t want the kids walking back and forth while the train was moving.

Sam was a little grumpy during the ride but seemed to enjoy parts of it.

They served milk and cookies, read a story and sang some songs.

Once we made it to the “North Pole”, Santa climbed aboard to greet the kids. Since we were in the front seats, Reese was the first to get to say hello. She was super excited that he picked her up and held her. We have a video of it but I haven’t loaded it on YouTube yet. She was too cute. Sam was, once again, not interested.

After we were back to the hotel, they had a story time with some elves. We had an option of an Elf Tuck-in. That is where they come to your room to read you a story and tuck you in. I am so glad I did not choose that option because Sam would have freaked. I ended up keeping Sam in the room and getting him to sleep while everyone else went to the story time.

This morning we had breakfast at the hotel and then my parents headed home. We killed some time at the mall for a little while and then went to visit some of Lance’s family once they were home from church. The kids were wild and crazy there but we had a nice visit.

Sam’s Pacifier

2011-12-15T20:07:00.001-05:00

On our drive to Florida for our Disney vacation, Sam had a horrible cough. The only thing that seemed to suppress his cough was his pacifier so Sam was allowed to have his pacifier that entire day. When we got to Claire and Bryan’s house Sam was chewing on his paci and a piece broke off of it (btw, this was our very last pacifier). He was a little sad but was not fazed at all. I was thrilled. I finally saw my way to start getting rid of it.

I didn’t mess with it while we were gone but I would comment to him that his paci was broken. Once we were home I started trimming more and more off of the pacifier. As of yesterday he could barely even hold the pacifier between his teeth. Tonight as we were getting ready for bed I couldn’t find his pacifier. He was in his room looking with me and neither of us could find it. I eventually saw where it was but didn’t tell him. When it was time for him to go to bed he asked for his paci and I told him he was a big boy and didn’t need it anyways. I rocked him a little longer and he never asked again. He went to bed just fine and I threw the paci away when I got downstairs. I am so excited (and a little nervous) to finally be done with the paci! We will see how the rest of the week goes…

Spoof Booth

2011-12-14T15:12:00.001-05:00

Sunday we had a Spoof Booth set up at church to have fun family pictures made. It was very popular! Because I was working Sunday and finished cleaning every thing up once most people were gone, we were able to walk right up to get our picture made and were the last people. All morning long the line had been really long though. Everybody was having so much fun. Unfortunately Lance was not with us on Sunday so he is not in the picture.

Reese was super excited to pick out all of the items she wore. Sam cracked me up with these glasses on (that he chose himself). He kept touching them. What a fun idea!

The Pink Pig

2011-12-13T22:31:00.001-05:00

Today we met our friends, Liz, Kayleigh, and Caroline, to ride the Pink Pig at Lenox. We hadn’t seen them in a while so we were super excited about it. I kept Reese home from school so we could do this! Shhh! Reese and Kayleigh were so excited to see each other and immediately started acting silly together.

The whole way down to Lenox Reese asked if she and Kayleigh could ride together on the Pink Pig. They thought they were such big girls! They were really so cute together though.

Sam and I had a seat together. He loved it and just like at Disney, wanted to “ride Pink Piggie again”!

Two sweet little cuties!

My silly two-some…

After riding the Pink Pig we went to the food court and had lunch together. I love that Reese was able to spend more time with the girls and I was able to spend some time with their sweet mom! Thanks for a fun day girls!!

Nothing but trouble…

After a short nap this afternoon, I realized Sam may have an ear infection so off to the doctor we went and sure enough! The poor little guy has an ear infection…at least it is only one ear. After spending a ton of money on his medicine, I came home and realized we still had that exact same medicine from having his tubes put in. GRRR! I am not happy about that! Oh well…anything to make the little man feel better.

Gingerbread Village

2011-12-12T22:14:00.001-05:00

Our elf brought the kids a Gingerbread Village to decorate. There were five small houses/buildings. I ended up doing most of the work until Reese decided she wanted to have a go at it. Sam just ate all the candy. And it looks like our elf has now enjoyed the fruits (or icing and candy) of our labor.

- Posted from my iPhone

Our Christmas Cards

2011-12-09T08:12:00.000-05:00

Build-A-Bear

2011-12-08T11:25:00.001-05:00

Each year, after we visit Santa, we take the kids to Build-A-Bear. It is a fun little tradition we have started.

Reese was very excited. We were hoping they still had the Rudolph characters so that we could buy Rudolph to go with our ClaReese but they were out.

Reese picked out a soft bear with colorful hearts all over it. She did a great job filling it up with stuffing and love.

Sam wasn’t quite sure what to think but he had fun doing what Reese did. He picked out a super soft dog…no surprise.

The name on the dog’s tag was Shaggy Dog so we just kept his name as Shaggy. Reese chose the name Lovie for her bear because it was covered in hearts.

They both had fun and hopefully these animals don’t just get thrown in to the bottom of the toy box.

Thunder Buzz

2011-12-06T20:47:00.001-05:00

While we were at Disney our Elf on the Shelf showed up for the first time sitting on our mantle. The kids weren’t too sure what to think and picking a name was a difficult decision. Reese was (and still is) convinced he is a girl. She always says, “Look at those eyelashes and pink lips! It’s a girl!”. She kept choosing girly names but Lance was trying to convince her that our elf is a boy.

It took us all night to finally come up with a name.

Since we were still on our Disney-high, Lance suggested that we combine Reese’s favorite ride (Thunder Mountain) and Sam’s favorite ride (Buzz Lightyear).

And “Thunder Buzz” was the final choice.

Each day he has moved around the house but hasn’t caused too much trouble. We will see what happens from here on out. The kids have been so excited to get up in the mornings and look for him. Before we even get down stairs, Reese asks where we think he is hiding.

This has definitely been a fun adventure!

Visiting Santa

2011-12-05T08:22:00.000-05:00

You might have thought that Friday we took it easy or did some laundry after getting home from our long trip. But we didn’t. We woke up and hit the ground running. We ran several errands, stopped to visit with Santa, took Reese to ballet and then a birthday party, and then had Reese’s BFF and her family over for pizza. It was a long day!

Reese’s last three visits with Santa have not gone so well (2010, 2009, 2008). This year I wasn’t sure what to expect but she told me she was not going to cry. And she didn’t! I am thinking that visiting Disney played a huge role in this. Sam, on the other hand, didn’t handle it so well.

Reese told Santa she wanted a castle.

Sam told Santa he wanted to get down…in not so many words.

HA! I love the pictures of the kids crying. It will give them something to look back on and laugh at one day. I am so very proud of Reese and her smiles!

Our Disney Trip–Day 4

2011-12-04T14:58:00.001-05:00

Our last day at Disney started out slow. We originally planned to go in to Epcot but decided that there wasn’t much for our two little monkeys to do so we decided to go shopping in Downtown Disney. Gigi had given the kids some gift cards to buy themselves a souvenir so we went to spend that money!

The kids were excited to see these statues so of course we had to get pictures with them too.

Sam didn’t cry with them!

Reese bought some writing pens and stickers. Sam bought a Buzz Lightyear light spinner.

After shopping we went to eat lunch at Planet Hollywood. It was a long walk so the kids took a break with this guy.

Once we wrapped up lunch we headed back to our room to change in to our Christmas party clothes and went back in to the park. We were staying for the “A Very Mickey Christmas” party that night so we knew it was going to be a late night…and a cold night. After the rain on Monday it really cooled things off so long sleeves and jackets were a must.

One of the first things we did was go find the fairies. Reese had seen all of the princesses at this point so the fairies were next on her list. They were very specific about not looking in to see the fairies before you got in the room with them. They wanted everyone lined up along the wall so no sneak peeking could happen. Well Sam was not going to stand along the wall so we played a game. I told them the wall was about to fall down and it really needed us to hold it up. So that is what we did until it was our turn.

Once in the nook we saw Vidia first. She was super cute and very good in character too.

And then it was time for Tinkerbell. Reese was a little bummed that these were the only fairies we saw but she was happy to have seen at least these two.

After the fairies we headed over to get our bracelets for the party and then Lance and Sam rode Buzz (again) and the rockets while Reese and I went over to ride Thunder Mountain (again).

On the way back to meet the boys we ran in to Peter Pan. He was, by far, the best in character! He did exactly what you thought Peter Pan should be doing. Reese was bummed to have not seen Windy with him.

After all the afternoon fun we met up with our friends again to start all of the Christmas party fun.

The first thing we did was watch the show that turns the castle lights on. I think the castle is so pretty lit up for Christmas. Basically Cinderella wishes that her fairy Godmother could decorate the castle for Christmas.

The fairy Godmother is in the center of the castle below the clock. She does her magic and the lights start coming on in sections.

So beautiful!

We ate dinner together as the park was closing to everyone else and then we headed off for some more fun.

The first Christmas party event we did was the dance party. The dance party had Buzz, Mike (from Monsters, Inc), and Stitch as the character dancers.

While waiting for the show to start they had a little interactive song for the kids.

Reese and Maddy were so excited to be able to lead the audience in Deck the Halls.

After the dance party we had some time to kill. We were going to try to find the princesses around but there was a parade going on so we just rode some rides while the princesses were occupied. (We waited for the the 10:30 parade because we heard there wouldn’t be as many people there.) We decided to ride Dumbo and the carousel.

As we were walking up to the carousel we saw Peter Pan and Windy running around. They were just precious! Totally in character and asking funny questions. Reese was thrilled!

Next it was time to head back out to the castle for another show. This show was called Celebrate the Memories and it was a slideshow type show where they put up people’s pictures from the day all over the castle. It was very impressive.

As soon as that show was over the fireworks show started. The fireworks show was unlike any other fireworks show we have ever seen. It truly was an amazing event!

After the fireworks the Daddy’s had to go stake out a perfect spot for the Christmas parade. And they did a great job. We once again had front row seats to see everyone up close. While the Daddy’s were holding down our spot the girls tried to go see another show but they had technical difficulties so they did a Christmas Carol show instead.

We rushed back to our parade spots and were ready to get started.

This parade did not disappoint. In fact, it was the best parade of the week. During the parade it “snows” on you if you are on Main Street. That definitely kept us in the Christmas spirit.

Merry Christmas, Santa!!

It was the perfect way to wrap up our week at Disney! Within minutes of the parade ending Sam had fallen asleep. The kids did amazing all week. They did not nap and were going to bed late and getting up early every day. Don’t get me wrong we all had our moments but overall I was very proud of everyone! What a special week!

We were very sad Thursday morning when it was time to leave. Reese told us over and over she didn’t want to go.

On our way home Lance and I started planning our next trip!!

Our Disney Trip–Day 3

2011-12-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

Day three was Lance’s birthday. For his birthday he got to have breakfast in Cinderella’s castle! Ha! Seriously though, we were probably most excited about that morning. I made our reservations for 8:05 so that we could be one of the first people to enter the park.

It was really neat to be walking down main street with very few people around.

It gave us a chance to look at everything. We were able to check out the decorations, the store windows, etc as we walked instead of having to watch our step.

We didn’t waste a whole lot of time walking though because we couldn’t wait to get in to the castle!

The night before as we walked in to the park for our shopping spree in Castle Couture the two people at the entrance of the park looked at Reese and said, “You look just like Snow White!”. While we were shopping and trying on dresses, she was trying to choose between Snow White and Rapunzel. I thought she looked like the perfect Snow White and the dress was beautiful but she was leaning more towards Rapunzel. She finally looked at me and said, “Everybody is going to think I am Snow White and want to take their picture with me so I am going to be Snow White!”. Ha!

She really was beautiful!! And so in awe!

The first thing you do in the castle is meet Cinderella. She was gorgeous and Reese was so excited. She did MUCH better with the princesses than she did with the characters.

We were then taken to our table for breakfast. Shortly after we were served the princesses started coming out. Reese couldn’t wait to see each one.

Sam, unfortunately, was not interested in them at all. He cried every time one came to the table or got even close.

Belle was probably the sweetest one out of the four at breakfast. She just hugged on and talked so sweet with Reese.

Another great thing about being in the park so early was that once breakfast was over the park hadn’t opened yet. A minute or two after we walked out of the castle the park opened and they let you through to the rides. We were able to do three rides we hadn’t done yet in twenty minutes! We rode Peter Pan, Snow Whites Scary Adventure and the Winnie the Pooh ride all before there were any lines.

At breakfast each little Princess received a wand and each little Prince received a sword. It was funny through out the day to see the kids switch up their toys.

After our few rides we ran in to our friends again and let the kids say hello for a few minutes and then we were all on our way. It was their first day in Magic Kingdom so they were really trying to get all of the important rides. Since we had been in the park for a day already we could do more of the things we wanted to do.

So we started walking and jumped on what ever ride we wanted. Lance didn’t want to ride the teacups again so I took the kids for a spin.

We drove the cars and did a few other rides and then Lance and Reese decided to wait in line to see Rapunzel. The line was about an hour long but she was by far both of their favorite princess they met.

Being silly in line…

Sam and I walked around for that hour, caught the Dreams Come True show (again), and then made it back just in time to see Reese with Rapunzel. They flew around on stage together. Rapunzel was just sweet!

And pretty!!

We then headed to eat in Adventureland. While eating we got a call from our friends who were waiting in line to see Jasmine and they were holding us a spot. So we ran over and jumped in line with them. When we first walked up in was just Jasmine and Aladdin. A few minutes after we got in line the Genie walked up and Reese freaked out. She kept crying and saying she didn’t want to be in line. I convinced her that it was ok and that we would just tell them she only wanted her picture with Jasmine. We were able to make that happen but you can see in the picture that she has been crying. Reese always says Jasmine is her favorite princess so I couldn’t let her miss this opportunity. She was glad we did this!

Kristin has a friend who goes to Disney every year so she had give her the inside scoop on a lot of things. One of her suggestions was on places to stand for the parade and how long you need to be in that place before the parade starts. I was so grateful to be able to tag along and use all of her secrets! While we waited for the parade to start, several Cast Members had a parachute for the kids to play with. Reese had a blast doing this.

Reese always had a prime spot for the parades. She mainly did this though so that Daddy could protect her from the characters!

Sam enjoyed the parades and was fine sitting in the stroller front and center. Side note…while I was with Reese in the Jasmine line, Lance was in charge of Sam. Sam was climbing on a bench and busted his eye.

Disney does everything amazingly! Every detail is planned out perfectly and that goes for the parades too.

These three were some of my favorite “actors”. They did a great job in character. The girl in the pink dress was the best! She even posed for me with her wicked face and my camera wouldn’t work!! I was so mad!

After the parade we had done mostly everything we wanted to do so we headed back to the front of MK. We noticed that the wait in the Storybook Theater was only ten minutes so Lance and Reese headed in to see the princesses again.

While they were in the theater, Sam and I went for a ride on the train. He was so excited for our ride. It took a lot longer than I thought it would because we had to refill the steam engine with water.

While we were on the train Lance and Reese finished in the theater and headed out to find Tiana. Imagine their surprise to find Naveen with her! He was very good in character too! He spun Reese around in her dress and spoke with her for a little while.

After meeting Tiana and Naveen we watched the end of the castle lighting show and then it was time to leave because the park closed at 7:00 because they were having a Christmas party that night.

That night we went back to the room and ordered pizza and sang happy birthday to Lance.

One of the best things we learned that day was that we could walk to and from the Contemporary! That worked out great when everyone was leaving the park at the same time and waiting on the monorail. We had a five minute walk and it was awesome!

Day 3 was tons of fun but Day 4 still held some magic ahead!!

Our Disney Trip–Day 2

2011-12-03T15:10:00.001-05:00

We started our second day in Animal Kingdom…with out our nice camera. That morning they had magic hours which means if you are staying on the property you can get in an hour early. We had read that you should do the safari early in the morning because that is when the animals are most active…so that is what we did. As soon as we got in to the park we headed back for our safari ride.

We jumped right on and were off on our adventure. I thought it was neat to see all of these animals (most up really close) in a habitat that is almost as natural as one in the wild. They were not fenced in to one little area.

These hippos were the only animals that were still napping when we went through.

These wild things were not much in to posing and letting me take their picture.

After the safari we were on to other adventures in AK.

The first show we did was The Lion King. It was a fun and interactive show. I thought it was very well done and kept our two year olds attention for 45 minutes!

We then headed in to DinoLand to ride the Triceratops Spin…very similar to Dumbo but with dinosaurs.

Next Reese and Lance went to ride Dinosaur. It was a little scary so I was surprised to have Reese ask to ride it a second time with me. Once we were on the ride I realized why she didn’t mind riding it again…she kept her eyes closed the whole time!

Our next stop was Nemo the Musical. It was very cute!

We tried to go ride Mt. Everest but by that time we were all very hungry so we stopped for some lunch and then headed out of AK and on to Hollywood Studios.

While in Hollywood Studios we met up with some of our friends who were down there at the same time as us. We spent the whole afternoon and evening with them and the kids had some much fun together. The first thing we did was the Disney Junior show.

This show was right up Reese and Sam’s alley because the characters were just puppets.

When we came out of the Disney Junior show we realized it was raining. We decided that we would all buy rain ponchos and keep on going but no pictures were taken during that time. If it was going to rain any day and at any time while we were at Disney, it picked the perfect time. Most of the things we did in HS were shows so we were inside a lot.

My friend, Kristin, had her parents there with them so her parents offered to let us adults go do a couple of rides while they walked the kids around. We got to ride on Rockin’ Rollercoaster and Tower of Terror! We were so excited and grateful.

Some of the other shows we saw were Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, and Muppets 3D. The kids loved them all but they all seems to really enjoy the Muppets show the best! They would reach out for the 3D images.

There was a whole area of buildings completely covered in Christmas lights. It was really pretty.

We also found Lightening McQueen and Mater while walking around.

After leaving HS we went back to the Contemporary for dinner (around 8:00 pm…we were such late eaters all week) in the café there. It was a quick and mostly easy meal. When dinner was over Lance took Sam back to the room for a bath while Reese and I headed in to Magic Kingdom to find her a princess dress. We had promised we would buy her one while we were there so that she would have a new one to wear to the Princess Breakfast. Nothing like waiting until the last minute!

It was still drizzling a little bit when we walked in.

Even through the rain, the castle looked BEAUTIFUL with it’s Christmas lights on.

We successfully bought Reese and dress and wand and then made our way back to our room to sleep.

When we got back we found Lance and Sam passed out in the bed. Another long and fun day had come to a close.

But we were SO excited about what Day 3 had in store for us!

Our Trip to Disney–Day 1

2011-12-02T23:11:00.001-05:00

Last Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) we headed to Florida for our Disney trip. We were all so excited about this time together at “The Happiest Place on Earth” but first we went to Tampa. We stayed with Lance’s cousin Claire Friday and Saturday night. While there we helped pick out their Christmas tree, ate a lot, watched football, had some girl time, and visited with my cousins who also live in Tampa.

Bright and early Sunday morning the six of us headed to Disney World. Reese was SO excited! I was able to check us in at the Contemporary first thing that morning so that we could leave our cars there. We didn’t even go to our room or empty our car, we just jumped on the monorail and headed in to the Magic Kingdom.

The weather was amazing and the day was perfect! While waiting to ride Dumbo we saw a plane writing in the sky and thought this was just perfect for the day.

Right after we walked in to the park there was a show on the Castle stage that we stopped to watch. Throughout our week we saw this same show two or three more times. I don’t think it ever got old for the kids.

Sunday was definitely the busiest day but it was no where near as crowded as when we went a couple of years ago.

We were able to fit in a ton of rides! Reese had such a blast with Claire and Bryan there. Any chance she had, she rode with Claire on a ride.

Sam was in awe too. I wasn’t sure what to expect with him but he soaked it all in.

Reese was tall enough to ride most of the rides. There were only a few that she wasn’t big enough for. We talked Reese in to riding Big Thunder Mountain. This picture was from the first time we were getting ready to ride. She didn’t actually hold her hands up or smile while the roller coaster was in motion. Her face was very serious through out the whole ride but as soon as it was over she would say how much fun she had. She rode it three times during the week. She said it was her favorite ride.

Sam’s favorite ride was the Buzz Lightyear ride. I don’t think I got one single picture on that ride though. I was too busy shooting the targets. After every ride, Sam would grip on to anything he could grab, cry and say “Again, ride again!”. It was too funny!

After a wonderful time in the park we headed back to the room to check it out, get unloaded and rest a few minutes before dinner reservations.

We had reservations at Chef Mickey which is in the Contemporary. Dinner was a complete bust. Our kids spent the entire time looking like this…

They were both terrified of the characters dressed up. Reese said it was because she couldn’t see their faces. I am surprised we actually got a picture of Reese’s face because she spent most of the evening under the table. At one point we begged her to sit in her seat and wave to the characters as they walked by. She agreed. Mickey came by, she waved, he moved on after we told him that was all she wanted. Next Minnie came by. Minnie noticed that Reese was wearing a dress similar to hers and snuck through our barricade of chairs before we could tell her no. She got way too close to Reese and she screamed, “Go away, Minnie!”. It was hilarious!! We might have won some money from America’s Funniest Home Videos if we had recorded it.

We had a great first day and were very excited to start Day 2 in Animal Kingdom.

Where We've Been

2011-12-01T12:37:00.001-05:00

- Posted from my iPhone

Catching Up

2011-11-23T21:08:00.001-05:00

It has been crazy busy around here. I don’t know how I let a week slip by with out an update though. So here is a quick catch-up of what we have been doing. However, I don’t have many pictures for much of an update.

Last Thursday Reese had her Thanksgiving Feast at school. Sam and I were able to join her but she kept acting like she didn’t want me talking to her. At one point I leaned down to ask her a question and she said, “Mommy, I am trying to push you away.” WHAT? Are you a teenager already??

After their feast the kids fell right in to their normal routine while the mommies chatted. This is Reese and her BFF singing “Jesus, You’re My Super Hero”. They were so silly!

Friday Reese did crafts before ballet. She saw a cute little frame idea in her High Five magazine that she wanted to do. She did fingerprints along the frame and then I connected them with a green marker to make it look like a string of lights. It turned out really cute!

Saturday evening we went to some friends house to eat dinner and make s’mores. It was a beautiful evening.

Reese had a lot of fun hanging out with Maddie.

Cute little Joci!

And, of course, Sam eating his s’mores.

Sunday was church and then Reese and Lance had a lunch date. They also went Christmas shopping for me. Reese promptly told me what they bought the second she got home. Ha! So much for surprises. Lance took out all of the Christmas decorations and we started decorating. While he was in the attic he grabbed our wedding video because Reese has been begging to watch it.

Monday she finally got to watch it. She was enamored. She loved every minute and had lots of questions. Her favorite part was seeing her cute ten year old cousin as our ring bearer when he was only 3.5 years old. He really was precious!

Tuesday we had a playdate with our friends and had a great time visiting.

Today we got several errands taken care of, Reese had a friend over, and I got a lot of things done around the house.

We are looking forward to Thanksgiving tomorrow and the exciting week we have coming up.

Sam’s Two Year Well Visit

2011-11-17T12:51:00.001-05:00

Tuesday I took Sam to the doctor for his two year well visit. He has definitely done some growing since his 18 months visit. They said he is 35” tall which means he grew three inches in six months. His head was 19” around. He weighed 28.2 pounds which means he gained around three pounds. I didn’t get percentages because the nurse forgot to bring them back to me and I didn’t feel like waiting around to ask her again. He also received one vaccine. No fun! And he passed the hearing test.

Currently, Sam’s favorite thing to say to me is “Be nice, Mommy!” Hmmm…he must hear that a lot. Whenever we are in the car and stopped behind another car he will yell out, “Move car!” or “’Mon car!”. He must hear that a lot too! He is doing a lot more talking. It is so cute to hear! He will repeat pretty much anything we say. He also can say through D in the ABC’s and then can fill in other letters as we go through the whole song. One of his favorite things to do in the car is count the buses that pass us on our way to the gym. He always says two and five.

He plays completely independently. Very rarely does he ask us to play with him. If he does ask, it is usually by pulling Lance by the hand towards the trains and saying, “’Mon Daddy, train”. He and Reese play very well together which leads to the occasional fight. He likes to do whatever his big sister is doing and likes to have what she has. He is very much so a boy…he likes to sword fight, play with cars, trains, balls, and loves to run, wrestle, and tackle. His kisses are sweet and seeing him pray is even sweeter!

He has all of his teeth. The last of the two-year molars are about half way grown. Thank goodness for not having to cut anymore teeth for a while. He is going through a small bit of separation anxiety again. I never known when he is going to cry when I leave. It seems to be just random right now. Some Sundays he cries going in to his class, some times he cries when we leave him with the babysitter, and other times he is happy as can be. I am definitely not worried about any of it!

I really can’t believe our little man is already two! Time seems to be going at warp speed right now and we are just along for this fun and exciting ride!

Our Fave Girls

2011-11-15T08:43:00.000-05:00

A couple of weekends ago we got to have Reese’s favorite girls over to spend a couple of nights with us. Reese was so excited! Thursday night the big girls had a good bit of homework to do so they sat at the table to get started on their homework. Since it was Thursday that meant Reese had homework too so she joined them at the table. She thought she was such a big girl!

Both kids just loved on Olivia, aka Bug, while she was here. She didn’t have nearly as much homework as Sarah so she got to play with the kids more…and I got a ton of things done around the house! She was so sweet with them. Sam loved the attention he was getting from her. When they sat down to watch Tangled, Sam would look up at her with a grin on his face, pat her cheek, and say, “Buggy, Buggy, Buggy”. I think he had a crush!

Friday night they spent the night and Reese was so excited to have them sleep in her room. She told Sarah she could have her bed, Olivia could have the trundle bed, and we used Reese’s cot from the beach for her to sleep on. Well, that didn’t work out too well. Reese wanted her own bed but Sarah definitely was too big for the cot so Reese had an added bonus of getting to sleep in our bed for the night.

Saturday morning there was tons of playing, drawing with chalk outside, and then the big kids went to see “Puss in Boots”. Sam and I dropped Lance and the girls off at the movies and headed out to go shopping. Sam was so upset! He did not want them all to leave. He cried and cried the whole drive.

We just love these sweet girls! I can’t wait until they are old enough to babysit!!

Christmas Pictures

2011-11-14T09:14:00.000-05:00

While at my parents house for Sam’s birthday we took the opportunity to get some Christmas card pictures made. My parents were making lunch so Leah, Susan, and Becca went with us to snap some pictures. We had great success! I am going to keep the pictures we got for our Christmas cards a secret for now but here are some of the other ones we got.

Scouting out a location…

Posing with Aunt Becky

Daddy and his mini-me

Sweet boy!

Sisters…I LOVE this pictures!

What was actually happening “backstage” while the camera was close up.

They are so silly together.

And she is just silly too!

Thanks girls for all your help in getting some great pictures today!

Wrapping Up Birthday Week

2011-11-12T21:05:00.001-05:00

Today we wrapped up Sam’s birthday week at my parents house. Sam has been celebrated to the max!

Last Saturday we celebrated Sam with Lance’s family. They came over with a Chick-fil-A nugget tray and cupcakes…some of Sam’s favorite things!

He received a baseball tee that he has loved playing with.

Sam’s superstar baseball playing cousin showed him a few tips.

Sam also received a Dinosaur Train train set. The train is battery operated so it drives on its own.

Both kids love playing with this train and watching it go around and around and around.

On Sam’s actual birthday we celebrated with our friends that morning and as a family again that evening. Since Lance and I had given Sam the train table for his birthday we let Reese give him a few gifts too. She gave him a James train (From Thomas), a police car that can go on the train tracks, and a Mickey Mouse place setting.

This morning we headed out to my parents house for Sam’s last birthday party. He opened presents pretty soon after arriving at their house.

Sam loves when Reese dresses up so my parents gave Sam his own dress up clothes. Reese wanted to wear them too! He got a pirates costume and fire fighter jacket and hat.

Leah just happened to have her gear in her car so they both dressed as fire fighters.

Reese is a goofball!

We cooked out for lunch and then had birthday cake.

Sam is so loved and we are so grateful.

Pajama Party

2011-11-09T22:30:00.001-05:00

Today we celebrated Sam’s birthday with a pajama party and several of our friends. All the kids came over in their pajamas and I served breakfast. It was so fun to start the day this way and the kids just played and played.

Reese was very excited about the fact that everyone was going to still be in their pajamas and was very curious about what their pajamas would look like. Sam was just excited!

Of course we had cupcakes to celebrate the little man too. How fun to eat cupcakes at 10:45 in the morning!

He was so cute all day long. Every time some one called to wish him a happy birthday he was very gracious on the phone and chatted with each person.

Reese was so sweet with him all day and was happy to celebrate her little bubba. Even during a pajama party she had to bust out the dress-up clothes.

All the pajama clad monkeys seemed to enjoy themselves and the cupcakes!

And Sam enjoyed opening his presents. He looked like such a big kid wearing this precious Thomas back pack. Slow down little man, Mommy is not ready for your back pack days!

Happy birthday to the sweetest and cutest little guy I know!! We love you so much!

Sam's Second Birthday

2011-11-09T08:58:00.001-05:00

- Posted from my iPhone

Minute to Win it

2011-11-06T20:21:00.001-05:00

Tonight we were playing Bingo. Lance always sticks one of the blue chips on his forehead without Reese seeing so when she finally notices she giggles at him. Lance and I decided to see how many of the blue chips we could stick on our own faces in one minute..."minute to win it". I won with ten chips. The next round was to see who could stick the most chips to one of the kids faces. I had Reese and Lance had Sam. I won again. No chips would stick to Sam at all. It really was SO funny. We were laughing the whole time!

- Posted from my iPhone

Writing Letters

2011-11-03T19:19:00.001-05:00

The other day I saw a link on Pinterest where you could write a letter to a Princess or character at Disney and they will send you back a personalized autographed picture. When I told Reese about it, she was so excited!

I asked her what she wanted her letter to say and I wrote it down as she spoke (I adlibbed a little). Then I gave her the letter to copy on to her own paper in her own writing. The biggest problem we had was that she kept losing her place and we would have to start over. So I eventually just told her each letter to write. That was much less stressful!

I wrote a letter to Mickey from Sam. I can’t wait to see how excited they are when we receive a letter back.

Happy Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T06:45:00.000-05:00

What a fun night!! Last night our little bride and monkey had a blast trick-or-treating! We did our annual tradition of pizza with our neighbor and Reese’s friend, Emma, and then headed out for some candy.

Reese loves anything to do with brides. She will watch “Say Yes to the Dress” with me and asks about our wedding. So it was a given that when she saw a picture of a Cinderella wedding gown on the Disney site she would be a bride for Halloween. She was so excited!!

Sam wanted to be Elmo when we saw the costume at Target but when we attempted to try it on him he refused! Our next idea was for him to be Mickey Mouse but when we finally got around to getting to the Disney Store to buy it they were out. While at the mall we headed over to Crazy 8 to see what they had and they had the cutest monkey costume. We were sold!

Ready for some CANDY!!

Emma dressed up as Ariel and her cute little brother was Tigger. We left our bowl of candy by the front door and were on our way.

Sam was so excited to trick-or-treat with the big girls. He would walk up to the houses with them, say “Trick-or-Treat”, and then say “thank you” once he got the candy. He loved it!

Reese was so excited to see her BFF Sydney who was dressed up as Harry Potter.

We walked around for a while and then drove back over to Emma’s house to see a couple of their neighbors but most of their lights were off so we were out of luck.

Our precious little princesses. They are just too cute!

Here are links to them from the last three years: 2008, 2009, and 2010. Oh I can’t believe how big they are! And they both have sweet little brothers now.

Yo Gabba Gabba Live

2011-10-30T20:06:00.001-05:00

Today we were able to take the kids to see Yo Gabba Gabba at the Fox for FREE! A friend sent out a text the other day asking if anyone wanted the tickets and I said that we would take them. The kids were so excited! Just recently Sam has started to watch and LOVE “GabGab”.

I think Reese was most excited that we were going to the same place where Mommy and Daddy saw Wicked.

When we got there they were not letting people in to the auditorium yet so we hung out in the lobby. We got some popcorn and lemonade to help with the wait.

It took both kids a few minutes to warm up but finally started loving the show. Reese danced in the aisle with all the kids.

Sam wouldn’t let me put him down the whole time and barely cracked a smile but he danced the whole time.

He is in mid-cough here but he is dancing.

I thought the show was really good and I enjoyed it. Lance thought it was weird but it is! The TV show is weird. What a fun, fun time!

Side notes…

*Arrested Development was there and played Mr. Wendal. This was a fun act for the kids and parents.

*Biz Markie was also there with “Biz’s Beat of the Day”. The parents in the audience cheered the loudest when he came out.

*Sheamus was there as the special dance friend. Not one person knew who this was when he came out. I kind of felt bad for him because nobody cheered the way they did for Biz.

Reese’s Pumpkin

2011-10-30T12:38:00.001-05:00

Yesterday afternoon after we returned from the zoo and the kids took a power nap, Lance and Reese carved our pumpkin. This is something Lance does with her each year and I love that they can do this together.

I think this was the first year she actually got in there and cleaned some of it out herself. I think that only lasted long enough for me to snap these pictures though.

Lance let Reese draw the face on the pumpkin and then he carved exactly what she drew. I thought that was a great idea. Reese is very proud of her jack-o-lantern!!

And I think it is super cute!

Boo at the Zoo

2011-10-29T20:39:00.001-05:00

Reese’s friend, Emma, celebrated her fourth birthday earlier this week so she had her birthday party at the zoo today. The Zoo was holding a fun, Halloween-y kind of day called “Boo at the Zoo”. Needless to say, it was packed!! Everybody had a great time though.

All of the kids were dressed up. Reese didn’t wear her Halloween costume because we didn’t want it to get dirty so she wore her Belle costume. When we first got there it was super cold. As the day went along it warmed up some, at least in the sunny areas.

This is a picture of all of the kids (minus Sam and baby Danny). Reese, Emma (the birthday girl), Claire and Thomas.

Oh there is Sammy. I didn’t let him out of the stroller much because it was so packed. I just knew he would get lost. There were stations set up where the kids could get candy. It was really fun for them.

In the Ford Pavilion they had a party set up. There was a DJ playing music, a hay maze, and Reese and Sam’s least favorite part, characters in costume.

The kids danced to the music and played with the hula hoops.

While the big kids went in to the petting zoo, I took Sam out for some snuggles. They were back out quickly though because the goats started butting heads and that scares Reese so much!

We had a special treat of getting to ride the train.

Sam was thrilled and kept saying “Choo-choo”!

Me and my sweet little monkeys!

The whole group (minus baby Danny again) making silly faces.

We had so much fun celebrating Emma’s birthday today!

Mad Scientist

2011-10-28T14:35:00.001-05:00

Today we were invited to a “Mad Scientist” playdate. It was such a fun day! The mom who planned this was a teacher but now is a full time mom so she did an amazing job.

The first thing she did was talk to the kids about fall and all fall things. It was amazing to see all of them sit there and listen! It was like they were at school.

Next she gave them all lab coats to wear. She seriously covered all the basics and then some!

Then it was time for their first experiment. They put water and oil in a bottle to see how they separated.

Next they put a couple of drops of food coloring in and an alka-seltzer to watch the food coloring combine with the water and fizz.

The next activity was “Boo-Goo”. It was corn starch mixed with water. Stirring it made it a hard substance but when you tried to pick it up it was watery.

After the two experiments they took a dancing break. And did one more experiment after the dancing break.

After mixing milk, food coloring, and Dawn to look like tie-dye, they had a story read to them.

Some of the moms even participated in the story. It was so cute!!

Sam was very interested in everything that was going on.

The last exciting experiment was to see Mentos dropped in to soda. The kids loved seeing the soda shoot out in to the air.

Today was such a great playdate!! It was so creative and different for the kids. I know both of my monkeys loved it and I am sure everyone else did too.

Exploring!

2011-10-27T13:01:00.001-05:00

After seeing that the weather was going to be so cold tomorrow I decided to take the kids to the “choo-choo park” for a picnic while the weather is still beautiful. We ate our lunch, played on the playground, and then went off to explore.

Next to the playground there is an open field. We walked through the field and then found a wooden bridge to cross in to another field. At the top of the hill in the woods there was this old little house.

After we crossed back over the bridge we went towards the railroad tracks and saw this “personnel car” (that is what a sign on it said).

We then walked around to go through the train tunnel. As we were going down the ramp to the tunnel the second train of the day passed by. This is what my view looks like when a train comes by.

The train tunnel is actually really pretty.

We made it to the other side of the tunnel and the slow train was still going by so Sam climbed up on the railing to watch it go by.

When we were walking back through we decided to take a group shot. Sam was saying “HELLOOOO” over and over because it was echoing.

It was a beautiful day exploring around the train tracks.

Hat Day

2011-10-27T10:35:00.001-05:00

This week at school Reese has been talking about the letter H. Today, to wrap up their discussion, they had hat day. She chose to wear her Cinderella winter hat. And not to be outdone, Sam wanted to put a hat on too.

- Posted from my iPhone

An Early Birthday Present

2011-10-25T13:45:00.001-05:00

For a while we have known we were going to get Sam a train table for either his birthday or Christmas. The other day I saw a train table on sale at Toys R Us. The only problem was that there was none online to ship so I had to look in the store. I swung by our local TRU yesterday to see if they had any. There were none on the floor so I just asked someone. She, luckily, remembered there was one downstairs that someone had not picked up. She brought it up for us and checked us out. It ended up ringing up $25 less than we thought it was going to be. That means I got it for over 50% less than the retail price. I was SO excited!!

We decided to go ahead and set it up. Sam doesn’t know what birthdays are so we didn’t think he would mind getting it early. After dinner Lance got started putting it together. He got the table put together before bed time.

After the kids were in bed we put everything else together and couldn’t wait for them to get to play with it.

Reese came in to my room at 7:45 this morning and said she could see the train table. She couldn’t wait to go downstairs. It was funny that she was just as excited as Sam.

As soon as Sam got up, I got both of them ready quickly and sent them downstairs so I could get ready. Every time Sam sent the train through the cave and it sounded the horn he would giggle. It was so fun to see them play with the train table. I hope it brings a lot more giggles!!

Happy early birthday Sam!

Me

2011-10-24T14:12:00.001-05:00

When you ask Sam what his name is he says “Me”. Today I caught him on video. It is just in the first few seconds that he says this and then he starts being silly.

Full of Fall Fun!

2011-10-22T15:10:00.001-05:00

We have had another weekend full of fall fun! Last night Jenny and I were both with out our husbands so we headed out together to entertain the kids. We went to a little Pumpkin Festival in our little downtown area. But first we started off with a pizza dinner at the Choo-choo park.

This park is so tiny but the kids LOVE it and I love that I can keep an eye on them easily.

After eating we headed out to check out the festival. There were bounce houses, slides, and tons of candy!

Businesses had booths set up where they would hand out candy while getting their names out to the parents.

There was also a costume contest. I didn’t bring my kids costumes for several reasons. 1) I didn’t think Reese would be able to keep hers clean and 2) I don’t have one for Sam yet! Harrison opted out of the contest and sat with us while Davis modeled his Rex (from Toy Story) costume.

I thought he was the cutest little guy out there! He won the award for “Cutest Costume”.

After the contest we watched a puppet show that the two big kids loved! Then we went back outside where Reese wanted to get her hair spray painted. She chose pink and blue glittery spray paint.

The lady even sprayed some red paint in Sam’s hair.

The big kids went in to the game truck in the back of this picture where they played sword fighting on a Wii.

While the big kids played, the little monkeys were outside with me. Sam kept “petting” Davis. He would lean over and rub his head and say “pet”. He loves babies…even though this baby is only eight month younger than him. Ha! They will play great together in a few years.

Walking back to the car Harrison got in the stroller with Davis so Reese wanted to get in with Sam. It was a tight squeeze to say the least but they just giggled.

This morning Gigi came over and we headed to Reese’s schools fall festival. Last year we waited in line for over an hour to get Reese’s face painted so this year that was the first thing we did. She wanted to be a butterfly.

The kids from the school put on a little performance. They sang two songs and Reese was so excited to do this.

After the performance was over we headed out to find all of the fun stuff to do. Reese did the bounce houses, the giant slide and a few other games to win some candy.

We also did the hayride. Both kids were very excited about this.

After the hayride we left to grab some lunch and then headed to a pumpkin patch. There we once again rode on a hayride and were still just as excited.

We ended up not buying any big pumpkins but came home with a hand full of little pumpkins.

Gigi and I tried really hard to get some cute pictures but two little pumpkins were not cooperating.

Finally the last picture of the day will do.

As we were leaving Sam said, “Bye-bye punky patch.” Both kids had a great day and are getting some good rest time in right now.

I think we have officially experienced a ton of fall fun and we have one more exciting adventure next weekend!

Boo!

2011-10-22T08:36:00.001-05:00

Yesterday morning we went to a friends house for a playdate. The kids played great together and the mommies got to have a great conversation. One of the moms made these yummy cookies...

- Posted from my iPhone

Pumpkin Head

2011-10-20T15:24:00.001-05:00

- Posted from my iPhone

Choo-Choo Park

2011-10-18T16:20:00.001-05:00

Today we went to the “Choo-choo Park” with Reese’s friend Harrison, his brother Davis, and my friend Jenny. This park is right next to the railroad tracks and we have never been there when a train has gone by. Today that changed! We heard the train coming and the kids got so excited but as soon as it was blowing it’s horn next to the playground Sam was crying and Reese was covering her ears. Once the engine passed they were fine and had fun watching it go by.

After eating lunch and playing on the playground for a little while we went across the street to play on the old caboose.

Harrison driving the train.

I don’t know what it is about this old car but the kids LOVE playing in it.

I just love this picture. I brought the camera out because I wanted to snap some pictures while the weather is still nice and warm!

Cute little Davis walking around the caboose.

I love that the kids play so well together! What a fun time. Now we can welcome in the cold weather after taking advantage of the nice, warm weather today.

Busy Saturday

2011-10-16T13:19:00.001-05:00

Saturday was a busy, busy day. I woke up early and got going. We were all dressed and ready by 9:00 so we went to get breakfast. After a yummy breakfast we headed to Owen’s first birthday party. It was a monster themed party and he was super cute. I was so mad at myself because I forgot my camera. The kids had a lot of fun running around and playing. We had fun visiting with everyone. I just wish we got to see them more!!

After the party we headed to Lance’s sisters house to visit a few minutes and then headed to the fair. This was the first time our kids have been to the fair and they had a lot of fun. Reese is pretty timid about rides, etc but she had a blast. I took pictures with my phone so they are not that great.

When we first walked in the big swings were right there so the kids wanted to watch these. I asked Reese if she wanted to ride them and she shook her head no with force. To be honest, she probably wasn’t even tall enough.

If Sam was big enough, he probably would have been in to everything.

The first ride they rode was this little fish ride that went up and down. They laughed and waved every time they went around.

They actually rode it twice in a row. The second time around Reese got in her own fish.

After the fish we talked Reese in to getting on this little roller coaster. Sam wasn’t big enough for it and I wasn’t quite sure Reese was going to do it. Once she was able to watch it go one time she decided she wanted to have a turn. She is so funny because she doesn’t trust us that these rides are FUN! She just wants to be stubborn I think. Once she finally does it though she loves it!

Next we were off to watch their cousin Brody and his friend ride on this flying Superman kind of ride.

They loved just standing at the fence at watching them.

After the boys rode that ride we went over to the “Spinner” or something like that…can’t remember the name. It is the ride that has four arms and each of the arms has four cars. Each arm spins around and the whole thing spins around really fast. At the last minute Reese decided she wanted to ride and LOVED it. She giggled the whole time. She said it was fun and faster than she thought it would be. I thought I was about to toss my cookies. Ha! Being older and still having a little bit of a cold didn’t help. It was so fun to hear my little monkey giggling and having fun though.

Sam rode the fish ride one more time while Reese rode the carousel before we left.

As we were leaving I remembered we hadn’t had a family picture taken so we got Lance’s mom to snap a quick picture of the four of us.

We had a long, fun, and busy day! But it was a blast!

Movin’ On Up

2011-10-14T08:09:00.000-05:00

This week we moved Sam up in to the level five at Gymboree. Reese was very excited for him and begged for me to take pictures of Sam in his new class. In this class they use more imagination.

This week they talked about mail, mail trucks, and the mail man.

Sam enjoyed this week just as much as any of the other weeks…ha! He didn’t notice any difference.

He isn’t sure what to think about the parachute though. When Reese did gymnastics at this age she wasn’t sure about the parachute either. He isn’t a big fan of being under the parachute.

I love this special time that I have with Sam. I feel like I don’t get nearly the kind of one on one time with him as I did with Reese.

Silly boy

2011-10-13T02:28:00.000-05:00

This week Sam and I have been fighting a pretty mean cold. Because of this we have not been going to the gym. Instead of the gym, Tuesday he and I ran some errands while Reese was in school. We were done a little early for carpool so we just sat in the school parking lot and I let Sam get out of his car seat. You would have thought he won the lottery by the way he was running around inside the car.

The windows were down so he was especially excited about that.

He would run all the way to the back of the car where one of the seats is laying all the way down for storage and the middle seats of the middle row is out. He had all kinds of space to exercise.

And then he would run back up to the front and climb in Reese’s seat.

He started hanging out of the window and yelling, “Hey everybody!”

It was too cute and he had so much fun!

Bored = Fun

2011-10-12T14:23:00.001-05:00

Last Friday we had a follow-up visit at the ENT for Sam. Every six months they check his ears to see if the tubes are still in there and to make sure there are no problems. While we were waiting for the nurse to come in the kids started getting bored so I pulled out my camera. We have done this before where we will pick an emotion and take a picture of us all expressing this emotion. Both kids get a huge kick out of this game and giggle and giggle.

This was just a group shot.

Reese usually picks the emotion to call out and then we all go for it. Silly faces!

Sad faces. Sam obviously didn’t get the memo on this emotion.

Surprised!

Sad faces again…Sam got it right this time.

MAD!

Crazy!

This is such a fun game for the kids with instant gratification because they can see themselves on the screen of the camera. The giggles are enough to make me play this game over and over again.

Our week so far

2011-10-05T22:14:00.001-05:00

We have had a busy week so far and I am surprised that it is already Wednesday night.

Monday I watched a friends two boys while they had some exciting things to take care of. Reese was at school for the morning so it was just the boys. Sam wasn’t quite sure how to handle this. On one hand he loved having the boys there to play boy things with. On the other hand he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to share his toys with them. On a few occasions he would cry that one of the boys had his trucks, etc. We all went to pick Reese up from school (thank you minivan), came home for lunch, and then Reese and Tucker ran off to play. After an hour or so of playing it was time for naps/rest time for everyone. Both little boys took great naps and Reese and Tucker had great rest times. I set up a cot in Reese’s room for Tucker and they just talked the whole time but were not too loud. Their conversations cracked me up when I went up to check on them.

Reese received a trophy at school on Monday. Over the next couple of months they are going to be working on knowing their birthday, phone number, and address. Once they know all three they get a trophy. Reese knew her phone number and birthday already so we had to work on her address. She knew the street name but we needed everything else so we practiced. She seriously picks things up so fast it surprises me. She was the second kid in her class to get her trophy. I am a proud mommy!

Tuesday Sam had his Gymboree class. He really enjoys this class. Starting next week he will be in the next level up where they start doing imaginative play. I am excited to see how he does in that class.

Each evening when I am making dinner I turn on Sesame Street for the kids. This sometimes gets me a few minutes to get things done. Tuesday night I looked over and Sam was sitting in Reese’s lap. Seriously, how cute are they?

Today after school Reese had a play date with her friend Sydney from class and the neighborhood. Sam stood at the screen and just watched them play for a little while and then finally decided he wanted to go out for a bit.

The girls were so good about taking turns driving the Jeep. What is funny is that neither one of them knows how to drive the Jeep straight. Both of them kept driving it in circles.

We also had small group and a new babysitter. We have had the toughest time with babysitters this school year. Our sitter from the last few years has a full time job so we have been on the hunt for a new one. I recently met a girl who shared her babysitters name with us to try. Taylor is AMAZING! When she left tonight I looked at Lance and said, “Is she for real?”. She is definitely an answer to our prayers and I am so grateful to have her with our kids.

Apple Picking

2011-10-02T17:30:00.001-05:00

Saturday morning we headed to Ellijay’s Hillcrest Orchards. They seemed to have a lot of fun things to do as well as apples to pick so it looked like the perfect place to spend some family time. I was surprised at how much closer it was than I thought it would be. We let the kids do all the fun things first before we headed out to pick apples.

The first thing they did was to jump on the big jumping pillow. Reese loved doing this but it was a little too intimidating for Sam so he didn’t actually make his way up the pillow.

Then Reese wanted to ride on the little John Deere tricycles. She made it about 3/4 of the way around and then gave up and pulled it the rest of the way.

We then “toured” their Moonshine “Museum”. I say both of those in quotes because there wasn’t much of a museum to tour. It was more like a bunch of creepy mannequins and hand written descriptions on poster board. Lance actually took way too many pictures in there because it was just too funny.

Next we waited in a short line to milk this poor cow. She looked so unhappy and not interested in being on display. Reese did not want to milk her once we got to the front of the line so I sucked it up and milked her.

This is a picture of Sam who was so scared of the cow. He wanted nothing to do with her…even looking at her made him cry.

We then jumped on the wagon ride to go to the back side of the orchards. There were a few things towards the back that the kids were too young for. There was also another trail set up with creepy mannequins set up. I really don’t know what the point of it was.

We found a big slide that both kids loved going down.

They probably could have spent the whole day going down this slide.

After all of the playing we went in to the market to taste test the different apples they had there in the orchards. Once we tasted several different ones we went back out to fill up our bag. We went with the middle size bag.

The kids liked picking the apples off of the tree.

They were so well behaved and enjoyed being outside on such a beautiful fall day!

Unfortunately our family picture did not turn out well at all. Oh well, here we all are.

After filling up our bag we went back up to get some lunch. While we looked at the menu the kids played on this old John Deere tractor.

We decided that it would be better if we headed home and picked up some lunch in the car. So that is what we did.

We had a great family day. I love all of this time that we have been spending together lately! My goal for this fall is to do a lot of fun fall things and I think we are off to a great start!

Fairy Hunt

2011-09-30T20:27:00.001-05:00

A while back we started a chore chart with Reese. She could earn different rewards for doing her chores. Her chore list consists of making her bed, getting herself dressed, brushing her teeth, cleaning up downstairs before dinner, and helping set the table.

Reese recently received a book from some friends about a fairy hunt. This book gave us the idea to have a fairy hunt one night as a reward for doing her chores. We finally got around to doing the fairy hunt tonight.

I bought a pack of Disney fairies and while Lance was giving the kids a bath I hid them outside. Once Sam was in bed we took Reese outside with a flashlight and began our hunt. We found three fairies hiding in the backyard. Reese didn’t believe us that they were real…ha! Such a smart little girl. After finding the fairies and their stash of clothes and tools, we played around with the flashlight and looked at the stars.

We had a great, fun time hunting for fairies with our sweet little princess.

All About My Dad

2011-09-29T19:46:00.001-05:00

This is one of my favorite things to do with Reese so I just LOVE that they did this at school. Today Reese came home with a questionnaire they did about their Dad since this week they have been discussing the letter ‘D’.

When we talked about the picture she drew, here are a couple of things she said:
*Daddy has a tail.
* She wrote our last name all by herself (the blurry spot at the top) which we have been working on. She is doing so great with this.
*Her teacher helped her spell monkey.

Here is the close up of the answers. The silliest part to me is that she said Daddy works at county parkway. I don’t even know what that means or where that is. The funniest this is that she said her Daddy is a great dad because he is awesome. Daddy always says that he is awesome so it is funny that she repeated it.

I just love this!

My Sunshine

2011-09-27T08:23:00.000-05:00

I don’t know if it is the age, the testing of the limits, or her mom, but Reese has been giving us all sorts of attitude lately. We will go days with constant arguing, disobeying, and just plain out being mean. And then there will be a day where the clouds part, the sun comes out, and there are smiles all around.

Today was a day of sunshine. Don’t get me wrong, she still tested the limits but it was mostly a day of happy. Tonight after dinner she was sitting in Lance’s lap, playing and giggling. I just looked at her for a minute and felt so blessed. She is MINE…God entrusted her to me. I am responsible for teaching her, growing her, and LOVING her.

On our rough days I try to remember that she is sweet. She is so loving. She is so precious to me. And remember that we will have these rough days but there is always sunshine ahead in the form of a sweet and spicy curly headed little girl!

Redneck Fun!

2011-09-26T19:35:00.001-05:00

Tonight as I was cleaning up after dinner I looked out in the backyard to see Lance and the kids having a little bit of redneck fun.

Lance had taken the kids swing off the play set and was spinning Sam around in circles.

He also dragged the kids around and swung them back and forth. They giggled and giggled.

And so did I!

Wicked!

2011-09-25T17:59:00.001-05:00

Saturday night Lance and I had a date night. On Friday I told Reese that Aunt Becky was going to come over and play with her so Mommy and Daddy could go on a date. She looked at me in all seriousness and said, “It’s not your anniversary!”. Looks like Lance and I need more date nights.

Several months ago when we found out Wicked was going to be at the Fox Lance immediately bought tickets. We went to dinner at Vini Vidi Vici before hand. It was so yummy! I have driven past this restaurant for years and years but had never been and it did not disappoint. After dinner we headed to the Fox. Downtown Atlanta was packed! I couldn’t believe how many people were out and about. The show started at 8:00. We were a little early but it was nice to get in and get settled. Slowly the theater filled up and it was a full house. At intermission we tried to go out to go to the restroom and there were so many people in the lobby we changed our minds.

The show was great. We have heard so many wonderful things about it and it also did not disappoint. Elphaba and Glinda were amazing together. I could have listened to them sing together all night. The best part of the show was the end of the first act when Elphaba sang “Defying Gravity”.

We had a wonderful date night. I am so thankful to get to spend one-on-one time with Lance. We definitely need that time together…alone!

Technological Babysitter

2011-09-21T21:08:00.001-05:00

It may be hard to see this picture but Reese is playing on the computer and Sam has Lance’s phone. They both love technology. On Saturday mornings they fight over who gets to play with Lance’s iPad. They definitely belong to their Daddy!

Walking In Your Shoes

2011-09-20T12:42:00.001-05:00

Go Jackets!

2011-09-17T17:43:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week I saw that the weather was going to be beautiful for the weekend. I immediately sent Lance a text to ask if there was a Georgia Tech game Saturday because the weather was going to be so nice. He said yes and then we both sent each other a text at the same time that said, “Wanna go?”. So that was a done deal.

Today we headed down to Georgia Tech to watch GT v. Kansas. The game was at 12:30 so we got down there a little early to check out all the fun going on before the game. We swung by the bookstore first and it was a mad house so we didn’t stay there long. We then headed down to the campus. Reese and Sam were both decked out in their Tech gear.

Reese wanted to get a a yellow jacket airbrushed on her face.

It was super cute and she was excited.

We then went over to be outside of the stadium where the cheerleaders, dance team, and band come to perform before the game. Reese leaned over and whispered to me that she could “see those girls belly buttons”. Once their performance is over they kind of lead the way in to the stadium.

We actually didn’t buy tickets before we went downtown because we wanted to see how everybody was holding up before we spent the money. As soon as the performance outside the stadium was over, we were all in the mood for some more excitement. We walked a little ways away from the stadium and found a man selling tickets and we bought them. We made it back in to the stadium in time to see the band, cheerleaders, and players come out on the field.

I think Reese was most excited about her frozen lemonade. It was much hotter in the sunny stadium than it had been walking around outside. Luckily everyone had layers on so we were able to cool off some.

Tech scored very early on and continued to play well the rest of the game. Sam cheered the whole time we were there and loved it!

Reese had her moments but this seems to sum up how she felt about the game while we were there.

We had a late night Friday night so we started melting down during the second quarter…right at nap time.

We waited a little too late (right before half time) to have our family picture taken and Sam just wasn’t interested. This was the best we could do and the lady taking the picture took six pictures. Ha!

We all got a little too much sun, had a little too much junk, but had a wonderful time. I am so glad we were able to enjoy this beautiful day together!

Terrible Twos

2011-09-15T18:08:00.001-05:00

The terrible twos are raring it's ugly head around here. This particular picture was after I told him no in the grocery store when he wanted Oreos at the check out line. Yes, he cried during the entire check out, walk to the car, being buckled up, and as I was trying to leave. Oh my!!

- Posted from my iPhone

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-14T08:09:00.000-05:00

Gym Time!

2011-09-13T20:23:00.001-05:00

I took Sam to his first Gymboree class today. I never did this with Reese because we did gymnastics classes. There was a Groupon deal so I decided to give it a try.

Of course, the first thing Sam did was go straight to the balls. He played with the basketball a lot and had fun throwing it in to the hoop.

Once class started he did a great job following directions and trying things out.

He loved anything he could climb on and the slides.

He wasn’t too excited about the parachute. I think it was something so new and different that he was a little intimidated by it. I think he will enjoy it more next week.

He loved the bubbles and banging on things when necessary.

I think I will see how the rest of this month goes and then decide if we will do it again.

I really like that there is someone else that Sam has to listen to besides me. I felt like that was good for Reese at this age and I hope it will be the same for Sam.

Ten Years Ago

2011-09-11T13:28:00.001-05:00

Ten years ago I was 21.

Ten years ago I was a college student.

Ten years ago I woke up to see a news feed on my computer telling me an airplane had crashed in to the World Trace Center in NYC.

Ten years ago I didn’t even know what those buildings were or meant.

Ten years ago that all changed.

I woke up right around 8:45 on September 11th, 2001. I turned on my computer to check my email and saw that a plane had crashed in to the WTC but it didn’t really mean anything to me. I think I was still half asleep and it didn’t register to me how bad that was. A few minutes later my phone rang and it was a college friend. She told me to turn on the TV because something bad was happening. I did so and the second tower had just been hit. I sat down on my couch and didn’t move the rest of the day. I was glued to the TV. I can’t remember if it was before or after the towers fell but my roommate came home because she left work once she heard the news. We sat there together all day in shock as we watched news break of the Pentagon and then the plane crash in PA. What a sad, sad day.

I will never forget the images we saw on TV, the sadness there was, and then the unity that was felt in the days following. I am so grateful to all emergency personnel and military that protect us every single day to preserve our freedom.

We remember…

The Elmo Show

2011-09-10T17:10:00.001-05:00

At the last minute (as usual), Lance and I decided to take the kids to the Sesame Street Live show at Phillips Arena. We had already reserved our free CFA breakfast for 8:30 this morning so we chose the 10:30 SSL show to go to. We didn’t tell the kids we were doing anything special until last night and then we didn’t even tell them what that was. When Reese woke up this morning she asked us but we told her we would tell her later. Lance ended up whispering to Sam that we were going to the Elmo show. Reese asked him what we were doing and he said, “Melmo’s World”. She didn’t believe him. I gave her a couple of options on clothes to wear and asked her if she wanted to wear her Abby Caddaby shirt we bought when we went to see Sesame Street Live two years ago. She chose the Abby shirt. When we finally got to CFA we told her that Sam was right and that we were headed to see the Elmo show so we needed to hurry and eat. She was super excited!

We arrived at Phillips with plenty of time to spare. Walking in we saw the same Elmo poster Reese had taken her picture with the last time so we had to duplicate it.

We had to get the little man with Elmo too. He was so excited.

We walked to our seats and then I pulled out some glow-in-the-dark bracelets I bought at Target. I thought this would be a great way to avoid buying the expensive toys at the show. I gave Reese a bracelet and made her a necklace out of two of them. Sam wanted a bracelet too so I put one on his wrist. A few minutes later he started screaming while sitting in Lance’s lap. Lance saw him pull the bracelet out of his mouth and immediately looked to make sure the clasp was still on it…it was. We then realized he had punctured the bracelet with his teeth. After reading the label on the bag the bracelets came in we decided to call Poison Control. Nothing like a little excitement to start the show. Turns out there is not enough of the liquid in the bracelet to poison kids but it apparently has a really horrible taste and that is what caused Sam’s screaming. Nothing a little water couldn’t help.

We got settled back in our seats and ready for the show.

The grandpa next to us took a family picture for us…I didn’t have the heart to ask him to do it again so this is the best we got.

Right at 10:30 the show started.

Sam got nervous when he saw the characters on stage. He eventually got comfortable and realized they were not going to come off of the stage.

Reese sang and danced with the show and had a great time.

They both were in awe and had a great time. Sam said “Abby?” or “Elmo?” every time they were missing from the stage.

The kids played musical chairs through out the show and ended up sitting with each of us at different times.

Sam, obviously, was not allowed to have any more glow-in-the-dark bracelets but Reese enjoyed seeing hers glow through out the show.

After the show we went in to the CNN center and had Moe’s for lunch. Once we finished lunch we went out to Centennial Olympic Park to run and play.

It was a pretty far walk to get over to the playground but it was such a beautiful day we couldn’t pass it up.

The kids had a lot of fun playing on the slide.

Look at how excited Reese is to see Sam going down the rolling slide for the first time.

I tried to get a cute picture of them together but I just couldn’t get it to work out.

They both enjoyed the swings.

And then it was time to go home. They wanted so bad to stop at every body of water and get in and play. We were able to keep them away for the most part.

And because I want these memories to be as authentic as possible…

The whining is about to make me CA-RAY-ZEE! Sometimes it just takes the fun out of things. I need to figure out a way to stop it or Reese might just spend the rest of her life in her room.