Big Boy Bed

Well, Brower is now in his big boy bed or as he calls it "bi boy bed". He is so proud of his bed and tells everyone he knows about his bed. We put him in Friday night and he did great. Well, he went to bed fine. He woke up at 3:30 and decided to stay up for the next two hours getting in and out of his bed. Fortunately the novelty of getting in and out of bed wore off and now he is doing great. He looks so small in that big bed!
It was a bit of a sad day for me when I took down the crib. It has been up for four years!! But when I see Brower in his bed, I can't help but smile!In the midst of moving Brower into his bed, our house was a wreck. We had to move dressers and rugs and basically tore apart the kids' rooms. I took the changing table pad off of the dresser in Brower's room. Kate found the pad and made her own little bed for rest time. She is laying in the doorway of her room because there wasn't anywhere else to lay and she is on the changing pad with her bunny....and only in her underwear ( and of course, her hairbow :)

Fun Times Playing Outside

Some fun pictures of Kate and Brower playing at home. I sprayed shaving cream all over the picnic table for the kids to play in. They could get as messy as they wanted, but my only rule was that they weren't allowed to get the shaving cream on me, each other or the camera. Brower's devious little mind realized that if he put his arm around Kate to take the picture he could get shaving cream all over her back!

Chad and Kate have started a new game of making funny faces. So now, they love to pose their silly, funny, excited, surprised and happy faces. Here are a few...

Brower really only has one silly face. He usually puts his fingers in his mouth. He almost did in this picture until he remembered he had shaving cream all over his hands.

Digging for ants. Brower is a tough kid. He will fall and get beat up by Kate and not cry a tear. But for some reason, the child is terrified of ants. Anytime he sees ants, he yells "ant" and won't go near them!
Time out is no fun!

Girl TIme

Kate and I wanted to have a Girls Night Out so we decided to go get a pedicure. Kate had a blast. I think she likes being pampered! She was so proud of her blue and pink toes. She told the lady that she wanted her big toes to be blue and she wanted a pattern! So cute!

Pee Pee on the Potty

Yeah...Brower went pee pee on the potty for the first time today. He was so proud of himself! He went one time, washed his hands and went back to go again. I have a great picture of him on the potty, but I don't think I want it on the web...I guess we'll save it for his rehersal dinner slide show! I can't believe he is getting to be such a big boy!

We're Off Again, This time to Florida

Chad has been working in Florida a lot lately, so we decided to make a family trip out of it. Kate, Brower and I flew to Tampa on Tuesday. Mimi and Gigi were there to meet us. Brower was thrilled to ride a "big airpane to Gigi's house". I was so proud of Kate and Brower- they did awesome on the plane ride and getting through the airport.

We spent our mornings at the beach in Clearwater. The kids loved playing at the beach and swimming in the pool with Gigi. Mimi and Gigi took great care of us and spoiled us with yummy dinners and ice cream. It was so much fun to bring the kids to spend time at Gigi's house!

Kate and Brower playing "King of the sandcastle"
Kate won while Brower hid in the moat. They wrestled and played this game for a good 45 minutes. I have no idea how they have so much energy! Kate later decided to wash Brower's hair with the sand. Needless to say, I was washing sand out of every crevice of both of them!
Queen of the sandcastle

Two peas in a pod. K & B were freezing after playing in the water. They cuddled together to get warm.
Brower watching the birds
Boat!!

Our sandcastle

Chad drove into Tampa on Thursday night. We went out to dinner and enjoyed a great evening with Mimi and Gigi. We went back to the beach on Friday morning and then headed to Orlando for lots of fun at Disney World!

We checked into our hotel, grabbed some dinner and headed over to Downtown Disney. It was a beautiful night, so we walked around there for a few hours. One of our favorite things to do there is to run through the dancing water fountain and try not to get wet. Brower thinks it is hilarious. He even ran through it by himself this time!

Our morning started bright and early. Hilton offered to give us free breakfast and $100 cash if we would listen to their time share sell for 1 hour....bad idea. After 45 minutes, we said we have to get out of here. We did enjoy a free breakfast, but we need to get to the Magic Kingdom. After a bus ride and a ferry ride, we made it to Main Street. I think Chad and I were just as excited as the kids were. We had such a great day. We rode all of our favorite rides and found a few new fun things. We did Mickey's Philharmonic 3-D show. The kids were hilarious in it. They jumped, screamed and tried to grab everything that was coming towards them. We actually went to the show twice. We also went to Aeriel's Grotto this time. It was a really hot day (90 degress!) so we let the kids cool off in the Grotto. They loved it.

Enjoying ice cream after playing in Aeriel's Grotto

Do you think he is having a good time?

We actually stayed at Disney all the way through the parade...a 14 hour day! Brower crashed at 8:00 before the parade started. The parade was the SpectroMagic parade. They turn off the lights on Main Street and all of the costumes and floats are lit up. Brower woke up during the middle of looking around trying to figure out what was going on. I can't imagaine being completely asleep and waking up to that!! It was pretty funny! So, after a long day at the park, Kate and Brower both crashed on the bus. Mean parents that we are, we made them get in the shower when we got home. Both of them just stood in the shower with their eyes closed crying to go to bed. Pure torture! We had such a fun family day. I love seeing Disney through the eyes of my kids. Everything is just so real and exciting to them. What a great (and exhausting) day!

California, Here We Come

Chad and I were so forunate to be able to go to California to celebrate our 8 year anniversary. Nonna and Papa came to Raleigh to watch Kate and Brower for two days and then they spent the rest of the time with Grandma and Grandpa. We are so blessed to have family who loves our kids and who love to watch our kids. We know that we would never be able to take such great trips if we didn't have our parents to take such good care of our kids. Kate and Brower miss us, but I think they really enjoy eating chicken nuggets and mac and cheese for every meal and getting spoiled for 5 days!
We flew into San Francisco and spent a few hours getting our luggage. Our flight was changed that morning without us knowing so we thought we were going to miss our flight. We made the flight after running through the airport but our luggage did not. So, after getting to SF, we grabbed some lunch near the new baseball stadium and then went back to the airport to get our luggage. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and went to the many beautiful viewing areas of SF and the Golden Gate Bridge. It was freezing! I had on a lot of layers and was still cold. After doing that for a few hours, we headed to Santa Rosa for dinner and then to our hotel. We had an early night...we never seemed to adjust to the time change.
On Friday morning, we were up and ready to go running at 6 AM, yep, 6 AM. I am never even moving at 6! We hopped in the car and explored Sonoma and Napa all day. We went to a bunch of wineries and had a picnic at Ravenwood. Some of our favorites were Ravenwood, V. Sattui and Kenwood. It was such a relaxing day. We went back to Santa Rosa for dinner and were in bed at 7:45!
On Saturday, we decided to head back to SF. We got up early and went to Muir Woods. We hiked around Muir Woods for about 3 hours. We went on one of the extended hikes and had the entire hike to ourselves. It was so beautiful! We hiked to a picnic area and ate lunch and hiked back throught the Redwood Forest. After our hike we headed into SF. We walked around Fisherman's Wharf and ate a sourdough bowl of chowder. We spent most of the people watching- lots of interesting people to watch! Then we headed over to one of our favorite's-Ghiradelli and ate a huge sundae. We were exhausted after our hike and all of our eating so we went back to Santa Rosa for the evening to hang out.
On Sunday, we went to a festival that they hold in Carneros called April in Carneros. We each bought a glass and went to about 15 wineries that are only open to the public during the festival. It was so much fun. I think this was one of our favorite things to do. A lot of the wineries were just small, family owned wineries. They all had food that complemened the wine. We ate a lot of food and drank even more wine!! What a fun last day in wine country!
We had such a wonderful time celebrating us just having time together.