He said he was going out for a short walk and Katie said she wanted to go, too! So off they went while we watched from the balcony!
The sunset (you had to peek around the corner of the balcony—the railing you see is the neighbor’s):
Category Archives: Friends & Family
How did she know I really needed this?!
It had been a loooong day, so imagine my happiness when Linda arrived for dinner prep with a big, chilled bottle of one of my favorite wines! Yay!
More grandparents!
My dad and stepmom are also in Florida for a few months—about six hours away. Since we couldn’t take enough time to stay with both sets of parents, my dad and Linda came over to stay for the week. After they arrived and came to our room, we decided to head down to the beach…
Katie building her castle. Yes, it’s just a bucket of sand, but to her it was a castle!
This is one of her favorite things to do—fling sand. 😐
Katie was so excited to see them coming she had to run to meet them!
Owen was a bit tired so he tried to rest. 🙂
Cousins!
2014:
2013:
Night flyers and breaking rules
I had bought these night flyer toys back when we had a big yard (as they can fly up to 200′) but never used them—and our house isn’t really conducive to anything more than 10′—so figured a beach vacation would be the perfect opportunity. 🙂 Tom thought we should do them in the parking lot so they didn’t end up as garbage in the ocean…but after about 10-15 minutes or so, someone came out and told us we couldn’t do it in the parking lot due to liability. Whatever. We were pretty much done by then so we just went inside. But the kids LOVED them and had a great time!
Pool time!
iPad cousin buddies, Part 2
Fudpuckers Again
Last year the gang went to Fudpuckers while I stayed home to let Katie get a good nap. This year, we both went along.
They are known for the alligators…and I have to be honest and say they just creep me the hell out. /shudder
Beth and I decided to split this 40 oz margarita-ish drink.
And made mom try it, too. 🙂
Feeding the alligators.
Being a ham.
Attempting to get a cousin pic…and failing. 🙂
More creeptastic alligators.
Owen by his name that he wrote there last year.
Then this happened on the drive home.
First time in the pool!
I was more than happy to take the kids to the pool…because it meant NO SAND. 🙂
iPad cousin buddies
Cousins dining al fresco
The dining room table seats six so the kids all sat out on the balcony—and loved it!
Legos with Anna…again!
Owen brought a Lego set so he could do them with Anna like he did last year. He was so excited that within, I think, two minutes of walking in the front door of the condo, the box was already open! We did have him wait just a bit, and they started working after dinner. 🙂
LAST YEAR:
First trip to the beach with cousins!
Kidisms 6
Katie is watching Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and the dialogue says “He even has [chicken pox] in his butt crack.”
Katie, repeating: Butt crack. [Pause] I like butt crack. [Pause] It’s dirty and smelly.
Me: 😐
I thought I saw dried blood in Katie’s nose so wanted to take a closer look. After determining it was just a shadow:
Me: There’s nothing in your nose.
Katie: Yes there is!
Me: What?
Katie: Boogies!
Katie is SO excited about our upcoming beach vacation:
And I can’t wait for the sand and the water and the buckets and the shovels. And we’ll put our swimsuits on! I can’t wait to go to Florida!
Katie: She’s purring!
Grannie Lin makes really yummy seasoned oyster crackers that she calls Belly Buttons. I made something similar and told the kids they might not like them because they weren’t Grannie’s. They tried them and didn’t like them. Fast forward a few hours and Katie asked for a snack. She saw me reaching towards the counter where my crackers happened to be:
Katie, very worried: I don’t want grandma’s cracker bellies!
Me: Are you going to play with the dolls?
Katie: Yes. And the cups and plates and a knife and spoon and fork.
Tom: Owen, I’m going to eat your face.
Owen (completely seriously): I hope not.
Gramma Jean: Owen, how do you eat food without your front teeth?
Owen: I use my other teeth!
Birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese
Tom usually has birthday party duty but since he’s gone it fell to me. And of course I had to take Katie as well—so it was her first trip to Chuck E. Cheese.
Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as crazy as I thought it would be. Of course it was Chuck E. Cheese so it was a little bit crazy but overall it wasn’t bad.
Katie’s skee ball style:
The Clifford ride it was super tame and she looked pretty bored…so the next one moved more and she quickly said “DONE. DONE!!”
Then it was time for lunch and the birthday show (Chuck E. Cheese comes out). Katie was EXCITED. She’s saying “CHUCK E. CHEEEEESE!” 🙂
Redeeming tickets!
And then it was time to head home. This is the toy Owen picked—a tiny blow up sword (which she said was his favorite thing about the whole day, LOL).
And a mustache tattoo he got in his gift bag:
And these were the cards we had printed! (I think these were the best deal of the whole place—one card for one token!)
Both kids had a great time!
Our inaugural Saturday Night Spaghetti!
Some background…
I love having friends over for dinner. I like making new friends. So when I read this article last year—
Friday Night Meatballs: How to Change Your Life With Pasta (if you have the time to read it, please do!)—it hit a nerve and I immediately knew it was something I wanted to attempt. I promised myself that I would schedule something after the holiday season had settled down. Well, then life happens, and I didn’t actually get to schedule it until the end of January, with the dinner to be mid-February.
I posted the following invitation on Facebook and hoped for some responses:
[Photograph: Carina Romano]
Imagine my surprise when the RSVP slots were filled in less than 24 hours!! And lots more people LOVED the idea and promised future participation! 🙂
Unfortunately, the weather didn’t play nice and we had to postpone a week, but the original attendees were all still able to come! And everything went awesome! Six guests (plus kids) was just right. (This house is big, but for a dinner party, six guests is about the limit of dining space. I wish we had more room, or even a good place for another table!) Everyone got along and had a good time talking, the kids were all awesome (Owen had a new Lego buddy and Katie had a friend), and everyone stayed much later than I anticipated (they all left about 9:30). One couple said it was a great idea and they are thinking about starting something similar! Yay! During the event, I even stopped Tom and told him that I was very happy. He agreed it was a good night. 🙂 We both can’t wait to do it again!
Even though it wasn’t BUSY or lots of work, we were both kept busy visiting and prepping and whatnot, so I didn’t take pictures! The only one I took was of the kids’ table:
And this one was snapped by a guest (everyone liked the aquarium but the girls loved it!):
I hope all future dinners go as smoothly as this one did! 🙂
And then, even though it was WAY past the kids’ bedtimes, we let them stay up to watch one TV show to let them calm down. And this happened:
Breaking boards at a birthday party!
Tom took Owen to a rescheduled-from-bad-weather-last-weekend birthday party today. They had a bounce house PLUS Owen got to break some more boards! He had a blast!
Frozen birthday party
Katie with the birthday girl (turning 3). Costumes were welcomed!
Katie was introduced to plastic shoes…at a house with all wood floors. EEK!
All I could see was a sprained ankle in her future.
My ankles hurt just watching this.
And then another (mismatched) pair!
But she LOVED them! I just hope she forgets about these and continues to love her real ballerina slippers and “ballerina” crocs. 🙂
CHEEEESE!!!!
She loves saying cheese!
This is a new 4T outfit from Grannie Lin—the top fits perfect and the pants are too big (she’s swimming in the waste). But oh so cute!
Snow day…with daddy!
Only 184 pics of playing in the snow this morning. Narrowed down to 30. The best one? Before we got outside! Katie wasn’t much for looking at me today!
Maggie thought she wanted to go outside with us…but of course she can’t stand the cold and snow. Even with a sweater. 🙂
Getting buried by daddy!
The neighbor girl came out while her dad was shoveling. Owen said he liked her after about 13 seconds. 🙂
Owen’s turn to get buried by daddy!
Racing to the top of the hill!
Ten pictures snapped in 10 seconds and not one with Katie looking at me!
Sledding in the back yard (from the neighbor’s yard to ours)!
After almost two hours outside? Hot cocoa!
Date night…with friends!
We generally skip celebrating Valentine’s Day, but sometimes we celebrate our day-we-started-dating day instead…which is today! Eighteen years!
We wanted to have dinner out with friends and tonight just happened to work best. They took us to a well-reviewed Korean place by their house. It has been freezing, hence my Eskimo-level parka!
The menu was huge and confusing for us inexperienced gringos. 🙂 We ended up ordering a “meal for two” (with lobster and a few types of bulgogi) that the waitress said would be enough for three, so we also ordered a noodle dish and a few sushi rolls. Then they brought (what we later learned were) the condiment dishes…and the cooking vessel…and we were quickly out of room on the table. And then they brought the noodles and sushi boat and the plate of raw bulgogi! We had plates stacked everywhere!
We weren’t sure what was in all the dishes—or how exactly we were supposed to use them—so we were all cautiously tasting bites of everything, laughing that everyone was probably laughing at us for eating stuff out of order. (For example, one of the platters was lettuce. And it looked like one of the dishes was a ginger-type dressing. We wondered if we were supposed to make a salad?) As it turned out, we were supposed to make lettuce wraps and all the little round dishes were things to put inside the wraps!
Cutting up the lobster:
Overall we had too much food—though we managed to eat it all of course! But it was all delicious and we were glad we got to try a wide variety!
A sleepover success!
Everyone slept through the night—WOOHOO!
Owen got up about his normal time (6:30) and let his friends sleep in. Katie slept in until about 7:15 and they got up about 7:30.
They played some Xbox while we were making breakfast.
Breakfast was pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit, and hot chocolate. The boys ended up not liking the fried eggs, but couldn’t tell us what kind of eggs they liked! (See, it’s not just Owen who can’t answer simple questions.)
They got picked up around 10 and neither one really wanted to leave! I guess we did a good job!
Owen has already started planning his next sleepover saying he’s inviting six kids (and he wants it next weekend!). We had to tell him sleepovers were special things that only happened occasionally. Then he decided his next sleepover would be three girls (and he named them).
Sigh.
What have we created?!
But it was AWESOME seeing him interact with his friends. And just the fact he HAS friends makes us SO extremely happy. 🙂
Owen’s first sleepover
Owen’s first sleepover was tonight—and it was the first for both of his friends, too.
The kids played for a bit, then we started Fruit Ninja, which they all thoroughly enjoyed.
It’s somewhat exhausting—and they can only really play one at a time—so then we did Crash Course which they could all play at the same time.
Manuel doesn’t have pets, so he was ENTHRALLED with ours (you’ll see more pics later). 🙂
Getting ready for cake!
Time for a movie! Katie enjoyed the sleepover as much as the boys did!
Getting the boys ready for bed about 9. They lined up for a picture, each with one of Owen’s stuffed animals—and here Owen was realizing that they each had one of the primary colors!
Overall, it went pretty good. The boys were boys (roughhousing and such) but they are all fairly similar—very nice, polite, not too terribly rough, and they listened well. We were most worried about putting them to bed and what happened after that since neither of the boys had had a sleepover before. Of course, their parents were on call to come get them, and I had been updating them via text and pics throughout the night. So they all got their PJs on, brushed their teeth, and decided who would sleep where. We told them they could stay up and talk, but they couldn’t be too loud (since Katie was sleeping next door). I read them a story, pointed out all the night lights, told them that if they were scared at all or if anything was wrong to come get us (and we could call their parents), asked if they had any questions (no), and then turned out the lights, crossed my fingers, and went downstairs.
Within minutes, we heard them coming down the steps. 🙂 Apparently the boys were scared of the big stuffed bear, even though they had all been playing with him. But no biggie, Tom just went up with them and threw it in the guest room.
The second trip down (again with all three of them!) was because the kid who decided he wanted to sleep on the top bunk was apparently suddenly afraid of heights and didn’t want to sleep on the top bunk even though we went over that before. But no biggie, we asked if he wanted Owen to sleep on the top and he said no, he wanted to. Ooookay. Back to bed then, and we sent them upstairs.
The third trip down was to tell us that somehow the top-bunk-kid needed his bed made again (turns out he had pulled off all of his bedding to sleep on the floor). Okay, no biggie, Tom went up and got the bedding issue settled.
At this point, I told Tom we should go upstairs to our bedroom so the kids didn’t have to come all the way downstairs each time. So we did. 🙂
Minutes later (the fourth time out of bed), two had to go to the bathroom—even though they all went before getting in bed.
The fifth time, someone was scared of everything in the room. We added another night light (in addition to the three already in there).
Then we heard them talking quietly and we thought maybe that would be the end of it…but then we heard loud thumping and lots of noise so Tom went down and and found them all out of bed! They got told they could talk but they had to stay in bed. We heard more talking but nothing crazy.
About 10, we finally noticed they were really quiet. Tom checked on them and they were all out! We crossed our fingers and hoped it lasted!
Birthday dinner, cake, and presents!
Even though we went to Red Robin this past weekend to celebrate Owen’s birthday… AND I took him a Five Guys burger on his birthday at school… We still went out to eat for his birthday dinner! 🙂 (Yeah, we like going out to eat.) 🙂 We tried a new pizza place that’s close to us and it wasn’t too bad. I’m actually getting sick of pizza so I had a Stromboli which was pretty good. And Katie was introduced to the Parmesan shaker. 🙂
When we got home we Skyped with Grandma Marsha and Uncle Rob, sang happy birthday, ate cake, and opened presents.
Then I gave Owen his gift certificate for the Magic School Bus monthly experiments. Before he opened it I explained it was from mom and dad, Gramma Jean and Grandpa David, and Papa and Grannie—and I was sure he’d be over the moon!! And of course he couldn’t have cared less, LOL. He just couldn’t understand that it meant 12 new experiments (like the volcano he just did) and kept looking at the paper like Aaaand?! I kept trying to explain it and I think he finally started to get an idea…but he probably won’t fully get it until the packages start arriving (it should be mid-month).
Things never turn out as you expect when kids are involved. 🙂
Owen’s first real play date
A tiny bit of background… Owen decided maybe two months or so ago that he wanted a pool party at our community pool for his birthday. We were totally on board with this idea since it would be inexpensive (no cost for the pool and we just have to buy food and drinks) and he could invite his whole class. Well, loooooong story short, we are still going to have a summer birthday party, but we will only be inviting a select number of friends…and in honor of his actual birthday, we are letting him have his very first sleepover!
So in preparation for the sleepover, one of the invitees came over for an extended play date today—it would also be his first away-from-home sleepover and we thought it best for him to be comfortable with us, the animals, the house, etc. His mom and I chatted for about a half hour (they were the ones we sat with during Bingo Night) and then she left.
The kids had a great time! There were light saber fights, beanbag jumping (with only a few warnings to be careful), and then finally…Legos!
When the visit got extended and I needed time to prep dinner without wondering what they were up to about the house, I finally let them watch a half hour of TV. 🙂
Play date with a piano!
Her friend is behind her…
And her cute little ballerina butt bow sticking out the back of her coat. 🙂
Exploding volcanos!
This was a Christmas present from Aunt Beth and Uncle Jim and today we finally decided to do it. Owen was SUPER excited: “This is going to be AMAZING!”
Reading the instructions. We should have done this part before getting Owen involved. 🙂
As you can see, the “test” explosion wasn’t very crazy and the goggles really aren’t warranted. 🙂
The compilation video:
BINGO!
The PTO had a pizza dinner/Bingo event tonight and we all went! Unfortunately we didn’t win any bingo games, door prizes, or raffle items…but we all had fun! After almost every game when someone else won, Owen would say “OHHHH! I ALMOST WON!” Even if he was five numbers away. 🙂
Two out of four looking…that’s about right. 😉
With Aden, one of his classmates (and the one he went to the martial arts event with and broke the board):
The picture taken by the school principal (she’s at every event and walks around taking pictures with her iPad!)—again, two out of four looking:
Aden’s family (our table mates):
Afterwards, since the kids had been so good, we stopped and got froyo on the way home. 🙂
Crafty Cork Project
Many thanks to my TCF-party-red-wine-drinking friends who helped make it more colorful!
Magformer hats and a wheel!
Just two of the projects we built today—thanks to the expander set Gramma Jean gave Owen for Christmas we can build bigger things now!
