Mother's Day

WOW things have been busy. Crazy, crazy busy lately. Most of it has been great but it's definitely kept me from staying current with the blog. I'm still working on Madelyn's 3rd birthday party video (for the party that happened in FEBRUARY) and we have a million other things to blog about. But, rather than trying to catch up on all of them I figure we'll just start with something recent and I'll fill in the past as we have time. Sound good? I thought so.

A couple weeks ago we celebrated several holidays over the course of Mother's Day weekend. We celebrated, of course, Mother's Day but also Grandpa's birthday and Grandma's birthday. It turned into a whole weekend of fun.

We started out by spending Friday night with Meme. We had pizza, danced, and chased each other around in the backyard for a LONG time. The kids were exhausted by the end of the night which is always a good sign that fun was had :)

Saturday was Angie's Mother's Day. This year, she banned me from purchasing anything for her as a gift or making a big craft with the kids for her. That didn't leave me with many options to show her how much she means to us other than just repeating over and over "We love you, honey. I love you. The kids love you. You're great. We love you." all day, which would get very old very fast. But, I found a loophole in the plan. Instead of buying her a gift, I bought a whole lotta her favorite foods for the day and sent her out to get her nails done.

While Angie slept in (Angie almost never gets to sleep past 5:30) the kids and I prepared her favorite breakfast: omelets. We got all her favorite fillings/toppings and chopped and cooked away until she woke up.

Then after some play time around the house, the kids and I went to get everything we'd need to make Angie dinner while she went to get her nails done.

Dinner ended up being much larger than I had originally planned because I kept thinking of things Angie would like but neglected to remove items from the menu as new items were added. So, we ended up having grilled filets, grilled bacon-wrapped bourbon shrimp kabobs, grilled vegetable kabobs, grilled chicken, sweet potatoes, grilled romaine hearts with avocado lime dressing and, of course, some wine :) And for dessert, Angie's favorite: cupcakes from Small Cakes. This is a picture of mine (somehow, all the others were gone by the time I took the picture). Yep, that's bacon on that cupcake and it was magical.

On Sunday, we got together with my side of the family to celebrate birthdays and Mother's Day. We met at the river park and it was a PERFECT day to be outside. The weather was awesome and the kids had a blast. It's so fun to see the three older cousins play together now that they're all capable of about the same things. Even Declan joined in on the swinging action!

After lunch and cupcakes at the park, we headed over to the Chattahoochee Nature Center. As usual, the kids loved seeing all the owls and eagles and other animals but we got a bonus this time of seeing an opossum and corn snake out of their cages. Pretty cool stuff.

The kids were able to touch the snake with their forearms (CNC didn't want their hands getting germy).

All in all, it was kind of a perfect weekend getting to see everybody and celebrate the Moms in our lives.

Here is a link to the gallery with some more pictures from the weekend.

Christmas Round Up Part IV - What?! Still?!

Hey guys, did you know that Christmas was a few months ago? Did you know I'm still blogging about it? Well, ya do now. But I promise this is the last Christmas post. It has to be right? It's like 80 degrees outside right now!

Anyway, the reason this one took so long is because I had to wait until I got footage from the kids' school Christmas performance from another dad at the school. It wasn't because I forgot to bring our video camera. Oh no. It is because I managed to make a classic dumb-dad-in-a-dumb-movie mistake.

Right before Madelyn's class went up to sing their song, I checked the camera for the millionth time to make sure it was on and had enough battery and hard drive space. This was Madelyn's first "performance" on stage and I wanted to be sure I captured every second of it. Instead, I must have accidentally hit the "record" button and started recording the ground. Then, when Madelyn's class took the stage and the big curtains opened, I hit the button to start recording and, because it was already recording, actually stopped it from recording. Once she was done with her performance, I quickly hit the button again and started filming the ground and everybody's feet.

Luckily, I figured out what happened a few minutes after and in between kicking myself as hard as I could for not filming my second child's first performance, I got Patrick's class on video. Also lucky was that another dad at the school filmed the whole thing and I was able to get a copy.

So, that's the long reason of why this post is so late. But I finally put the video of the three performances together (yep, three. Because, for some reason, the whole family had to go up and sing Patrick's song with his class right after all the kids sang it. I don't know.). Maddy is up first and thankfully she's right up front and the tallest in her class so, even though it's not us filming it, we can see her for the whole thing. (Also, if you're wondering why none of the kids are singing, it's because a) they're 3 and b) they changed the song on them a couple days before.) After Maddy's performance there's a cute moment that I actually managed to capture and not lose for all eternity (right around the 2:30 mark) where Patrick's class is on their way to the stage and Maddy can't help but run over and give him a big hug before he goes on. I love that they love each other.

Here it is:



We're so proud of both our kiddos for getting up there and doing such a great job. They had a blast and so did we. And thank you to Grandma and Grandpa for making the long trek out to be there too!

From Tree to Table

We started with a large tree that was right up against our house/Patrick's room and was acting as a big stairway for all types of wildlife to gain access into our attic.

So, this happened (thanks Uncle Tim)...



Which led to this...

In summary...

After a few weeks of tree parts sitting around in our yard, we decided to put them to work.

We cut, measured and pencil lined...

Cut some more and paint lined...

And colored/painted...

Yes, it is sitting on our bed. I finished it during the kids' nap time one day.

Then drew a tic-tac-toe board on the other side and got to stainin'/weather proofin'...

I take full credit for the really creative design.

We made chairs for the kids out of leftover stumps and wood, too. Once the wood was cut, the kids were ready to stain their chairs...

Then we set it all up using the large base of the tree we cut as the table. If you look in the video, you'll notice a pond/sludge factory right under the tree. The previous homeowners had given up on it a few years before we moved in and we haven't done anything with is since we moved in last year...wait, 8 1/2 years ago. Yikes.

We decided to get rid of the "pond" and use the stones in and around it for the new outdoor game table area. The kids couldn't wait for us to finish putting it all together before trying out several dozen rounds of stones vs. acorns tic-tac-toe.

They're wet and barefoot because we're hill people they had just finished playing in the water table.

We stacked the stones then used some flat stones from around the pond for the floor and poured gravel in to fill in the gaps. Here's the finished product...

We'll probably get a few more decorative things for around the outside and have the kids paint a 'welcome' sign for it or something. We're also planning on taking some stones and painting them black with Xs and Os for the tic-tac-toe board (just in case we ever run out of pebbles and acorns).

(P.S. - If you're ever looking for a good gift for someone, the Black & Decker Matrix Drill is great. It, along with all its cool attachments, made things much easier for the project. It was really nice to be able to switch from drill to trim saw to sander to jig saw all in the same tool.)

This Girl

At age 3...

She is constantly moving and 99% of that movement is dance.






She's getting goofier as she grows. And I'm pretty sure she's going to be somewhat of a smarta$% (in a good way, of course.). When we were at Fernbank a month ago there were several older ladies
that passed us going into an exhibit.
They did not speak English but leaned over and pointed at her, making cooing noises and touching her head. One of them said "baby." Without hesitation she stared up at them and said sarcastically, "goo goo gah gah" and pretended she was a baby, then looked at me and half rolled her eyes. I couldn't help but laugh at my almost 3 year-old mocking foreigners. I should probably be more concerned...

The brother and sister silliness continues. They have a blast together. End of story.

The transition to a  big girl bed from a crib has gone well so far. Instead of calling for us when she wakes up, she now goes into Patrick's room to wake him up (bonus!)(Also, sorry Patch! Thanks for taking one for the team.). The first time it happened was on a Saturday morning. Toby and I woke up for a minute when we thought we heard a door close, then when things were quiet again fell back asleep for another 30 minutes. Eventually we found the kids snuggled up in Patrick's bed reading together. Toby and I high-fved each other and snuck out of the room to make breakfast and have a cup of coffee together. It was like a date! A 15 minute date, but a date nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

She's getting even more independent. It's not unusual for her to go off  to read books or play on her own. I think that's pretty typical of a 2-3 year old. What's not typical is the way she holds her own with older kids- be it in school, on a playground or a bounce house. She never wavers in her confidence and has yet to let a bigger kid push past her or boss her around. When we went rock climbing she insisted on doing everything herself. No matter how high, how dangerous or if she's done it or seen anyone do it before- she wants to do it on her own.

She's turning into a cuddle-bug. As long as its on her terms she will hug and kiss you all day long. Quite often she'll turn to one of us while we're reading or playing and say ever so softly, "I love you" and lean over for a kiss. And then my heart melts...

Madelyn makes us smile and shake our heads each and every day. I love that she likes fairies and princesses and dancing but also loves to get messy and play tackle with her brother. She's tough when she needs to be and stubborn when she wants to be. She's more confident in herself and abilities than I ever was and probably ever will be.

 I love that she could be singing a soft lullaby to her babydoll while wearing her "Tangled dress" one moment and catching bugs and climbing trees the next. I love that she loves to do each of those things equally. She's a Daddy's girl to the core and adores her brother more than anyone in the world. There is no way to convey how much we love her. And no way to measure how much joy she's added to our lives by being in it.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Angie's gotten into doing CrossFit the last few months and has been working on her "kipping" pull-ups. It's a way of doing pull-ups where you swing a little and use your momentum to help do the pull-ups more quickly. Well, Angie's practiced these at home, sometimes with the kids around. Then we went to the rock climbing gym and she tried them out on their pull-up bars. Here's what they look like...



Apparently Madelyn took note of the way her Mommy gets things done and decided to give it a try herself. It's pretty darn funny if you ask me (sorry about the small video in the middle)...

Christmas Roundup Part III - The Video. Finally.

I know, I know, it's February and I'm still posting about Christmas. But we've been in party planning mode for Maddy's third and it took me a little longer to get the video done this year.

But let the record show: Christmas was awesome. Having a 4 year old and an almost-three year old really made it a fun month. Both kids completely loved the Elf on the Shelf this year (unlike last year where Patrick was extremely skeptical that the elf could fly since we hadn't even seen him move) and both were very excited about Santa (unlike last year where Patrick was also skeptical (I sense a theme) and a little weirded out about somebody coming in our house while we are all sleeping). This year, the kids wrote Santa letters, got excited about the reindeer and wanted to do Christmas crafts and projects every day. It was great.

We had our usual three Christmases this year as well which always makes holiday seem like a month long celebration. So, it's kind of perfect. We got to really get in the spirit and enjoy the holiday for a long time. Between the cabin, our house and Grandma and Grandpa's house, there was A LOT of Christmas going on.

I'll stop rambling now and just post the video. Let me just say that it's super hard to squeeze three families' worth of Christmas in to a few minute video, but I tried. The song is called 'Family Tree' (DOUBLE MEANING ALERT!) and it's by Dave Barnes. Hope you enjoy!

Happy Birthday Madelyn!

Happy THIRD birthday to our sweet Madelyn! We can't imagine our lives without our daring, smart, strong willed, silly, beautiful little girl. "Blessed" doesn't begin to cover it. What a truly amazing part of our lives Madelyn is. We love you, angel!