Fair Days

Slight change in plans with the weather on Saturday we had to postpone our annual trip to the fair until Sunday. The weather was great and the kids had a lot of fun. Mommy, Kylie & Noah went in the morning and Daddy came over after his birthday golf was finished. They got their faces painted as you can see:

And they went on a few rides....because we didn't go on Saturday we missed out on the ride bracelets, but overall the kids were relatively happy with just a few rides:

We met a lot of friends at the fair too. Below is Kylie with her friend Kelly & older sister Stephanie:

After Mommy left the kids and Daddy stayed to see the animals, watch the pig races and see the other booths at the fair. Below the kids are making pine cone turkeys which came out really cute.

All in all we had another great year at the fair. And to top it off we entered a raffle while we were there and got a call tonight from the firefighters that Noah's name was picked as one of 4 kids in town that get to ride to school on a fire truck!! Haven't told him yet because he's already in bed and the ride won't be until probably the first week of October, but he will be so excited...him winning also wins his sister a trip on a truck to her school too.

Jason's Birthday

The kids woke up early and made Daddy some cards, a special birthday hat (seen below) and helped decorate the dining room for his birthday. They woke him up a little before 9 singing happy birthday and then came down to have some breakfast with him. We spent the day running some errands and picking up Jason's birthday present (Playstation 3). We came home and had a yummy dinner then sang Happy Birthday again with the ice cream cake - yummy! Followed it up with a family movie night and now Jason is enjoying his new toy. Overall I would say it was a good day. He plans to golf in the morning while the kids and I try to head for the fair since the rain deterred us today. Enjoy the pic below and have a great night!

First Day of School

What a morning. The kids came in all excited about today. Kylie says "I'm so excited to go in First Grade" and Noah parrots with "I'm a Frog..I'm so excited". There was very little trouble getting either of them out of the house this morning...if anything they were pushing me along. Here's little miss first grader:
Then our traditional pictures outside:

We went to Learning Center to drop the kids off and they had to show everyone their new bags. Noah went right into the Frog room. Miss Jean helped him find his cubby which is right in the corner (hopefully not a sign of fun days to come). He found his "crayon box" with his name on it to put on the wall to "sign in" and then was just taking it all in. The smile never left his face!

Kylie is in the Bee room in the mornings because there are so many Wolves (2nd grade & up in the AM)...but when she comes back she will be in the Wolf Room (1st & 2nd graders). She was smiling all morning too...although I think she was a bit nervous with 5 trips to the bathroom before we left. Bus #22 pulled up and the kids were lined up to go:

Don't think she has to sit in the front seat now that she isn't in Kindergarten so it was either out of habit, sense of security, or most likely wanted to be the first off the bus...hahaha.

So we'll see this afternoon how it went. Other funnies from this morning:

- Kylie insisted she needed to shower so she was clean (usually a night time thing)

- Kylie told Daddy he didn't need to make her a lunch. When he asked why she said..because I have to eat in the cafeteria..remember.

I'll try to update later with the stories of the day...Have a good one!!

This weekend

Saturday morning we started out with early breakfast with Nana & Pip Sicko. Kylie was so excited about it...then we went school shopping with Nana Sicko. Took Kylie a little to get into it which was surprising, but she loved all the outfits she picked out...below is a pic of one of them:
Then we went up to Stepping Star for Ryan's kid party. The kids had so much fun running all the obstacles and using all the equipment. Below is the birthday boy with his cake:

Here's the whole crew...

Onto the family party/BBQ at the house. Lots of swimming by all the kids...big kids (dads).

Take 2 on the Happy Birthdays. I hope Ryan had as great of a day as we did. It was so good to see everyone!!

A Day at the Beach

We spent yesterday at the beach in Madison for Jason's picnic. The kids always have a lot of fun, but this year there was no getting them out of the ocean.

We were in for a little while then got a break to build a sandcastle:
Then there was more swimming and going all the way out to the sandbar. Kylie thought it was so funny that we were so far out and she could still touch. Plus the sand out that far was so much nicer on the feet. Probably due to the storms this year the first 20-30ft of the water was covered in shells and rocks and our feet have plenty of cuts to prove it. Then it was back to the sand to be covered up:

There was tons of food as usual...50 lobsters + a 15 lb lobster, crab legs, shrimp, crawfish, hamburgers, hot dogs, filet, bourbon shrimp, salads, chips, etc. There will be picks of the big lobster at a later date...we didnt' get one with our camera so we have to wait on one of his coworkers :o)

Adventures with the Grandmothers

The kids stayed home from school on Friday and went with Nana & Gramma to Imagination. Noah is doing a little fishing below:
Then they moved onto some rock climbing:

They also became sports casters for ESPN...

It's always a fun time there. They made a bunch of large spirograph pics, went in the dark room, played in the kitchen/diner, jungle gym, etc.

Anniversary

We spent a nice few days down by the shore. Wednesday night we headed to Mohegan Sun for a bit (donated as usual). Thursday morning we headed to Foxwoods for some bingo. We passed the store below and had to take a pic...
After bingo we headed to Olde Mistick Village to walk around and do a little shopping. Jason found some yummy roasted cashews and homemade fudge.

After some shopping we headed to Anthony J's for dinner. Our friend Inga turned us on to that place a few years ago and its so yummy!

Below is Jason with his hot rocks. For those who haven't seen it before its a special stone from Italy that they heat up to 650 degrees and then they put your seafood on it for you to cook with some seasonings. I had the lobster macaroni & cheese which was delicious!!

After dinner we walked around a little more and took some pics. Its amazing how much slower you can do things when you don't have 2 little monkeys running around with you!

Overall it was soooooo nice. Many thanks again to Mom & JoAnne for coming out to watch the kids. They had a blast...more pics to come from their adventures soon...as well as our day at the beach.

Quiet Family Weekend

Been awhile since the last post. Unfortunately no new pics this time. We had a nice quiet weekend if you can believe it. Yesterday we had a little lunch out and then went mini golfing. Jason says he won, but I think he was playing with the numbers a little. Noah did pretty good when he was calm and tried. Kylie on the other hand...don't think its her game. She didn't have the patience to take her time and think about it and Daddy didn't have patience for her not listening. Overall it was a lot of fun though. Came home and the kids did some swimming in the pool. Today, not too much either. Playing around the house...groceries...more playing..cleaning. All the normal stuff that we never seem to find time for. I finished my Harry Potter book too #7...it was really good, but now I have no one to talk to about it until the next movie comes out. Jason won't read it...haha. On to the next book...



For those of you that I haven't talked to Kylie is all signed up for dance again this year. She is so excited about it too...she is probably taking Hip Hop, ballet, tap, jazz, acro and doing a tap duo this year with Maya. She moved up to intermediate for her 5th year which she is all excited about because she gets to where blue leotard for class for the first time and new "big girl" tap boots rather than the buckle shoes. We are still waiting to hear back on the soccer to see if it will be at the same time as CCD.

As for Noah he will be doing soccer on Saturdays starting in Sept & then swimming on Thursdays. He's finally big enough to start getting into sports which Jay is happy about...although he wishes it were basketball or football.

Alrighty...guess that's it for tonight. More pics soon!

Melanie's Birthday Party

We spent today with the Martinelli's celebrating Melanie's 4th birthday. I can't believe how quickly the kids are growing up. Miss Melanie had a Cinderella party in preparation for their trip to Florida next week.
Wendy brought out the trouble making squirt guns half way through the day and the kids had a blast with them. As you can see Melanie at the top of the slide had pretty good aim...hitting me while I'm taking a pic!

Noah went for the sneak approach crouched low in the little pool waiting for unsuspecting prey...

Soon it was pinata time and they got gutsy this year with a pinata that you have to smash open. We went through a number of different objects for the kids to break it open, but in the end Kylie knocked it off its hanger and Jay had to break it open/dump it for the kids to collect. They didn't seem to mind. Melanie's big wind up is below...great aim:

Melanie's big birthday wish...she has no idea how many princess wishes will come true over the next couple weeks while they are down in Florida!!

Have a great trip guys and thanks for the wonderful day. It was so nice to be outside for a whole day with no rain/storms!! Good night!