Happy Father's Day!

OpSail 2012

Norfolk was the place to be this past weekend! The city went all out to welcome the OpSail group, which is a huge collection of amazing, tall ships that tour the world. This year was the anniversary celebration of the war of 1812. We really enjoyed watching the boats sail along the river near our neighborhood! We toured ships, watched shows, heard bands and fireworks and even rode a ferris wheel that was set up in our neighborhood. We biked almost everywhere, which was so great since we avoided the parking madness. All in all, a wonderful weekend!

Next up, summer vacation! Pool, beach, camping (? maybe--not sure if I'm ready for this, but Sean says he is), road trips, and more. Happy Summer!!

PreK days

Mia has 2 weeks left of preschool. I have such mixed feelings. I love her class and her teachers so much and I will be very sad to say goodbye. And when I think about her starting kindgergarten  I get a little anxious and teary I must admit. She's my big kid. She's right on the verge of reading for real, and swimming for real and not needing training wheels and all of these big kid things. It's really very fun and exciting and kind of hard to accept. One of her favorite things to play  is "baby" and normally she wants to be the mom and Ellie is the baby, but sometimes she likes to be the baby and I gladly pick her up and cuddle her and stroke her hair because she's almost 5 but she's always going to be my baby.

Go Fly A Kite :)

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! I always say that if I am half as good a mother to my kids as my mom was, I will be very proud. Everytime I am struggling with a parenting decision, I try to imagine how my mom would deal with it. How would she respond to Mia's tough questions, how would she handle the sibling rivalry, and the whiny days. In my memory, she was always calm and loving and said just the right thing.  Thanks Mom! I hope you have rubbed off on me :)

We had a great weekend of family time, picnics, flowers, strawberries and I even got to do some shopping alone :)

Below are some pictures of a great day we had exploring a nearby lake/wildlife refuge. I hope you had a lovely and relaxing weekend!

Bangs for Ellie :)

Mia's weekend with Teddy

All the kids in Mia's class get a turn taking "Ted E Bear" home for the weekend. Mia had him last weekend she and Ellie had a great time taking him everywhere with us :) Here is Mia's report to the class (her words) on her weekend. 

Teddy and me got pictures by a beautiful doll. And then we got home from dinner and we took a nap on the couch. Teddy was napping and sleeping. Teddy is going to have a great time. We took him to the playground just to play. There were other kids to play with. Teddy liked the stroller. Teddy and me ate dinner at a very beautiful place with a fire and at the door there was a beautiful fountain. The next day was the best day ever. I went to swim lessons, I saw my mom where she was working (I was volunteering at a local festival) and then we went to my friend’s birthday. We went swimming in her pool but Teddy didn’t come because he would get wet. Then we got a bunch of sweets! Teddy didn’t have any because he was too full.

The end.

Mini Spring Break trip to Baltimore and Kaylee's Baptism

Quick trip to Baltimore to do some touristy things in the Inner Harbor. The kids had a lot of fun and I remembered how cool of a city Baltimore is.  We also got to see a lot of family for Kaylee's baptism :)
Some highlights:

• Mia rolling down the huge hill at Federal Hill!
• Paddle boating in the big purple dragon
• The most amazing salted caramel ice cream from a shop in the Inner Harbor
• Hanging out at Ben and Morgan's outside while the kids played
• Mia wishing on a star and asking me why she hadn't turned into a mermaid yet (that is her number one wish these days).  I am terrible with coming up with good answers for stuff like that. Tips anyone?

Lowlights:

• Someone swiped our credit card number. Not the actual card, but apparently people can just walk by you with some magnetic thingamajig and it will steal your card number. They tried to buy $1500 worth of stuff from some online company in Wisconsin and our credit card company shut it off. A pain, but it could have been worse.
• As soon as we got home, we all got the worst stomach bug ever. I think Baltimore didn't want us to leave.

Anyway, we are happy to be back to normal and here are a few photos. My camera ran out of batteries right before the baptism :( and although Grandma Sharon set me some from her phone, I do not yet know how to convert them to this format. Stay tuned, I will figure it out...