S'more Time!

Okay, so when I was talking about "fall" in my last post, I was referring to 70 degrees, may-need-a-light-jacket-in-the-evening Fall. Not, 43 degrees, need-a-winter-coat-and-you-have-to-wear-socks-around-the-house Fall. It has been super cold here (to me) the last few days/mornings!
But regardless of my hatred of winter, super cold equals time for S'mores!! Last night D made a fire in the backyard, and we enjoyed a fun treat with the kids! With a 3 and 2 year old, you can't exactly "relax" around a campfire, seeing that they trip and fall about 80 times a day, and a roaring fire in front of them is just asking for it. However, it was still lots of fun and we had a good time taking silly pictures (and eating yummy S'mores).

Charley fully embraced her S'more and it was immediate love, but Eli couldn't get over having "sticky hands." He got the Salley sticky-hand gene that my sisters and I have, which can ruin a wonderful experience with syrupy pancakes, jelly sandwiches, and of course, melted marshmallows. Not that anyone likes having "sticky hands," but this gene seems to amplify the disgust of it. So anyway, once D got his hands clean and gave him a talk about how boys are supposed to enjoy being dirty/sticky, Eli downed his S'more and asked for more "cookie."

It's official. S'mores are better than broccoli.

 Here are a few tips that may enhance your S'more Experience this fall.
-The Clear Value graham crackers that cost under $2 are just as good for making S'mores as the $4+ Honey Maids.
-Baby wipes clean melted marshmallows off of hands (and clothes) with great ease!
-Candy bars now cost a $1 each, which I find ridiculous. I'm pretty sure I remember when they were 4 for a dollar, and I KNOW I remember when they were 3 for a dollar, or 33 cents a piece. We were able to use one Hershey's bar for four S'mores by breaking it into fourths instead of just breaking the bar in half, which I think is the norm for S'mores. We found the chocolate was sufficient, especially for the kids. And you save a dollar. Yay.

Daddy makes us laugh!!

Quite possibly last family pic without Baby Brother!

Memorial Day 2011

One of my favorite things about Memorial Day Weekend is the war movies that are on TV. This weekend we watched (parts of) Pearl Harbor, Kelley's Heroes, a Vietnam documentary, and recorded Midway. D and I both love war movies, and I'm definitely super super grateful that I get to watch them on the comfort of my couch and never have had to experience them in real life. Sooo grateful to those who have fought for my freedom! We watched The Pacific a couple of weekends ago, so right now I am just extra aware of the atrocity of war (although I know I have no idea when it actually comes down to it. Grateful for that too).

Sooo....what better way to celebrate our war heroes than with hot air balloons!!? Freedom Weekend Aloft was this weekend, and we've never participated, or even heard of it. We decided to take the kids down to see the balloons so we went down to the park at 8am on Monday morning (because the balloons were to be in the air from 7am-9am). Well.... when we got there, everyone was leaving! We saw one balloon disappear behind the trees while we were heading that way, but didn't realize it was ending so early! We walked around the fairgrounds anyway and eventually found where the balloon people were (as they were driving away, all packed up). Oh well. We decided to drive to the airport and watch the planes land and take off...just as exciting I suppose.
That evening was the big-time party at the balloon festival with the band and fireworks and another balloon launching. It was free that day to go to the festival, so we figured the place would be swamped. D decided that he could find a place for us to watch outside of the gate (since we are somewhat party poopers when it comes to fighting large crowds of people in nasty heat with small children at bedtime). The balloons were to be up from 6pm-8pm so we found an empty, abandoned parking lot at 5:55pm. It was perfect! But, then 5:55pm turned into 6:15 which turned into 6:45 etc etc. We finally found out from a car who had joined us at the lot that the balloons would be up between 6pm-8pm. Ahhhh! Gotcha. "Between" was the word we had missed. So we waited some more and at 7:15ish, the balloons started appearing above the tree tops. And boy, was it worth it! The kids were soooo excited! It was all said and done ten minutes later, but I'm so glad we did it. Here are some pictures of our adventures...

Picnic in the back of the van.

We played some ball to kill some time.

It was a scorcher! (and Eli found mommy's water)

Our parking lot had an old rail road track next to it, so D took the kids on a mini adventure

"THE BALLOONS!!! THE BALLOONS!!!" This was after the first ones appeared. She was excited.

The first one.

"Wook!!"

There were like 15-20 balloons (we lost count) but it was hard to get them in one shot. By the time the last ones came up, the first ones were way far away!

Easter Weekend in Pictures

We spent Easter weekend in Charleston with our families, and it sure was fun! We also celebrated Charley's birthday and D's and my 6th year anniversary while we were there. Here are lots of pics from the weekend!

Mema made cupcakes for the kids to decorate (and then smear all over their faces). So fun!

Our weekend was full of eggs and egg hunts.

Hi, I'm Eli. And I throw EVERYTHING.

This little piggy...

Charley getting her hair fixed by Donald's sister, Metrie.

Yard work. He just haaaad to help.

The finished product.

Getting ready for the egg hunt!

This is serious business to Eli.

The kids with Zachary, their cousin who is Eli's age.

Auntie Evelyn made Charley a super yummy birthday cake!

Eli and Mema were looking at birds. I tried capturing the picture through a window.

An egg hunt at Mema and Granddaddy's with cousin Mairin.

Easter Sunday family pic

Charley's first Chocolate Bunny. I didn't realize its name was "Hippy" until after I got it home. There are no flowers in its hair. Strange.

Eli got a football and is in love with it.

My sister Robin's family. Grant, Ryan, Lexie, Robin, Mairin, Ricky, and Brooke
oops...didn't mean to upload the one with Lexie's hand on her head. Sorry Lex.

Charley and three of her girl cousins. Brooke, Lexie and Mairin

Eli busted his lip on a wooden arm chair yesterday. Playing with his football. First of many busted lips, says Donald.

March Happiness

We sure do love March Madness in our house, but, thank you very much Morehead St for seriously wrecking my bracket. And Vandy, seriously, why did you lose?? You also messed up my chances. Chances of what?? I don't know...my bracket counts for nothing, but it would be nice to get it right.
I may have told you before that Eli loves basketball. He will just sit there and watch it, while any other kid show entertains him for like 4 minutes. But, as we were watching yesterday, I realized, oh great, the commercials during the games are awful. You may not think so until you watch with your one and two-year-old. The Axe commercial where the angels drop out of the sky b/c they can't resist the hunky Axe guy and then smash their halos on the ground... Charley asked to see the "angels" the rest of the day. Ugh.

I realized that I we have zero green articles of clothing for our children yesterday, but fortunately have been loaned some summer clothes that did contain a little bit of green. Charley had a party at school, and Eli and I got to party with friends where there was green punch, green wraps, green apples, green cookies, green guacamole (yes green haha) etc etc etc. So yummy. I made a cake for a dinner guest we were having, and it's official, I would never be hired as a cake decorator. It was still fun though!

The weather is starting to get soooo nice! We love being outdoors, and after Tuesday's cold and wintery day, the sun has been shining and we've spent some much needed time playing in the driveway.

Bye-Bye.

Fill 'er up!

In other news, one of my best friends from college is getting married tomorrow, so we have all of the wedding festivities this weekend. D and I are going to take Charley to the wedding, which will be her first! So fun!! My parents will be there, which is an added bonus, getting to see them. I am in the wedding, and I just found (in my closet) some shoes that fit the criteria for the bridesmaids, and now I am working on directions to the rehearsal. That is in Charlotte. In just a few hours. Wow, I'm a procrastinator.

Happy Spring!

Valentine's Day

Nothing special to post really, but had a few pictures to share! We've had the 24-hour stomach bug going around our house, so Eli and I are waiting to see if we are going to get it! Family is coming this weekend, so we best be gettin it if we're gonna get it! :)

I would love this pic even more if I hadn't cut her head off.

Daddy brought cupcakes home on Valentines Day! Eli was a big fan.

Cute as a Cupcake.

For some reason she was saying she looked like an elephant.

She looks like a big girl in this picture! A surfing big girl.

Here are the jigglers! Yum! The middle ones are purple but they look black bc they're stacked on top of pink ones, and the pink ones look dark red bc they're stacked on top of purple ones.

I'm ready for school!