Thursday, April 30, 2015

Spring Break – Easter

On Easter morning we awoke to discover that the Easter Bunny had visited Nonni and Papa’s house, leaving a basket for each kid filled with candy and toys (actually, it was a sand-castle making beach bucket filled with candy and toys—the Easter Bunny must’ve been thinking ahead to our sand-castle building plans at Hilton Head this summer).  There were also Easter eggs hidden all over the yard and inside the majority of the eggs were puzzle pieces.  Once the two puzzles were put together the big kids had to work out the meaning of a message written on them.  It took a while, but once it clicked you couldn’t contain the excitement—we’re going to Universal Studios!!!

{Sweet Ivy’s first egg hunt.}

{He may have his bathing suit on, too, but at least Jack tried to look a little nice for Easter morning…it was straight into the pool after the egg hunt!}

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Spring Break – Cousins!

Aunt Tracy, Jake, Zane, Drew, and Ivy rolled into Nonni and Papa’s house on Saturday afternoon and the cousins didn’t waste any time, jumping right in to a pick-up game of soccer.  Yay, cousins!  And—yay, Florida weather!  We’re so grateful Nonni and Papa were ready and willing to host this craziness.  I did not take a lot of photos on our trip, enjoying the relaxing time sitting by the pool and either catching up with Tracy and my mom and dad or reading a book (I think I got through two that week).  Let’s just say it was the perfect spring break, for everyone…although, Nonni and Papa probably needed a break at the end of the week.  

Monday, April 27, 2015

Florida for Spring Break

We flew down to St. Petersburg for Spring Break to join my sister and her kids for several days at my parents house.  Tracy’s crew wasn’t set to arrive until the day after we did so, when Nonni and Papa picked us up at the airport, we headed straight to the beach. It was such a beautiful and relaxing start to our vacation…and probably the quietest part of the week—fun with the cousins to come!

Monday, April 6, 2015

Instagrammin’ in March

It was a busy month for these kiddos as we transition from winter to spring.

wacky wednesday at school. | john glenn at the living museum. | respresenting spain at thinking day for girl scouts. | gym date for ella and baden. | school fun run—these kids rocked it. | bowling with toothy, jack’s class pet. | trail run at beatty park, my favorite. | i cannot resist this face, such a cutie. | donuts for the birthday girl—last birthday treat at school. | ella and julianna celebrating ella’s birthday with a show, dinner, and sleepover. #alleycatinaristocats | birthday dinner at brixx. #butterynoodles #herfave | usta team tennis begins! | love playing tennis with my girl. | and she’s off on her 5th grade trip to williamsburg and jamestown. | ferry ride. | just jack and me tonight. | having some rainy fun in williamsburg. | so proud of ella for going on her 5th grade trip all on her own. | father-daughter dance night. | which means another mother-son date night.  #luckylady #wingsandmarchmadness #hischoice | orthodontist—all set to decide which permanent tooth to pull. 

Friday, April 3, 2015

Birthday Girl

Ella’s 11!  On the evening of Ella’s birthday it was closing night for her school’s performance of Artistocats, a performance Ella participated in as part of Musical Theatre club.  Ella was an “alley cat”, the group of supporting singers and dancers for the show who are on stage for the show’s entirety.  We brought Ella’s best friend Julianna with us to watch the show, out for dinner afterwards (at Brixx, of course), and then home for a sleepover to help us celebrate Ella’s birthday.  Brava, Ella, and happy birthday!   

Monday, March 23, 2015

3rd Grader

Year after year, the feedback from Jack’s teachers is that he is a self-motivated, focused, responsible student.  I walk away from each and every parent-teacher conference full of pride about this kid…and, maybe a little disbelief at how studious he sounds because he would certainly rather be playing around outside than studying when he’s at home.  The only thing lacking might be his neatness and organization skills—which makes us all the more thankful that Jack has Ms. Jarrett this year, THE most organized teacher I’ve ever met.  She’s also a lot of fun and Jack has a running joke going with her about the Florida-Auburn rivalry.  Third grade has been a fun year for Jack—he couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends in his class or a better teacher.

Here are some highlights from late winter/early spring of Jack’s 3rd grade year (most of these images are from other parents or Jack’s teacher):

{Living Museum Day—Jack’s class all represented Americans who were the first to accomplish something.  Jack was John Glenn, first American to orbit the earth.}

{Valentine’s Day shoebox monster ready to chomp on some Valentine cards.}

{Field trip to Discovery Place.}

{Jack’s class pet, Toothy, came home with Jack over one weekend.  It rained most of the weekend so we had to get creative to take him on adventures—bowling and Mexican food.  They did get a little soccer in Sunday afternoon.}

{Our studious boy—the light was so pretty, I felt inspired to photograph the ‘everyday’ like I used to all the time when the kids were little.  I guess I got a little distracting…and then maybe a little annoying.  Oh well.  Love this face.  Oh, and in this picture you can really see the extra permanent tooth that Jack has coming in on his upper left side and that is pushing his two front teeth off center.  He had an extra baby tooth in the same place that had to be pulled.  The permanent tooth will have to be pulled, too, which is a bigger undertaking and involves an oral surgeon.  We have to wait until we can clearly tell which of two teeth in that space looks most similar to the one on the other side.}

{And, a quick soccer portrait in the backyard—Jack has to submit a photo each year for a soccer ID card in order to play competitive soccer.}

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Girl Scout Thinking Day

In March, Ella’s Girl Scout Junior troop participated in Thinking Day, a festival of the countries of the world.  Each troop selects a country and prepares a booth with research information, artifacts from the country, a swap (this is a Girl Scout thing—it’s a small craft that is on a safety pin to collect on their vests), a stamp for the scouts’ event “passports”, and a sample of food from the country.  As Ella and I had recently travelled to Spain, we led our troop in learning about the culture, the terrain, the regional differences, government, products, and food of Spain.  We made small paper flamenco fans as our swaps.  For the food at our booth we decided to represent tapas—we had Spanish olives, paprika almonds, manchego cheese, cured chorizo, pan crackers, and tortilla (Spanish omelet) which I had prepared and was a bigger hit than we’d expected.  Ella and I also displayed all of our souvenirs from Spain (hers from our trip and mine from when I lived there as a child) and photos from our trip.  And Jack was even nice enough to lend Ella his Catalan flag Barcelona Futbol Club jersey for the day.  Overall, our booth was a hit and it was fun to work with Ella and her troop…and to relive our amazing trip just a few month earlier.