Photographic Year in Review - part 3

Whew...2010 was a much longer year than I originally remembered! Of course, when Halloween came around, Olivia decided that she wanted to be something pink, beautiful and with wings. We found this lovely Fairy costume at Marshall's for a great price. Isn't she sweet?

Mitchell, on the other hand, wanted to be something scary. Since I am opposed to gross, scary Halloween costumes, I convinced him that pirates are scary (and in real life, they are!!!). Just not sure what I will think of next year??? Here is Mitchell looking oh-so-scary.

We spent Thanksgiving at Scott's house (Auntie Sue came too!). In all of my Black Friday excitement, I forgot to take any pictures. However, I do have this lovely picture of Olivia in her trendy skirt, tights and boots.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Jake, the kids and I went to Ohio so that we could meet the new couple moving in our house. We decided to take the kids to the Columbus Zoo to see the Christmas lights. Can I just say that I miss the zoo so much??? Sniff, sniff...

Here is a pic I took of the zoo lights. They were absolutely gorgeous! Even though we don't live there anymore, I think it will become an annual tradition for our family.

"All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!" Mitchell has finally started losing teeth. Isn't he a cutie???

Again, Mitchell had the opportunity to walk with my brother in Hurricane's Christmas Parade.

Photographic Year in Review - part 2

We began the second half of 2010 with a trip to Granny and Grampy's house in Minnesota. It had been a long time since we had visited - Mitchell was only 19 months old and Olivia was...well, she wasn't. We thoroughly enjoyed our trip! We visited two zoos, went to the Mall of America and Mitchell even got to go fishing with Grampy! Of course, the most special day was Olivia's third birthday. Here is a picture of her blowing out the candles on her Toy Story cake.


The Mall of America is awesome. While there, we visited an aquarium (pic of Mitchell at the aquarium below).

We also spent time at the amusement park. All of the Nickolodeon characters were there, and of course Olivia LOVED this! Pic of Olivia with Dora and Boots below.

Other highlights of the Mall of America were the American Girl Doll store and the Lego store. We also had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which was very fun!!!

Fall of 2010 brought us the beginning of 1st grade for Mitchell! Once again, we started our school year off with breakfast at Bob Evans and some new books. This school year has been interesting, as Olivia now wants to "do school". She has started doing some Before Five in a Row books, which she enjoys. I will do a separate blog post later detailing what Mitchell has been doing so far in 1st grade.

Olivia is so girly. One day, she pulled out her stool, combs, brushes and hair bows, and decided to "do Grandpa's hair". Too cute!

We took a mini vacation in October with a camping trip. Of course, daddy had to bring his hammock, which everyone loves!

Since there are usually not any pictures of me, I thought I would include this one. Olivia did not like being up so high and refused to have her picture taken.

We were able to take a tram up and then down the side of a mountain. Fun, fun!

Finally, a pic of my sweet kids. Our camping trip was fabulous and we hope to do a lot more camping in 2011!

2010 Photographic Year in Review - part 1

I thought it would be fun to post some of my favorite pictures from 2010. I will have to say that after looking at all that we did through the year, it may have been a chaotic year, but it was also a fun one!

Olivia received a Tinkerbell costume from Santa for Christmas 2009, and thus began the obsession with dressing up. This sweet child was often seen wearing wings or a floor length dress. She was also able to improvise (like the bowl as a hat, below?).

Mitchell turned 6 in 2010 and we celebrated with a party at his very favorite place - Chuck E Cheese! The night would have been perfect if that pesky giant mouse would've left the kids alone. But otherwise, it was fabulous. Still can't believe my baby is 6!!!

In May, we decided to go away for the weekend and we took a trip to Cincinnati! We spent the first day at an indoor water park, which was very fun!!! Then we spent the night in a hotel, which the kids loved. Finally, we went to the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. This museum is actually a group of several different museums. We spent our time at the Children's Museum (Olivia's favorite) and the Museum of Natural History and Science (Mitchell's favorite). We also took in a movie at the Omnimax Theater. It was an ocean movie, and obviously very soothing because Olivia fell asleep! We hope to make this trip an annual event.

My mom and dad were gracious enough to get the kids a play pool for the summer. The kids enjoyed playing around in it, but I must admit it lost it's magic quickly. I think we are all hoping for a pool membership next summer.

Once again, Mitchell was given the opportunity to walk in the city's annual Fourth of July Parade (which is followed by the big Celebration at the park). Since Mitchell's uncle is the mayor, Mitchell got to walk in the front of the parade and hand out candy. Super-fun!!!

Be on the look-out for Part 2 of the Photographic Year in Review, coming soon!!! :)

Where in the World Have We Been???

Back in 2009, I was happily blogging away and I seemingly disappeared. What happened? Well, our lives were sort of turned upside down quickly and blogging went by the wayside. In September, Brendt (Jake, hubby, etc.) was given the opportunity to work for a company in WV in my hometown. He decided to take the position, but only as a temporary measure, as we weren't sure how it was going to work out with us. For a few months, the kids and I did the back and forth thing...living in Ohio sometimes and living in WV sometimes. Finally, after the holidays, we decided enough was enough and we were moving to WV permanantly. Brendt and I spent spent Spring of 2010 back in Ohio on the weekends packing up our house and then readying it to try to sell. We got the house on the market late spring and it wasn't until December 2010 that we had any movement. Finally, a couple decided that they would rent our house, with the intention to buy within two years. We were ecstatic!!! We would now be able to look for our own place to live. And that is where we are now! We have found a place, yet we don't move in until February 2011.

That was the short version (very short!) to what seemed like a VERY long year. Did I mention that we lived in my parents' house through this entire process? Yup, I moved my husband and my two kids in with my parents for what will be 16 months. And we didn't kill each other! How many other people out there could say the same? Now, that's not to say that we didn't have moments (we did - mostly me!). But I truly believe that I have the absolute best parents in the world. Seriously...the BEST. And I only hope and pray that someday I will be to my kids what my parents have been to me. Sniff, sniff...

I am so blessed!!!

I Scream, You Scream...

WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM!!!! It is summer and boy, are we enjoying it! For a treat the other night, Brendt and I let the kids get ice cream from the Ice Cream Truck (which comes around EVERY night in the summer). Here are some pics of the kids enjoying their ice cream.

By the way, I purchased my own ice cream sandwiches the other night from Kroger, as the Ice Cream Truck is a bit too expensive for us. It was a fun treat though!

From Caterpillar to Butterfly

Look what finally came in the mail last week.....

A few weeks ago, in anticipation of our summer-long insect study, I purchased a Butterfly Garden kit from a local toy store. This kit included a coupon for three caterpillars. Finally, last week, our caterpillars arrived!

Here is a pic of M with his caterpillars. He is really loving this.

This has been a great project for us this summer. I made M a Butterfly Journal (found here) and we have been using this to mark the progress of our caterpillars. We spent a few days measuring our caterpillars and watching them eat (boy do they eat a lot!) and now that they have formed their chrysalides, we are just waiting.

I will take some more pics when our butterflies emerge.

I wanted to add that this Butterfly Garden, along with all kinds of other insect things, can be purchased online at Insect Lore.

Potty Time

I posted earlier about getting the potty out for not-quite-two-year-old O. It sat in our living room for a few weeks and while she liked to sit on it with her pants on, she refused to actually try to use it. Until tonight...

Big brother was in the bath tonight and O found a 4 pack of toilet paper that she started carrying around. I explained to her what big kids use toilet paper for and told her that if she would take her diaper off, she could try it out. She immediately took her diaper off and sat on the potty! I was so proud...I thought that maybe this was the beginning of something. But no big deal.

After M got out of his bath, he was putting on his underwear and O kept saying that she wanted underwear (she has a thing for her big brother's underwear!). I told her that big kids who pee pee in the potty wear underwear. You will never believe what this kid did (well, you probably have an idea). She got off of her big brother's bed, walked to the little potty, sat down and peed in it! M and I were amazed. We clapped and clapped for her (she was quite proud too).

After her amazing feat, she went back into M's room and proceeded to put on two pair of Diego underwear. She kept pulling more underwear out of his drawer and tried to put more on, but I made her stop at two.

And that's not the end of it...this all happened pretty late (about 9 pm or so - we were out playing later tonight) and for the next hour or so, she kept asking to go potty. She probably ended up peeing on the potty about 10 times tonight!!! Every time she sat on the potty, she would go a little.

So I finally put her to bed with promises that she can use the potty again first thing in the morning. Oh and I can't forget to add, she fell asleep with two pair of size 6 boys Diego underwear over top of her diaper. What a sweetie!!!