Dance Party...

I think this pic was from the same night as one in the last post, so I'll throw it on here quickly...

We love dance parties. I often have music playing in the background while we're getting everyone ready in the morning or as I'm cooking dinner at night. If something fun comes on, we can quickly have 2 or 3 little 'dancers' on the kitchen floor. That is one reason I'm hesitant to get a kitchen island...where would we dance!? anyway.... The girls ESPECIALLY love to dance with Adam, which of course makes me cry thinking about my dad and all, but i can usually hold it together enough to make it through the Rave session. =)

Caught one cute shot of Ainsley and Adam that night... she INSISTS on the crown of flowers and the slippery/dangerous high heels. it's unreal cute.


Then she gets silly, runs away, Adam chases and it ends up like this...


and then she'll run away more, someone will get knocked over, stepped on, tripped, there will be tears from a 2,3, and/or 5 year old, mommy will scream for everyone to get out of the kitchen, and the dance party will be over.... how's that for reality?

Still wouldn't trade it for the world, though... =)

where did a MONTH go?

slacker, slacker, slacker. I've been trying to think of a fun blog lately and.... I got nothin'. Really. We've had a great month, we're settled into school-routines, gymnastic classes, etc... but nothing that's even a little exciting for other people to catch up on... so, here are a few pictures to appease all 5 of you that may look at this.

Nana visited for a quick weekend mid-September. Always fun to have her around...the kids loved it, of course! Mitchell calls her "Ninny" which is funny and adorable, too.


Mitchell and I get 3 mornings a week to hang out alone and we LOVE it. We get laundry/cleaning done, run some errands, build LOTS of towers with blocks, and he's often in jammies until 11am. I'm fine with that. He also, like all toddlers, (right?) constantly wants to put on everyone else's shoes... my tall rain boots were quite an attempt.


They were a little tall for him...

But he giggled the whole way down and then tried it 4 or 5 more times!

We had some chilly weather last week, so were forced to stay inside. So the dress-up box came out and the girls tried on outfits that may be Halloween costumes. And then they kept them on all afternoon.

Although they have moments of 'sister grumpiness', they really do get along well most of the time and I'm so thankful for that!!!

It was only a matter of time...

...until we ended up in the Emergency Room with one of our kids. I mean, really, I'm thankful that we've managed to avoid that trip before now.

I'll set the scene:
It was Labor Day and Adam had to go into the office for just a few hours. The kids and I were all upstairs around noon. Ainsley was happily playing by herself in her room (this is normal!) while Mitchell, Elise, and I were in the Master Bedroom reading some books in our bed. All was well. I decided to vacuum up there since everyone was happy and peaceful. I was about 15 feet from Elise and Mitchell, vacuuming the hallway right outside the bedroom. I felt a THUMP on the floor at the same second Elise screamed "MOMMY!!! MITCHELL FELL!" I reached him as he stood up and saw a good-sized gash next to his eye, which was starting to bleed pretty heavily. I kept my cool, but knew immediately that this was ER-worthy. BUMMER. I was RIGHT THERE and they were resting/reading under the covers just seconds before! Augh.
I asked Elise to run downstairs and get my phone to call Adam and/or the Pediatrician's office. Of COURSE this happened on a Holiday, so there were only nurses in the office. Adam came home, agreed that it needed to be checked out by a Doc. Adam took him in (yes, I was worried that I would have a hard time watching the whole thing!) and then sent this picture back to me.


He was still smiling. Poor thing. By the time Adam got home (15 minutes after the fall), Mitchell had already stopped crying, the bleeding had stopped, and he was acting totally normal. Adam said that he was trying to do somersaults on the exam table at the ER. such a boy. I'm SOOO realizing the innate differences between girls and boys...

Adam said that one nurse, after irrigating the wound, said, "wow. that is a deep cut...". Yes, it was.

2 hours and 3 stitches later, he was home and ready for a nap. He didn't even need Tylenol.

This was first thing the next morning:



And a couple days later...

Nothing says, "Happy 2nd Birthday" like a good cut, black eye, and a scar...
We love him.

Happy Birthday to Mitchell...

I cannot believe that Mitchell is 2. Really. It's amazing to think that two years ago, we still lived in South Carolina, Ainsley hadn't started talking yet, Mitchell was a calm, quiet newborn at 1 week old, etc... ALL of those things seem very removed from our current life.
Have I mentioned that we miss SC, but love living in VA...Ainsley never, ever stops talking. really.ever.... and mitchell never, ever stops running around and yelling "no" to everything he hears?

Things are fun for sure, though. We celebrated Mitchell's bday last Friday night.

The girls colored pictures for him and we made a cookie cake. you can even see it behind them in the oven.

A friend had given us the light-saber as a hand-me-down, so we made it a bday gift for him. The newest Jedi LOVES his weapon and runs around making 'light saber' noises...

We put him in the high chair to open presents. I don't really know why... we did it last year b/c he couldn't sit still to open gifts. This time, I'm not so sure...sorry, kid.

Ainsley giving him a pep-talk about how to open gifts and eat messy cake. Adorable.
Opening his 'Construction' set from Nana. He LOVES the hammer and tool belt the most.


Then it was BRING ON THE CAKE time...


the candles weren't really that close, i promise. He blew all of them out by himself.

He wasn't sure 'how' to get the first bite, so Ainsley said, "Lick it like a doggie." He did.

After the first few tastes, all manners were gone and a gigantic mess developed.



Family Shot at the end. Mommy looks like a floating head... everyone else is smiling, though, so it's fine...


The next morning, he played with the tball set form Aunt Amanda. GREAT gift!!!


Thanks to the rest of the family for fun stuff, too. I PROMISE he loves all of it, but I just didn't get those pictures all on here...=) THANKS SO MUCH for thinking of him and sending fun stuff along.

...just the beginning...

...of a LONG road of schooling. Day 1 of Kindergarten for Elise was Aug 22nd and she's loved EVERY MINUTE of the last two weeks while in Mrs Russ' class. =)

This was 7:30 a.m. on Day 1.


...my eyes may have been a little bloodshot. shut-up...i'm fine now.


After an hour of 'resting', she couldn't wait to talk to Mimi (my mom) on the phone and tell her all about her day at school...
HILARIOUS pose...I didn't stage this shot at all. We're in trouble in about 10 years.

and she did her hair all by herself while she was resting. cute, I think!


This was Day 2 at 7:30 with Daddy. She was too excited to sit still for a second picture on Day 1, so we go this on Tuesday morning. Adam takes her in the mornings, and she loves the alone-time with him. It's sweet.

Anchors Aweigh...

After 6 years of being 'boat-less', Adam is excited to be able to sail again. He has a deep love of sailing and, for the years of his life that he HASN'T owned a boat, he has spent lots of time trying to find/restore/beg/borrow/steal one. =) It's kind of an obsession for him. Shocked? probably not...

We found this one via Craigslist mid-spring and it was a GREAT DEAL. One of those, "my brother/uncle left it here and I'm selling it just to get rid of it. I don't really know anything about it or how much it's worth, so you can have it for next to nothing."... EXACTLY what we like to deal with!

He's worked on it off and on all spring to replace some riggings, repair some stuff, re-paint the interior of the cabin, etc... and it looks great! He's so excited and the kids are, too! We leave it at a place on the lake about 45 minutes from here, so it's perfect to run out there, get it in the water, and sail around a bit.


Adam MAY have crazy plans of us selling a house in 20 years, moving onto a boat, and sailing around the world...
That's a ways off. For now, the kids all love it. Elise is the daredevil....

....ok, not too much of a daredevil. the boat was totally dead in the water. Wind was at ZERO, and we were just relaxing! YAY for SUMMER!!!!!!

Apple Ride

This post is a cute one to write. =) It's about Ainsley. She's awesome. (exhausting, challenging, unique, yet sweet Ainsley). LAST Summer, we went to the local County Fair/Festival thing. It's a pretty big deal around here and draws LOT of people (such fantastic people-watching!) from around Virginia. While there LAST summer, Elise was 4 1/2, Ainsley 2 1/2, Mitchell not quite 1. Elise rode a couple cute little rides and LOVED them (no surprise, there). Ainsley was too short to really ride anything, but we commented on how closely she was watching Elise have so much fun. We told her that maybe 'next year (as in 2011), maybe you'll be big enough to ride them'. Fair enough, right?
Fast-Forward to Fall 2010 and we say something to Ainsley about her birthday being a few months away and she launches into a whole explanation about, "well, soon, when I turn 3 ("Free"), I might be big enough to go to the Festival ("Festibull") and when I get there....I...can...ride...the APPLE RIDE.!!!" If you know Ainsley, you can picture her getting all excited, speaking slowly and quietly, building up the suspense to...the...APPLE RIDE! And she has full hand-talking going on, too. When she gets animated in storytelling, it's so great. We often have to look away because we're laughing so hard at her little mannerisms...adorable.
Anyway, so it went like that all winter/spring. ANYTIME someone would ask her how old she was, comment on how tall she is, etc... she would launch that same description about "when I get bigger, like maybe next summer, I may be big enough to ride the Apple Ride with my sister Elise". She explained it to her teacher at preschool, many neighbors, the checkout people at Kroger, Home Depot, her Pediatrician, etc... For an entire year we've been hearing about the buildup to the Apple Ride.

So, when we realized the Fair was in town, we planned a trip, kept it a secret, and laughed to ourselves about what would happen if Ainsley still wasn't tall enough for the ride, if she was too scared, or...EEEK... what if the Apple Ride wasn't even there?! ...would've been tragic...

We loaded them up one afternoon mid-July, headed to the Fairgrounds, and told them along the way where we were going. They were so excited and couldn't even sit still. It was great. We got there, walked a mile to the rides, and it was PERFECT!



Lots of smiles on that precious little face. She was ecstatic the whole time... kind of reverent, actually. =)

Elise wanted to do the huge burlap sack slide thing. She loves those kind of things. Daredevil. She was proud that she "won", too.




Mitchell was a little overwhelmed with all the sights/people/noise/etc... but was really happy overall. He was really just stoked to 'keep an eye' on all the sippy cups and snacks in the stroller!


The girls also rode the DUMBO ride, which they LOVED. Elise liked being in charge of the up/down movement... Ainsley just liked screeching the whole time.



Finally, Ainsley got to ride one thing by herself (just to prove she is a Big Girl like Elise...) and she picked this boat thing. It was so fun to see her acting a little nervous to get started, but then start chatting with the girl next to her, and then get over some fear and just LOVE it.


PURE JOY!!!!