Party Time!

Week 74: We had a little more swimming to start off the week!  Mary Virginia graduated from her swim class and will start off as a shark in the spring!  Along with swimming lots of laps across the pool, MV showed off her skills on the diving blocks!  I was very impressed - I don't know that I would have done that!

John Bay wasn't left out of the fun this week...he had his friend, Emma Claire come to play.  Her mom is JB's teacher, but all of the kids have gotten to be great friends!  He was so excited to have someone come play with him - it seems like all of the kids around us are MV's age, so he finally has a buddy that he can play with!

Then it was time for the big weekend...something inside of me must be really off since I decided to have both kids birthday parties in one weekend.  I was stressed out all week, but once MV's party was over, I was done (until next year - when I do it to myself all over again)!!!

 

John Bay's party was at Pretend Play.  This is a great place for kids to use their imagination...there is an orchard, fire department/police department, castle, cafe, vet clinic, lego area, grocery store, beauty shop, art room, and so much more!  The kids couldn't control themselves, they were running everywhere! 

John Bay and his buddies!

Blowing out candles!



MV was hanging out in the cafe - she was a natural taking orders and telling people what they needed to order.

Then it was time for the beauty shop.  She organized the whole area...

We tried to get a group shot - this was as good as it gets.

 

Mary Virginia had her party at our house.  It was a party around the campfire.  We invited our friends from girl scouts.  The girls played in the backyard, cooked their dinner over the campfire, played in the tent, made trail mix, and cooked s'mores.  They seemed to have lots of fun!

 Trail Mix Bar

 Campfire and hay bales.

 Tent

The yummy cake!  (I will confess that the cake came from Sam's - who knew that when I ordered a cookie cake, it would be two giant cookies stuffed with chocolate icing, decorated and  embellished with a fondant bow!)  I will be ordering more cakes from Sam's!

 The girls playing while we were waiting on everyone to show up.

Warming up by the campfire. 

Cooking dinner!

 

 Eating and warming up in the tent.

 Time for cake!

And now...s'mores!

 

And the weekend just keeps going....we went out to lunch on Sunday to celebrate John Bay's actual birthday.  Once again, we found ourselves at our favorite spot, Chimes East.

John Bay decided that now that he was 4, it was time to start eating salad.  He ate part of Ed's, mine, and Gigi's...then ordered his own.



Mary Virginia just patiently waited for her hamburger!

 

Once we got home from lunch, John Bay was ready for his presents.

 We usually give the kids a bigger gift together.  They were working hard to figure out what the gift was...

They finally figured it out - we are going to Disneyworld!

 

We had so much fun celebrating birthdays and eating lots of cake!  The kids were so excited to have Gigi and Jaja come down to celebrate with them!

(The weekend was still going...we had trunk or treat, but I am going to save those for another post!)

Fall Fun and the Pumpkin Patch

Week 73:  Another fun week ahead...Mary Virginia started some swim lesson refresher classes.  We wanted to make sure she had a lesson right before the season ended, so hopefully she won't forget over the winter!  She loved her lessons and her instructor! 

John Bay and I had lots of downtime while MV was swimming.  We tried running around the track, reading, and playing games, but the best and by far the most fun was playing in the park!

JB had a Fall Fun Day at school.  His school doesn't celebrate Halloween, so they do a fall celebration instead.  The classes dressed up like farmers and scarecrows.  They all looked so cute for the celebration!

For Ed's birthday, the kids went to Kid's Night Out at church and Ed & I went out to dinner with some friends.  We went to one of our favorite restaurants, Chimes East.  It was a wonderful night out with friends to celebrate such an amazing man!  Happy Birthday, Ed!  We held off on the celebration with the kids until Saturday.  They made him cupcakes and we had a yummy dinner!  The kids love to surprise their daddy!

On Saturday, the Girl Scouts went to Ms. Heather's Pumpkin Patch.  We let the whole family come with us.  Everyone had so much fun! 

We started the day with face painting.

John Bay played on the horse swings while the girls went on a quick hike!

Then it was off to the corn maze.  The girls had more fun on top of the maze than in the maze!

They also had a zip line for the kids.  I think this was where the kids had the most fun!

The bouncy horses were fun too!

Now it was time to pick out pumpkins.  The girls had to pick the perfect pumpkin - checking the size, weight, color, and anything else you can imagine. John Bay decided to pick the first one that he came to!

Looks like the perfect pumpkin to me...

Birthday Beach Party!

Week 72: This week we headed to the beach to celebrate all of our October birthdays!  We were able to meet up with both sides of the family down in Destin for a long weekend.  We could not have asked for a more beautiful trip - the weather was perfect, the boys had a fabulous time fishing, the condo was amazing, and we spent time with friends and family! 

 The boys loved their fishing trip - they didn't quite catch all the fish they wanted, but they still had a great time!

 

 

While the boys were playing on the boats, we were playing on the beach and in the pool!

 

 

The condo even had a splash pad!

 

After a fun morning it was time to make a quick trip to the outlets!  The kids were so good that we needed an ice cream and playground break!

 

After a fun filled day, the boys got home from fishing and we fixed a delicious dinner for the whole family (unfortunately they didn't catch enough fish to use for dinner)! 

Saturday, we headed to Pensacola to get bagels (Mary Virginia's favorite breakfast spot is Bagelheads...for "bagels the size of her head") and then on to watch a friend play football!

 

It was wonderful to see old friends and catch up!

 

John Bay had fun watching the game!  He says he is ready to play football just like his daddy!

We decided to head to our favorite beach spot for lunch and a little play time.

All of the kids walked back to the condo with Ed and spent some much needed time playing on the beach building sand castles and playing in the waves - then it was time to head back up to the pool to play.

We had a fun filled weekend, I just wish it had lasted longer!  Our time with friends and family is never long enough.  We can't wait to do it again...very soon!