Easter Week 2015

Our Easter festivities were a little condensed this year as I flew to Phoenix that evening to visit my grandfather. But... we made the most of our time and crammed in as many Easter activities as we could. We spent the morning with a fun Easter egg hunt at home, followed by church, and then shared the rest of the day with family (and other egg hunt!).

Then that evening I joined my sister at the airport and we flew together to Phoenix to meet up with our parents, and later our other sister, to visit with our grandfather and his wife and get his house ready to sell. We cleaned out closets and drawers (found some gems), moved furniture, and really started taking to the Arizona lifestyle (up early because of the jet lag and early morning daylight). I hadn't been to Sun City West since high school and really appreciated the weather and landscape more than I remembered.

We love our Pop-Pop, and the expression on his face when he saw us was priceless! Pop-Pop is 90 years young, and his memory is sharp. He had no trouble keeping straight each of his great-grandchildren and loved hearing about all their latest activities. We really enjoyed visiting with him and his wife and seeing his physical change in him in just a few days. Love and family will do that.

I spent 5 days in Arizona before flying back and joining Michael and the boys for a little in-state road trip to see family. We first met up with my cousin where we met their newest daughter Lexi (so tiny!), just days old.

Then we joined Michael's family at his aunt's 60th birthday party and caught up with his aunts, grandmother and cousins and their families. I'm not exactly sure if they are all cousins, second cousins, second half-cousins or what, but these kiddos sure had fun together. What a fun week!

The Holiday Season 2014

Christmas was much fun this year! Adam is such a fun age to really enjoy all the festivities, magic and anticipation of Christmas. 

We started December with what has become tradition with my sister's family -- the annual Horse-Drawn Carriage festival in downtown Lebanon. Or, as my brother-in-law would call it, the annual street-fair-of-food-in-the-cold. This is typically followed by some outlet mall shopping to kick of the season of buying!

And as the days and weeks wore on, everything started to look more like Christmas as we prepared our hearts for the special occasion.

We shared a special Christmas morning with just our little family of 4 this year. Sam wasn't overly impressed with the occasion; in fact, a couple of times he handed me the remote control, as if to say, can we just watch some tv instead?. Adam, however, loved the whole morning, especially all his new books and his new winter coat. Later that day we loaded up for Gramma and Grampa's house for a much more active holiday celebration the next morning. (On the drive down, Adam asked why Santa didn't bring him a tanker truck, as he asked. Fortunately Gramma and Aunt Angie came to the rescue with new trucks for him to play with!)

And each year we make it a point to capture an annual holiday family photo, and it's always pretty comical setting up the timer, getting everyone in position, and taking a few times to get the right shot. Next year we'll be squeezing another little one into this photo, as niece Annabelle is due in the spring!

We've taken this photo 3 of the last 4 years, and I hope we're able to keep up the tradition for years to come. (We may eventually need a larger couch, however.)

After all the festivities we rewarded ourselves with a lot of relaxation and family time.

We returned home to host more family for a holiday dinner, followed by a real low-key New Year's Eve.

We are anxious to see what 2015 has in store for our home and yours. We look forward to welcoming a new niece, teaching Adam to ride a 2-wheeler, sending our 5-year old off to kindergarten (!), training for more races and activities, and continuing with Sam's speech and social development to hopefully hear those first sweet words real soon.

Hoping your hearts were as full as ours this year -- all our best for 2015.

Thanksgiving Week 2014

Who doesn't love November? One of my favorite months, of sure, especially since the past couple of years our friends from Florida have come up for Thanksgiving. This year we made sure to take the whole week off to spend it with them. With their 2 little ones, and my sister's little ones, we had 6 kids aged 5 and under that needed to be entertained.

So, road trip! First up was Mammoth Caves National Park, which was a whole day trip to eastern Kentucky. We left the little girls and took just the boys. It was a couple hour drive of snack-giving, toy-sharing, game-playing, are-we-there-yet question-answering and a quick Cracker Barrel breakfast before our tour. Friend Ryan had been studying caves so it was a great way to roll in some educational fun into their vacation. We took the Frozen Niagara tour, which takes visitors to the most decorated areas of the caves. We saw lots of stalactites and stalagmites and the tour length was just right for 4 & 5 year old attention spans. Highlights for the boys were the bus ride to the cave entrance, the cave crickets (which look like spiders on the ceiling), turning the lights out inside the cave, and asking our guide questions (including can you turn the lights out again). Our ranger was very patient and kind when their little hands kept shooting up to ask a question, and I was quite proud of them for their thoughtful (and relevant!) inquiries.

Ready to go

Some of the draperies down below

The natural cave entrance

Inside the house there's only so much room for running around, and boys need space! We took them to an apple orchard on a cooold day, but these kiddos stayed warm by all the climbing and jumping.

And speaking of jumping, we tried out Sky Zone another day, and that was so fun! Even Sam had a great time running across all the trampolines and even took a dive in the foam block pit. Adam wants to wear his special trampoline socks just about every day.

And we filled up all the in-between times with plenty of playing, dressing up, and birthday pancakes for Stella's 3rd birthday.

Oh, and of course, the main event, Thanksgiving itself: 1 fried turkey, 1 roasted turkey, 1 smoked turkey breast and 24 people!

I hope your table was surrounded by much love!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Autumn Wrap-Up

When you look outside and see this....

you know you're behind on updating about our Autumn. It was a really pretty Fall this year, and we did so many things to enjoy the weather.

Evans Apple Orchard

With Aunt Amy and family and Grandpa Dave on perhaps the hottest day of the season -- Adam was a sweaty, dirty mess by the end but had so much fun. We never actually left the play area to go to the orchard itself.

Horse-Daze

This is a really neat event annually held by the county parks system. It features all kinds of horse-related activities and games, including horse rides, horse grooming, an equestrian course for kids to jump themselves, face painting, a hayride, food and more. The event raises money for the public horse trails around the county.

Pumpkin Run & Fall Festival

We'd been looking for a 5k for Adam to do, as part of the mile-per-year plan Michael has for Adam. Last year, when Adam was 3 years old, he ran his first 5k. Three years, three miles. This year we needed a four mile race, which don't really exist, but we found a small community 5k that also had a 1-mile family walk. The Pumpkin Run is sponsored by the local YMCA and was held in the quaint river town of Franklin, Ohio.

First up was the Family Walk, and Michael and Adam headed out quickly. Sam was itching to get out of his stroller so I let him loose on the course as well and he pretty much completed the distance all on his own.  Following this race was the Pumpkin Run with several costumed participants. Aunt Angie and Kevin joined us for this race. I pushed Sam and Michael ran with Adam. Four miles completed all on his own!

Following the race was the town's Fall Festival with street food, craft vendors, kid rides and presentations by local groups. It was a perfect Fall day to be outside enjoying the event, and cousin Jake was able to come play with us.

Halloween

Halloween snuck up on me this year, and once again I was staying up late to finish Adam's Halloween costume. He'd wanted to be a mummy for a long tim but the closer the day came he kept changing his mind. I made the final decision for him and threw together a mummy costume using liner fabric I had on hand, ripped it up and dyed it with tea, and attached it to a t-shirt and pants. For Sam, we recycled the frog costume Adam wore at the same age.

We had tickets to go see Garth Brooks in concert Rupp Arena at 10:30 Halloween night, so we drove down to Lexington to join the cousins for trick-or-treating before the show.

Mother Nature didn't tell Autumn that her season was over before the first snow fall came mid-November (4 inches!), and we lost a tree in our yard due to the weight of the snow and ice on tree branches that still had leaves.

Our November ended quite busy with Sam's birthday (2!) and an active Thanksgiving week with friends from Florida. Posts on those to come!