Birthday Boating

It's my birthday!  Of course now a days, it's just another day to me.  This year is my LAST year in my 20's though.  Yikes!  It was so great to have my mom and aunt here to celebrate the day with me.  Jonathan also made it home from out of town, and we decided to give boating one last go for the year.  It was a little too chilly to submerge completely in the water but we still enjoyed the sun, sand, and the water on our toes!

The kids tried out silly string for the first time while we were at the lake.  It was lots of messy fun.. and the perfect place to do it at because we had the lake water to wash it right off!

Apple Picking 2011

In the past few years I have really started missing the old tradition when I was growing up in Michigan of heading to pick apples and have cider and donuts.  I can't even remember the last time I went when I did live up there, but it must have been before my parents moved to Georgia.  There isn't any apple picking that is that great here in Charlotte and defintely none that has the traditional cider and donuts.  This year I finally decided to find out where I could get my "fix" of cider and donuts with some great apple picking, and I am so excited to have found a really neat place!

My Aunt Debbie from Miami came for a visit (and mom came from GA to join us) so I thought it would be the perfect time to do some apple picking.  We drove up to Flat Rock, NC (two hours from here) and picked apples at the top of a mountain.  The view was spectacular, and we couldn't have picked a better day.  The drive is a bit longer than I would prefer, but I think it was worth it enough to head back each year and make it a new tradition.

 That cider and donuts really hit the spot!  I almost want to make the drive again just to get more (but I won't until next year- one car ride a year with three kids to the orchard is plenty!)

 Look closely and you'll see that all three kids are in this picture!

 "Hay" Ride... Justin's favorite of course because a big ol tractor was pulling us along!

One Determined Baby

I guess it makes sense that all three of our kids have been active from the time they have been in the womb and onward since Jonathan and I love to be active and on the go, and Ryan is no exception to that rule.  He is not quite 3 months old and is determined he is NOT a baby.  I attempted to put him in the swing today for some relaxation while mommy cleaned.  Thank goodness I buckled him in because he had zero interest in laying back and relaxing; he wanted to sit STRAIGHT up!

Pillow Lounging

After our campout last night, we had quite a mess of pillows laying around.  It at least made for a cute picture of my three cuties this morning!

Camp-Out 2011

It has been a while since I have let Katelynn pull out her tent and sleep in it.  It was something I did for quite a while when she first stopped napping.  Back then Justin was too small to join in.  With Daddy traveling a lot lately, it has been a hard adjustment on the kids and we needed to do something fun and out of the ordinary so a camp-out it was!  We set up a tent for each of them with their sleeping bags in the living room.  (And when K used to campout before it was in Mommy and Daddy's room so being in the living room was a big first for her too!)
Ryan and I just crashed on the floor in front of the tents- me in a sleeping bag and Ryan on his Nap Nanny.  Katelynn did awesome and Justin only struggled for a little bit to go to sleep and then they both did great sleeping!  It was a fun night!  Katelynn's tent is now on her bed as she is not ready to give up sleeping in a tent after one night.  Mommy, however, could only handle one night in a row of sleeping on the floor :)

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Of course I had to sneak pictures once they were all fast asleep! 

Mid-September.. and we're still boating!

Being a boating family living in NC versus up north has its perks!  It's mid-September and we are still out there boating and enjoying the lake water!  Today we stripped Ryan down to his diaper and let him have a real taste of the sand and water.  He was pretty interested in it to say the least!

Pajama Kind of Day!

With school four days a week now, we have to get up early, get ready, and leave the house by 8 a.m.  By Friday, it is soo nice to just spend the morning in our PJ's and not have to rush to be anywhere.  That's exactly what today was like.. a PJ-kind of day with three super cute kiddos (Well, at least somewhat a PJ-kind of day.  Katelynn gets dressed the second she wakes up each day.  She has no interest in staying in her PJ's but at least today I didn't suggest we try to match any better with what she chose.  Haha)

A GREAT Day at Great Wolf Lodge!

For those of you who have never been to a Great Wolf Lodge location, you are missing out!  We are so lucky to have one only five minutes from our house  However, since it is so close we rarely spend the cash to actually go.  On a normal basis you have to stay at the hotel to be able to enjoy the indoor waterpark, and it's just not feasable to spend $189 to stay five minutes from home.  We love it there though so I was really excited when an opportunity arose through Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Charlotte where you could purchase day passes for only $5/each.  I couldn't pass it up!  We went today and had so much fun.  It makes me want to get a hotel room and take the kids back!

You know, while most of the time it is sad watching how quickly my children are growing up, today was one of those days when I was so proud at how big my older two are getting.  It's still sad that they are getting big so quickly, but I was more in awe and excited for them today as I watched how brave and skilled they have become in the water in such a short period of time.  When we got to Great Wolf today, they measured Katelynn and said she could go on all but one of the BIG waterslides!  At first the thought freaked me out:  you mean MY BABY GIRL can go down a huge waterslide all by herself?  The idea had never even occurred to me when I had purchased the tickets to Great Wolf last month.  Really?  The BIG, BIG slides that Mommy and Daddy even have fun going down?  REALLY?   But, yes, that was really the case.  When we went to Great Wolf last time, it was June of 2010 and Katelynn was nowhere near as much of a watergirl as she has become since then.  I remember how much effort it took for us to convince her to go down the kiddie slide.  She went a few times, but she didn't love it.  Now all of sudden today not only could she go down the big slides, but she LOVED them!  I took her down the huge raft one and then she and I went down the smaller one and two person raft slides.  I thought for sure she would be scared, but I am pretty sure I was the only one with apprehension about her going down them.  Katelynn was all smiles and doing the typical girl "screams" as she went down.  It really was a proud moment for me as her mom.  She was so brave and had so much fun.  And really it was even more fun for me once I got over the fear of letting her do them.  Now I have another partner in crime to ride the fun stuff with.  Who would have thought? (Sadly, I have no pictures of her on the big slides since I had to ride with her but here she is on the smaller scale ones)

Justin amazed me just as much, if not more, than his big sister.  At her age, she had no interest in getting soaked.  Justin has always seemed a little more daring than Katelynn has, but I wouldn't call him my waterbaby like I would Katelynn.  He gets bored of the pool and lake much faster than she does, and he does not like water poured over his face (or at least I thought he didn't).  When I booked our tickets to Great Wolf, my plan was to let Katelynn skip school, but when I told her of my plans this week, she had a fit about missing school.   How dare I suggest she be allowed to miss a day of school to go to a waterpark?  One day she will not believe me that she didn't agree to it, but she didn't.  I had to take her to school and wait on going to the waterpark until after she was finished with school.  I could have taken the boys, but I actually chose to wait, thinking Justin would tire of the park before Katelynn even dipped her feet in the water if he went earlier.  Now that we have went today, I realize how wrong I was about that.  Justin had a blast, and he didn't even need any "warm-up" time.  He was purposely standing underneath buckets of water, waiting to get soaked and his face covered.  Even when they caught him by surprise, he would wipe the water from his eyes and keep on laughing.  About halfway into our day there, he asked to ride the "big slide".  Now, Justin can't ride the really big waterslides, but he can ride the ones attached to large play structure they have there, and while they aren't quite what Katelynn did with the rafts, they still are pretty high up there and have a few turns.  It took him a few minutes to get brave enough when he found out they wouldn't let me go down with him; he had to go on his own, but he did it and I was so proud.  Once he did it once, he didn't want to stop going.  He must have went 15 times while we were there.  It was hilarious though because after he had went the first time, he wanted to go again but I made him take a quick break since he was getting cold and shivering.  When we went back to try it the second time, they had switched lifeguards, and he was scared all over again.  He was convinced I wasn't taking him back to the same slide since it wasn't the same person standing at it.  It took another minute or two to get him to go again.  Haha. 

Today really was such a fun day for all of us (the kids and I.. and Grandpa Miller too who joined in place of Daddy), but it was bittersweet.  Jonathan has been traveling non-stop since Michigan in August and it's just not the same without him here.  I hate that he has to miss out on some our family events, especially something like this that has left me in awe of our own children.  It was one of those things that talking about it after the fact is just never going to be the same as if he could have been thre with us and witnessed it himself.