Last Day of School 2014

This was Spencer on his first day of 4th grade!

This is Spencer on his last day of 4th grade...am I the only one who thinks he looks so much older in this picture?!?!?

On this last day it happened to be Friday the 13th!! Which Spencer loved because we love Friday the 13ths and we have monkey bread on those days!!!!! So for dinner that night he got the Special Plate AND monkey bread, he was loving it!

This is Spencer and his teacher, Mrs. McInnis. She was the best!!! He learned a lot and loved being in her class. 

At the end of the school year his teacher hands out awards to the kids based on what they do really well with in class, and Spencer, the boy who JUST moved to Virginia 9 months before, got Historian of the Year?!?! I was happy for him, he started to really love history here and learns the facts really fast. He's so smart! 

Now we are onto 5th grade....much harder and more responsibility.

Grandparents come to visit!

My parents came to visit us while Spencer was still playing baseball, so they were excited to be able to see him play! Preston was (and kinda still is) in the phase of not wanting to watch and just wander...and eat and play in dirt. 

Also I love these monkey toes!!!! 

Girls Trip part 2

The next day of our girls weekend we explored and walked a lot and of course ate a lot! 

We started off the day by having breakfast at Tiffany's! haha. We just walked by it while we went to get breakfast, but kinda the same thing. After breakfast we headed over to Good Morning America. We weren't sure if anyone good was going to be there or not so we wandered around and watched them through the window, then lo and behold who do we see....Nicholas Cage?!!?!? Score! I love him in National Treasure, a favorite in our family. Anyway, we kept watching him and waiting to see which door he'd go out of, and one of us got REALLY close to him and yelled out I love you! I don't know where the picture is of that, but I did have one. So that was our celebrity sighting.

After seeing Nicholas, we went explored Times Square, shopped a bit too. Next it was making our way up to FAO Schwartz by 5th Avenue. Got to FAO and shopped some more, we did have little people at home missing us and hoping to get treats! This shopping and walking made us hungry so we stopped by Sarabeth's...oh so yummy. Here we are enjoying our lunch. I had the velvety creamy tomato soup and grilled cheese, it was to die for! In fact I have since spent a ton of money on a double boiler so I could make this fabulous soup...first try not exactly it, but hopefully the next one will be!

While we are on the subject of food...this was our dinner, yes OUR. I had to share with a friend because we couldn't eat it all, but we did eat the rest of it together. The mac and cheese at Max Brenner's was so yummy too!!! Also that Drink Me cup has my salted caramel milkshake in it...oh yes be jealous. 

During that day we also walked a lot around Central Park, it was beautiful weather, so perfect for people watching and enjoying the park. 

The last day we were there we had enough time when we woke up to do one thing, so we went to the library!!!! So exciting yes? Well this library is pretty cool, so it WAS exciting.

Katherine and Heather discussing something important.

The design and decor of the whole library was awesome. I love it.

There was a children's area too, kind of like a museum, so we went through that. Here is the original Winnie the Pooh and gang!

Back to Katherine and Heather discussing things....wonder what was so funny? 

Fortunately we are a bunch of funny girls, so we did a lot of photo bombing while others wanted to remember themselves being at certain places.

Our last meal had to be some New York pizza, and luckily there was some right next to the hotel!!! It was yummy, and we were sad to have to leave the fun city. 

A great picture of us together in Central Park. 

We had such a fun time we are hoping we can all get back together to have another girls weekend. See one of the girls, Sarah, was moving away from us, we hate that she had to leave us, but were glad to get this trip in beforehand. It was a great weekend to be away from everything and just eat and talk and walk and eat some more. 

Here we all are at our last dinner together. We miss you Sarah!!!!

Girls Night Out...turned into Girls Weekend in NYC!

So about a year ago I met some lovely ladies here in town, and we wanted to go out to eat, so we did. While eating we were talking about where we have lived and places we wanted to visit, dream destinations kind of thing. Well it did come up that I had just moved from New York City and I missed it dearly and wanted to go back so bad. Turns out the other girls wanted to go too....so we kinda just decided to do a Girls Weekend up there a few months later!!!!! It was spontaneous and amazing. 

I drove, because it was cheaper AND our hotel we found had valet parking which wasn't too pricey for every day, we were there for two full days. Here we are on our way up to New York!!! Surprisingly it didn't take too long, just 4-5 hours away...depending on traffic.

We made it back to the city!!!! I was so excited to be there and so scared to drive in Manhattan!!! AAHHHH!!! I did get honked at a couple of times, but I made it, whew.

As soon as we got to the hotel we dropped our stuff and went out to explore! First stop was to the 9/11 Memorial, it was beautiful as always, and incredible to see. 

Since we were in my neck of the woods, I told the girls they HAD to eat at Shake Shack, not because I wouldn't eat anywhere else...which is true, but because it's the best!!! Here we are in front of our old Shake Shack!!! It was yummy, but they changed the fries to straight ones, not cool. Those were okay.  

Since then though I've heard they changed the fries back to the crinkly fries. Now I need to go back to have those! 

After eating we rushed back to around Times Square and got see Wicked!!!!! It was the first time I had ever seen it and it was incredible!!! I loved it. 

After that we were so tired, it was 11pm, and we had left home at 8am that morning, that we went back to the hotel and straight to sleep. 

Preston being Preston

I'm not quite sure what it is about Preston, but he is just silly to us. The way that he does things is just silly. Which makes it fun to watch what he'll do next. I love to watch him. I know, I'm a creeper. 

He got this chair from Santa last Christmas and this is how he normally sits in it. I do not know WHY he sits in it like this, but I guess it's the best way.

I love when he grabs his pacifier and blanket and just cuddles on the floor. So sweet.

One day Preston and I were trying to FaceTime my sister, but her FaceTime wasn't working, so instead we texted pictures back and forth. This is Preston giving Aunt Ya-ya a high five!

She was sending silly faced pictures to him, so this was his imitation of a silly face she made. 

Oh ya know, just reading....in the mess I made.

Oh and taking every cushion off the couch and chair! sigh...

My sweet redhead boy. I love these poses that he just naturally falls into, he tries to copy us sometimes, but usually he'll just do whatever feels comfortable. He doesn't lay on his stomach much, so this was a new position that he tried out. So intent on the movie too. 

Futura

Spencer has been going to the gifted and talented class since January of this year, and here in this school district it is called Futura. He loves it! They do so many cool things there, and when I visited the class for the first time I was shocked by how much all of those kids reminded me of Spencer! It was like they all knew the same language, which was awesome. 

This day that I went they were having a trial. We, the parents, were the jury and had to decide if Spencer was guilty or not. He wasn't! YAY! 

That's Spencer in the hat and mustache if you couldn't tell.

Big Belly, Big Belly

Who's got a big belly?? 

Preston had just eaten....maybe, but I thought it was so funny how big his belly was and how far it was sticking out!?!? He does eat all the time, perhaps I should monitor how much he eats. 

The Sickness

Back in May we had quite The Sickness go around our family. Spencer got it first, and it wasn't fun.  He missed a day of school, and we were lucky it was just a quick 24 hour sickness, so not too bad. Well, it had been two days since he was sick so I didn't even THINK anyone else would get sick. HA!

Spencer was sick on Tuesday night and Wednesday, on Friday night when Tyler went off onto a Scout campout Preston got horribly sick that night! The frustrating part was that I was the only adult home. I was trying to clean off Preston, change him, clean his bedding, and get new stuff on all while he was wandering around wondering what was going on with him. He wouldn't stand still!! So I thought, well Spencer is asleep 10 feet away, I'll yell for him. Um, no. I screamed for Spencer to wake up and help me and he just slept right through it. Not so great. But I got through it and stayed up all night to help out Preston. 

This is him the next morning when he started to feel better and was so worn out!

Luckily Preston's sickness lasted just 8 hours. But I was on edge the whole rest of the day!

Well, the weekend past, Tyler got home, all was well...until two days later! Tyler got it!!!!! So he was down and out for the 24 hours, I swear I don't know what was in this Sickness but it was rough. So I was left. I was sure I wouldn't get it, I mean I'm the MOM! HA! The Sickness saved the best for last, I got it the worst, fever, body aches, keeping nothing down, and lasting the longest....at least 36 hours!! I swear I was on my deathbed. It was awful. 

To recover from that was hard, and Preston took advantage of having two parents down and out. He got to eat whatever he wanted and from wherever he wanted. 

Spencer was a great help in playing lots with Preston while we were sick. 

Thankfully we made it through The Sickness, but I hope we don't meet it again for a long time! 

Easter 2014

 For Easter this year we were able to go down to my parent's house and spend time with them. It was fun as always and full of activity...mostly us chasing Preston around the house to make sure he didn't get into everything. 

Preston REALLY liked it there because he got to lick the chocolate off the beater! He's so spoiled when going to the grandparents house. He also has no pants on because of the running around he did and how hot he was getting. 

I think this was the first time he actually started drinking the milk from the bowl!!! I think it's super cute.

Easter wouldn't be Easter without dying some eggs! Preston was an observer this year, but he did have a bowl of treats. 

Spencer and Wyatt dying their eggs. This was a complex process because we were all trying to find the coolest way to dye our eggs. I think Tyler came up with the idea of pouring the dye on top of the egg and having it slide down the sides....so Wyatt tried. 

And it came out REALLY cool!!!! I loved this egg...and then his mom ate it. 

Preston wakes up early and Grandpa does too, so they often shared breakfast with each other. 

Oh ya know...just standing on Grandpa's lap. His face in this picture cracks me up.

Spencer had to find his basket because the Easter bunny hides them! He was surprised with everything he got!

Then we had a little Easter egg hunt...which was so fun! Preston had no idea what was going on or what he should do. But these eggs were really good because some had candy and some had MONEY! 

Spencer  figuring out what loot he got, I think he found all three of the eggs that had a 5 dollar bill in them, he was nice enough to share one of those 5's with his cousin Wyatt. 

It was a wonderful time with family down there, and we loved being able to see everyone.