Our Summer So Far: Part One

Since I've been so remiss on posting this summer, I'll skip February through April happenings and just pick up with what we've been up to this summer. It's the only way I will be able to resume posting, so here goes.....

Mason took an interest in big boy underwear.  This "extreme" potty training was short-lived after we had to do quite a bit of laundry.  He kind of forgot about the special underwear.  But he has been using the potty every single night before bedtime for months, and that is huge!  No more wet sheets in the morning!  He's on his way, but we are not there yet. 

Here, he models the very first pair of big boy underwear with his Spongebob  Squarepants body board!

He started to be really interested in sewing the cardboard animals Oma and Opa brought over.  He did it for days, and then kind of put it away for a while.  Maddie never was interested very much in those sewing crafts.  Just goes to show you how different these two  are.

On to the beach!  We stayed at my Aunt and Uncle's beach house in Emerald Isle for five days in May.  It was our longest beach trip with the kids and also our "big" family vacation this year.  Both kids absolutely loved their time at the beach and we went for a few hours every single day.  We tried to break up the beach time by going to the aquarium and we also checked out Beaufort.  Awesome little town!

Beach girl!  She was more interested in picking up rocks and making mud pies this time.  She kept herself completely covered in sand every minute!

The NC Maritime Museum is really a find. A free one! All the Queen Anne's Revenge (Blackbeard) artifacts will end up in this museum.  Some items from the ship are still at ECU being processed for display, but there is a significant showcase of Blackbeard stuff in the back of this museum. We headed here after Maddie became so disappointed with the lack of pirate stuff at the aquarium.

So yeah, both kids are into pirates. Argh, matey

Kids can create their own pirate flag on a flat screen computer at the museum.  Maddie's version features bleeding hearts, swords, and skeletons on it.  Quite a collage, I'd say. 

Here they pose with Blackbeard himself.  Maddie was making a pirate face (an awesome one) and Mason wasn't really sure what to do.  She really has a grip around his neck now that I look at this....so funny together.

They both wanted treasure chests from the gift shop.  I don't usually do gift shop purchases, but the museum was free and gift shop proceeds go to the museum upkeep.  I really liked this place, can you tell?  Here are the buccaneers on the Beaufort waterfront with their treasures.  Love how Mason is looking at Maddie!

 We corralled the kids into a waterfront lunch, which was really brave since we were all exhausted.  It was actually really yummy food and very pretty view.  Kind of like a date with kids..ha!  I snuck in some snuggles with my little man.

 Sweet girl

Back at the beach house,  I took this pic (and many more) while chilling on the deck.  The mom and dad bird were taking turns bringing straw and maybe food (?) back to the nest.  The palm tree was very close to the deck and I got some really cool photos.  Just goes to show you that parenting is a teamwork activity!

 I love this photo and framed it for Mason's new big boy room. 
He wanted someone to hold his hand the whole time he was near or in the water.  I think he's getting braver, but is still unsure about the waves.

 

Beach buddies.

Up next, part two. 
Maddie's dance recital, another beach trip and grandparents' visit!

January Rewind

Things fell into a bit of disarray in January.  Work spilled over into home life and a lot of things were put aside, this blog being one of them.  I decided to finally post some text to the photos uploaded in January.  Here goes.

Maddie turned 5 and there was a lot of gifting and dancing.  Here are some dated but funny photos.  Looking at them makes me realize why I do like blogging.  It really is amazing to look back.  She doesn't even look like this anymore.

Headbands...yay!

Breakfast of five-year olds....Maddie's favorite blueberry pancakes and a heart-shaped sausage patty!

Maddie enjoying breadfast wearing her school-made crown.

Mason taking advantage of the breakfast spread.

Presents:  small and...

big.  Maddie's first "big-girl bike."

She wasn't sure at first if she would like it.

But once she discovered the training wheels, it made climbing on a bit easier!

Ready to roll!

 

We were lucky it was a mild January, and she could try it out in the cul-de-sac.

Of course Mason wanted to pedal also, but he kind of just sits and gets pushed.  Must work on that!

Decorating cupcakes for her party.  Lots of sprinkles!

Homemade strawberry icing and chocolate.  And sprinkles and rings on top!  Maddie selected hers ahead of time of course.  The chocolate one with the huge pink "diamond!"

Maddie's dance teacher just has a way with kids.  We were so excited she could "teach" the dance party!  Everyone was encouraged to dress up!

Circle time!

Maddie had a selection of songs for the dance party....mostly Taylor Swift playing the whole time.

 

Noah really impressed Ms. Kathryn!

And so did Gwen.

Parachute time!

They definitely got their wiggles out.  Now cupcakes and snacks.  Notice the bowl of blueberries, by request of the birthday girl.

Maddie is so lucky to have so many good friends. 

And goofy friends!! 


Here, chick chick chick

Frank and I had been talking about getting chickens for months.  Frank took a chicken class and everything.  In late January, right around the time of Maddie's birthday, we added five (5!) new members to our family.  We planned to buy another kind of chick but long story short, we got some Easter Eggers and Frank was the best chicken daddy ever!  They grew so fast, he had to hurry to get the coop built in time!

One of the feathered acquisitions. 

We had a mild winter, but Frank and I were worried about them getting too cold in the garage, even with the heat lamp on them.  So......we moved them to the huge and never-used tub in our bathroom. They were quite happy there for more than a month.  And we were quite happy when they had enough feathers to move back to the garage!

Dragon and Ladybug pillowpets for TV lounging.  Thanks Grandmama and Grandaddy!

A visit to Grandmama and Grandaddy's house.  Lots of playing and...

a collaps on the new pillow pet!

A new game with my scarf.  We had to stop this and make some adjustments so Mason wouldn't strangle himself.  I think he was the horse......not sure.

That's all for the January rewind.  I will post some June beach photos soon!!

Christmas and New Years festivities

Frank posting this time...
Having successfully survived the Thanksgiving feast it was time to prepare for Christmas. 


The last few days leading up to the big event were a bit challenging because Mason, Maddie and Janet all came down with one or another illness, all one after the other. Maddie also is going through an angry phase that presents some challenges for the poor stressed parental units. Nevertheless some fun was to be had. First off Maddie and Mason's annual daycare Christmas play where each class of kids represented a kind of animal as part of a series of Christmas songs. Here are Maddie and her friend Susan and Grace are all decked out in chicken gear, loudly singing along:

Mason was a horned sheep, a very unhappy sheep indeed, who wanted to be held by Daddy instead of standing up on stage. Here he is seconds pre-meltdown.

Janet's parents made the trip to see the play and I think they enjoyed the songs.  No good photos of them, and very few good ones of the kids during the play.  But here are some very happy chickens, hopped up on cookies after the play:

Once we left the church where the play had been held Mason returned to his usual cheery self and had a blast playing with his sheep horns:

Just like last year, our Christmas elf made an appearance and baffled the kids by magically appearing in a different spot every morning, so he could report to Santa on the kids' behavior......not that that did much good.........

Mason was excited to help with getting ready for Christmas. Here he is organizing the multitude of presents under the tree by thoughtfully stacking as many as he could on top of each other.

Maddie loves cookies and also likes to bake them together with Mommy, here a batch of yummy almond macaroons:

And here a batch of sugar cookies:

The entire family got involved in decorating sugar cookies with icing, gingerbread men sprinkles and colorful sugar balls. The colorful sugar balls were the only thing Mason was interested in. I don't think he ate a single cookie but he ate many colorful sugar balls off the cookies.

The end product:

As a special surprise for me, Maddie and Janet made a banjo cookie, wasn't quite as musical as the real thing but tasty nonetheless.

Tada!!!!

Did I mention she likes cookies?

And we continued our Christmas tradition of eating cheese fondue on Christmas Eve night. Maddie really liked the cheese dipping this year and wanted another fondue night for New Year's Eve.

Another tradition is the opening of one and only one present on Christmas Eve. The kids loved their new pajamas, to be worn on Christmas morning:

Finally the long awaited Christmas morning. Our rugrats got spoiled rotten but I only have room to post some examples of the many gifts. Here's Maddie with a new tea set from Santa that she really liked.  She asked for one in her letter to him.

And a scooter, very high up on the wish list this year.

Mason got inundated with a couple of different Duplo (Legos for toddlers) sets and he really liked them. Here he's helping the fisherman from the camping set reel in his big catch of the day.

And a scooter for him, too. He was really excited about his helmet and put it on before we could even take all the tags off.

Maddie with a craft book from Great Aunt Rosemarie in Germany.

And Mason with a car transporter from Oma and Opa.  He played with it for at least an hour that morning.

One of their big gifts was a new play kitchen from Oma and Opa. As you can see, they wasted no time putting their pots and pans to good use in the new kitchen.

And here is Maddie's "Golden Dress and Golden Crown," her number one wish this year and one that was specially made by Santa's sewing elves.....too bad she had the dress taken away for a week just two days later as punishment for unacceptable behavior.......sigh!

Scooter time: both of them figured out how to ride these things really fast. Mason is definitely a boy. While he's taking longer with other developmental things than Maddie did, he picks up physical skills really, really quickly.

The next day Grandmama, Granddaddy and Uncle David came up for even more spoilage of the rugrats. Grandmama presents Mason with yet another gigantic dinosaur to cuddle with. Mason had been having some issues with not wanting to go to bed and not wanting to be covered up lately. Now the dino goes to bed with him, gets covered up and Mason does the same...yay dino!

Uncle David unwraps his camelback pak for mountain biking excursions while Maddie is yet again showing off the "Golden Dress".

I had not asked for very much for Christmas but really wanted to finish setting up my brewery in the garage. Thanks to a couple days off before Christmas in which I managed to start and/or finish a few projects, I was able to squeeze in an inaugural brew session on the new system...me likey! Another project which you will hear more about in the future.......chicken coop! Stay tuned.

New Years Eve was a gorgeous day, so we took the kids to a park and let them run wild for a while:

We brought a picnic lunch and ate it in the park. The kids really enjoyed it, although the wind was brisk.  Brr! Picnics are one of Maddie's favorite things.

Later that day we invited Salem and her family over for some pre New Year fun. Of course the girls wanted to play dress up......and Mason got right in the middle of it......

The kids were having a blast playing and then conked out in front of the TV, wrapped up in blankies. And the adults actually got to have some grown up conversations (or not depending on the number of Margaritas consumed)......amazing.

Everybody ended up having a late night and we were all very tired the next day. At least it was from having fun and not from working.  Hope everyone had a great start to 2012!