Labor Day Weekend Fun

Rob had a holiday off! Wooohoooo!

We spent the weekend hanging out and having fun together as a family. We hit the zoo one day and I didn't take one picture. I am not sure what is wrong with me?

I did have the camera for other fun things we did. As my friend Kim would say, here are some scenes from our weekend!

We had an impromptu bbq here a the house. My friend Anne's husband made ice cream for the occasion. It was vanilla ice cream with carmel and chocolate covered potato chips. It was divine.

We also had lunch downtown with the family. We decided to take a carriage ride around and it was a hit. Last time Rob and I did a carriage ride was in Chicago where the horse bit Mason's finger. We had a much better encounter this round. No having to pry open a horses mouth to free an appendage of my child's. I would call it a success!

Santa

We went to see Santa again. We decided to make Bryson a mini Santa thanks to Mason's hand me downs. He wasn't too thrilled on the visit. Mason was excited to tell Santa he wanted a slinky dog and Ellery wanted a big baby. Can you tell my kids love Toy Story?

School Holiday Program Ba Hum Bug

Mason has survived another school holiday program with less participation than last years? I find it mind boggling. He sings the songs here at home and in the car, but when the time comes to perform he barely delivers a smile. I don't see that drama is going to be a career path he will pursue. He even refused the festive red nose? He keeps this up and he might be referred to as a Scrooge?

Family Fun Day at Mulhalls

My favorite local nursery had a family fun day filled with Santa.

Elves

Reindeer

crafts and face painting.

Everyone had a great afternoon. We some how came home with two reindeers.

Easter Egg Hunt

Our neighborhood association had the yearly Easter Egg Hunt today. I don't know why they call it a hunt, all they do is place the eggs in an open field, but the kids seem to enjoy it. Last year we were 5 min late and missed the "hunt" but not this year. We predicted that Mason would only go after the blue eggs, but he proved us wrong and got a rainbow of colors, he also would bring eggs to Ellery because she was a bit overwhelmed with all the people and commotion. I think if we would have given her a piece of candy before the "hunt" or opened an egg to show her what was inside it would have changed her apprehensiveness. Ellery wanted nothing to do with the Easter Bunny while Mason would have held his hand all around the park.

Happy St. Pats Day

Our little green leprechauns, that bring joy to our lives.Grandma Debbie used to give her son green milk on this Happy Day so I decided to do it for my kids. I contemplated going a bit darker, but decided not to since I was serving it in clear glass glasses for maximum color effect.

I think I made a wise choice!
No one cries over spilled milk in this house.

Happy New Year

I am sad to report I didn't even last til midnight. We parted with Nana at Salina then drove the rest of the way to Papaws. I was exhausted from all of our fun earlier in the week that once I wasn't in my own home I think I was able to finally relax and my exhaustion hit me. I had always wanted 2000 glasses over the past years, but never actually broke down and got a pair. I was disappointed last year because I realized it was my last year, but then I spied these creative pieces with making an 0 into a 1 and had to have them. I then thought that Nana deserved a pair as well, so we wish everyone a wonderful New Year.

Thanksgiving

So much to be thankful for this year. I won't bore everyone with my list because I am sure your list will come close to mine. Most of all I am thankful for my wonderful husband and two healthy beautiful kids.

Halloween Sneak Peek

We had a Halloween dry run yesterday. We went to a Halloween Party at our gym for the kids. What an experience. We debated on our kids costumes for the longest time, but once I ran into Ellery's "Indian Girl" costume I fell in love. I can literally say I have little cowboys and indians running through our house. We kept asking what Mason wanted to be for Halloween and he would say "Pumpkin". I nixed that idea and then he wanted to be Spiderman. I also nixed that idea due to the fact that every other 3-5 year old would be Spiderman. I didn't nix it until I went to the store and attempted to buy one and found out they were sold out or picked over. I then got creative and put the movie Toy Story on and really talked about Woody the cowboy. Look at his boots, hat, etc. and to also "reach for the stars". He was sold after that and we now have a cowboy and an indian. Yes, I realize I gave my kids toy guns and a tomahawk.

Vala's Pumpkin Patch

We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. Vala's was amazing last year and yet they still added more fun items to do. It is so big you need a whole day to do everything so we had to pick and choose what we did for our afternoon visit. It was a beautiful day and rumor has it will be the last for awhile because we are calling for snow this weekend. The kids had a great time and I think Ellery really enjoyed herself and was a shadow to every where Mason went. We had mix feelings over the pig races this year. Ellery enjoyed them and so did Mason, but he kept covering his ears while they told the jokes, but would raise his hand to be picked to be a pig watcher. I am not sure what was going on with him during the pig raises, but he came home and I caught him saying sewwweeeee to his stuffed animals and that is what they have you say to call the pigs to start the race. They had a fabulous time crawling and playing on the pumpkins. I found myself having to say something I never dreamed I would ever have to say. I looked away for a few seconds and turn back to find Ellery licking the pumpkins and saying, "Ellery, we don't lick pumpkins, please stop licking them."
http://chaplinclan.blogspot.com/2008/10/pumpkin-patch.html

Happy 4th of July

We made the same hats we did last year and enjoyed wearing them in our neighborhood parade. Our parade was at 10 am and ended with an ice cream social. Ellery isn't that into ice cream, and Mason isn't either. He is however into the toppings. We got our ice cream and added some mini chocolate chips and mini M&Ms. I got us all settled into eating our treats and got to talking and notice Mason is missing and then he is walking back to me with his same bowl of ice cream with more topping added. He ate off his first round of toppings with a bit of ice cream and went back for more.
We shot off fire works last night with some friends and were prepared to keep Mason up late for them. We didn't prepare for him being scared to death and requesting to go to sleep himself. He kept walking to the door and requesting to "go take a nap". He never says it's time for bed, but it's time for a nap whether it is a true nap time or bedtime. Poor thing was scared of snap pops. He did warm up to snakes and smoke bombs eventually. We could call our 4th of July the year of the snakes like a Chinese year.
Rob surprised Ellery with a popping fire works and it scared her into the house as well. She didn't mind everything like Mason, she was fine and would look at him. I think if she was talking she would have asked him what the big deal was.
Poor dad had a sack full of things to light off, he was like a kid in a candy store at the fire works stand. I can only imagine what we will come home with in the years to come as the kids age, I will have 3 gleeful shoppers that I will have to attempt to keep on a fire works budget.

Happy Fathers Day

HAPPY FATHERS DAY ROB!!!

I don't think I can thank Rob enough for giving me these two children. What a blessing to be able to celebrate because of them. I know I couldn't do it without him. I could do a lot of horn tooting over how wonderful a father Rob is. A big time bonus for me is that he loves coming home and helping get the kids to bed. From his perspective I get to spend all day with them so by the end of the evening I am ready for my break and Rob is ready for some interaction time with them since he works long hard hours sometimes. So we are a perfect match and I welcome and appreciate the help. We opened presents after church which through my presentation of presents off. Rob was supposed to open his lame presents of a broom for the garage and light as a feather leaf blower up prior to church and then an after church errand was going to be the sporting good store so we could fit Mason for a bicycle. I still used Mason as my excuse to go to the sporting good store after church, but I think Rob was onto me. We still sent him upstairs to order his new gun for Fathers Day. Nothing like making him do all the paperwork for his new firearm. I think he had a good day, we took him out for donuts in the am and out for dinner in the evening and he napped in between. I was pretty impressed with Mason's card contribution this year. Our card had a mowing theme and I asked Mason to draw a picture of him and daddy mowing and this is what he gave me. The bottom is grass and Mason signing his own name, I don't think he did any differentiating what is grass and what is his name, but I still think it is impressive.

I'm a Big Boy

Mason is growing up so fast and right before my eyes. We went to a neighborhood party this weekend and then over to our neighbors for a swim and Mason loves hanging with the big kids. Monkey see and Monkey do. At the pool he followed around the neighbor boys who are 4 and 8 and mimicked what they did. At the party he played with the 7 and 8 year olds and was a little shadow to them. He attempted to play tag and chase after a ball and tackle who ever got it first. He also had to sit at the 7-9 year old table for dinner. It was a nice break, I am usually following him around at parties watching what he does and we were able to sit back and relax and watch from a distance.

Easter Baskets

The Easter bunny left baskets on the table for the first year. Mason was excited to find his goodies along with opening his Easter Eggs. I hid number magnets inside a lot of them and the others had one jelly bean. He ate the jelly beans when he found them and then when he opened the egg with a number he would call out "I found an eight" and then run to his magnet wall to stick it on.

Happy Easter

HAPPY EASTER

I believe this is Rob's first Easter weekend off in the last 6 years. It seems every year during residency and fellowship he was either on call, on service, or post call sleeping all day. We have enjoyed getting some quality family time in this weekend. We were able to hit a few Easter Egg Hunts, watch some golf, eat an Easter Brunch, attend Easter Sunday Service, and we are gathering with some friends this evening for Easter dinner. We are very blessed and hope that everyone else is as blessed as we are. I realized we live with the true spirit of Easter within our home and our circle of friends and family but we need to outreach and extend that more within our community.

Easter Egg Hunt

If you ever want to witness somewhat organized chaos then you need to attend an egg hunt with lots of toddlers. Mason was excited to hunt the eggs and was tickled when he realized the eggs were filled with candy. Ellery just liked being included and allowed to hold an empty egg. Thank goodness second babies are so good and content with the simplest things! I promise I had a bow on her, but she wasn't interested in keeping it on today.

Meet the Easter Bunny and his stalker

Mason is our Easter bunny stalker, but if Ellery had it her way she would hire an Easter Bunny hit man. We were fortunate enough to have multiple encounters with the bunny this weekend and Mason was thrilled while Ellery acted like she was starring in a horror film. She wasn't a fan of the big bunny and would cling to you and shy away when you got close. Mason on the other hand would just follow the bunny around watching him intently. At our neighborhood egg hunt I lost sight of Mason for a bit but all I had to do was look where the bunny had walked to and Mason was hot on his tail. He liked giving him high fives and had no problem giving him a huge bear hug.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

We aren't Irish but we feel we have the Luck of the Irish.
I got this quote from my dad in an email and it made me smile so I hope it makes everyone else smile as well!
YOU ARE LIKE A FOUR LEAF CLOVER....HARD TO FIND AND LUCKY TO HAVE.
I couldn't have said anything better so right back at you dad!

St. Patricks Day Parade

We loaded the kids up and went downtown to the St. Patrick's Day Parade. No coloring the river green here like they do in Chicago, but it was an enjoyable parade. For a short time we thought it was a political parade. Almost every candidate was giving out stickers and kids love stickers. Especially Mason, he now likes to slap them on his back. I think it comes from the daycare center at the gym, they print the kids name off and place the sticker on their backs. As you can see he had a great time collecting the stickers and would give it immediately to either Rob or me to place on his coat. It was cute Mr. Hal Daub came over and shook Mason's hand. We also might end up in some sort of publication. A journalist walking by saw Mason's coat and asked us a few questions regarding Mason's attire. Stardom seems to run in the family these days. I should have taken a picture of Mason drooling over the drummers in the high school bands along with the drummers for the over the hill drill team. He was captivated. He was also captivated by the blue sucker he scored at the start of the parade. I think it took him 15 minutes to realize if he place this sucker in his bag he could collect more. I should have a taken video of him. Candy is being thrown right in front of him and he just stood their admiring it and watching all the other kids pick it up because he was satisfied holding his prized blue sucker. We did finally convince him to put the sucker in his bag and go for more, but he did impress us and pull the blue sucker back out of the bad when we were trucking back to the car and request to eat it. We were also impressed that he shook hands with clowns along with a cougar high school mascot. He is starting to come out of his shell a bit.

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day!

Mason was thrilled with his cards and presents. He especially liked the chocolate frog and singing card. We made our first Valentines day cards and sent them out. We were attempting to make hearts with hand prints and foot prints. Some turned out better than others. Mason enjoyed making them while Ellery screamed the whole time. Our Valentine read "Roses are Red, My Favorite Color is Blue, I think sugar is super sweet, and so are you." We also made candy airplanes out of life savers, smarties, and a pack of gum. I remember my mom making them for us when we were little.
I am blessed with 3 valentines, I think Rob would say he has 4, he still includes the dog.