Renaissance Festival

Leo trying out the dragon bridge

If only I were a little bit taller...

riding the swings...Leo is on the right, Sophia the left. It is powered by nice teenage boys and the kids loved it!

rose arm painting*

Sophia morphed into a beautiful fairy

Leo getting friendly with the sheep

he never met a cheesecake he didn't like...even one covered in chocolate and skewered on a stick

this one chose a gigantic ice cream cookie sandwich, I may have been more persuasive with this choice

* first off I'd like to officially declare my disgust for face painting. Of course my kid loves it and seeks it out at every event like a moth to a flame. My issue is that although this "new" style of face painting is cool, it takes way too long and costs way too much. We waited at least 30 minutes to then pay $10 to a woman who was totally bitchy and kept telling my 3 y/o to sit still or her flowers would look like a dead dog on the road. Really, lady? I would think with 90% of your clientele being 12 and under you'd be a little fucking nicer!

Anyway, on a lighter note, we enjoyed the Renaissance Festival over Labor Day weekend. We felt a little rushed with nap time imminent but we saw (and ate) as much as we could. Leo really enjoyed the jousting and Sophia was thrilled to pick out some fairy wings that she'll also be using at Halloween. Charlie and I wished we could go back and have some time to ourselves to watch the shows and have a beer, but alas, probably not this season! Going to the Festival always brings back such fond memories of my dad that I hope we continue to go year after year.

Since it was such a beautiful day we ended the evening by dining on the deck. It has been many, many weeks since that happened last and it was so fun! Here's a few pics...

Sophia and Leo love having their own table...too bad it's a perfect Walter height!

this boy does love his mac and cheese

snuggles!!!

Beautiful Days

another day another ball

Sophia's new trick is to try and kick the rings with her feet while swinging
kite flying all star!

Surprise?! Leo tangled himself in the kite string

hard at work!

look how high it's flying!

Leo wanted a turn and goodness knows Sophia had to get in on that action too

Cheese! Notice the metal free grin?!

Wheeeeeeeeee!

We are really loving the weather that's come our way recently. Truly I am a summer girl; I love the heat, the swimming pool, the long daylight hours, but even I need a break from the heat sometimes! ;) Fall comes in as a close second to my favorite season and honestly if our weather was between 70-90 year round I'd be a happy camper! (okay, maybe 60 cuz I do like my sweaters!)

Preschool Take 2

ta da!
Wow, my sister is so big! :)

through the window we saw her putting her stuff away...

Leo checked out the playground, turns out he approves

Sophia made it to school this week! Yay!! I was a tiny bit late in dropping her off, which is not what I had planned, so I didn't get a lot of pictures. Plus since it wasn't the official first day for everyone else I kinda felt like I couldn't even come in the classroom. I was met at the door and basically given the cold shoulder! ;) I mean, I didn't necessarily need to come in, I'm actually not overly emotional about her starting preschool, which I know is odd since I'm overly emotional about everything else, but I just kind of felt left out and pushed aside! I did go to my first Preschool Moms Club Meeting, and it was okay. Not quite what I was expecting, but I'll probably return, plus there's free child care for 2 hours!! Leo did great in the play room and we even had time to check out the playground before picking up Sophia. She did great, as I knew she would and had a super fun time! She was so tired she didn't really have a lot to tell us, but she's excited for the school year! Monday is the big day for Leo, so more pics soon!

A Whole New Look

We finally got our house painted, and it's finally done! Of course as soon as we were scheduled the only rain of the summer started coming in full force...so we were delayed, but after 9 days of hard work from our crew...it looks beautiful!

Okay, so I forgot to take "before" pictures so here David has only done a little bit of the front, you still get the effect I think! ;) The white stuff in the pics is all primer, which was done by them, our house didn't look quite that bad!
Here's the back deck off the kitchen

and the rear of the house with the family room

AND...Drumroll Pleeeeeeeeease.....

Ta DA!!!!

Although we really do love the new look, we both realized how ready we are to see those front hedges seriously trimmed down! But other than that, we are totally happy with it (and we're hoping to get to the hedges this winter when the leaves are gone)!

Here's the front step. We got a new light fixture and our new storm door (with disappearing screen...woop woop!) will be here in another week.

the back of the house

We also chose to have the deck stained and it looks fab with the house color. Plus, I think it really makes our new sliding door pop! We got the door when we got the new windows last year but it looks even better now!

This little friend kept our painting crew company while they worked. He was there two mornings, hung out a while and then flew away...gorgeous! He's looking straight at the camera, it's a tiny bit fuzzy b/c I was trying to zoom in.



Since we had such a pretty new house, we needed a pretty lawn to go with it! Charlie did so much work on the yard last fall and it was doing great for most of the summer. But the heat of August just did us in and a lot of the yard died. :( So I verticut (with the help of our neighbor) the yard, raked it and helped Charlie fertilize and seed. We've already got some little sprouts coming up, so we're feeling good so far!

Leo was really into using the spreader and was oh so helpful, once I got him onto the grass anyway, but he was halfway down the block before I caught up to him.

Sophia, who takes after me, isn't much for yardwork, so she practiced writing with chalk. I demonstrated an S for her, but did her name all on her own. The P is hard to see but it's there!

let me at these weeds, Mom

Sophia does like pulling weeds so she happily directed the garden pruning and told her brother what to do, something else she likes to do!

ta-da!

Fall Soccer

on the move!!

Leo and I went exploring and he absolutely had to sit on this stump. Plus, he was able to see the butterflies, birds and lawnmower, he was very happy.

Sophia was trying to show Leo some moves, but he was distracted

Sophia gave up on playing with Leo and just tried dribbling both balls

Great Wolf Lodge

We sort of decided on a whim two weeks ago to take the kids to the Great Wolf Lodge. It's so close but we've never been. We didn't really do much this summer in terms of vacation or excitement so we figured we'd check it out. To say Sophia was thrilled would be a gross understatement. Although she was disappointed that it wasn't a long drive (she wanted to watch tv in the car) as soon as we walked in the lobby she exclaimed that it was the best place she had ever been! The room about sent her into a tizzy. The kids had their own "wolf den" complete with bunk beds and a TV. This sent her over the edge. She begged me from the time we got into the room, through the water park, in the bathtub and during PJ dressing to watch a show from her bed*. We only stayed one night but we were able to utilize the park all day on Sunday. We tried to take full advantage. The kids had a blast and we look forward to going back!

before we could even go to the water resort they had to try the beds out!

Whoosh!

Leo must have gone down this slide easily 100 times before the weekend was up!

Sleepy boy drinking his milk in mom and dad's bed

enjoying some Dippin' Dots during story time

there was a huge "magic" tree with talking animals and Leo was very intrigued

giant live animals, however, is all Sophia! Leo ran screaming.

*So by the time the kids were actually ready to sleep it was a little bit late. Plus, the TV had limited stations and there were no kid shows on. Sophia was insistent on trying to watch something so as I flipped channels looking for something kid-ish she spied baseball and shouted out...Oh, MOM! Is that baseball? I'll watch that, no problem! LOL! I obliged, even though she's never watched baseball a minute in her life, but anything on that TV was better than nothing! the next morning we hit the arcade after breakfast!

this game Leo was actually able to throw balls at the screen, this was a big hit.

aah-oooooooooooooo!

and this is possibly the best picture of all!

Charlie was so fast coming out of that slide that this was the only picture I was able to get! Sophia wasn't interested in the slides that required tubes and although Leo probably would have gone, he was too little. Charlie and I had fun on them, but the only bad part was having to take turns!