Becoming More Than Four

A friend of mine from my days of church camp has made a decision to adopt a child from the Ukraine through a program from her church.  I have been following her story and it is so inspiring.  She is doing a very cool Christmas giveaway that ends tomorrow.  For just a small donation to the adoption, you can be entered to win an ipad!!!  Check out her story!!!

http://becomingmorethanfour.blogspot.com/2013/12/super-good-news-someone-won-prize-and.html

Wild mama

This is how Maeve goes for a walk with her baby. M and Ms and a bottle on hand! 

Happy 87th!

On November 1st, my grandfather turned 87!  We had a fun celebration on Sunday to celebrate.  He's so sweet!!!

Halloween Prep

We had a great time getting ready for Halloween! We carved pumpkins at church, Paul carved a pumpkin for a work party and Maeve dressed silly as we went to read Noah's troll book to his class. We also had an amazing trick or treat night at church where over 500 kids came to enjoy the fun!

Ocean City 2013

I couldn't bear to have a summer without a beach trip! I managed to squeeze in a long weekend for just the four of us in Ocean City. It was the perfect jaunt. We spent plenty of time building sand castles, beach pools, and burying each other. Noah rocked the boogie board and we are sure he will be some sort of beach/mountain man some day. Paul spent countless hours throwing the kids into huge waves only to have them emerge full of giggles. 

Boardwalk games, mini golf and Kohr Brothers ice cream rounded out our little get a way! 

We all feel refreshed and revived to head back to the grind tomorrow!!!

A donkey, a pony and a unicorn

When I asked Maeve what kind of birthday party she wanted this year, she said "a donkey, a pony, and a unicorn!!!"  We did our best with a GREAT pony party.

It was really a perfect day.  The children arrived at Classic Touch Farm and the owner allowed two children at a time to ride the ponies for a very long stretch... at least 15 minutes.  She taught them how to steer and ride without anyone holding them! She taught them how to turn around and how to get on and off.  We were all very impressed with the farm.  The other children who were waiting played quietly and nicely together until it was their turn.

Of course we had lots of horse themed goodies!!!!

Paul used an old palette as a backdrop for a sign for Maeve's name.

 One little girl in the neighborhood actually came up with this idea to turn individual Pringles containers into cowboy hats!!!

After riding and cake the children were allowed to go into the barn to brush the horses and feed them treats.  It was a great finale to a wonderful day!!!

Slip and slide

It's been very very hot! We have been using lots of slip and slides outside but here is a pic of the kids pretending to be baby cheetahs drinking from a spring! Lol!

Shrinks dinks

Our first foray down this road! I couldn't remember what happened to them! Big they turned into little plastic figures! 

UNO night!!

What better to do in a tropical storm?! 

Please touch museum

A quick spring break trip to the please touch museum. We had a blast but it was CROWDED!!!

Hairdresser

This is what the munchkins do when everyone is off school!

Learning Fair

Noah's school hosts an annual learning fair. Any child in grades k-5 can present information about any topic that they have interest in. Noah wanted to do a project even though we will be away during the fair. He chose to learn about birds and feathers. He wrote to a friend of mine who works at the zoo with the emus and he read a lot of books! He learned so much and did such an amazing job putting his board together. Of course I seized the opportunity to let him learn how to use my scrap booking paper cutter!

Zoo day 2013

We snuck out in a warm day and headed to the zoo for the first trip this year! Our neighbor went with Maeve and I for a perfect day of animal goodness!

7

I'm not going to say I didn't cry.  He's 7.  He just looks older.  His face has lost the baby fat.  He is skinny as a rail.  He is exploring and testing... saying words like "freaking" and "hate" and whispering a lot with his friends.  I'm seeing the future now and I don't like it one bit.  See, at 7, he still curls up in my lap and snuggles like a little bunny and wants me to scratch his back and kiss him.  But as I see his body lengthen and his mind expand I can see that at 10 or maybe sooner he will have pockets of his life that mommy may not be privy to.  

The week of his birthday was jam packed with functions and on his actual birthday his sister had soccer.  We taped his door shut with streamers and balloons and got special donuts for breakfast. I delivered a giant baseball cupcake to his lunchroom to make his day special (no class parties anymore!) 

After Maeve's soccer we came home and had giant ice cream sundaes and sang to our big guy.  He's really into goofy faces at 7!

He loved his presents from Iceland... my brother thought this picture should be a lego ad!

The neighbors were having a bon fire and so we headed out to enjoy the evening.  We called it a night around 10 and as we walked home I told him that it was almost the time he had been born and so we waited until 10:21 to celebrate.  I brought out the scrapbooks and for the first time I think he really showed interest in his birth and his story.  He was particularly interested in the picture of the ark his pop pop made for him and he wanted to set up his animals the same way they were in the picture at my baby shower.   At the exact moment we cheered and I cried a bit more and he went off to sleep.

Saturday was party day and after a t-ball game we headed to Philadelphia Rock Gym for an amazing Rock Climbing Party.  Noah is a climber to be sure... give him any set of monkey bars or any jungle gym and in seconds he is at the top.  This was a great party choice for him.

Each climber received a water bottle with a rope bracelet, pop rocks, a rock bouncy ball (oriental trading) and a carabinier.

Everyone received some rope and instructions for how to learn to tie knots.

There was a make your own GORP station!

Complete with home made reusable snack bags to fill with the GORP.

My amazing husband constructed this rock climbing cake... so cool!!!

The birthday boy and his little sis at the wall

All of his buddies

Noah got to climb first and quickly scaled the first wall without any effort. We were soooo proud of him.

And our little neighbor, who is 3, kept up with him more than another kid there!!!  They both scaled 40 feet walls without blinking!

About halfway through we took a break from climbing and enjoyed our food.  We thew on some trick candles for fun!

And made our own GORP

It was a great day for us all!!!!! Happy Birthday big guy!!!!!