Playing catch-up :: OBX 2011

So I've been really bad about blogging.  I think about it; I just haven't done it.  I imagine it's because the next chronological event is our beach vacation.  It was a wonderful week full of lots of fun with my side of the family.  And honestly, I think I'm a little overwhelmed trying to write about a whole week in one little post.  So let's do a real quick summary and hope it takes care of my recent writer's block.  :)  For the whole story in pictures, check out my picasa.  Between photos and captions, that's going to be the best place to see the whole trip!

We spent most of our time on the beach.  We had a wonderful house that was maybe fifty yards from the water.  It was great to be able to walk to the beach, not have to put dirty wet kids in the car, run back for bathroom breaks, and then when we were down for the day throw them in the outdoor shower.  Ryan and Abby loved the sand and the water.  They had a blast building sandcastles, riding the boogie board, digging holes, lounging in the chairs, and basking in tons of attention! 

We ventured out a few times of course: putt-putt golfing (yes, when a 3 and 1 year old are involved, it's as crazy as you'd guess it'd be!), a yummy dinner at Mulligan's, shopping (Ryan picked out a can coozie over all the other junk in the huge souvenior store, silly kid!), walking around downtown Roanoke Island.  The highlight was a surprise pontoon boat ride on Friday afternoon.  We celebrated Dad's 60th birthday and Uncle Brian's 30th.  We watched dozens of dolphins about twenty yards from us, ate cookie cake, jumped in the bay for a quick swim, and even tried to sink the boat by leaving the ladder down and all sitting up front.  Oops :).  We also witnessed the relocation of sea turtle nest.  They are restoring the beach in Nags Head, so they move any eggs to safety.  It was a very interesting process, the volunteers were super nice, and they even let Ryan "help" at the new nest site. 

Thanks to Mom and Dad for a great vacation and the perfect beach house.  We enjoyed spending time with you guys and of course with Aunt Lolly and Uncle Brian too.  Still can't believe how fast the week went! 

And of course, no post would be complete without a picture...

He's Brilliant!

To continue the theme from my last post, here is Ryan with his train table.  The train table that he put together all by himself.  Every last piece.  Without any directions or pictures.  In no time flat.  And perhaps most impressive is that the pieces have been apart and in the toy box for a good two months.  This is completely from long-term memory.  Not sure why it took Uncle Christian, Uncle Tyler, and Sara so long on Christmas Eve :) :) 

one Harvard scholarship coming right up

Here's hoping I can explain this well and do justice to it's awesomeness.  As you probably already know, Ryan is brilliant and I'm not one bit biased.  :)  Honestly though, I do think he's pretty intuitive and observant and perceptive.  So a few days ago we were outside waving bye-bye to Grandpa & Grandma.  Ryan was playing around and hopping over the goofy little flower bed between the driveway and the sidewalk. 

After walking around it a few times, he stops and announces "this like in my play room."  I'm racking my brain trying to figure out what in his play room looks like red mulch and not coming up with anything.  So he leads me inside, straight to the box of blocks in his playroom and without hesitation, pulls out these:

He tells me that the one on the left looks like the flowerbed!  Is that just super smart or what??  After we talked about it a little, he said the one on the right could be the sidewalk.  But to tell me the other one was the flowerbed completely unprompted, out-of-the-blue, without the blocks being anywhere near him, I thought was impressive!

(yes, that's not a great picture of the flowerbed thingy, it poured last night and mulch went everywhere and there were still wet spots.  And I kill flowers.)

Summer time

oops, seems I took a little break there from blogging.  Nothing huge to report, so I think I'll cheat and just do a few bullet points to get us all caught back up...

*lots of swimming still!  We even went with Ryan's friends Seth & Wyatt from preschool one day last week. 
*Abby's 15month checkup.  She finally hit 20lbs!  Her head is 95%, height is 60th (31 inches), and weight is 20th percentile.  tall, skinny, with a big head.  Sound like anyone else we know? 
*watching belated fireworks with Lincoln & Dalton.  Fireworks in the street aren't as scary as I thought they'd be and we all had fun. 
*Family movie night: Gnomeo & Juliet.  Super cute and {spoiler alert} loved the happy ending.
*Hosting Alicia's baby shower.  Only six weeks til her baby girl gets here, yay!
*Abby's 103 degree fever and uti :(
*Ryan & Mommy went on a playdate with Ms. Tara & Madeleine to a picnic lunch and the new Winnie the Pooh movie. 
*Mommy & Daddy's datenight!  Buckhead pizza.  Good while we there, let's just say it didn't sit well though...
*lots of errands, getting ready for vacation!
*Mommy's girl's night out!  All seven of the old mountain lake girls were there, what a fun night!
*Abby's getting pretty good at eating with a fork, although we had a few setbacks due to not eating at all with the uti.
*Daddy did an awesome job laying lots of pinestraw on the hill out back.  Darn HOA.

Hopefully I remembered all the big events.  Hard to believe summer's almost over :(  Cherokee county only has one more week.  Fortunately preschool doesn't start quite yet so we can enjoy a little more fun.  Vacation soon!

we are family

We've been blessed to have all sorts of family around the last couple of weeks.  We've visited with Auntie Sarah and Uncle Christian and cousin Maxim; the cousins always have a great time together and this trip was no exception.  We just wish we could see them even more often!  Aunt Mackenzie also made the journey down from Vermont for her dad's birthday.  The kids had a good time playing with her; Maxim was especially fond of spinning with her.  Coleson's cousin Jenny and her son Christopher were here too, all the way from New Hampshire.  We enjoyed being trapped in the car with them on the rainy 4th of July and Ryan enjoyed swimming & sliding with them at the pool.  Unfortunately, Coleson got very sick while they were here and we holed up in the house and didn't get to see them as much as we would have liked.  Hopefully they will make it down again next summer!  Love to all of our family and are so glad we got to spend some time together!

Cow Appreciation Day

Alright, so if you know anything about me, I am imaging you know my love for Chick-fil-a :)  It's a great place for kids, everyone is so nice & helpful, the food is yummy, it was my first job back in high school, the cow is awesome, they have great company values, they sponsored most of our sec stuff at uga, they treat their employees right, and on & on.  So I am always excited to participate in their cool activities (not that anything will ever surpass camping out in the parking lot for 24 hours). 

 Friday we dressed up like cows and got free lunch!  I must confess, I was pretty proud of the kids' cow signs.  And Ryan loved the face paint, so much so that he's got three spots on each arm although you can't really tell that in the pictures.  Fortunately we got there really early - a few minutes before 11am.  We weren't hungry yet, but managed to eat most of the chicken and took the fries home.  We ordered, got our seat by the playplace, and then right about 11 the floodgates opened up and the place was packed!  So glad we timed that right.  It was lots of fun and I've carefully packed up the costumes in anticipation of next year - although the ears need a little help between now & then :)  Eat More Chicken!

July 4th

Happy 4th of July!  We enjoyed a great day with lots of family!  We started at the Woodstock parade with Grandpa, Grandma, Nana, Pop-Pop, Auntie Sarah, Uncle Christian, Maxim, cousin Jenny, and Christopher.  The parade was fun; the kids seemed to enjoy it.  They always like any excuse to see firetrucks :)  It was hot and sweaty, but fun nonetheless.  There was also a festival of sorts where Ryan jumped in a bounce house and we bought Abby a home-made pillow dress.  We lunched at Moe's and then rested up in the afternoon in prepartion for fireworks.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't very cooperative.  We met up with our friends James, Rachel, and Jake at Dairy Queen before heading out to find our spot for Canton's firework show.  But the rain never let up, so sad!  We had three cars of friends & family and yet we were never able to get out and visit.  But we didn't give up and the fireworks went off in the rain.  A few got lost in the clouds, but overall we had a decent show.  Ryan and Abby loved the show, even from within the car.  I suppose it's good they don't know what a real fireworks show looks like!  While not the best fireworks ever, certainly a memorable one.  Happy Birthday America!

Happy Birthday Pop-Pop!

Happy 60th Birthday Jim/ Pop-Pop!!  We had a great time partying and celebrating.  And there was even a surprise guitar player to sing Happy Birthday, Born to be Wild, and Long Haired Country Boy.  The kids had a blast playing together in the yard, while adults socialized and mingled.  We had a delicious dinner, wonderful cake, and yummy watermelon.  There were lots of family & friends around, including Mackenzie, yay!  Hope you had a great day Jim and here's to many, many more!

swimming

We have been swimming a LOT recently!  Ryan loves it!!  He's doing really well, almost too well :)  He still can't quite swim, but he is getting really confident, so we have to keep a super close eye on him.  His favorite swimming buddies are Grandpa, Grandma, & Nana.  Nana took him to the slide yesterday and he had a blast sliding over & over and blowing water through his tube.  He also loves to swim with Grandpa because he can throw him really high!  Ryan loves flying and yelling wheeee!  Tonight Grandpa even throw him into the pool from the edge. 

Abby has no fear either and will follow Ryan right up to the edge of the pool and sort of jump/ slip in.  Needless to say, it's a littls stressful for Mommy when they are both at the pool!  The more adults there the better :) 

live laugh love

It's time for a much overdue blog about life!  We're enjoying summer, and while  I've been decent about keeping up with big events, there's always lots of little stuff that's good to remember too :) 

Ryan's growing up so fast!  How is that we have a kid old enough to play soccer??  He's talking so well and is very conversational.  One of his favorite things to do is "let's talk silly stuff!"  We play it in the car and it's as simple as it sounds.  We take turns making up crazy things like 82 purple giraffes jumping over the moon; that'd be silly!  He also enjoys playing "I see (spy) with my little eye" while we are driving.  He dresses himself now, loves to ride his bike, enjoys playing games on Daddy's new smart phone, and is becoming a swimming fiend!  He jumps from the side, walks on the bottom, loves being thrown, and is getting almost too confident in the water :)  We still have to be within arm's reach since he can't quite swim, but he tests his limits a little more every time we go.  His favorite TV shows are Diego, Dora, and WonderPets.  He loves to eat lunch outside under the umbrella for shade, prefers riding in the wagon over walking, and can spot a playground from a mile away.  Over summer, he doesn't have any set activities, but he'll be in preschool three days a week in the fall and we'll find out more about speech the first week of school (which starts Aug 1st in our county, craziness!!). 

Abby is in the wonderful one phase and it is wonderful indeed.  Everything is new and exciting and fun, and it's so fun and exciting to watch her exploring and learning.  She takes one nap now, about two hours each afternoon.  She LOVES milk and has eight teeth.  She is constantly getting into something and her poor knees have been skinned all summer long.  She climbs everything and especially loves getting up on to chairs.  She has beautiful blonde curls and huge blue eyes that earn compliments from just about everyone we meet.  She enjoys swinging on the playset, climbing the ladder, and sliding down.  She thinks her big brother hung the moon and tries to do everything he does, which is pretty stressful when that's something like jumping in the swimming pool :)  She tries to pet every "da" (dog) we see and likes to play with any "ba" (ball).  Her words aren't all there, but she definitely knows what she is saying.  She still drops the ll on ball, but will walk right up to it and say "ba" so it still counts as a word in my opinion!  She also says "du" when she sees a duck.  Her "buh-buh" with a backwards wave will melt your heart.  I am predicting "hi" will be her next word; I think I've heard it once or twice, but am not 100% sure quite yet.  She has been sleeping with stuffed animals recently and is so sweet carrying around her baby doll or stuffed dog. 

We are so super blessed to have the best kids ever, and to have our boy and girl so we can experience all sorts of fun.  I love our family and I love that I am able to stay at home with our kids and watch them grow.  Thank you Coleson for supporting us and taking care of us!