March Review

Maybe I can keep up with this monthly...we'll see.  March was a FUN month, and busy as always.

March 6th: The Home Depot has a monthly kids workshop, and Chris likes to take Keira for some father/daughter bonding time.  Liam and I tagged along this month, and the kids made rain gauges.  Although he had fun, we decided Liam is still a little too young, so it will continue to be a father/daughter event for another few months.   

March 9th: I had a great birthday!  A few days before my birthday, Chris spent time alone with the kids, and I went and got a pedicure.  It was nice to get away for a little while and pamper myself.  On my birthday, Chris and the kids got Indian take-out (my favorite, and a little far away so we don't do it very often!) and we had birthday cake for dessert.  Ever since I went to college, my mom has sent me a cake for my birthday....my favorite, an angel food cake.  Yes, she makes the cake, packs it up, and ships it to me!  This year she sent the cake, but instead of decorating it, she sent the icing and sprinkles for the kids to decorate for me.  They had a great time decorating it with Chris and were so proud of their creation.  It was yummy! 

March 10th: The kids preschool class had a field trip to Lowes Foods.  They learned about leading a healthy lifestyle...and had a great tour!  We started out in the toothpaste aisle; then went to see the fruits/veggies (they tried watermelon and avocado); then visited the bakery (and tried whole wheat bread); the seafood department and the dairy department (they tried milk and yogurt).  They also talked about exercise and marched, skipped and hopped throughout the grocery store to the different departments.

 

The class in front of the veggies (Keira is holding the cabbage and Liam has an avocado)

Learning about the lobster (and getting to touch it!)

March 13th - 21st:  We went on vacation to Ft Myers Beach, FL with our friends Emily, Dirk, Ava and Jenna Shimpach.  This is our 2nd year, and hopefully it will continue to be an annual event.  Emily and I are friends from WI and our kids are the same age (Ava is 2 days older than Keira, and Jenna is a few months younger than Liam), so they are a great family to vacation with!  We rented a house with a pool on the canal, and a short walk from the beach.  It was a 12-hour drive for us, and the kids did great.  We were thankful that we didn't have the 24-hr drive the Shipmach's had though!  We spent the week relaxing, playing on the beach, swimming in the pool and watching basketball (March Madness).  It was a great time, and we can't wait to do it again next year!! 

 Beach bums Ava, Keira and Liam

 Ava and Keira hug good-bye...hopefully it won't be another year before they get to see each other

Liam and Keira get one more swim in the ocean in before we leave

March 27th: We visit Bass Lake Park quite a bit, and participate in their monthly story/craft time (which is free).  So we decided to give back to the park and participate in their clean-up day as a family.  We hiked around the park for about an hour picking up trash.  Luckily the park is pretty clean and we didn't find much trash.  Most of what we found were cigarette butts (ick!) and fishing line.  At the end of the clean-up, we all got shirts and the kids were so proud to wear theirs!

After the Bass Lake clean-up, we headed to Womble Park for our town Spring Fling.  The kids had a great time in the bounce houses, making crafts and ending the day with an egg hunt.  

Stay tuned for our April adventures!

Indie Turns One!!

My nephew Indie turned one on February 22nd, and the kids and I went to Richmond to celebrate. My mom came up on Friday afternoon and we all drove to Richmond together. Chris is super busy at work, so he stayed home to get a few things done. It was a great party, and my sister did a fantastic job with The Hungry Caterpillar theme! Indie is getting so big...he's walking now, and the cousins had fun together.

The birthday boy!

Cousins...Liam and Keira (in their butterfly wings), and Indie

Regan, Indie (enjoying his birthday cake) and Ryan

Valentine's Day

Chris and I have never been huge fans of Valentine's Day (we celebrate our anniversary and say 'I Love You' EVERY DAY!), but it's been fun to celebrate with the kids the past few years. Our neighbor had a Valentine's Day party, a few days before Valentine's Day. There were about 20 kids there (plus adults), so it was fun, but a little crazy. The kids decorated bags (below), exchanged valentines with their friends, did a flower with a heart thumbprint craft and had a potluck lunch.
I have been going to Jazzercise since October, and on Valentine's Day they had a Sweetheart Class where you could bring someone with you. They don't normally have childcare on Sundays, but they did for this class (so men could have no excuses to back out!). Chris went with me, and had a good time. There were actually a lot of men there (some people brought their moms or another friend).... and Chris did really well. He was surprised how good of a workout it was, and was still a little sore on Tuesday. :) He was a good sport, and after our workout, we went out for Mexican food with the kids for dinner.

Out and about...of course!

For those of you that know me, I'm not a stay-at-home type of stay-at-home mom. The kids and I are having a lot of fun exploring Raleigh and playing with our friends. Here's a few things that we've been up to lately.

Visit to the Holly Springs Fire Station with some of our friends. The firemen were GREAT with the kids! They gave us a tour of the fire station, showed us the trucks and put on full gear for the kids (and taught them some fire safety too!).

Explore-A-Story at Bass Lake Park is one of our favorites! Once a month we go to the park, hear stories, do a craft and then an activity outside. This month was about squirrels. After the program, it was so nice outside we went for a walk and had a picnic. Before leaving, we went in to the "animal room" and the park ranger pulled out a snake for the kids to touch and "hold". Keira loved the snake and thought it was funny it gave her a "hug" on her wrist (above).

It does snow in North Carolina! The kids enjoyed the first (and probably last) snowfall of the year by sledding and playing with their friends outside.

Keira just started gymnastics and LOVES it! In her first class she practiced handstands (left) and backwards rolls (right).













The kids Ready-to-Learn preschool class took a field trip to PetSmart. They learned about different animals and how to take care of them. They got to pet a guinea pig and two different types of lizards.













My grandmother gave us some money for Christmas, and we used it to buy a membership to the Marbles Children's Museum in downtown Raleigh. We go at least once a month and the kids have a blast! Last week there was a new exhibit open, which was a lot of fun. Liam and his friend Tucker (left) at the lemonade stand and Keira (right) making pizzas in the pizza restaurant.

yes, I'm a total blog slacker!

Here's the last few months in a nutshell...

Thanksgiving: went to Topsail Beach, NC for the We AHR Family reunion. We spent the week with extended family in an 8-bedroom beach house (28 people!), and had a great time.

Christmas: We headed up to Northern Virginia to
spend a week with the McNierney family. The first few days we had almost two feet of snow, so the kids had a great time sledding and playing with their cousins. We went and saw the ICE Show outside of DC, and of course the ice slides were a huge hit (family photo to right)! We visited with numerous friends, and enjoyed catching up with them too. Christmas with 2 grandparents, 8 siblings, 10 grandkids and 5 dogs is always crazy, but fun!



Enjoying the snow! Family photo (left) and Tiffany helping the cousins, Chelsea, Keira, Liam and Nate build a snowman in the front yard (right).

Halloween weekend

We had a family night on the Thursday before Halloween and carved pumpkins and watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Keira loved getting her hands dirty and pulling out the pumpkin guts...but Liam wouldn't touch them. All he wanted to do was put the "lid" back on the pumpkin when we were done.
We started out Halloween day by going to Hollyfest, which is our town's annual festival. It just happened to fall on Halloween this year. We spent most of the day there playing on the moon bounces, making crafts, playing on the playground, enjoying treats and visiting with friends.

Liam and Keira painting luminaries (looks like Liam might be a lefty like Mommy!)

After Hollyfest, we headed home for (wishful thinking) naps and quiet time, before the evening festivities began. Some of the kids' friends (and cousin Maggie and Adam) came over for pizza dinner and then we all headed out for trick or treating. This year the kids picked out what they want to be for Halloween, and Keira was a turtle and Liam was Tigger.












Keira understood Halloween last year, but this is the first year Liam got it, and they both had a great time. We trick or treated for a couple of hours, and then headed home. We ended the night going to our neighbor's house for a (30th) birthday celebration.

Conner (pumpkin), Tucker (Army man), Liam and Keira trick or treating

On Sunday the kids' friend Cameron had his 3rd birthday party at the New Hope Valley Railway station. To start the party, we took an hour long train ride with the steam engine. We were on the caboose for the first half of the ride, and then the train stopped to move the engine to the back of the train, so we were in the front of the train on the way home. It was cool to get an up-close view of the engine hooking up to our train car. After we returned, they had the birthday party on the stationary caboose at the station. The railway also has a Santa train in December, so since the kids had so much fun, we are planning on doing that one too.

Keira and Issac get a front-row view of the steam engine hooking up to our car at the half-way pointKeira, Liam and Chris checking out the scenery from the upper seats

Liam is a big boy!!

It's official...Liam is potty trained! He's been potty trained for a few weeks, but I didn't want to jinx it by putting it in writing just yet. :) We started out with naked potty training over a weekend, and we weren't sure he was going to get it at first. But the following Wednesday night, something clicked...and he's been doing fantastic ever since! We even went to the zoo that Thursday (armed with 5 pairs of pants/undies just in case!), and he only had one accident. For the past month, he's had relatively few accidents, and is now asking to go potty (before it was more us making sure he went every hour or so). We were worried about training him because we heard boys were hard, but he was very easy and caught on quickly. We're so proud of him...and he's proud of himself!