Happy 4th of July 2010

What a beautiful day it was in Birmingham, Al on this July 4th! There was a long day planned for our family, so we wanted to make sure the kids were well rested the night before! We woke up early to go to church at 8:30am. I wanted to be at the pool when it opened because I knew it would be very crowded. Recently, we joined a Country Club named "Pine Tree”. We absolutely love it there! The club is very young and full of young families with little ones! Many of our friends are members there too, which makes it very nice. We have quickly replaced our neighborhood pool with PineTree!

Well, every holiday Pine Tree makes a big showing with Watersides and games for the kids, a fabulous
barbecue, bar at the pool and pool games for the little ones! I knew it would be packed, so I wanted to get there early for the fun. I also wanted Henley to be able to have fun before her nap time rolled around! We met a bunch of our friends and their kids up there and we all had a blast! The Copeland’s brought their crew and Christian was so happy to play with Elijah and Preston! I think Preston and Christian were in the water slide line from the get go! I think Christian was hesitant at first, but once he went down, he was hooked! They played games and participated in races and won prizes (candy)! Christian and Henley were having a blast! We had lunch and it was delicious!  All kids under 5 eat for free, so it really is a great deal for our family! I think we headed home around 2:00 so Henley could take a nap and be rested for the night time activities! Brian headed back up to the club to play some golf and Christian fell asleep on the couch! I was ecstatic because he was going to need his rest...it would be a late night!














Once everyone was awake and ready we headed over to our friends the Copeland’s house for dinner and drinks. There were 5 couples there and everybody chipped in and brought something to eat/drink! There were babies, toddlers and kids of all ages! I think they had a blast and were expending a lot of energy because when the food was served, they sat and scarfed it all down! Ethan made slider hamburgers and hot dogs. There was potato salad, chips, stuffed peppers (phenomenal) and lots of desserts! It was very, very good! The kids played hard, running around and Brian even had Elijah and Christian wrestling out in the back yard! I think Brian is living for the day that Christian will wrestle...even though moms not so much! However, he seems to be in to it a lot and I am pretty sure we might have a wrestler on our hands?

Once the sun started to go down we headed back home to our house for the firework show to be set up! Brian has put on a great fireworks display the past 4 years at our house! He also tries to make it bigger and better every year! I am surprised nobody has caught on fire from this craziness! Our house is the perfect place to do a firework show because our house sits so high on a hill! They shoot the fireworks down in the street and we have the perfect place to view them from our front yard! I am waiting to get a big fat fine in the mail for violating some kind of code in our neighborhood! Luckily, we have gotten away with it every year!!! We had blankets out in the front for the kids and chairs for adults! It was an amazing show! I think everyone contributed to the firework show this year, so it was crazy big and lasted for a good thirty minutes! Enjoy all the pictures!

Thanks to everybody who made this such a fun day for us and the kids!

Watercolor 2010

It has taken me awhile to post his trip, but it has been crazy busy this summer! Every year we take an annual beach trip with our family and some of our close friends. This year since Christian is older and needs the interaction with other kids his age, we invited family’s with kids his age to come with us! The most obvious us couple to us were our great friends the Copeland’s. Christian and their son Elijah are inseparable, so we knew this would be so much fun. The beginning of many more fun years to come with the kids and their friends at the beach!

Susan and I had a great idea to have all the boys ride down together to the beach...more for our sanity than for them! :) Brian, Christian, Ethan, Preston and Elijah all piled in my car and rode together! The babies Henley and Porter rode with the girls. It was sooo nice to have quiet on the way down to the beach because the babies slept for two hours, half the trip! We could only imagine the chaos that was going on in the other vehicle! :)

Once we got down to the beach we inspected our house that I had rented for the week! It was gorgeous and looked even better in person than the pictures! We unpacked our bags and went to the grocery store, rented all our bike gear and headed to the pool/beach for a little while. If you have never been to Watercolor, you should definitely look into it. It is by far our favorite place to stay down at the beach. It is so family oriented. There are six pools on location and you can ride your bike to any of them. The house we had this year was actually located next to Camp Watercolor, a pool and a playground. It was perfect for all the kids!

The week was pretty low key and we just went to the pool/beach everyday. We cooked out at night, had cocktails and just enjoyed being away from home. We did get a babysitter two nights and all the adults went out for nice dinners! We went to Fish out of Water one night and this great Italian restaurant another night! I know...who eats Italian at the beach? Brian’s best friend Stefano and his wife Toni were down in Watercolor too and they love this restaurant, so we went with them. It was a wonderful meal!

Our friends Chad and Charity Edwards came in on Wednesday to join us for a few days of fun in the sun. They had two boys Finley, who is 3 three years old and Fisher, who is 5 years old. The ages were perfect for Christian and Elijah to have a new friend and Preston who was 5 to have someone there his age. It was so perfect that the Copeland’s decided to stay another night because all the boy’s were having so much fun! I will tell you something, 6 boys in one place is total CHAOS!!! 

I felt bad for our friends Chad and Charity because they came the last three days of the trip and everyone was getting worn down by then. Christian was no longer interested in the beach or the pool. He was jsut plain tired and worn out! We made the most of it and had a great time! This trip is something we look forward to every year and can not wait until next summer! Thanks for everyone who came down to join us for a great for vacation!

The Butterfly Experiment!

This past Christmas Christian received a butterfly kit. It is one of those kits were you can watch life change right before your eyes! It is really fun to show kids how living creatures evolve to what they are today. Since butterflies are primarily seen in spring and summer we waited to do this experiment! This company is cool and you can order all kinds of insects. They have frogs, ladybugs and butterflies to name few. Our friends the Copeland’s have done the Ladybug’s and the Frog’s. Christian was so fascinated with it that we decided to pull his out and order our insects.

Before we headed to the beach in June, we sent off our request for our caterpillars. The Tuesday we were back in town they arrived in the mail. Christian was so excited and showed everyone who walked through the door his caterpillars. We had two jars with 5 caterpillars each inside them. We were to put them in a place that was out of direct sunlight and did not get too cold or hot. It took about 10 days for all the caterpillars to turn into cocoons or crystallides as they call them.

Once they were formed, I had to transfer them over to the butterfly cage. At this point, I think Christian was very antsy because everyday he would check to see if the butterflies had arrived. Another week or so went by and finally our first butterfly made its debut.

We have about 8 of them right now and they are beautiful. Everyday Christian feeds them and blows and taps on their cage! I have threatened him numerous times that we are going to let them go early if he continues that behavior. They are so fun to watch and you can see them eat when you put the food in their cage. We have to put flowers in the cage with sugar water on them, like morning dew. What a great way to teach children how precious and beautiful life can be. I recommend this for all little ones!