Staycation 2011

Short and sweet synopses:

Girlies had an adorable song going for the weeks leading up to "Staycation 2011" and it went to the tune of the "vacation, all I ever wanted" song. They're still singing it!

It's always depressing when our time together comes to an end, and this has been no different. We thrive on being TOGETHER. We have so much fun together, the 5 of us. It's so nice to just. BE. -- to not have to stress over going in to work early, or staying late, or Dan going to work right after dropping us off from me being at work, etc etc.

I'm so thankful that we had this time together.

Tuesday night we went to a Reading Phillies game. Girlies had been waiting for months just to hear the "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" song at an actual "ball game," and we left with 3 happy girls after they got to belt out the tune at the top of the 7th inning. You could tell their little baseball dreams had come true that they had sung the song at the top of their lungs in an actual baseball stadium! They're too funny.

Wednesday we went to Hershey. The weather cooperated and it was a gorgeous day. Girlies just love Hershey, as do we. We did Chocolate World on the way in, AND on the way out since they just love that ride. We had a wonderful day there. I was blown away with Abrielle's fascination with characters (both here and at Sesame). She only got close to Thumper, Marie, Pinocchio, and the Fairy Godmother when we went to Disney, and everyone else she only waved from a distance. She was on the lookout for characters though this past week. She and her big sissies were reminding Dan and I of little groupies;) We had to tear Abrie away from the characters this week because she just wanted to hug them and not stop. It was too cute!

Funny story at Hershey: We did the little cars-- Maddie and I rode together, and I assumed that Dan was riding with both Abrie and Faith. When Maddie and I got off of the car, I noticed that only Abrie was with Dan behind us. I started freaking out and asked Dan where Faith was. Turns out they only allowed one child with a parent, so a very nice Hershey employee lady volunteered to ride with Faith so that Faith could still drive the car. It was so funny to see Faith drive up as proud as could be and tell the nice lady, "Thank you so much! Have a good day!"

Thursday we went to Harrisburg to a place we'd been wanting to try for years: the Whitaker Center. It's an IMAX theatre with a children's science museum, and we just stuck to the science part. It was awesome. Maddie actually told us that this was her favorite day trip. Girlies had so much fun in the kids section: there was a grocery store, a stage for plays, a water section, a construction site, ambulance, and Legos. Abrie and Faith loved playing ambulance drivers that had to help Dad! And, the grocery section was a hit. We loved the older kid exhibits as well-- especially the section on weather. The hurricane chamber was a hit with all of us-- standing in Category 1 Hurricane strength with 91 mph winds that took Faith's headband right out of her head was quite an experience!

We had "dates" every night and went out for dinner to places we had voted on the week beforehand. It was so nice to not have to cook dinner for several nights (now, if I could have also skipped on doing laundry it would have been even nicer;)). Our dates were some of my favorite moments. We went to Ugly Oyster on Thursday for dinner, which is the place Dan and I went last year for our anniversary. Although we missed the Celtic music that night, it was perfect because we had a table in the corner where the 3 of them could get down and dance. They had so much fun. Dan loved the fact that Abrie ate just as much of the "ugly pretzel" (a soft pretzel with crab and cheese on it) as he did; he was so psyched that she might be his seafood buddy!!

Friday we did Sesame. Girlies had so much fun! Abrie was in character chasing mode again! What's funny is that this was Faith's first time to ever actually meet the characters at Sesame (and Hershey) also. She's only ever liked the characters at Disney! Water slides were a hit this year with all 3 of them, and we did mainly water stuff all day.

Took girlies to see "Cars 2" on Friday night. Abrie just LOVES their collection of Cars, and they all really liked the movie. Abrie had to leave midway through the movie due to a leaky diaper (that filtered onto my pants!), but she was happy as a clam throughout the rest of it.

Girlies slept in the playroom during staycation. They LOVED it. They slept like 3 little logs, of course, they were up way past their usual bedtime, so they passed out every night without so much as a peep. They called this their "Cozy Cone Hotel:"

Went to Lancaster on Saturday to see Grammy and PaPa, and Nene and Grampa. Dan went fishing at Lake Grubb while us girls tossed rocks into the lake, and we ate "alfresco" on Nene's deck that evening with Tia Rosa and Uncle Schnoogo.

And, yesterday they requested to go to the local farm in the morning and the lake in the afternoon.

Flop quote

Totally forgot to jot down Faith's quote of the day to me today:

"Momma, if I can't get to Neverland and have to grow up one day... I want to be a Momma just like you."

Quite ready

Dan's last night of work (until Sunday night) is tonight, and my last day for the work week is tomorrow. Thank goodness!

Dan's overtime has been over the top the past several months, and it's too much these days. We are really, really looking forward to just being together the rest of the week. We have some plans (surprises for our girlfriends) for mini-adventures, but mainly we're just looking forward to hanging out around here and enjoying our time together.

"The ball game" (in Faith's words!) kicks off our staycation tomorrow night. These girls are so excited to go to the Reading Phillies game. Tickets were free through the library-- added bonus. This will be their first sporting event; Dan's really excited to see how they react to it all. I have a feeling Faith will be his buddy for the game (she keeps talking about "the ball game" while Maddie will probably be rooting for the Eagles- she keeps insisting we're going to a football game, and Abrie will probably be wandering around looking for food, food, and more food!).

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Girlies enjoyed making their summer "passports" this weekend. They each picked out a little $.29 folder at Redner's the other day (* on a sidenote, they've been calling themselves the 3 good Fairies ('Sleeping Beauty'- Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) because of how they always are drawn to one particular color: Maddie has always been pink/red, Faith has always been blue, and Abrie is always drawn to green-- and yes, their folders are red, blue, and green since those are again the colors they picked) and decorated the cover of their passport. I had printed out a little picture of each of them, and they started writing things that they've done together since Maddie's been finished with school. They're looking forward to adding more pages to their "passport" with other fun things that they do this summer.

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Father's Day was a great day this year. Dan ended up going in early yet again, but he absolutely loved their little gifts. We made him a big poster that they all decorated and their homemade cards. Maddie's was adorable this year; she was sitting there Saturday night working diligently on her card and was taking a long time writing a message. I couldn't believe it when I went to check up on her progress and saw an entire paragraph that she had written to Dan. It was the sweetest message I've ever seen her write, and he just loved it.

We had baked a carrot cake the night before (his favorite) and we decided to make him posole for lunch that day. So, they all made up a little menu (it was really cute) and we made the posole the night before and then walked to Redner's yesterday morning for our remaining ingredients for the rest of the menu. They wanted to make him his favorite salsa dip for chips and Maddie picked a fruit dip for some fruit. They set the table for him and picked some flowers for a little vase. Abrie was napping when he woke up for lunch, but I could tell he just loved it.


We're dog sitting this week, so Dan's choice for the afternoon was to walk over to the duck pond in the afternoon. It was a nice day!

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Didn't get a chance to mention that our beloved cousins came over on Wednesday of last week! Oh, how these girls just adore their Donovan, Ella, and Cho Cho!!! (Chase). It was a wonderful time:

They hung out here for awhile... and brought us back some awesome souvenirs from their Disney trip-- I am enamored with our new Jack Sparrow Mickey for the car:

And, girlfriends were so excited with their new Alice pouch!! (not to mention, SWEET pirate eye patch, earring, and hook hand for these pirate girls!) They broke out their "bendy arms" on Thursday and have been playing non-stop ever since:

Our day with cousins was extra fun since we followed Aunt Lisi back to her Y pool and got to be their guests for the day. I hadn't been there since Maddie and Donovan were babies (Madison was 19 months old and Donovan had just turned a year!), so it was deja vu going back with 6 kids in tow this time!! Their pool is amazing, and they all had an absolute blast. Maddie and Faith are constantly begging to go swimming (these two are water babies to the core) and Abrielle blew me away with how much more tolerant she was with getting splashed in the face. She LOVED the splash pad and the slide, and the water in general! Not to mention, the trio of Donovan, Maddie, and Faith went from water source to water source to literally douse their bodies in water! It was great:

Summer "madness" begins

Summer reading program = madness at work.

But, summer reading program = fun at home.

The libraries have been a zoo since the program's kick-off on Monday. I'm at the city branch libraries all summer to help with said madness.

Girlies worked on a fun project though at home tonight before bed. I printed out a bunch of images from some of their most beloved books, and the 3 of them glued them on to a little shoebox. It looks super cute, and it was so easy. They already have a bunch of reading tickets filled out, and they think it's fun to put them in the box for safe keeping until each week's visit when they come in with Dan and redeem their tickets for prizes.

Bookworms

Books are such a big part of our lives.

I like to jot down the books that they become obsessed with at any given time.

My ocean expert (aka Faith) checks out and requests books on whales. She's got an enormous stack from the library right now all about killer whales, narwhals, beluga whales (her absolute favorite). She cracks me up because she'll ask to go to the adult non-fiction side just so she can look for books on Arctic whales. Considering I have a love for marine life, I love the fact that Faith is marine obsessed.

Maddie is a champion reader. She is reading chapter books all by herself, and has been for about 2 months now. She's suddenly into the Magic Treehouse chapter books by Mary Osborne, and fittingly just finished one about pirates! She also is horse crazed and I'm going to see what she thinks this summer of the 'Misty of Chincoteague' books since they were always some of my favorites. And, she's also lately gotten into the Laura Ingalls 'Little House on the Prairie' books.

Abrielle loves just about anything, especially books that her sissies read. She's got the most amazing attention span for books and will even listen to chapters if I read one aloud to them. One of her favorites that we literally read about 200 times before I finally took it back to the library was, "Pirates of the Sea," a very new and colorful book. It is rhyming, but very long and she just loved it. She'd even go "Yo ho ho!" and put her thumb on her nose at the part in the book. She also loves the series 'Jellybeans' (we have the first 2, and now there's a newer one called 'Jellybeans and the big Camp Kickoff'). There are some books that we've recently gotten into about a little girl named Katie that visits art galleries and becomes a part of famous paintings (they're learning about Monet and Seurat, for example with these books) which Abrie thinks are quite cool. Not to mention, big sissies think it's neat that it reminds them of 'Mary Poppins' when Michael and Jane become a part of the chalk drawings.

All 3 also have had a fascination for months now with maze books, and of course how-to drawing books.

Summer reading is starting at all the libraries next week, so my girlfriends are all looking forward to winning prizes and finding new books to read!

The 'dynamic duo' is finally the 'trio' again

Maddie's last day of school was yesterday!!

Faith was so excited to greet her coming down from the school steps with a Minnie balloon and a card from all of us. I was teary eyed yet again-- these milestones kill me! And, then we found out Maddie was awarded "Student of the YEAR" for her class at the awards assembly. We were beyond proud.

I don't think we could be any happier!

I'm excited for the laidback feeling of the summer. I'm looking forward to planning more activities for my three little girlfriends and having Maddie here with us. Faith was beyond excited that Maddie brought home all of her stuff from school this past week, and she loves the fact that she has some new readers since Maddie doesn't need them anymore. Faith wants to do EVERYTHING that Maddie does of course. So, I'm looking forward to starting that with her this summer.

Girlfriends have already made 2 strawberry pies this past week (boy, were they delicious) and they speared some fruit kabobs for tonight's laidback dinner alfresco (of course, the plan went astray when Dan was forced in early for work AGAIN tonight, and the storm came). They've been making me laugh at the things they've been inventing lately to play. Abrie will follow them around in her car with the glow-in-the-dark laser (that goes to the Crayola nighttime board) and pretend to be a dentist that has to examine their teeth. Or, they want Abrie to chase them because she's supposed to be Maleficent. Or, they are the 3 fairies from 'Sleeping Beauty' since they each love pink, green, and blue. The list goes on and on. The things that they come up with are just too funny, and I'm excited that they get the whole summer to be together again. 24/7.

Baby love of ours

Feisty Abrie... you know, the girl that we took to the doctor back in November out of genuine concern that she might be bipolar? She may still be our girl with the biggest personality, but our Show Show is our sweet girl.

Abrielle has changed dramatically in the past 6 months. The "terrible 2's" have never really been an issue here, but rather, I've always found that the 12-18 month gap has always been the hardest. And, it certainly was with Abrie. Thinking back on that age, I think it was the frustration that she had in communicating her wants/needs with us (and me, in particular). I also wonder if it was just hard for her adjusting to so much DOING-- the fact that I (reluctantly) started working away from home, Maddie started school, and we were just always having to GO. Poor baby.

Her communication skills have grown 1,000 fold. She is talking so much. But, the phrases that Dan and I love the most which will never change are "Hi, Momma! Hi Da da!" She is our girl-- she is just as much a Daddy's girl as she is a Momma's girl. She loves us both like crazy, and we love her right back. She is always THRILLED to see us and gives the world's best greetings to us all-- both Dan and I, and her sissies. She seeks the comfort of her family, and you can tell she owns that little niche of being the baby sister/baby girl in our family.


Abrie has taught us the real meaning behind "never say never," but I'll count my blessings even if she is our last baby. She is our little gift.

Strawberry picking and fun when Daddy's home

Dan's overtime is just crazy lately. We definitely enjoy the time we get together when we get it. Dan and I are both counting down the days until our "staycation" at the end of this month (as are the girlies!). It will be heaven just being together.

We went up to Captain's Cove yesterday evening for dinner. It was such a beautiful day! Girlies were putting on a show while we waited to be seated; it was quite entertaining, and of course they had fans out to wazoo.

We went out to Weaver's this morning to pick strawberries at their PYO fields. We just loved their strawberries last year, and we always compare every single strawberry we eat to the ones that we picked last year. Needless to say, our hopes were high for another delicious crop of strawberries and we weren't disappointed. We picked 10 lbs and are looking forward to making some strawberry pie(s) within the next couple of days.

Weaver's was having their 'Taste of the Orchard' sampling day today, and it couldn't have been better timing. After we picked our strawberries we went down to the store for the samples, and made out like bandits. We essentially ate lunch for free. They had all of their vendors there with their homemade samples and we tasted everything from hot dogs and homemade subs to tomato pie and pineapple salsa. Dan was so excited that they had local coffee samples. Maddie, Faith, and Abrie had a BLAST doing a "treasure quest:" they each had to go look for clues at the 17 different stands and fill in the missing words that eventually spelled out a message. They then turned in their worksheets for a free ice cream cone. While they ate their ice cream cones there was a clown making balloon animals. Maddie and Faith both went up to the clown to ask for an animal. I thought it was hilarious when the clown asked Faith what kind of animal she wanted: "I would like a blue whale, please! With a blowhole, please!" The clown had no idea how to make a whale, but she did the best she could and Faith was ecstatic to have her blue whale!!

Nene and Grampa came over for a little bit this afternoon, and Dan grilled some steak and sausages before having to go in early for work. Faith was trying out some rollerskates (a patron from the library who is such a sweetheart gave me all sorts of stuff, and the rollerskates were included) and Grampa helped. And, we had plenty of strawberries for dessert!