The Outer Banks, Part 1

We spent the first week of June with the Maggards and Hadfields in the Outer Banks.

It. Was. Amazing.

After the fun we had on last year's trip to Virginia Beach with the Maggards, we had to do it again. Last year wasn't long enough, and since we stayed in a hotel we didn't get to spend any time together once the kids went to sleep. This year we were able to stay in a beach house in Corolla for a whole week. 

We decided to take the Altima on the 8+ hours drive for gas mileage purposes, and boy was it a tight fit. Things were packed all around the children and I. Mila and Emmitt were troopers and handled it well.

  We crossed the Chesapeake Bay on and through miles of bridges and tunnels. The kids loved it! Personally, it made me a little nervous.

 Cargo ships.

 Mila drew a picture of me and her complete with freckles.

 Emmitt drew something for me too. Then he sat on the uncapped marker leaving a giant blue spot on his bum. Thank heaven for washable markers.

 Almost to Corolla. It was a beautiful drive up the island!

 The Carpe Diem.

 Our room.

 It didn't take the boys long to settle in.

The beach house had ESPN. We don't.

Sam misses Sportscenter. I don't.

And so commenced our lovely week at 852 Sea Cliff Court.

A Surprise From Dad!

Sam came home from work a little late one day at the beginning of spring bearing gifts for the children. New bikes and helmets! Boy were they excited!

 And she's off!

 Sam trying to teach Emmitt to pedal.

He doesn't really get it.

 "It's not working!"

(Only the 'k' is pronounced like 't' and there's no 'g' sound on the end.)

You have to pedal, Emmitt.

 Too much work.

He would rather go play on the playground over there.

Thanks, Dad!

Mila's Birthday

This was the longest winter.

So much happened.

Both good and bad.

I decided this was the only thing from the last few months that I wanted to spend time with at this point. Now maybe blogging will be easier to do...

This sweet little thing turned 5 on February 13th.

 She wanted a yellow, heart-shaped cake with pink frosting. She allowed me to be a little lazy and do cupcakes. She was so happy about the pony on top, and that it had its own cake as well. She's so easy to please.

Thinking about her wish? Or licking her chops?

 This was her favorite present.

 And he's just cute.

The end.

We're Still Here...and November

We're still alive and well. It will come as no surprise that we've moved.

Again.

We now live in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Christmas City, USA.

Sam was contacted about a transfer to the Honeywell site in Allentown. We really like it here so far and have made many great friends. 

Here we are

We're excited about the location because we are about 45 min from Hershey (the chocolate city), only about an hour from Philadelphia, just over an hour from NYC, 3.5 hrs from D.C., 5-6 hrs from Boston, 7-8 hrs from Sam's brother in Montreal, and we can still drive home to my parents in Ohio in 8 hours. Plus, Matt and Amber Hadfield just moved to Jersey, and we got to go visit them on Sunday. It was so good to see them, and it only took us 1:45 to get there! We are looking forward to lots of fun weekend trips!

It's been a while since I've posted much about the family. I think Emmitt lost our camera cord after Halloween, and it took me a month to realize that I could just put the SD card into the computer.

I don't have a problem-solving mind.

After that I just really didn't feel like blogging, so I didn't. I'm ready now, so I've decided that I will just post some highlights from each of the months I've missed. Today I'll cover November 2012.

NOVEMBER

We made the yearly Thanksgiving tree adding to it every few nights until it was nice and full.

The leaves of our tree pulled double-duty this year:

Mila's preschool had a harvest party. Since it's a Christian preschool they wanted to focus on Heavenly Father's gifts to us instead of dressing up as superheroes or whatever. Mila was a fall tree. Paper leaves weren't the best idea, but I already had them for our tree and the whole pack was $1, and that's about what I wanted to spend on this costume.

Emmitt got in on the games too.

 These two would maul each other with hugs every. single. time. we'd pick up Mila from school. The girl next to Emmitt was also a tree.

A less rumpled-looking tree.

 My oldest sister, Terra, came to town with her family from Vegas for Thanksgiving. It was a crazy week since all the grandkids were together. We had a huge bonfire one night. It was awesome because our shredder broke, so I had tons of papers to burn.

Sam and Emmitt folding paper airplanes to fly into the fire.

On Thanksgiving Day, we held the First Annual Family Turkey Trot. The kids made t-shirts. This is Mila with hers. The race ended up being fun but quite chaotic. The adults ended up jogging around just trying to keep all the kids together.

Swag Bags. I love how turkey is spelled "turky" on the bags!

My parents pulled a prank on the little ones, and as my dad was carving the turkey, he pulled a smaller chicken out of the it (of course being very animated and dramatic about it). The kids were floored!

All 10 grandkids in birth order. 

Mila made this at preschool. I believe these really are her top three. In that order.

It's good to be back!

Eight Years Already!

Eight years ago today I was married and sealed to my best friend on a windy, snowy day, much like today. These pictures are of us arriving at the church for our luncheon. I remember how happy, or should I say ecstatic, I was to have just been sealed to this sweet, kind (and obviously handsome!) man. I am still so happy and even more in love! He is an amazing man and being married to him is oh so easy.

Our marriage by the numbers.

Eight Years:

2 children, 2 miscarriages

4 states

7 dwellings

5 cars

100+ gray hairs on Sam's head from living with me for eight years

Happy Anniversary my Sweet Love!

I will be forever grateful that you chose me.

Happy Halloween!

What a fun Halloween we had!

I haven't blogged in a while, so here's a run-down of the fun.

We went to our favorite farmer's market for one of our October FHEs and picked out pumpkins and gourds.

 Emmitt HAD to pull the cart. He picked a huge pumpkin. It was 30 pounds!

 Then we enjoyed tasty mummy dogs at grandma's house.

 The next night we colored our pumpkins. We gave the kids the choice to carve or color, and they chose to color. I was glad.

 Sam helped Emmitt with his, but Mila did hers all by herself. It's supposed to be a pumpkin version of Sam.

 Then we had some yummy mummy cupcakes. I used the Krusteaze double chocolate mix, and they were delicious. I actually liked them better without frosting. They were that good.

 After the kids went to bed, I walked past the kitchen table and caught sight of Mila's pumpkin. It made me burst out laughing. Like I said, it's supposed to look like Sam and after I took the picture of the kids with their pumpkins, Mila suddenly became concerned saying she needed to work on the chin. I didn't think much of it until I saw the pumpkin later. Notice: Sam has dark hair, pumpkin has dark hair, Sam was wearing his glasses that evening, pumpkin is wearing glasses, Sam hadn't shaved that day, Mila realizes this so Mila adds scruff to pumpkin's chin. It struck me as so funny to have a whiskery pumpkin! 

We've spent many afternoons raking up leaf piles just to jump in them.

 Sam threw the kids (gently) into the piles.

 We played a fun game where Sam would launch a pile of leaves with the rake, and they would rain down on the kids. They loved it! I'm surprised we didn't have a trip to the ER or something with a chunk of leaf in an eye.

Trick or Treating was on Saturday. It never seems to be on actual Halloween here.

Mila was set on being a mermaid, and Emmitt wanted to be a football player.

 Being a mermaid with pink and purple hair was a dream come true for her!

 For the church party, which I was so glad was actually on Halloween, Emmitt wanted to be a pirate. I got both of his costumes on clearance last year.

He was so cute!

The kids had so much fun trick or treating on Saturday. Mila was so funny because sometimes after someone had already put candy in her bucket, she would keep standing right in front of them long enough that it was awkward and some of them would put more candy into her bucket!   Emmitt was so cute saying "trick or treat" that he had all the old ladies drooling over him. The kids didn't want to stop even though it was quite cold and they weren't getting much candy. They got twice as much walking the halls at church last night. We couldn't trunk or treat since it was cold and raining. Very fun Halloween season!

We already went Halloween clearance shopping today and got Mila's costume for next year.

We love Halloween!