Day 12

Tonight's activity was to go to Garett's Christmas program at school.  He did a wonderful job!  It was so much fun to see him sing and participate.  He looked like he was having fun once the music started.  He did look a little nervous at first though.

Waiting on his turn to sing

 We Wish you a Merry Christmas

This morning, we woke up to discover Ollie had taken our stockings a replaced them with our underware!  Sneaky elf!

The Lights

Tonight we went to the lights at Norfolk Botanical Gardens.  We've seen these lights before, they do a great display.  We were able to ride a tram through this time, and that was a really nice experience.  All of us really enjoyed the lights and we were fortunate to have a warmer night to take this ride.

Breakfast for Dinner

Definitely a big favorite in our house!  Today as a part of our Christmas countdown, we had Christmas shaped breakfast for dinner!  This included pancakes in the shape of an elf, a snowman and a snowflake.  Big hit, and the minty chocolate milk and egg nog were both new favorites as well!

Running with the Cows

Today's Christmas countdown activity was "Run with the Chick-Fil-A cows at Busch Gardens".  This came about when mommy found a race at Busch Gardens in Willisamsburg that had an 8k and also a half mile family fun run with the cows.  After much discussion between just mommy and daddy, it was decided that mommy would run the 8k with Aunt Katie and all of the boys would do the half mile with daddy.  So yesterday we took off for Williamsburg and stayed the night so we wouldn't have to get up quite as early.  We got up and grabbed some breakfast on the way and then got lined up ready to start the race.  We all had a great time running, there were over 400 kids running and about a dozen or so cows.

After we finished our race, it was time for mommy and Aunt Katie to start theirs.  They got to run through the park as part of their race.  Caleb said next time he wants to do the long race also, so we'll see!

Christmas Countdown

This year instead of our typical "open the door on the advent calendar" thing, mommy and daddy decided to do a different kind of countdown.  We woke up to 24 sealed envelopes taped to our entertainment center.

 Ollie must have gotten into the tape after mommy and daddy went to bed.

Each envelope has a different activity in it.  We are really looking forward to opening them and doing the activity as we count down to Christmas!

Today's activity was to watch Prep and Landing and have brownies for dessert- yummy!

Elf on the Shelf

Over Thanksgiving, the kids were given the book The Elf on the Shelf along with their very own elf.  Our family elf is named Ollie and he had a couple of adventures while we were still in North Carolina, and has continued to enjoy his stay at our house.  So far he's played in the cabinets at Nana and Paca's, climbed the chimney at Grandma and Grandpa's, snuck in to hang on our rear-view mirror for our drive back home, climbed our small tree at home, and hung out in Caleb's money jar.  I'm sure he'll have more adventures as the month goes on.

The Bug turns TWO!

Happy 2nd Birthday Sophie Grace! The little bug turned two years old on September 19. It's hard to believe that she is 2 years old already! We celebrated with a build-a-bear/princess party in Raleigh the weekend before her birthday. Sophie got to make a new animal at build-a-bear along with Caleb, Tyler, Garett, Lily and Lydia. It was a very fun party. Sophie's favorite part was when we all sang happy birthday to her. She smiled and smiled as we sang :) After the party we visited a few more stores in the mall and then headed to the hotel to swim, have dinner & cupcakes and of course open presents. Sophie loved all of her gifts, but after she opened her new dishes for her kitchen she would've preferred to just play and skip the rest of the opening. She's a lucky little girl! On top of the new dishes she received some new play food, a new book, sunglasses, a dress smocked by Nana, a box of dress up clothes (shoes- her favorite!), a rapunzel dress and a new rapunzel doll! Tangled is by far her favorite movie so she was excited she could dress up as rapunzel and have her rapunzel doll. We had a yummy pizza dinner and then cupcakes. Sophie had princess cupcakes and she loved them (as did everyone else) Sophie, Lily & Lydia even got to enjoy a bath together after swimming to test out some of Sophie's new dishes. What a fun celebration!

First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. Caleb started 1st grade and Tyler started kindergarten. They were both very excited to get the school year started and meet new friends. Caleb is now at school all day from 8-3 compared to last year he only had afternoon kindergarten from 12-3. It is a big adjustment and school has been wearing him out! He is liking his new teacher and doing his best to listen and learn. Tyler was very excited about starting kindergarten. He has afternoon kindergarten like Caleb did last year and in fact has Mrs. Jones who was Caleb's teacher last year. Tyler has been convinced he was going to have Mrs. Jones so it's a good thing that is who he was assigned! He is excited to be riding the bus with Caleb now and they get to ride home together.

Garett will have his first day of school for 3 year old preschool tomorrow. He is very excited to get back to school and we hope he is a great first day too!

Labor Day Weekend

We had some company visit for Labor Day weekend. Nana, Paca, Aunt Katie and Aunt Marie came to visit! It was fun to have company and Nana, Paca & Aunt Marie kept up with us on Sunday while Daddy, Mommy & Aunt Katie ran the Rock n Roll Half Marathon! We had a fun weekend of family and fun. On Friday we met up with everyone after they arrived at the Race Expo so that Mommy, Daddy & Aunt Katie could pick up their race packets. We also got to check out a few of the fun exhibits they had. After we finished up there (and got some new fun items) we went to have a yummy mexican dinner. On Saturday we had a hang out day and cooked a yummy hot dog dinner. Perfect for this weekend! Sunday we woke up and Mommy, Daddy & Aunt Katie were nowhere to be found. We're so proud of them for completing the half marathon- we really like their medals they received! Once they returned home we had some more hang out time so that they could rest a little bit. They enjoyed a yummy dinner from PF Changs and it was a great way to end the weekend. We all woke up Monday and had some play time and lunch before it was time to say goodbye.

Everybody had to get back home and we had to rest up for the first day of school! It was a nice way to end our summer vacation.

Just in time!

We got back from our adventures in North Carolina just in time to welcome Daddy home!! We decided this seemed more like a long work than medium work because it seemed he was gone forever! We got home from North Carolina and had a couple of days to prepare for him. We are so glad he is home to spend time with us before the craziness of school begins again!

Welcome Back Daddy! :) We love you!

Marbles Kids Museum

We got to make a pit stop in Raleigh on our way back to Virginia from Asheboro to play at Marble's Kids Museum in Raleigh. We took Nana, Paca & Aunt Katie with us and also met up with Aunt Sarah and Lily for the afternoon. There is so much for us to do we could have stayed there all day long! One of our favorite things was playing on the pirate ship. We got to dress up as pirates, drive the ship and even lower the anchor. Another one of the big favorites was playing hockey. They have a mini hockey rink and you put on socks and play a game of hockey. That was a big hit with the boys! Sophie loved making pizza and playing at the bank.

It was a fun afternoon to end our trip to NC!

More Summer Adventures

Caleb and Tyler got to go all alone to North Carolina for two whole weeks. Daddy was gone on "medium work" so Mommy decided it would be good timing to let them go spend time with both sets of grandparents. Aunt Katie had to go to Raleigh for the day so she drove all 3 boys down to meet up with Grandpa to send off the two big boys for week 1 of their adventure. Garett was very sad he didn't get to go along (maybe next year!) but he was a good helper and riding companion for his Aunt Katie. Lucky for Mommy & Sophie, Aunt Katie and Garett returned with 3 more people to enjoy the weekend with us!

Nana, Aunt Sarah & Lily came to visit. Aunt Sarah & Uncle Richard had a wedding to attend in Williamsburg so Lily was going to hang out for the weekend and we convinced Nana at the last minute to come along! (Not hard to do when you have cute grandkids to bribe her with!) On Saturday, we all loaded up to head to Williamsburg to drop Aunt Sarah off to meet Uncle Richard for the wedding. After we dropped her off, the rest of us grabbed some yummy snow cones and did some shopping. After our shopping adventures we headed towards Virginia Beach and made a stop for a yummy crab dinner. We got home late and all 3 kiddos slept very well that night!

Caleb & Tyler got to have many fun adventures while in North Carolina. They spent their first week with Grandpa and Grandpa then the second week they spent with Nana and Paca. Tyler got to have special birthday celebrations with each of them during their visits. They also got to visit museums and went to a baseball game. They seemed to have a great time on each of their visits, but Mommy sure was glad to get them back! It was much quieter without them around :)

Mommy, Aunt Katie, Garett & Sophie made the trip down to Asheboro to pick up the missing monkeys. But before they left, Mommy and Aunt Katie ran their first 5k at the zoo! It's been a busy couple of weeks but we're ready to get back to our routine. We have to go home and get everything ready for Daddy to come home!

Tyler's 5th Birthday!

Happy 5th Birthday Tyler man!! It's hard to believe he's 5 years old and in just a matter of weeks will begin kindergarten. Tyler is such a fun kiddo and surprisingly the quietest of the 4 monkeys. He didn't have very many requests for his birthday because he was just so excited about turning 5. The entire week before his birthday he kept asking how many days until it would be his birthday. The morning of his birthday he woke up SO excited because he was finally 5! Unfortunately, Daddy is out of town for work for a little while so he wasn't here on Tyler's birthday, but he got to call on his special day and that was ALMOST as good as him being here!

Tyler got a new big kid bike from Mommy & Daddy for his birthday and he was so surprised! The look on his face when he saw it for the first time was priceless.

The evening of Tyler's birthday he got to have a small get together with some friends and neighbors to celebrate. The theme of his party was Dr. Seuss and all of the kids seemed to have a great time.

Rainbow Jello

Mommy found a fun recipe online for rainbow jello and we decided to try it out. We were having a day at home to spend some time inside so it was the perfect time to try it. It is VERY time consuming but once it is all finished it is very fun and of course yummy. It ended up taking the entire day to finish all of the layers so one day was spent making it and another evening was spent enjoying it. What a fun summer treat!

Children's Museum

It's been so hot lately Mommy has been trying to find things for us to do indoors. So today we loaded up and headed to the Children's Museum in Portsmouth. We could've spent all day there if mommy would let us! There are so many fun things to do for all of us. We saw a few friends we knew there as well so it was fun to catch up. Mommy took a lot of pictures so we'll share a few with you. She even tried to get all 4 of us to sit in the big purple chair for a picture... but with 4 kids 6 & under, that's a bit difficult. It was a good try, so we'll share some of them for laughs!