A little vacation

A little stir crazy around here, so we planned a trip to the Great Smoky Mtns Nat'l Park while on our way to Cincinnati to visit the Cadoras. Maybe the pictures tell the story. It was a wonderful family vacation for all of us and worth the long car ride!  Loved our condos which included 4 pools, a putt-putt course and playground among other things.

Easter 2010 - He is risen!

The posed picture.

Then it all went to you-know-where.

Note:  though known to be a bruiser, the band-aid is just for looks.

It was in the Easter basket.  They were gone in 24 hrs.

                                Yummy.  Candy buttons.  An ingenious candy for my kids b/c they

                                can't eat too much in one sitting.  Too much work involved.  I haven't
                                blogged about Christmas dinner, have I?  After eating candy ALL DAY
                                LONG (some Mommy knew about, some she didn't), the grown ups
                                are finally sitting down at the dinner table complete with china and silver.
                                This little girl (Bruiser, Squeezie, etc) comes up to me and throws up
                                hot pink and green and many other colors of candy she'd had all day.
                                It got a good laugh, but I was a bit taken by the whole thing!

Caro-sail!

It's a special day when we can go see Daddy at his work and ride the "caro-sail."  This statement may sound as confusing to you as it did to Nucky.  When asked awhile back where Daddy works, she replied, "at the mall."  Well, he does work near a mall and that is where we meet him when we go to lunch with him on a work day, so that's what she thinks.  At least she's finally started calling it the carosail and not the ferris wheel!

The expressions in this picture kill me... so typical of each of their personalities -- Little Miss Poised and Cautious and Little Miss Calamitous and Kooky!

Botanical Gardens... we love this place!

Seems like as soon as the weather is remotely warm, I hurry over to our Botanical Gardens.  It's a win-win, as I think I have said before.  We all get to enjoy God's creation... love seeing names of plants I like and don't know, so I'm learning and growing in my love of gardening AND they have 2 slides and several other fun kids things like walking thru the caterpillars mouth and thru his body until he becomes a butterfly... so girls get some Vitamin D and enjoy the sunshine.  We did take baby along, but she didn't make it into the pictures so I will add a photo of her from when we were playing in the driveway!

Doesn't Lover have a great eye for photography... or maybe he was hungry for some kale?

Bathtime and loves

First bath with all the sisters -- little MM doesn't know what to think, as you can see!  The big girls thought it was so fun and kept "feeding" her sea creatures.

On a different note, I wanted to mention a couple of things that are noteworthy for my memory.  As of last week celebrating St. Patrick's Day, Nucky has been so obsessed with leprechauns.  It started when her teacher described said creatures as if they were mini-Santas b/c they come when children are on the playground and bring treats and leave little green footprints behind.  She came home from school and the first thing she said when she jumped in the car was, "Mom, the leprechauns came!  They turned the potty water green!"  Yes, Mrs. Ashley went ALL out and even had the little green guys turn the toilet water green... how exciting!  In this 4 year old's mind, it was all she could think about.  She didn't get near this excited about Santa and his elves.  She continued to talk about this all day and was quite occupied with her little pot of gold filled with a gold rock and gold coin candy.  When I went in her room after bedtime, she quietly said to me before I left, "Mom, Mrs. Carney said that when she came in from the playground she saw a leprechaun running down the hall!"  Funny what they get into.

Squeezie's love right now is YOGURT.  She wakes up yelling from her crib, "Wogurt, Mommy."  If you don't give it to her, she continues to chant for it.  She would eat her weight in those cultures if I'd let her.  Cute little thing, she is!  She stayed home from school yesterday and was entertaining herself at the table with the resurrection eggs (tactile tool to tell the Easter story - love them).  I caught her using the nail as silverware.  I got it on camera...

Here's the baby!

You've been asking and I've just not taken a lot of photos of this sweet one.  I guess b/c everytime I have the camera out, she's in her carrier.  Not a really cute photo to me when they're all bunched up in there.  So here she sits in her Bumbo seat, scantily clad.  She is 6 months old now.  Wow.

Birthday and Snow

Nucky is now 4 and we celebrated with a clown party. The only thing "clown" about it were the invitations, favors and one game. She insisted on the theme, so we ran with it as much as possible. See below for the favors (clown nose and glasses)


We made party hats b/c she loves to wear party hats. When she gets one at school from someone else's bday, it stays around our house until it's totally ripped apart (about 3 hrs).

Little sis also enjoyed the party... maybe posing for the camera was more fun for her.

Thought these were funny!

And then we have had 2 snows. This one pictured below was beautiful and at least 4-6".

I like to eat anything... snow was no exception. She ate it off the ground (you know, the kind that's been stepped on and yucky... she's not refined in her taste yet).

Meet Percy... he still hasn't completely melted.