Monday, December 18, 2017

This And That

I couldn't think of a better title for this post.  Today will just be a random assortment of things we have been up to.
We can't seem to stay healthy in this house.  It's been a slow process for Nora to get over her pneumonia she had back in October and we have had lots of follow up doctors appointments and then today she was diagnosed with an ear infection.  I also have a sinus infection and last week Evan had a fever for a day and just felt crummy for a few days and this weekend Hannah had a fever.  Hoping this will be out for us for this winter.

I have been collecting a few kids quotes that I want to document.

Nora got a scooter for her birthday and now she always calls it her "Happy Birthday Scooter".  She loves it and ask all the time if she can ride her Happy Birthday Scooter.

We had a Thunderstorm at night a few weeks ago and it scared Nora.  The next day she asked "Can you make sure the storm doesn't come in my bed anymore?"

Nora says "I love you and I give you" to us all of the time.  We have no idea what that means or where she got that from.  Then she asks us to say it to her and she always responds "Oh that's so sweet".  So, apparently "I love you and I give you" is a sweet thing to say to somebody.  

The other day Nora said that her babies were hot.  Here is her solution:
She puts them all in the beverage fridge.  Oh and they are still in there now.

Evan came running in excited the other day and said "You know Zoey actually said her first word.  She said sure".  In case you forgot Zoey is our dog :)

One morning Evan said "Do I have to get dressed, because I worked really hard on putting on these pants".  Haha.  He had a hard time putting on his PJ pants the night before, because he didn't dry off good enough after his shower.  

The girls decided to play dress up in my closet.  They had a lot of fun.
Nora has a bra on under this shirt

Then they dressed up as "work out mom"

A while back we had family pictures and afterwards we stopped at Bike Rack Brewing company and had a fun evening out.  The weather was great that evening and the kids just ran around and played the entire time and we enjoyed a drink.
We also took some fun pictures that night.
Then Hannah got a hold of my phone
And then there was dancing

We had renters move out of this house and we decided to do a little renovating.
Before:
After:
The house looks so different with a new coat of paint and some landscaping.

It is time for all of us to feel better and get ready for Christmas.






Monday, December 11, 2017

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

After coming back from Florida it was a little hard to get into the Christmas spirit, it just didn't feel like it yet.  Well, the weather definitely feels like Winter now.  We had a big drop in temperature last week and all of a sudden it feels a lot more like Christmas is coming.  

We did decorate the house for Christmas already and I always love it.  The house will feel so empty after we take it all down again.






And guess who has made an appearance again?  Yes, Mr Christmas returned on December 1st.  He has been up to a lot of shenanigans.....

He still can't get his landing right and crashes....

I am planning on doing an entire post on just our Elf when he is done.......would be fun to document all of his silliness.

Evan had a calendar to countdown the days until he can open his advent calendar.  Haha!


I took Evan on a little date and we went to see Trike Theaters production of Charlotte's Web.  It was very cute and Evan enjoyed it (it was an hour long, which was perfect.....the last 10min he was getting really wiggly).

We went with my friend Amy and her son Hudson.  It was a wonderful evening with just my boy.

Since then I have taken Hannah on a date to see the movie Wonder and we both loved it.  We have not read the book yet, so we can't compare it to that, but we thought it was a wonderfully made movie and such a great story.  Now it is Nora's turn to take her on a date.

We went to Barn church for the "hanging of the greens" and had a great evening with some special people and a good potluck dinner.


Oh the detangling of the light strings.......always fun


We have also created our annual Christmas Bucket List

We are working on crossing things off of our list.
The Bentonville Christmas Parade is always a favorite for the kids.  Evan had soccer that morning, so he chose to go there instead.  It was pretty cold out, but the girls still enjoyed it.


Lots more memories to make this Christmas season.  All kids are at a great age to enjoy this wonderful time of the year.


Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Thanksgiving Beach Trip

We just returned from a wonderful Thanksgiving beach trip.  We spent a week in Stuart, FL at a house right on the water and it was fantastic.  My mom and Scott's parents joined us for the week and we all had a great time together.  We had perfect weather for the entire week and got to spend lots of time on the beach.  

Our home for the week
We built lots of sand castles on this little private beach.  The house was perfect for kids.  It had lots of toys (even a play kitchen for Nora), sand toys, boogie boards, kayaks and firing rods.
The house faced the intracoastal waters, which was perfect for the kids, because it was calm.  
Literally across the street was the open water and the winds and waves were pretty strong on that side.  It was hard to believe that it was just across the street.
The kids loved the waves.  
Me, my mom and the kids
We don't get many pictures together.....
Three generations.....
Having a house is so much nicer when traveling with kids.  We made most of our meals at the house and we didn't have to go to bed when they do (because thats what happens when you stay in a hotel room with kids).
We ate out on the deck every night and enjoyed some good seafood.
And we had donuts on the deck
We went fishing off the dock a bunch of times.  Evan and Nora were not patient enough, but Hannah turned into quite the fisherman on this trip.  She sat out there with Scott and grandpa Irv for long periods of time.  She caught quite a few fish and a stingray off the dock.

Family picture on the dock
This was the first fish 
We saw some amazing sunsets from the deck.....it is so hard to capture the beauty of a sunset on camera, it never does it justice
We also had a pool that we used a lot and I was so thankful that it had a fence around it :).  This house was very kid friendly.

Scott, Irv, Hannah and Evan headed to the Dolphins game on Sunday.  They did a little bit of tailgating before heading into the game.

 They had amazing seats in the front row at the 50 yard line......not bad for Evan's first NFL game.

Meanwhile this is where the rest of us spent our Sunday afternoon

And some more fishing in the evening
We also went kayaking every afternoon.  It was the kids first time and I was really impressed how quickly Hannah and Evan just took off.Nora enjoyed going for rides with the adults.....and if course she had to try it on her own as well, but that was more of a paddle battle.
We also visited the Oceanographic Center and really enjoyed that.  We got to touch and feed stingrays and learn about sea turtles.
This place was very educational, but also fun for the kids with lots of games
This turtles name was Annabelle, so we had to get a picture for cousin Annabelle
At this point the two smaller kids had learned enough about sea turtles and were ready to go

I couldn't get enough of these sunsets
My mom was enjoying the sunset from the hot tub......it doesn't get much better than this
Scott, Irv, Jeannie and Hannah went deep sea fishing one morning.  My mom and I and the two little ones stayed back.  Hannah was a little nervous about getting sea sick, but she handled it like a champ and got really into the fishing.  She even caught a little shark.  
It was a little rough out, so I am glad I stayed back with the rest of the crew.
On Thanksgiving we did our traditional turkey trot.  Scott and I ran the 5k and the kids did a little fun run.  Nice thing about running in Florida is that its completely flat.  Bad thing is the humidity:)

The kids were ready to race
Hannah in action
Nora crossing the finish line
Evan was too fast we didn't get a good picture of him. Haha!

We went into downtown Stuart a few times for dinner and ice cream.  It is a very cute little area and reminded me a little bit of Key West.
Now it is back to reality.