Look Who's Two

I can't believe our baby girl is two already! But she reminds me everyday now "My big girl" and "My do it myself." along with lots of other words. We had a nice day to celebrate her birthday.  After breakfast we went on her last one year old walk. Well, we didn't make it back home before 1030 so we sang happy birthday to her out on the trail.

We got home and found that Uncle B, Grandma, and Pops Leon were already there! The kids were very excited. We had a nice visit and lunch. Then got to the cake. Uncle Brian's birthday is the week before C's so here's his cake:

Baby C found cute flower cupcake holders so she had cupcakes. She remembered right away that you're supposed to blow out the candles.

She even managed to blow out the candles once we moved her cupcake close :)

She had fun opening her presents. Cute PJs from Uncle B and a cute outfit and Hello Kitty from Grandma. She loved playing with her new baby doll bottle and puppet too.

Here she is sporting her kitty PJs.

We had a super day with the Super Kids!

Happy Birthday Baby C- I mean Big Girl C!

Look Who's Seven

Well, 7 1/4 now but I'm catching up and we had a good celebration in August. For T's birthday we drove to the Children's Museum in Greensboro, NC. We had a great time.

The Children's Museum got crowded so we went to SciWorks in Winston-Salem. So nice to have free museums for the military over the summer thanks to Blue Star Museum program.

 After a fun day of museums, we headed to Grandma's where we enjoyed pizza and cake.

 T was excited about his presents especially his card and present from Daddy!

He's growing so fast! He's reading really well. Our leftie loves soccer and has quite a throwing arm. He loves to laugh and have fun with his brothers and sisters. I'm so glad to have this wonderful boy!

October Days

Some more pics from October: 

We really missed Daddy carving the pumpkin. We were thankful that we didn't need a saw and that NC squirrels don't eat pumpkin!

Here's some stained glass window paintings from our Reformation Day celebration.

A fairy, cowboy, Army soldier, princess, and Bible man ready to pass out candy.

Some of our goodies the kids made- homemade Reeses, cookies, and cupcakes!

The kids had tons of fun playing with glow-in-the-dark balloons.

The soup potluck the next day was a lot of fun too!

Sweet girls sporting their coats at church.

T helping Big Girl C with her math.

Love our hiking trails

Found a cool caterpillar on our adventure hike home.

Our 30 minute walk turned into 2 hours of adventure but we made it!

Love Smith Lake playground. I can't believe it took us that long to go there! New favorite park!

We had lots of fun at the Cedar Falls Baptist Church fall festival.

 Boys with their soccer friend (Ghostbusters!)

 KG won this cake in the cake walk and got to meet the girl who made it.

 We stayed until they closed down! Lots of fun- who knew the night was just beginning :)

So thankful for good friends who came and watched the kids so KG and I could go to the hospital and then rest and thankful that we got to go home! A good month even if it ended in the ER.

Happy 4th of July

It's November- I'm thankful that I can still blog about July! Definitely lots of ups and downs in this post. 

I was so happy that James and I got to go out on a nice date night before he flew to Korea. (Thank you Grandma!) We splurged and did zipquest! So much fun! It was the perfect day out. Beautiful trees and waterfalls. So nice! 

After ziplining, we went to our favorite Fayetteville restaurant- the Mash House. Dinner was good but our favorite is always the Big Bad Blondie- yum! Great way to end a super date!

The entrance to our own hiking trails- well, maybe not ours personally but we almost always have the whole place to ourselves- and we learned this week (November) that we can hike for hours back there!

Can you tell who is who? T loves his Daddy hair cut!

We enjoyed our Blue Star visit to Old Salem. It was so neat to tour the different buildings and learn about the time period. We even enjoyed some old fashioned sodas and treats from the bakery!

Love our festive 4th of July shirts!

We had our graduation by the tree!

 3 generations by Grandma's swing

Now the teary part- good-byes are never fun. Of course, this isn't good-bye but see you later. but still hard. It reminded me of 6 years ago. I'm not sure which was harder. I did read this poem recently from the 2008 airport trip. I guess it doesn't matter which is harder- it's just different. I can only be thankful for all the time that we have together and look forward to the time when we are back together. And make the best of the time apart!

We did try to distract our sadness with some donuts before church. I was so thankful to have a great church service to go to after the airport instead of straight home.

Myrtle Beach 2014

We have gone to Myrtle Beach in September for at least 4 years in a row and love each trip. We are so thankful to my parents for taking us each year- we love the nice condo, the yummy food, the fun beach. Thank you! This year they drove here Saturday morning to see the boys' soccer games. K's was rained out but we made it to T and C's first game. 

Then we headed to the beach. We had wonderful weather, no crowds, just beautiful days at the beach. We spent most of our time on the beach, at the pool, or playing games in the room.

We're excited about our new blessing- end of March 2015!

We did leave the beach one day for T's birthday lunch- sailing away to Margaritaville. Fun to sit in a boat for lunch. Good food. Fun music. Great day!

We walked around some after lunch. The kids enjoyed feeding the fish and T picked out a lego set for his birthday. We didn't have any Cold Stone but fun pic spot!

We needed to save room for yummy birthday cake!

Most of our days were out on the beach!

or in the pool!

or playing shuffle board, corn hole, bocce ball.

We enjoyed afternoons at the cottage pool.

Sunsets outside the condo window

And ended the week with plates piled high of pancakes.

Fun times! Love our beach trips!