Weekend in Topeka

 Colin, Maggie and I headed to Topeka this past weekend to visit Meemaw at her house.  It had been a while since we spent time with her in Topeka.  So, we scheduled in a weekend, in between weddings and baseball games, and made our trip.  Brian ended up staying in Kansas City since he still has to work on Saturdays.  We would've had to take 2 cars, and it would've been a really quick trip for Brian since it would've been late Saturday before he even got there.  (He finished up a couple of projects around the house and missed us the whole time, right?!)  He even said he woke up at 7:30 am on Sunday morning and felt guilty, so he got up, knowing I would've been up since 6 am with the kids.  

Awwwww!  Now that's true love, isn't it?!

We had lots of fun in Topeka.  We stuck to Maggie's napping schedule, which doesn't leave much time for getting out and about, but we made it to feed the ducks/geese both days.  We had so much fun the first day, we made a special trip back to the grocery store for "old bread" so we could feed them the next day, too.

A shot of the ducks on the first day.  They were very friendly and stayed in the water.  On the second day, they were all walking around in the grass and were pretty aggressive.  I had to keep myself from screaming a few times when they flapped their wings and were honking at each other.  A few of them didn't get a good nights sleep apparently because they had their tongues sticking out and were hissing at the other geese.  I just didn't want any of us to get nipped at, so we threw the bread as far away as possible!

 Colin and Meemaw looking at something awesome (that I clearly didn't get a picture of).  

Oh, and I was wondering if Colin still pointed with his middle finger...it turns out he does.  So glad he hasn't changed that quirky habit! :)

Taking a break from the feedings...Maggie LOVED it!  

She would yell "DUCK" every time she threw a piece of  bread.  Too cute!

 Maggie pouting from running out of bread

We headed back to Meemaw's house and had yummy spaghetti dinner.  While Meemaw cleaned up the kitchen, I headed across the street to run off some energy with the kids.  There is a big empty field across the street and Meemaw had a ball...that's a recipe for fun!

 Colin and Meemaw reading some books.

 Hopping on one foot and letting out a roar!  

Notice Colin's "microphone" in his hands? Well, just before this picture, Colin was on "stage" and did a performance for Maggie and me.  He had a blast!

 After a good night's sleep, Colin and Meemaw got to work on a cool skeleton Halloween decoration.  It's currently hanging on the door to our basement.

Meanwhile, Maggie had so much fun playing with CJ.  She just LOVES puppies, and CJ did really well letting Maggie pet her and fall all over her.  Guess we might be getting a dog sooner than later.  

Up next... Pumpkin Patch Wednesday!

Head Shots

Grammie has been asking for some head shots of the kids.  She has some matching picture frames and she wanted pictures of each of the grandkids wearing solid color shirts and a white background.  

We were over at Grammie & Grandad's house to celebrate Michael's birthday and I took advantage of the time.  Grammie put up a white sheet on her couch and I had packed a clean shirt for each of them to wear.  

They did great.  Colin and Maggie were in a great mood and were more than happy to smile for the camera.

I did some quick editing of the pics and sent them off to be printed for 80 cents.  Not bad!

We hope you like them Grammie!

Colin at 3 years 2 months

Maggie at 1 year 4 months

Busy weekends

 Lately our family calendar has been pretty busy!

We are trying hard to enjoy these last few weeks of really awesome weather.  Not that triple digit, icky hotness we had all summer long.

So, we've gone to a Royals baseball game for the past 2 weekends and also had a wedding this weekend, too.  Our house might need a little bit (okay, maybe a lot) of cleaning, but the kids and us are having fun, so that's what really counts, right?

We are still doing gymnastics on Monday nights.  Colin has enjoyed himself, but we're not so sure we're at the right place.  We might try another gymnastics place in the spring maybe.  It's a very big company and Colin doesn't do that well when he feels overwhelmed.  We'll see.

On another note...I am SOOOO glad we moved into this awesome neighborhood.  I can't wait to really raise our kids here.  We have amazing neighbors, safe streets, and the Parkville community is great.  We have some young kids right next door to us and across the street.  Colin and Maggie are the youngest, but there are some 5 and 7 year olds that play outside ALL THE TIME!  Colin has been pretty hesitant in the past, but always asks if his "friends" are outside and if he can play too.  I think we've finally overcome that learning curve and now he has no problem going over there by himself and joining in on the fun.  Tonight Colin was chasing around another boy for hours.  It just makes my heart burst when I see him laughing so hard and really having a great time.  We've found our "forever" home, that's for sure!

I snapped some pictures of the kids before we headed out to the wedding yesterday.

Brian was a groomsmen in the wedding, so he was gone fairly early in the day to do pictures and such.  I got the kids all gussied up by myself and we even got to the wedding on time, woo hoo!

 Snazzy looking kiddos.

Please don't judge, I bribed them with suckers.  And if you look closely, Maggie has sucker-juice all over her sweater.  It was an awesomely sticky mess!

And, you get a look at my newest craft project...making Maggie headbands with bows on them.  

The flowers are made of felt and the headbands are foldover elastic.  They are really simple to make (when I can find the time) and she will keep them on her head, which is the best part.

 Another groomsmen snapped this picture of us right before the wedding.

It was a quick ceremony, thank goodness, because the kids were very curious why Daddy was up front and we weren't.  They did great and were ready to party after the ceremony.  There was a 2 hour break between the wedding and the actual dinner/dancing, so I had my hands full trying to keep them occupied.  Colin got his fill of cookies, cheesecake bites, and cheese cubes.  Maggie got none of the above.  Poor thing!

 Daddy with his kiddos, bustin' a move.  We started our own little dance party by our table.  

 Breakdance time....

 I love seeing the kids just being totally carefree and having so much fun!

 Maggie and I dancing the night away...

(until 7 pm when Grammie & Grandad took them home) 

:)

Very soon after this picture was taken, there were tons of kids on the dance floor.  

Colin and Maggie had a great time dancing for a bit.

We can't wait for Chris and Caitlin's wedding in June 2013.  

The happy couple, Brett and Andy.

We love hanging out with these two, and they regularly will watch the kids for us if we need a night out.  We know soon that will come to an end, when they start a family of their own.  Then, we can have a huge party at our house, with tons of kids!

Yardwork

 Tis the season!

Brian and I just love getting outside and working in the yard.  And, we have some major work to do at our new house.  The lady that lived here before didn't really tend to her landscaping at all.  Not only did she have  greenery that was not kept trimmed, they aren't even good looking greenery to begin with.

So, we have decided to do the best we can and just tear everything up and start over in the spring.

It's going to take some time, but we are excited to get some color and pretty bushes in our yard. 

The HUGE bushes in our front yard, completely covering up our front windows so there's no light coming in the windows nor any breeze.

We tried to just use our bush trimmer, but we are going to end up needing a saw of some sort.

This is a project for another weekend...

 Then while we were digging around in the dirt, we came across this seriously LONG root that extended almost the entire front of our house.  Colin did the honors and drug it up the hill in the backyard.  He is such a good helper!

 Ugh!  Daddy, I could use a little help here!

 The kids and I were just hanging out before dinner on Sunday and Brian captured this cute picture.  

I just love the ages of our kids right now.

Challenging, yet lots of fun!

Colin was sitting on our front porch and Maggie just walked up and sat right next to him.

I ran inside to grab my camera, hoping to get a good picture of the 2 of them together...

Instead, whenever I had Maggie sit down, she would get up in one second.

So, here's a picture of Maggie walking away from the steps and Colin getting tired of saying "cheese" for the millionth time.

Ha!  Someday I will get a good picture of the 2 of them...

Our 6th Anniversary

Last week was our 6th anniversary.

We didn't do much on our ACTUAL anniversary, which was the Monday of labor day weekend.  I had the day off, Brian had to work, so we really didn't see much of each other anyway.

We took the kids to the pool one last time (both Colin and Maggie are turning into quite the water-bugs), and then we also ended up going to Grammie and Grandad's for some barbeque.  

We just exchanged cards at the end of the night, and went through some of our older anniversary cards, just for giggles.  It was pretty funny seeing how our lives have changed in just this short amount of time.

Changed...for the better, of course :)

We went out for our anniversary just this past weekend.  We did, what is a rare occurrence around this house, a "date night".  

Brian got up at 3:30 am for work on Saturday so he could get off around noon and be ready for an early matinee movie.  I dropped the kids off at Grammie's house for their naps.  

We went to see the movie "Lawless".  It actually was a really good movie, but was pretty gruesome at times.  It was set in the Prohibition times and involved a family of bootleggers and their lives.  I only had to cover my eyes a few times during the movie.  Brian would let me know when I could look...

We then set out to use our Groupon for Em Chamas.  I had called to make reservations earlier in the day, for 6:30 pm.  We walked in at 6:30 pm, were told we didn't have any reservations made, and that it would be a 1.5 hour wait.  Awesome.  That's just about how our luck goes!

So, we ran home, grabbed our On the Border gift cards, and picked up some food, to-go.  

We hustled home so we could put Colin to bed and ate our food at 8:15 pm at our kitchen table.

Ended up being so-so food (you know, an hour after we bought it!), but great conversation and some fun memories made.

After 6 years, I'd say we appear to have this stuff figured out...

but, we don't!!

We've got 2 beautiful children, awesome friends and family, stable jobs, a wonderful house & neighborhood.

The ups and downs come along the way, but we've got each other!

Thanks for 6 wonderful years, Brian!!

Love you!

Gymnastics

 We survived our first gymnastics class with Colin.  He did awesome, especially since it was burning up hot in the gym.  Apparently the air conditioner went out and they had about 3 service vans at the gym trying to get it fixed.  There were a ton of other gymnastics classes going on at the same time Colin had his class, so there was plenty of body heat, too.  He came up from his class a big sweaty mess, but so was Brian, Maggie and I.  

Colin did a great job listening to his teacher, with only a few minor hiccups.  He loved all the different stations they practiced on, and I think he picked up on the techniques fairly quickly.  He was just excited to be there with his cousin Olivia.  I think it's really neat for them to be able to do things together.  Olivia has done gymnastics there before, over the summer, so she was more comfortable with how things went.  

Unfortunately, we won't have class this next week due to Labor Day (our 6th wedding anniversary!!), but we'll get back into the swing the following week.  

Colin said he had fun and can't wait to go back!

(I apologize that the pictures are dark, but we couldn't figure out how to get the flash to cooperate in the dark gym!)

 Before the gymnastic class started, they were going to stretch soon.

There were 2 teachers (Belinda and Katie) and one younger helper, sitting to the right of Colin.  

They provided really helpful instruction while still allowing the kids to try the activities on their own.

Jumping into the foam pit at the beginning of class.

He was pretty much last in line for everything at first, but towards the end, he started to be more comfortable with things and was more aggressive.

There was one other boy in his class, and Colin didn't even seem to mind there were lots of girls.

 Trying out the bars.

He was working on bring his knees to his chest.

 Next up was the rings...

Get those knees up, Colin! :)

He got to run around the gym and do some other stations where there was a trampoline and hula hoops to jump through.

And...his favorite part...

he got a sucker at the end of class.

How we do dinners lately...

Here are just a few more pictures from our photo shoot that I think are absolutely adorable!

Mags and Daddy (love those candid shots!)

 Colin cheesing on the bridge

 My favorite family picture.  I wish Mags was looking, but everyone is smiling at least, right?

 Maggie Mae on the swing

Finally, we have been having so much fun at dinner lately.

Colin is starting to get pretty fussy with his dinners.  He doesn't really get all that hungry until much later at night, which doesn't work well for going to bed by 7:30 or so.  I am wondering if it's some sort of a stalling tactic that he has just figured out.  So, long story short, we love eating Ramen noodles.  Both Maggie and Colin can eat it (dairy-free) and they have fun, too!

 Getting set up for the challenge, Maggie versus Colin...

(and yes, that's Maggie's foot on the table...she must think it's really comfortable or something, cause she pretty much does it for every meal.)

It's a tie.

I think the noodle actually broke before anyone technically won.

Love these kids!