Labor Day Weekend

I've been slacking on the posting lately, but I wanted to put one in about our Labor Day weekend. We went to CA and stayed with our friends Mike and Jessica and got to hit up Seaworld one day and a children's museum near their house one day and just hung around. It was fun. Seaworld is great for Addie's age and we've been every year since she was 2. (Although I must say it's getting a bit commerical-y, adding more rides and taking away exhibits, boo.) The kids were pretty good travellers in the car, and they had fun playing with Ryan and Sofia (and their toys)!

Here we are in the hot air balloon at the museum! It was small, but Addie loved it. There were lots of little caves and "secret" tunnels, and a music room (Gage's favorite!).

This piano played all different instruments when you pressed the keys,
and as you can see, it was loud!

Gage's favorite place to play at Mike & Jessica's!
When I say "play" I really mean destroy the train tracks!

These next two pics are from the Shamu show at Seaworld. When we went last year, Addie got to pick out her very own Shamu to bring home (and he has a coveted place on her bed). Somewhere along the way she got the idea into her head that Shamu himself gave her the stuffed Shamu, so naturally we brought him along. In the pic, she is watching the show and holding him up so Shamu can see that she is taking good care of him. :-) Gage was a good baby as usual, and sat on our laps for the shows or rode in the stroller. We thank our lucky stars that he is so well mannered, even when he's tired.

Bedtime Tidbits

A few snippets from tonight's bedtime conversation with Addie...

-Can God hear us everywhere? Even in outerspace?
-Is there a box up there that has a hole in it that our prayers go in?
-I'm going to be an astronaut but I need my space suit from preschool, but you'll (Cameron) have to go with me so no bad guys can get me.

Also, loving how 4 year old prayers can go... "I want to ask God for Mommy to feel better (I was tired from work) and for Emily to stop taking toys and share."

Hi! Bye!

Addie's big 1st today was preschool, but Gagers also had his 1st "real" wave! He has sort of been waving, but never really at the "right" time without help. Then today, as Cam was taking the kids to my sister's, he was carrying Gage and said, "Say bye to Mommy!" Gage lifted up his little hand and waved to me! It was so fun! We captured this video later in the evening of our little waver.

1st Day of Preschool

Well, it's official. We have a preschooler. Let me preface the rest of this post by saying not only how nervous I was for her (those that know Addie well know that she can be a level 5 leg-clinger), but how nervous I was for myself. There is something so heartbreaking knowing that we have spent so much time together her entire 4 years and this is the beginning of the end of that, so to speak. I definitely had a mini panic attack or two in the weeks leading up to today that she was going to "school".

Still sleeping...

She's attending the child development center at CAC which has childcare through the Head Start program. We are pretty excited that she is going somewhere so great. She's going 8-12 Monday through Thursday. We got to attend an orientation last week so she could see the classroom and meet the teachers. She was excited all weekend, and was pretty ready to go this morning. She cried before we left home, but that was I think because she was nervous about eating breakfast there (they get breakfast and lunch, hooray!). I let her have a granola bar in the car, and she made me promise to ask the teachers what was for breakfast. Once we found out today was pancakes, she was all about it. She gave us hugs and kisses and went off to wash her hands for breakfast with the other kids. We really couldn't have asked for it to go better and I am so proud of her! I am extra glad she didn't cry because I would not have been able to hold it together. I made it to the parking lot at least before crying. I missed her a lot this morning (Gage too). It was hard not to have her home after always having her there. I'm sure I'll adjust and like having the time to spend with Gage and get some things done around the house, or run errands with only 1 kid in tow, but for now, Mommy is still adjusting. :)

The traditional 1st day of school pic

Inside the classroom



Little Streaker

We have happily gotten to that stage where Gage will play happily in his crib for awhile in the morning before wanting out. Which is great considering he's decided to get up earlier and earlier these days. Lately, his favorite thing to play with upon waking? His pajama pants. This morning was the 3rd time I've gone into get him and he is sans pants. Luckily, he hasn't started taking the diaper off...yet.

Anniversaries

Inspired by the post below, every year on our anniversary we try to remember what we did on our previous ones. Hence this list is for posterity, and our terrible memories.

1. San Diego - We did Seaworld, the zoo, and the beach.
2. Las Vegas - Didn't do much gambling, saw a Cirque du Soleil, ate at Top of the World (and consumed an entire bottle of wine in about an hour)
3. The Melting Pot - yummy fondue dinner
4. Dinner and a movie (couldn't tell you what or where)
5. Wicked at Gammage and dinner
6. Dinner and a movie (no idea, again)
7. Gainey Ranch (see here)

Swankin' It Up

Last weekend we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary (July 31st). We haven't gone away or done anything really spectacular the last few years and my awesome husband planned this fab getaway for our Lucky #7. It was all a surprise, and so worth the wait! We left on Friday afternoon for Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale where we were staying at the Hyatt. We started off with a quick tour of Spa Avania (complete with glass of wine) where I excitedly found out we were booked for a couples massage the next day! Then we headed to the hotel bar for the Arizona Wine Challenge wine tasting. They line up 6 wines in front of you, 3 from Arizona and 3 from Italy and you decide what you like best and at the end they tell you which wine is from where. And YUM they had this delicious cheese fondue that we practically inhaled. From there we headed to iPic in the Scottsdale Quarter which was perfect because we love to go to the movies and this was a great way to do that, only with big recliners, food, and sangria. We saw Crazy, Stupid, Love - romantic and funny.

We got to have a nice lazy Saturday morning, and hung out by the pool (and of course went down the waterslide). There were a lot of families and we really starting missing the kids, so we finally just stayed in the adults only pool so as to not get too depressed. :) We headed to the spa for our couples massage which was heavenly. Cam had never had a massage before and his response was, "Woah, shouldn't I have bought her a drink first?" He had also booked a manicure for me, hooray! That night we ate at Alto ristorante in the hotel and they have gondola rides in the evenings on the lake behind the hotel, complete with singing. Everything was so nice that all weekend we kept saying how we were "swankin' it up". Thank goodness for summer deals, restaurants. com, and facebook coupons to make it a fabulous and affordable weekend! :-) We were terrible about taking pictures so we snapped this one right before we checked out.

Sunday morning before back to reality. Ignore Cam's weird "taking this pic myself" face.

Sigh, I love my husband.