Thanks, Greg :)

I told him that it felt like #3 was climbing on my ribcage like a set of monkey bars and this is the picture he sent me. He loves me and our little 'chest burster'.

Hey, Teachers!

There are three good reasons to be a teacher - June, July, and August!

But after August what is there?! A fresh new start and fall time festivities.
Now you there...don't pout There is still some time for summertime fun! See?

You may be back in the building, but a new year awaits, new little children to love, teach, and get frustrated by. It will be another adventure for sure and don't forget to enjoy it along the way. Have fun this year WES! We are thinking about you!

And if you are nice, we may even come in for a visit or two :)

Meet My Friend

His name is Garden Gnome and I just want to hug him and love him.

Daddy Time

On one of the beautiful days we had before school started for Greg, he and the girls spent some time together. The girls LOVE when daddy shows them a new trick or two. It is really amazing to see how the girls soak up whatever he shows them and whatever he says (except for 'No' and 'Don't do that') shocker :)

I Like Dirt...Sometimes

This is one of the times Kaylee liked dirt! She had no interest in playing in the grass so she toddled over to our neighbors flower bed, with her toy to have some fun. She'd pick up dirt, put it down, do it again, eat some, wipe it on her shirt, pick it up and put it down. Somehow this was entertaining for a good 10 minutes or more. Don't worry she tried to share with me, so thoughtful!

Snack Time at the Country Club

The girls had a fun time enjoying snack poolside. Alex even washed off her blueberries...and subsequently all the other blueberries as well as the avocado and cheese. Such a goof. Perhaps she just wanted blueberry water because she did drink the water she added to the bowl of blueberries- waste not, want not.

In case you didn't know- blueberries should go in your ear! And Kaylee says, 'No. Just eat 'em!'

Quality Time With Dad

The girls LOVE when they can help him play his computer games :) It's pretty cute.

Pet Store Fun

A few weeks back my mom was headed out our way and we decided to meet for lunch. I was making it to Jason's Deli before her so the girls and I took a little walk to the pet store. It was their first time and the girls had so much fun! The cats were not very cooperative and spent the whole time sleeping so we moved on to the birds. The birds were the best thing in the store!!! I think they could have spent hours with those parakeets- it was pretty cute. Fish were popular as well- they tried to catch the fish, unsuccessfully, but they did get their hands into the tank. lovely. We wrapped up our trip with the guinea pigs, I made it clear that guinea pigs are pet store pets...not for the home.
We did have a quick visit by the grooming area to see some dogs and Alex started to cry when the dogs went out of site...it was pretty sad, but she got over it once she saw the birds again (and grandma!) After the pet store the girls went to lunch at Jason's and had fantastic time!

The Results: Watermelon Muffins

The Good:
They were made. The recipe was easy to follow.

The Okay:
Separating the pulp of the melon from the water was easy, but annoying.

The Bad:
The muffins were a little sticky
No nutritional value
Flavor: just like watermelon juice
Chunks of melon pulp- strange

Due to the kindness of brave neighbors and my husband the muffins were taste tested and with the feedback given I rate this recipe as: Not worth it. The recipe is located here at a little blog called From Apples to Zucchini. Greg says he eats to survive, so he will eat the muffins, but there was no need to make them again- enough said :)

Watermelon Muffins...

I'm giving it a go. Hopefully someone will like them :) I'll report back.

Hey Dad!

We are looking out for you on your first day of school...We hope you had a good day back. Don't worry mom kept us busy all day! We went to IKEA and had fun riding in the carts, playing in the aisles and children's area, AND we had lunch! It was quite a day- GiGi and Alison were fun to play with and they shared their frozen yogurt with us. YUM. Though I (Kaylee) had a little hiccup in my mood when the ice cream had melted and I was no longer able to feed myself, I was sad, but my new walrus toy helped make the situation better.

We will be in bed when you get home tonight, but we are excited to help you study again this semester and hope to share some more quality time reading your books together! We love you- xoxo

Homemade Nutri-grain Bars

My kids can plow through some of the Kashi soft breakfast cereal bars and at $3.00 a box I needed to find some alternatives. I found this recipe and it seems to be a pretty big hit. I used some raspberry melba on half and peach jam on the other. These were about as homemade of a snack as you could get since the filling was made by my mom..love it!

The recipe is really simple and the best part is it only took one bowl! So give it a go-I haven't tried the bars yet since I don't like raspberry or peach really...So these are kid tested, not yet adult approved, but I'll make another batch using strawberry jam/jelly. I'll eat those.

I Need A Moment...

To brag about my husband. I have been remiss to not post about him earlier and I just wanted to let you all know that after finishing his Summer semester of law school he took two weeks to study for an exam that will further his current and future career. The test is call the Project Management Professional (or PMP) and it is considered the capstone of exams for anyone who is a project manager...basically means you are a pretty big deal :) and he PASSED!

We are so proud of him and so happy for him- he is slightly on the non-shalaunt side when it comes to his accomplishments, but I guess that is why we are here and if it is the blog then it is a pretty big thing :)

Also on the bragging about Greg note- We got GREAT grades back from his Spring semester! The girls and I knew he would do well, he on the other hand wasn't so sure. In fact he thought he bombed one of his exams and boy was he wrong, he got an A ! He has worked so hard this past year and somehow managed to pull off great grades, praise at work, and undying smiles and laughter from his girls! We are so happy that he is part of our life!

Xoxo

Cooling Off

The WTCC has moved to the backyard. And can you see that patio?! Thanks dad and crew for making our backyard so beautiful! Now I just have to clean up the landscaping a little (or a lot).

Hot Day Needs A Cool Snack

The girls didn't seem to mind the heat when we didn't have AC or when we played outside before the weather hit 90*. But when we came inside the girls enjoyed a nice cool treat. Cantaloupe...half a cantaloupe! The picture of the cutting board was the last of the cantaloupe rind after their snack was done...1/2 a cantaloupe!

15 Month Update

A month late, but an update none the less. Both are as healthy as can be and little Miss Kaylee had quite a growth spurt! I had two different nurses come in and measure her since the Doctor didn't think her growth was possible. Turns out that between 12 and 15 months toddlers usually have a slight plateau in growth, not our Kaylee! She grew 3 inches!!! She is now 33" tall, I can hardly believe she is almost 3 feet tall! So crazy. Now my sweet Alex grew as well, but she is happily sitting (standing) around 31" and a little change. She grew as well, but only about 1.5-2 inches. Still a lot of growth for her age, but sister has a good 2 inches on her.

I don't remember exactly how much each weighed, but I think Kaylee was 24 lbs and change and Alex was 22 and change. Those are the biggest updates that came out of the well baby visit- we will have another one in October before #3 shows her face (hopefully).

Pinecones, Needles, and Rocks! Oh My!

All these 'new' things to see...so different than what we saw at the beach.

Plate Vs. Bowl

Bowls please!
I bought the girls some plastic plates with suction on the bottom (doesn't work very well, by the way) and the girls used them well enough, but introduce them to a bowl and they just light up! So for now on we feed the girls in bowls...like little troughs .

I'm Cute...

and check out Alex's curls! It is scary sometimes when I see old pictures of myself and how similar Alex and I look...down to those little curls.

My Pal Violet

Daddy bought us a new toy before we headed to the beach. Our friend Katie Beth has this toy and we always played with it during our play dates, and now we have our own!

New Toys

We played with Duplo blocks with daddy in North Carolina and we LOVED them...we particularly liked pouring all the blocks from the tub to the floor, the noise was magical! Mommy can we please play with these at home with daddy?! PLEASE!!!

Just Hanging Out

I've got Grandma's bracelet on and just think I'm as sassy as can be.

A/C Update

So we had no A/C for about a week when the temperature was in the 90s all week, except the day of the new A/C install, a beautiful mid 80s. Surprisingly the week wasn't too bad despite the heat during the day, the worst time was at night when you would wake up and realize there had been no air movement from the time you fell asleep to the time you needed to roll back over at 1am...fun times when you are 6 months pregnant :)
Why no air movement, you ask? well, 1. God did not deliver the cool breeze that I so hoped for and 2. That thing that spins above you to get the air in motion, a fan...well ours broke not too long ago and didn't at the time see the need to fix it since we hardly used it. awesome.
But all in all it wasn't too bad. We were lucky to have the mall and grocery store to hop into to get cool if needed.
Now we have a whole new HVAC unit- the price was "right" so we just did the whole kit and caboodle. To celebrate our new found coolness we splurged and set the A/C to 77* the first night...and we were soooo cold! Sounds a little crazy, but I told Greg we had to turn it up before bed the next night. So here is to sleeping at 78-79*!

Traveling With A Toddler (or 2)

We did our fair share of driving during July with the girls and with great success I think. It may have taken awhile to plan, pack and ready the car but it was all worth it considering how the trips played out. I have a few suggestions for those who are thinking about long rides with the kiddos...

1.Plan- what do you need...and what DON'T you need. If there is a washer and dryer think about packing less clothes...and the kids don't need ALL their toys from home.

2.Pack smart- This trip I used clear storage bins for 'luggage'...I needed them to pack up the clothes the girls grew out of and figured I would use their easy packable size/shape for the trip. When I pack now, esp. with the girls I pack with themes in mind. For instance my packing list has different sections, sleeping, eating, playing, bathing, etc. and when I actually gather the items for each specific 'section' I pack them together. I had a small makeup like bag and put all of the kids bath items in there, shampoo, toys, washcloth, cream. There was a small box for items needed in the kitchen, kids plates, sippy cups, spoons, snacks...and the packing list continued from there. Keep like things together- life will be easier.

3. Backseat- In our backseat we had a cooler placed so it could be opened by the passenger. We also had a bag of snacks for kids and adults, another for kids toys/books/entertainment, and a 3rd for diapers, wipes, and cream.

When packing food for toddlers it was tricky of thinking what to do since 90%+ of what the girls eat is fresh and finger food which isn't always easy on the road so I bought Plum Organics food pouches which was a great success! If needed we could feed the girls in the car with a spoon, but if you train the kids they can drink the pouches* and life will be that much easier. We also brought fresh blueberries which were a big hit and not really messy- perfect car snack for the trips.

After driving 10 hours to South Carolina and then another 7+ to North Carolina I feel like we are experienced travelers with toddlers and more importantly our toddlers are experienced travelers and they were amazing! We couldn't have asked for better passengers and I could not have asked for a better husband! He had those girls laughing and happy whenever they were getting bored or antsy-High Fives were a HUGE hit!

Travel safely this summer! and don't forget the snacks :)





*There is a learning curve to these pouches...I would not recommend giving your child these as a drink your first time out in a car :) It will most likely end up with a mess!

Can't Swat Me...

I'm too sweet looking..aren't I!
Kaylee found a new toy while we were in South Carolina- the fly swatter was supposed to be used to make bubbles but the netting of the swatter was too close together to make good bubbles. Kaylee thought it was a good fit for a toy.

A Little More Beach

So back to South Carolina...in my mind and on the blog!

So we spent a week in Folly Beach, South Carolina. If you have kids that have never been to a beach this is the place to go! The waves during high tide and low tide are perfect for little kids. There was no riptide, which makes mom and dad happy that they don't have to worry too much about their little ones being sucked out to great wide ocean. The beach is wide and there is so much hard sand so it makes for lots of easy play area- just a really great 'training beach' as I like to call it for little kids.

Our neighbor, Gigi, had given the girls bathing suits, cover-ups, and sand toys for their birthday party in anticipation of the beach trips the girls had in their future. The sand buckets were a hit- the girls would walk back and forth from the ocean collecting water for a 'pool'. When the girls spent time in the sand pool they enjoyed playing with the little watering cans...unfortunately somewhere in the ocean there is a shark happily using two new water cans along with Greg's favorite sunglasses :( the ocean had a good week with us.

The girls had fun on the boogie board with Grandma and Aunt Laura- Alex actually tried to stand on the board, my little dare devil and Kaylee was happy just being pushed and pulled by the water. And where there is sand there is digging...you can't get Alex away from making at least a little bit of a mess wherever she goes :)

Oh! What's That?!

Ban-pa and Uncle Adam wanted to show me some cool things the ocean had to offer and hanging out with the boys in the family was pretty great, we were just missing Cousin Hunter who was busy boogie boarding most likely. Stay tuned for more on our adventures!

Daddy and Kaylee

Our time at the beach was amazing! It felt so good to have the family together and no school schedule in sight :) Kaylee and Daddy explored what little shells the beach had to offer (not only were there only a few but they were also small) but Kaylee didn't seem to mind, she was pretty into whatever dad was showing her.