Fireman's Day

Waiting for the parade to start at the station


Christopher decided that he did NOT need his mommy to ride with him this year :(


So Robert rode the back of the truck Christopher was on, instead of driving a truck this year



Hailey was making all kinds of crazy faces at the sirens and people throwing candy(she loved that part!)

Starting school

I can't believe, or maybe I just don't want to believe that my sweet baby boy is old enough to be going to kindergarten! He actually started Thurs, but now doesn't go back until Weds(31st). I think this is kinda stupid, but I don't have a choice in the matter so oh well.

Last pick of the season

The local farm me and the kids have been going to this summer closed last Sat :( It was horribly hot out already at 9am when we went to pick blueberries and peaches one last time and the kids quickly lost interest in picking. It also didn't help that we had to look for bushes that still had berries on them this late in the season.


They really enjoyed the peach picking, however, I ended up w/ a whole pile of peaches that weren't quite ripe yet and as they ripend, had lots of bruises from being handled and dropped by the kids. Oh, well, you live and you learn. I used most of them to make a homemade peach pie. The crust came out excellent! The pie, was just ok, I would much rather have apple pie :)

Life with a 2.5 yr old...

I don't remember what we did this day, but she feel asleep in the car on the way home and didn't wake up even when I stripped her down once we were inside, oh to be able to sleep like that!


A couple weeks ago I took Hailey to TGIFriday's for lunch to see Aunt Kat Kat, I ordered her lunch and did she eat it? NO, she happily ate my cup of soup instead, stubborn little child.


Grandma was coming to babysit one night last week so she had to get dressed up before Grandma came!


This night she told us "I LOVE CORN!" as soon as we got to the table, again she was all dressed up :)


She broke out w/ this lovely rash all over her body a couple days ago...

So the next morning off to the peds office we went, she told me on the way she was going to the Dr and going to be a good patient

She was a very good patient until they took her temp rectally :( Poor baby! I didn't know they did that to toddlers as I never take my kids to the doctor for sick visits! And the rash ended up being unexplainable hives, this is why I don't take my kids to the doctor for sick visits cause I get answers like this. They said it was a reaction to something, but no idea what! Thankfully by the next day there was no sign of it.

And this, is when she screamed herself to sleep in the floor rather than clean up the mess I asked her to clean.

MIA

Obviously I have been MIA for awhile, not really sure why, just been in a funk and can't seem to find the motivation to do much of anything. But I have been taking lots of pics to post so I will try to condense them all down to just a few post, starting with mail round ups. These are no longer in the correct order and I had a week or so w/ nothing and then combined 2 weeks so basically the past months goodies :)









*The oreos, cake mix, cupcake liners, and recipe cards are from giveaway on another blog "Wayward Girls Crafts", sorry ladies I have no idea how to link to you, but thanks for the goodies!! :)




This stuff was actually from the "Got to be NC Festival" at the end of May. This year was the first time I have been, even though I have always lived here, needless to say I will definately be going back next year! We had a great time, there was a petting zoo, pony rides, play area for the kids, rides, the expo center was slam full of NC based companies, almost all of which were giving out samples and or coupons! The pony rides, animal food, ride tickets, and entry into the Expo center($2 per adult, kids free) did cost $ but it was still a great cheap day! The only thing we paid for was the pickles, lg bag of biscuit mix, and the freeze pops :)


Here are a few more pics from the day:

Its strawberry time!

Christopher has been asking when we can go to the farm for a couple weeks now, and it opened mid-week this week, so yesterday morning we hit the farm first thing! Christopher loves to go to the farm and pick anything in season, but makes me crazy cause he refuses to eat any of it! We picked almost 8lbs of strawberries, and ate a few in the field :) We were alittle concerned about the crop this year, as we had a pretty rough winter, but they have all been excellent so far! Big, beautiful, red, juicy berries. Everyone had a great time picking and eating(except C of course)!

I was really looking forward to this dinner...

Fondue w/ Apple Brandy

The dippers
baguette
asparagus
cherry tomatoes
homemade potato chips
pretzel rods
bacon wrapped chicken w/ spinach

It looks very yummy and delicious right!?!? It was a big disappointment :( The cheese and alcohol didn't blend together well and it separated as soon as I took it off the stove. I was pretty bummed. The cheese was expensive(Gruyere $16/lb) and I couldn't find the second cheese Emmentaler so I subbed Swiss for it. Next time I will do my usual cheddar/Colby and beer, it always comes out great! The cheese was also VERY salty, I could feel my feet swelling by the time I got up from the table, not a good thing. The bacon wrapped chicken was a new to us dipper, but we both really liked it and will definitely be adding it to our usual dipper list.

I am not sure how much she actually ate, but Hailey really enjoyed this dinner. We gave her a plate with a few of all the dippers and a small bowl of cheese, so she wouldn't dump over the pot and she just went to town. She really liked the pretzels and the tomatoes, towards the end she started eating the chips. She put as much in her bowl as she could and was "cooking", it was hilarious! Christopher of course wouldn't even try it, so he had a hot dog.

So proud of my boy!

This is the letter Christopher wrote(traced) to his friend Ryleigh who lives in Canada! He did a very good job and I am hoping having a pin pal will encourage him to write more, right now it gets pretty hairy when we are working on his actual letter writting practice. We met Ryleigh while in FL back in November visiting my aunt. She was down with her mom visiting her Gma and we actually ran into them 2 out of 3 days on the beach and they played soo well. Christopher talks about her several times a week still, and asks when he will get to see her again :) Such a sweet boy! He told us not to long ago he wanted to go visit her and when I said it would take us probably 2 days to drive there he said "that's ok Mommy, me and Hailey will sleep in the car for you!" I love that kid!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

These are from Hailey's first St. Patty's Day, obvilously...I love these pictures and decided today to try to get a new version of them, easier said than done...

Legos and a new twist on an old fave

At the end of February, like literally the 28th, I found out that Lego stores do a free mini model build the first Tues of the month, the 1st of March was a Tues! So, being that we have never been to the Lego store, since we still only have Duplos I thought it would be a fun thing to do with the kids. We got there 10 mins after it started and the line was crazy long. Apparently just because I am slow on picking it up lots of others in the area were not! The line seemed to be mostly parents with reading books, playing on phones, ect, while their kids were spread out on every bench and seat within sight doing homework. I was not expecting this, but since we did drive the 40 mins to get there we waited in line. It took 1hr 15min, but we got our free mini models, it was a little bird, I think maybe it is supposed to be a woodpecker? The kids did extremely well waiting, especially since it was right at dinner time. I don't think we will be going back to this event anytime soon. Between the drive, the time of day, and the wait it just isn't worth it to me. I think we will just stick with our Sat morning builds at Home Depot and Lowe's!
Waiting...



The final product


One night last week I had steak and shrimp on the menu, and was trying to decide what kind of shrimp to make. I ended up making basically a scampi sauce and sauteing the shrimp in it and then to add some extra color to the plate served it on top of a pile of fresh baby spinach, it was sooo yummy! I don't know why I have never thought to do it before but I will definitely do it again. The warm shrimp and their sauce slightly wilted the spinach and it was like a wonderful light little warm shrimp and spinach salad.

My Baby Girl is 2!....

A month ago! Uggg, slackest mommy ever here! I can't believe my sweet baby is 2 already. It really seems like just yesterday I was sitting at work in the middle of the night watching my belly bounce as she had her nightly hiccups :) We didn't do a big party, just family on her actual bday for cake and ice cream. Here are a few pics.



I had bought the tutu several months ago at Costco thinking I had plenty of time to find a "Happy Birthday" or "Birthday girl" shirt to match, turns out they are hard to come by! So, I ended up with a black leotard from Old Navy and ironed on a sparkly cupcake I found at AC Moore. I also made a new hair bow to match with cupcake and purple ribbons :)

My baby boy is 5!

Then...10 lbs 10 oz, 21 inches

My sweet baby is now 5 years old! I can't believe it! Soon he will be starting school, which is both sad and exciting at the same time. He is very into the movie How to Train Your Dragon right now so he requested a cake based on the movie. It is a very cute movie if you haven't seen it.




One of Christopher's presents (from Grandma) was to go bowling, which he has been asking to do for awhile now. We all had a great time, Robert was actually able to go with us, as was my Dad and sister :) Even Hailey bowled and loved it!

Christopher's first roll




Hailey's turn




None, 5 yrs old and so grown up!