Teeth, a bad bite, and monkey

Kind of a random post here. Lots of small things have been keeping us busy these last couple of weeks. With warmer temperatures outside we've been spending lots of our time at the playgrounds. My kiddos all love to swing. I think Grace would be happy to swing 7 hours a day if we let her. 

Grace recently lost her other front tooth. Now she talks a little bit different and she has the cutest smile. I'm not in a hurry for the new ones to come in. 

With her $1 from the tooth fairy she had a total of $4 saved up. She had her eye on a sparkly hula hoop at Walmart for a while now, but she was still one buck short. She asked if she could earn the extra dollar. So for one whole day Grace did all of the dishes including unloading and loading. It was worth it! Turns out she is really good at it too. There was a competition at school that she totally won.

Unfortunately, will all of this warm weather (85 and HUMID) lots and lots of bugs have come out. Poor Grace loves to be outside, and they really love to bite her. We've been dealing with lots of bites on her legs for a couple of weeks now. So much itching and misery. I've tried spraying her with bug spray, but so far no dice. A couple of days ago I got a call from the school nurse. One of her bites had gotten huge. It was red, painful and hard to the touch. I knew it needed a trip to the doc. Sure enough it was infected and needed a good round of antibiotics. Thankfully, it has almost completely healed. We need to step up our bug spray efforts for her. 

On Thursday I was able to go see Neil perform "5 Little Monkeys" at his school. He did such a great job in front of a big audience. I was really surprised that he even said his line quite clearly. He made such a cute monkey! I'm so glad for his new school and how much he is improving.

Yesterday, we took our car into a shop to get looked at. We knew something was wrong, and sure enough it won't be a cheap fix. :( I guess it's better than getting a new car. Neil and I waited in the van while daddy talked to them about it. 

Last night Chris went backpacking with the scouts so the kids and I are on our own. Hopefully we'll still get to do something later today when he gets home. For now we are just going to veg...

A little biking with our whine

This last week has been busy, although I'm not entirely sure with what. It seems like there is always a flurry of events towards the end of the school year. We tried out our bike rack over the weekend and drove out to the National Arboretum. In theory it sounded like a pleasant afternoon. There are nine miles of roadway that wrap around different garden areas. We even brought along a picnic. Unfortunately, the kids were cranky from staying up late the night before at a church picnic. Every hill we had to climb made certain individuals whine and cry. Here is a picture of us just starting out...

It only went downhill from here. And, no, not literally unfortunately. Apparently we need to find more trails that are flat to appease the troops. We will have to try again soon so that we don't give up entirely. Here's hoping for happier times this weekend.

Fun park, hitched, long weekend

A little while back we found this really cool local park called Tuckahoe. It has some really unique play equipment and the kids loved it! One of the best things was this giant webbed thing for climbing. It went up pretty high and took the girls some time to warm up to the idea of reaching the top. Claire did it though. Proud of her for getting past her fear.

We were given a tandem bike for Neil to ride. The kind that attaches to an adult bike so that they can ride without even having to pedal. We tried it out around the neighborhood and it was a success. We decided that it was time to get ourselves a hitch on the van so that we can attach our bike rack. This time we did it ourselves. We had to buy a couple of new tools, which Chris was really broken up about. 

He spent Saturday morning installing it with a little help from me. Now we are ready to hit some trails! Can't wait.

The rest of our long weekend was spent inside totally focused on getting Neil potty trained. He's approaching his 4th birthday, and it's a requirement for one of the preschools he may go to next year. We decided to give it a go. 

He spent Saturday naked from the waist down; which really seemed to help him be more aware of what was going on. After holding it for many hours, eventually we had success. We gave him treats every time he sat on there, and a popsicle every time something actually came out. It worked like a charm! I'm not above bribery. The next day he spent in big boy undies and had no accidents all day. Monday was the same story, although our cabin fever led us to take him out to the playground a few times as well as the kiddie pool in the back. He managed to stay dry for all of it. 

Today I sent him to school in undies. Fingers are crossed! Hopefully we can work on the nighttime thing next as well as catching the elusive #2. We put pull ups on him at night, and he's managed to sneak that in before he gets up in the morning. 

The weekend was a huge success on the potty front. We went from diapers 100% of the time to undies only. I couldn't be happier. We did have our own little BBQ for dinner and saw pictures of our family living it up without us. Can't wait to get back to see everyone. 

Mini Vacay

Hershey, PA is called "the sweetest place on Earth", and it's only 130 miles away from where we live. It's the site of the big Hershey Chocolate factory that churns out tasty candy everyday. It's also where they have Hersheypark, which is a huge amusement park. Think of a six flags mixed with disney. We took a little mini vacation and headed up there for the weekend.

Friday night was spent driving through traffic, stopping at Cracker Barrel for dinner, and then hitting up a grocery store before calling it a night. We did manage to sneak in a fun swim at the freezing pool in our hotel. Why can't those pools ever be heated enough?

Saturday morning was off to the park. First thing on the agenda was measure all the kids. They use a candy system to let you know which rides the kids are tall enough for. Claire was a twizzler, Grace a hershey bar, and we thought Neil was a kiss, but he ended up getting on a few peanut butter cup rides.

Chris took the kids on a few rides, while I got in line for their newest/scariest roller coaster, Skyrush. It was really intense. I actually feared for my life going 75mph. It was a blast! I managed to go on four of the craziest roller coasters during the day. I think they have 12 total, so maybe next time I'll find time for a couple more. I love the coasters, but it isn't as much fun going by yourself. I think Chris was secretly happy to use the kids as an excuse. He isn't much of a "giant drop straight down" kind of guy.

Grace and Neil got to do some of the small kid rides together. He sure loves his big sisters! It was fun to see how excited he was on the pirate ship. 

I even let him drive me around in the cars. It was a little dodgy, but we survived.

We got to the park right when it opened at 10am and the kids managed to get on one last ride at 10:57pm, right at closing. It was one really long day!! Our feet and legs were killing us. We had so much fun though. Of course, we tried some ice cream, cotton candy, and even a chocolate funnel cake covered in hershey syrup and reeses peanut butter cups. I even went on one more giant coaster right at the end. My equilibrium was a little messed up for the next couple days. No one had any trouble sleeping that night.

In the morning we slept in and then went back to Hershey to explore Chocolate World a little before driving back. They have a ride on tour to see the process of making chocolate. They even pipe in the smell. It really got your mouth watering. Thankfully they give you a sample of chocolate on your way out. 

Of course, this is a giant tourist trap, and they sell all kind of chocolate and paraphernalia. It was tough to get out of there with only a small assortment of candies.

5lb. chocolate bar!

We did try a tasty chocolate milkshake while we were there. It was made with cocoa. Interesting. 

On our way out of town we drove down Chocolate Ave. They had the cutest street lamps. 

As we drove home, we went right through Gettysburg, PA. We decided that we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to stop and see what there was there. It's really a fun little town with a very European feel to it. Lots of shops and restaurants alongside all manner of civil war trinkets and flags galore. 

There is a huge visitor center/museum that we stopped at. They showed us a video about the great battle at Gettysburg during the Civil War in 1863 and of course the famous Gettysburg address given by Lincoln. It was very powerful and awe inspiring to see what those people faced. It was the bloodiest battle of the war with 51,000 casualties.  

These are from a giant oil painting that is in a circular room. They use it to illustrate how the battle unfolded.

There is so much of US history that I simply don't remember (or didn't ever learn). I've found myself needing to brush up on all these important events just to appreciate where I live. The fields of Gettysburg were beautiful. I wish I had been able to get a decent picture to do it justice. There were also many cemeteries dedicated to all of the fallen soldiers. It was sobering to walk in the same places. I'm so glad we stopped. A little bit of history to go along with the fun. 

We had a great trip, and now we just need to recover a bit. 

Mother's Day

Mother's day was perfect this year. The night before I let the girls stay up late and I taught them how to sew on a button. They really wanted to make sock puppets. Thankfully we had plenty of spare buttons lying around to go with the stacks of possible unmatched socks. It was really fun to teach them a few basics. They caught on quickly, and the puppets turned out cute.

On Sunday morning they made me a tasty breakfast, brought me flowers, and each made me something special.

Chris found this cookie butter at Trader Joes. Umm...yeah...really good on everything. We've been dipping pretzels in it, but celery and ice cream are pretty good too.

At least Grace thinks highly of herself and her daddy :)

Claire knows what really happens all day. When asked what I do while she's at school she wrote, "My mom relaxes until my little brother comes home." 

Cute glass with Neil's handprint on it.

Darling Grace flower.

We spent the afternoon at Church where I got to hear them all three sing. It was Neil's first time, and it was pretty great to see. When we came home, they made me a super BBQ dinner which included some of my favorite foods: corn on the cob, grilled pineapple, and asparagus. I got to relax while everyone did the dishes. Then we spent time calling my mom and Chris's mom. It was a perfect day! 

Camping and tooth

Friday night was the daddy/daughter campout. My girls are always super excited for this event, and it thankfully lived up to their expectations. They came home with stories about how they painted nails, rode in the canoe, stayed up late, and had smores for breakfast. Sounds like a good time. Spending time with dad is the best!

Grace has been working on a wiggly front tooth for a long time now. Just the other day it randomly popped out while she was playing a game in the house with a friend. I'm just glad that I didn't have to pull it. :) Now her smile is extra cute.

Just the two of us

With all the sickness that has been shared between Neil and myself, the two of us have had plenty of time together. A couple of days ago we got hit with crazy thunderstorms and flash flooding. We had a brief respite from the downpour so we went outside. I decided to be a fun mom and taught Neil about how fun rain boots could be. (as long as he didn't splash me)

Tonight is the daddy/daughter campout out at Fairfax Lake. So Neil and I are alone again. We spent an hour playing at the park and then headed to Costco for our own little date. Hot dog, pizza, and berry sundae! Dinner doesn't get much better than that. We had a fun time, but I can tell he is missing his sisters. I'm sure I will miss them too come 7am tomorrow. They usually entertain Neil on the weekend mornings while we sleep in. I guess the morning will just be more quality time for just the two of us.