Thunder over Louisville

So we have found a new annual tradition we will be starting....Thunder over Louisville. We had such a great time yesterday and it made it even more fun that we were able to go with our friends, Johnny, Wendy, Annie and Tristan. Maggie has been asking all week when it will be Saturday becasue she was so excited to see Annie. She woke up yesterday and I said, "guess what today is." She said, "oh my gosh, is it really saturday?" They got to our house around 3 and we headed out to Louisville to have some fun. We found a place to park on a big lot where a guy was charging 5 bucks to park. We paid our 5 bucks but we are all pretty sure the guy just wondered upon the lot and had no claims to it whatsoever. It was a pretty good walk to Buckhead, which is where we had tickets to get into for the day. (If you have never been to this, you have to have tickets to get into somewhere right on the river...otherwise you are stuck with all the crazies out on the streets!) When we got into our area we found a seat under the tents since it was so sunny out and got some food to eat. Then Annie headed to the face painting tent and Maggie to the hat making tent.



















Wendy and I took the boys down to the grassy area by the river and found a place to let them run around. The river bank was pretty steep but the kids loved rolling down the hill all afternoon and we couldn't have had a better spot to see the fireworks. Maggie and Annie had a blast playing all afternoon, I think they made up their own drama where one of them was falling down the hill while the other rescued them.












They were both covered in grass and grass stains by the end of the night, but they had fun getting that way!




















Tristan joined in their rolling as well, but took time out each time the planes went by to check those out.












I caught this picture of him as a plane flew by and thought it was so cute. I think he and Owen could easily pass as brothers. Owen was totally into the planes all day and loved watching them fly by.

























(There are air shows all day long with these incredible planes, jets, and helicopters doing the coolest tricks) The helicopters came down at one point literally right in front of us and the wind was so strong from them it splashed water up on us on the bank.
















The boys loved this but as loud as it was I don't think Maggie or Annie looked up once they were so into their playing. Here are some pictures and I wasn't zooming at all, we were really that close!

















The kids played until the fireworks were about to begin and Wendy and I sent the guys to get us a funnel cake! I got my kids in their pajamas since I knew they would fall asleep on the way home. The fireworks weren't over until about 10 or so and we had been told it was going to be hours to get out of the traffic and back home. Being that Owen is a kid of consistency (just like my dad!) when 8 oclock came around he was ready to hit the sack.










I fixed him up his bottle and blanket and made him a bed out of his stoller, this worked for a short bit but he decided to rest on daddy until the fireworks began.

The fireworks were unlike any I have ever seen before, they lasted about 30 minutes and were let off of 2 huge barges and the bridge that goes from Ky to Indiana. The kids all loved them. Owen didn't take his eyes off of them for a second and the entire time kept saying, "WOW" and "Woahhh".

















It was the cutest thing. Maggie spent alot of the time dancing to the music they had going with the fireworks.

















She kept telling me "this is so cool mom." About halfway through I looked over at Trsitan and this is what he was doing.
















He spent the rest of the fireworks trying to figure out just how this braclet glows. I thought he looked so cute! (I think you guys may have a little engineer on your hands Wendy).

So as you can see we had a super fun day and to make it even better we got home in 1 hour! (we only live about 40 minutes away) We were all planning on it being a few hours to get home since everyone had told us the traffic would be crazy, and it was....but luckily we parked in a great place and got home by midnight. The kids all were asleep by the time we got home and Wendy and Johnny and the kids stayed here at our house since it was so late instead of driving the extra hour or so on home. We were glad they did since that meant we got to hang out with them more today! The kids all headed outside after they ate breakfast and spent most of the morning playing and letting Joe take them on bike rides in our german bike carrriage. Our neighbors, Shannon and Preston and their girls, were out walking so they came over too. Their little girl, Bella, and Owen had fun taking a ride on the bike together. I thought they looked adorable sitting there.










All the kids had fun playing and Maggie told me a million times this evening how she loved playing with all her friends today. She and Annie took a little time to dress up like princesses before they headed back home.









We had a blast with them and can't wait to get together again soon. This whole weekend was so much fun and I just have to say how happy I am to be back in the USA where we can do all these fun things with friends!

Joe and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get the garage in order a bit and letting the kids play outside. I have a doctors appointment tommorow and Joe is going to meet me to take the kids while I am there. I think he has planned to take them to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch so they will be so excited about that.

Here are some more pictures from this weekend.

Feeding the Ducks

So as i think I have said before, Joe and Nick play basketball every week at a place here called HOOPS. Neila and I joke it is like a mall for high school boys....but in our husbands defense there are lots of "dads" there too. Neila and I usually go watch and make it an excuse to have dinner out before hand. This week, Neila had some older bread she was going to toss and since she shares Maggie's love of "the wild" she suggested we stop at a park right by there and feed the bread to the ducks. The park is really nice, basically just a lake with tons of ducks everywhere. Maggie was a little hesitant at first to get too close after she heard me and Neila talking about how ducks will come up and attack people sometime. But she really liked the little white ones and tried to get her bread to them.

Owen just watched her feed them for awhile until I asked him if he wanted to feed the ducks and he said yes. We gave him a piece of bread and told him to throw pieces of it at the ducks. A few minutes later I glance over at him and see he is eating his old bread! If you know Owen and his love for food this is even funnier....but it was so cute, he would throw them a piece and then take a bite for himself. Neila assured me the bread wasn't quite molded yet, just crusty. :) Carson also had fun watching the ducks and the kids. We tried to get a picture of the 3 of them feeding the ducks but my kids are old enough to have an uneasy feeling about ducks walking up behind you so they both were on the lookout the entire time. I bet I took 15 pictures of them and everytime one of my kids is looking behind them. I finally got this one, and as you can see Owen is not happy to be that close to a big black goose, especially when he is out of his sight.












They had a really fun time and then we headed to the game to see the last half. I just remembered the funniest thing that Maggie said a few weeks ago when we were in the whole foods store and I had forgotten to post it. We were checking out and as many people who work in that store, he was very ala natural. LONG hair pulled back in a big pony tail and questionable clothes. Maggie was her usual chatty self that day and begins talking to him and asking him all sorts of questions. He was geting my things rung up so he wasn't paying a lot of attention to her (thank goodness!) and all of a sudden she goes....,"hmmmm, long hair....are you a man or a lady?" I began talking to him and shoving her forward telling her to go over to neila and carson but she insists on seeing this out and keeps asking. I am putting my stuff in the bag trying to get her out of there when she says, "hmmm, okay then....I guess you must be a MADY." I was about to fall over I wanted to laugh so hard but we just got out of there as quick as possible and I thought I would just let this one go instead of trying to get into this conversation with her. How funny is that. She is always saying the funniest things, last week she, owen and Joe were rough houseing (my favorite thing for them to play) and Joe says to Maggie, "Mag, go tackle Owen." She looks at Joe funny, walks over to Owen and knocks him upside the head. Owen burst into tears and looks at Joe like, "why did you just tell her to do that?" Joe gets onto Maggie asking her why in the world she just hit him and Maggie says, "daddy, you said to attack him." Joe and I bust out laughing and Joe says, "no mag, i said tackle him...do you know what that means?" She shakes her head no. It was pretty funny, of course not for Owen!

Today the kids and I just ran some errands and I had cleaned out Joe and I's closet so I took that stuff to a consignment store and the rest to Goodwill. I have always given all of Joe's giveaways to Tres since Joe usually only wears it once or twice before deciding he doesn't like it anymore....but Tres missed out this round and I actually got to make a little money on it, which was nice.
Tonight we are going to have burgers on the grill since it has decied to warm up again!

A fish, because.......

Maggie woke up the other morning and said, "mom, i wish i could have a dog like everybody else." I said, "honey you have lots of dogs, clifford, penny, peanut, lucky." (all which are stuffed) and she says, "no mom, a real dog." I was dreading this time to come, she always tells people that have dogs that she also has dogs and begins naming all her stuffed dogs. Until now she seemed quite content with that. Well, this morning she changed her mind. I told her we couldn't have a dog becuase mommy didn't like animals in the house (not to mention I would have to move out since if I come anywhere close to any animal with hair my airways close up!) She agreed she didn't want it in the hosue either but she thought we could build it a house outside and she could walk it. I told her then we would have all the dog poop in the yard, like at MImi and Grandad's house(whole other story but mom and dad's neighbors seem to think that people who don't have dogs like other people's dogs to poop in their yard???) and she may step in it again. Well, she then moved on to cats and a few other animals until we finally came to fish! I thought this was a good idea so she called her daddy at work to tell him what she had come up with and he no sooner got home from work that they were getting piled in the car to go to the petstore and get some fish. Maggie was so excited and made up a song while getting ready about going to get some fish. Owen was equally as excited, although I don't think he had any idea what was going on. He just walked around saying, "i get fish, i get fish." I think he was happier about getting to go with daddy than getting fish. Well, we are now the proud owners of about 6 different kinds of fish (no clue what kind) We bought a small tank and the lady there told us several times not to put the fish in it until the water had sat for a day. Well, we get home and Joe sets the whole thing up, fills it up with water, and dumps in the fish. (exactly what she said not to do) His take on it was the kids want the fish in the tank, walmart is open 24 hours, if they die we get more. Well, 3 days later all the fish are still alive so I think the water temperature shock is made up.

Last week Aunt Amanda came to visit which means Maggie and Owen have a playmate 24/7. They had so much fun with her, and I think she loved being with them as well. While Amanda was here Maggie mastered a few new words including "quiet, queen, quack, cracker, and cry." She was so cute, as I said before "qu" has always come out "f" which made for some interesting words. We were in the car and Amanda was asking her what she does when Owen is sleeping. She said, "I have to be QUiet. Her eyes got as big as saucers and she said, "oh my gosh, I can say quiet." It was so cute.
This weekend is Thunder over Louisville, which is like the biggest fireworks display in the US (okay, if I am incorrect on this tell me, but this is what I have been told) I think it all ties in with Derby and so this is a big thing where they have fun stuff down by the river all day and then end the night with a fireworks diplay. Tickets are usually super expensive to get into any place down there but Joe got a good deal through work so we got tickets and are going Saturday with our friends Johnny, Wendy, and their kids, Annie and Tristan. They live about 45 minutes away in Harrodsburg and we haven't seen them since we moved here so we will be glad to get to hang out with them this weekend.

So I opened up Maggie and Owen's fisher price doctor kit that they got for Christmas today (i keep a bunch of their gifts in a closet and pull one out every now and then). I couldn't not believe it, okay....if anyone is unaware of the obesity problem in kids today just go buy one of these and check out the blood pressure cuff! It is about 4 times what it was when i was little and had this. The cuff fit very loosely around my upper arm, so as you can imagine it didn't fit at all on the kids. Anyhow, I was quite shocked at how huge that they had made this nowdays and I am sure the obesity problem in kids today is the reason. Well, sorry I don't have any pictures, I will get some of the kids and the fish soon....hopefully while we still have 6! :)

A Happy Easter

We had a wonderful Easter Day. The kids woke up (not too early) and began searching for their Easter Baskets. I put them in the play room so the search didn't take too long.




















They were so excited when they saw their loot, and Owen didn't waste any time tearing into his candy.


















I didn't put alot of candy in their baskets, more toys. I knew Maggie wouldn't eat much of it since she's not a huge candy eater,,,,and I knew Owen would eat every bit he could get his hands on! Owen basically had a breakfast of chocolate before church so he was happy about his morning.


























We went to church and I helped with Maggie's class so she was happy about that. I hope it doesn't set her back next week when I am not staying in her class. It was fun to get to see her with the other kids and what all they do in class. They have a singing time when all the young kids go in a room and sing songs and she knew all of the songs which was so funny because they weren't songs I know that we sing at home so I guess she pays attention. She really likes that time, dancing all over the place. After church we headed home to get ready for Easter dinner. We had a great meal with Nick and Neila with turkey, homemade rolls, and all the fixings to go with it. They hung out at our house for the afternoon and we all had such a fun time. We checked out a few of the new homes in our neighborhood for them to potentially buy!! Anyhow, we all had a great afternoon and a Happy Easter. The kids went to bed pretty early since we had a full day, so Neila and I decided to go out to a movie. We went to see the movie "Premonition" which was great. We both think it would make more sense the 2nd time around, but it was really good. We were going to shop around a little before the movie but turns out EVERYTHING is closed on Easter so we just browsed around Meijer a little and got some snacks for the movie. We didn't get home until midnight which is not a usual for me. I was dragging all day on Monday and was so ready to get in bed last night. We didn't do much yesterday since I had no energy. We did meet Neila and Carson for breakfast at Cracker Barrell since they marked down all their Easter stuff and we wanted to check that out. I kept Carson this morning for Neila, he was sick with a fever and she had to go in to work a few hours this morning so she brought him here for the morning. He was feeling pretty crummy and mostly just slept, even though he felt bad though, the kids could still get him smiling. Amanda is coming tommorow for a few days to keep the kids for me while I work Thursday and Friday and just to visit. She and mom have been roaming all over New York the past few days having fun, we will all be so glad to see her.

Here are a few more pics of the kids in their Easter outfits that I took a few weeks ago.

All egged out

So we had our last two easter egg hunts today. This morning our church had a huge one at a family's farm. They hid 6,000 eggs and had probably 200 people there despite the 30 degree weather. Maggie had fun, but after she had gathered up 50 eggs and gotten the treats she was ready to go. Owen on the other hand would have prefered to stay home, he cried the whole time saying, "I'm cold, I'm cold." I know he was freezing, everyone was! I am glad I took the kids though since now I see how fun it is, and would be even more fun with nice weather so we will definetly be going again next year. The kids went down for naps very easily when we got home and I began baking my bunny cake for the easter party this evening. We moved it from Nick and Neila's house to Neila's office since it was so cold and that would give us more room. The cake turned out really cute,


















and I made a new recipe that is fruit salsa and cinnoman chips which was pretty good as well. We all had a really good time, and the kids enjoyed it even more since it was nice and warm inside while they hunted for eggs. Maggie once again passed by many an egg in search of another pink one. She seemd to really enjoy herself though and had fun playing with some of the other little girls there. Here are some pictures from the party.


























Tommorow we are going to church and then having Easter dinner with Nick, Neila-Susan, and Carson which will be lots of fun. Well, I need to go help out the Easter Bunny and get the baskets out! Have a Happy Easter!

Painting Easter Eggs!

I decided to let the kids paint easter eggs yesterday after nap. It turned into a total mess (of course) but the kids loved it. Owen ate as much egg dye as he got on his eggs, but after I read the package and it said it was not toxic and not to worry if it was ingested I didn't worry about a few more licks.






















Maggie wanted to make her's pink until she saw they changed colors when you mixed the dyes. So after that she wanted to put her eggs in all the colors. Owen's fingernails looked something like the wicked witch of the west's hands after he was finished.














I think of the 12 eggs we made, we ended with 6 that weren't cracked or totally broken. Here was our finished project:



















Haha, okay I am kidding....that is always what you wish your eggs turned out like. Here is the real finished project.

















The kids and I have just been playing this morning and now they are watching "Peter Cottontail" while I clean the house a little. Joe should be home early and we are going to head out to eat and then either see a movie or go run a few errands we need to get done without the kids. We are wanting to get some sort of comfy seating for our front room so we can put the TV in there so the kids don't have to get on our bed to watch a show. My neighbor Shannon invited us down this afternoon to make easter cookies with her girls but I don't think we'll get to go since Joe and I will probably head out about that time. I am glad I didn't mention it to Maggie since we won't get to go, she is quite the stickler anymore for holding me to things I say we "might" do.

Easter Egg Hunt

We had our library easter egg hunt today and the kids had a good time. It was cancelled yesterday, but we didn't know that until we had packed up and driven over to the library so maggie was pretty bummed out. We came home and had about 15 easter egg hunts in our house to make up for her not getting to do it then. She was really excitd when I told her that we got to go back to the library and have the egg hunt today. Maggie was so funny while looking for eggs. She kept walking by tons of eggs and I thought she must be blind or something. I pointed them out to her and she said, "I know mom, I already got the pink eggs that were there." She only would pick up pink eggs!! How funny is that, maybe I should have dressed her in something other than pink the first year of her life. :) Owen on the other hand didn't care what color egg he picked up, but each time he found one he would sit down, open it up and eat all the candy out of it before trying to find more. The librarian did story time with them too which Maggie really liked, she is quite the little book worm.













I agreed to be the hospitality leader next year for mops, which means I prepare all the food for our meetings. I like cooking so I thought that would be a fun job to do. We are going to be really busy come Fall, but a fun kind of busy. Maggie will have preschool Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am going to sign the kids up for storytime on Wednesdays and maybe Tuesday for just Owen so that he and I can have something fun to do together. Then on Fridays I am going to go to the CBS (community bible study) at Southeast church in Louisivlle. I have heard this is a great bible study for moms plus they have almost like a preschool set up for the children which teaches them alot, like bible verses and stories, so I am excited about that. Plus we will have MOPS and Mommy and Me every other Tuesday so we will have lots of fun.

Last night the kids and I went with Neila and Carson to Panera before going to watch Nick and Joe play basketball. They joined a league for a few weeks so we decided to go cheer them on. It turned out to be a pretty bad idea though, since Owen had to sit for the whole game and "see" his daddy, but not be able to go be with him. He was not a very happy guy the entire time until the game was over.


Owen just can't get enough candy and after our egg hunt where he had stuffed himself with chocolate, I caught him trying to get into our stash at home. Luckily he isn't quite tall enough yet.









So we aren't quite sure what happened across the street, but the people who moved into the brand new house just 3 weeks ago moved out this week and the house is up for sale again!! Maybe their eyes were bigger than their wallet???? No one seems to know what happened, I told mom if Mary lived here she would have the scoop. :)
Tommorow I will be busy with cooking/baking for Neila-Susan's easter party on Saturday and Easter dinner on Sunday. We are doing easter dinner with Nick, Neila-Susan, and Carson so that should be alot of fun. I got called this morning to help with Maggie's class on Sunday at the later service. I had actually planned on going to the early service so I could get home to get the food together but didn't want to turn them down since I know they will need help with it being Easter. We will just eat a little later I guess. I had a great "little moment" with Maggie this week. I always am asking her what she learned at sunday school or MOPS class and she never really tells me anything other than played "tag your it." (so i am always thinking, gosh, i hope you do more at sunday school than play tag) I know she has lessons and alwasy does her papers so I just figure she forgets by the time i pick her up. Well this week we were talking and she starts telling me about what Mr. Dennis (the childrens minister) taught them about this week. She couldn't get everything straight but I got that he taught them about Jesus calming the sea and he had little jesus and a boat she was showing the story with. She was talking a mile a minute (as maggie can do so well) and just laughing and I asked her what was so funny. She said, "mom, everyone thought it was so funny when he was looking for the Jesus in his bag" I asked her why and she said, "becasue mom, Jesus isn't in Mr. Dennis's bag, he is in your heart." :) Some of you may not get this, some will.....but all my life I have desired to be a mom (I mean ALL my life, like since age 3) and out of every awesome moment I have had with my kids this one ranked at the top. You try to teach your kids about Jesus and never really feel like they are listening.....but when they say somehting that shows they are beginning to get it it is just awesome. Anyhow, it was the highlight of my week and I just wanted to share it. I talked to Mr. Dennis today and asked him about what exactly he told them.....and turns out he hadn't even pointed out that Jesus doesn't live in a bag, he lives in your heart. He had just been looking for the Jesus character so she totally got that all on her own. Pretty neat, huh. Well, I am off to boil eggs while the kids are napping so we can color eggs this afternoon. Joe and I get to have our date night tommorow night so I am really excited about that! Not sure what we are going to do now but whatever we do it will be nice to get to eat without cutting up food or saying, "don't eat the crayons." Neila-Susan already has several crafts set up for she and Maggie to do so the kids are set up for lots of fun.

Easter pictures

We have been loving this 80 degree weather, so Saturday after Maggie and I got back from running errands, we all headed to Lowes to get some flowers and landscaping stuff. We spent along time outside, but with Maggie and Owen helping it still isn't all finished. Joe put stone all around our flowerbeds which looks really nice. Yesterday I took the kids to the picture people to get their easter pictures taken. They looked so cute and both of them did really well. Owen surprisingly stood still and smiled at the same time for most all of his pictures. Here are some of the pictures, once again ignore the "zazzle" sign....and if anyone knows how I can get them off the site without that let me know!!































After pictures we grabbed some chick-fil-a for lunch and went to Joe's work to have lunch with him since he was having a busy day and would be late getting home. The kids were excited to see him and where he works. We didn't stay long so he could get back to work, but it was long enough for Owen to get daddy in his head and cry the entire way home for him! He is such a daddy's boy. I have been trying to get his bottle away from him for some time now, we were doing well until he was sick last week and I gave it to him so he would drink alot since he wasn't eating. Since then we are back to square one so we are back on our mission to get rid of the bottle before he turns 2! I asked Maggie what she thought yesterday, and she said, "mom, i only have one idea....give his bottles to santa for the baby reindeer." (which is what we did with her pacifiers) I thought it was so funny. Today we had MOPS and had a great time, the kids both had alot of fun and played great the whole time. I had fun with all the moms too and getting to know them better. Tommorow morning we are going with a few of them to the easter egg hunt at the library. We have 2 more easter egg hunts this weekend so hopefully this will give them some good practice!

The kids are down napping now, well Owen is napping, Maggie is playing. She has been sleeping less and less during naptime. She has to go to her bed (she's still in a crib) for 2 hours every afternoon and has always fallen asleep within the first hour, but the past few weeks she is still awake after playing in their for 2 hours, so I let her get up then. She did sleep 2 days this week but I guess she's just getting to where she doesn't need as much sleep. (of course she does sleep 13 hours a night too) Anyhow, as long as she gives me that time I don't mind if she plays or sleeps, and it's easeir for her to fall asleep at night too. Owen has been waking up about 5 am the past few nights wide awake wanting to play. He has been taking 4 hour naps in the afternoon so I am beginning to think I need to shorten those a bit maybe. He goes back to bed as soon as I give him a bottle though and ussualy doesn't wake up until 9, which lets me have a nice morning! Well, I am going to get some laundry done before they get up and we head back outside.