we3kids

Day 6 - Animal Kingdom

2012-02-02T21:14:00.000-05:00

Today was a pretty quick park day. We rode the rollercoaster a couple of times, saw our favorite show, Finding Nemo, and went on the safari. Animal enjoyed some lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. We came back to the unit in the afternoon and used the pool for a couple of hours and starting cleaning up for the trip home. A quiet night tonight to get ready for a fun day at Legoland tomorrow!

Day 5 - Hollywood Studios

2012-02-02T08:31:00.000-05:00

Today was our favorite park! Hollywood Studios is a park that many people consider a 3/4 day park, not that great, but we love it! For one it is easy on the feet, not a lot of walking at all, two the rides that are there (albeit not many of them) are great, third the shows are wonderful!

Animal had an especially fun time here since he was able to see the whole Muppet area, a particular favorite for us this year since we just spent a couple of weeks studying Jim Henson! Enjoy the pictures.

Day 4 - Epcot

2012-01-31T23:09:00.000-05:00

Today we headed out early, once again, to get to Epcot. Daddy and the two big kids had a chemistry class to attend, (homeschool days), while Kaylyn, Nana, and Pops and I had a breakfast with the princesses! Animal was pretty happy to see all the pretty ladies, he even had a little to eat and drink while he was there. He even took a tour of the greenhouses with us and learned all about hydroponics. Oh, and he photobombed a bunch of my pictures again!

Day3 - Animal goes to Magic Kingdom

2012-01-30T22:37:00.000-05:00

Hmm, I'm not sure if Animal is in my photos, or if he is photo-bombing my photos! Today he got to ride all sorts of rides, and he really seemed to have a good time. We were happy to spend time with our friends and Nana and Pops! What a fun day. The kids were asleep within the hour of getting back to our unit. Tomorrow is Epcot!

Day 2 - Animal goes to Universal

2012-01-29T20:29:00.000-05:00

This year we brought an extra family member on our trip. Animal was really excited to try some rides and see the sites in Orlando! Today he came to Universal Studios with us. Unfortunately, he was a little short for the rides there, and the people who work there seem to be sticklers about not carrying anything onto rides, so he had to be happy with seeing the sites from the sidelines. Tomorrow he hopes to get in a lot more ride time though!

Day 1 - Weeki Wachee and Manatees!

2012-01-28T21:00:00.001-05:00

After two days of driving we are ready to do something! The kids, as always, were great in the car. Helped that Kaylyn wasn't feeling well and slept through the day of driving on Thursday! Friday we stopped at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace in Savannah and took the tour. Today we went to Weeki Wachee and took a kayak/canoe ride down the river. The trip was about 6 miles. We started at 8am, the only time i would suggest starting. We turned the first corner and saw a pair of nesting bald eagles. pretty cool! The water was warm, the air cool, the steam coming of the water gave an eerie feel. We saw fish, birds, deer, a fake alligator... We were paddling with the river which was flowing at about 5mph, so the trip was perfect! After our ride down the river we went into the state park to see the mermaid show. It wasn't as big as what I remember from when I was a kid, but then again what is? Enjoy the pictures

2012-01-23T07:45:00.000-05:00

We had a spur of the moment, fun, weekend with our cousins who flew all the way up from south carolina to hang out with us for the weekend! The big kids tried some skiing, and did pretty good, while the little one told her mom "I don't like snow!" and kept trying to build sand castles in it? Cute. Coming soon, believe it or not, pictures from Disney! Yes, yet again!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2012-01-03T20:05:00.000-05:00

DJ has earned his Advanced Brown Belt (?) It's brown with a red stripe.... One more to go before he is on the road to a black belt! Go DJ!

And some various pictures from Christmas, and the weekend of New Years. The kids all went skiing.

Me! Through the top of DJ's helmet

It was a pretty great christmas. The best part? The kids were more interested in handing each other the presents they got each other than they were in opening their new presents. DJ and Kaylyn were BEYOND excited to give Delaney her new Harry Potter book, they knew she would love it, and the girls just were thrilled to pieces to be handing DJ his Geico lizard. Kaylyn couldn't have been happier when the other two gave her the car for her american girl doll. It was pretty special!

Gingerbread House 2011 Edition

2011-12-16T20:19:00.000-05:00

First a picture of our baby girl that we watch during the day... We think she is pretty cute!

A little Indoor Soccer and Kaylyn and her BFF

And now some picture of our Gingerbread "village" we created this year. The pez roof is our personal favorite!

Christmas in NYC is....

2011-12-11T20:44:00.000-05:00

Crowded! But if you are smart, and you know how to work it, it can be done. We left our home in NH at 5am and arrived at the city about 10:30. We arrived at our hotel, hotel Indigo, and our room was not yet ready (well, duh, it was 10:30am!) so we checked our bags and hit the streets. Firs stop Macys, followed by Rockefeller Center and the tree, the shops downtown, Grand Central Terminal, St. Patrick's Cathedral, The Public Library, and Times Square. The crowds were tremendous. We were not able to get into the American Girl Doll Store, could barely breath in the LEGO store, and James and I actually lost each other once and had to cell phone it in order to find each other! We didn't even bother with any of the shops in Times square, but we were back in our hotel by 4:30pm. A bit later Daddy brought back a good ole' New York Style Pizza, we watched The Santa Clause on TV (which is a big treat as we got rid of our satellite about a month ago) and were asleep by 9pm! Our plan was to get up the next morning and hit up all the places that we wanted to go, but were unable to the day before! It worked beatifully, walked right into all the stores, saw Santa in Macy's with only a five minute wait (compared to a two hour wait the day before) and had a great time walking around a pretty empty city, perfect for me! Enjoy the pictures!! I know I enjoyed taking them.

Tree at the Public Library. Delaney loves library's, and she enjoyed the one in Boston so much a few months ago, Daddy wanted to bring her here.

The kids recognized the Empire State Building from so many of their movies!

Saturday was SantaCon in NYC (google it, it looks like fun... if I was 20 years younger), there were thousands of people dressed like Santa, or various holiday people, all over the city, bar hopping and donating food to the food shelter. It was great fun to watch, the kids and I had fun yelling "Santa Alert!" each time we saw a group!

Grand Central Terminal.

This was the most crowded spot in the city, the place where James and I lost each other. He put Kaylyn on his shoulders though, and the other kids and I were able to find him in a short amount of time.

Awww, that's a cute family... I'll take them!

The next morning... first stop, to see Santa!! We watched Miracle on 34th street the night before we left, so this was an extra cool stop. The wooden escalators were awesome!

Really? Wow! Only 14 days! I better get cracking! We haven't even designed our gingerbread house yet!

Kaylyn especially enjoyed the windows in the city...

Oh yeah, these crowds are much more my style!

Look! I found my boyfriend in the city and I even got in a picture!!!

I was very happy that we were able to get into the Disney store the next morning.

The highlight of the trip though, at least for DJ, was a stop on the way home in Orange, Ct, to the Pez visitors center. It just opened a few weeks ago. DJ doesn't often get excited or animated about things, but you couldn't wipe the smile off his face here! It was pretty cool. We spent an hour in the little shop/museum and had a blast, looking at collections and history stuff, seeing what they had for sale, and just enjoying. DJ picked a t-shirt to buy, he had it on before we even started the car to leave, in fact he is sitting beside me know with it still on as he is ready for bed.... I think it will be awhile before it comes off. We walked in the door of the house and before I could say "put your stuff away," he was downstairs adding his new pez to his collection wall. In fact, he had reorganized the shelves a few days ago, when he found out we were going to go to Pez, to get ready!

OCC Chopper was my favorite!

DJ ended up with a few things.....

We can find Mickey and Minnie ANYWHERE!

2011-12-05T22:01:00.000-05:00

We have been studying the states this year. Each week or two we focus on a state and learn everything we can about it. We have started some big 3inch notebooks to hold all our information! Aunt Mandy sent us some maps that she had that we have used to add to the decorations! We literally have maps hanging EVERYWHERE! My favorite are the maps of the Disney parks!

This evening we headed down to the Girl Scout Headquarters to celebrate the 100th anniversary of girl scouts and the 100 anniversary of Disney on ice. We had a meet and greet with Mickey and Minnie, had some cake, and even met two of the ice skaters from the show. The girls actually thought that part was the coolest. We were able to bring our friend M with us also.... we had to sign all sorts of PR releases for the Disney company also...

Finally!

2011-12-04T21:20:00.000-05:00

Finally got around to doing some updates... I feel like I am months behind on, well, pretty much everything! There just isn't enough time right now for me to do everything I used to be able to... oh well.

Above are some pictures of the girls at a recent girl scout event. it was all about engineering, science, and math.

Here is a recent picture of our baby girl, the one we watch during the day. She helped me make cookies for thanksgiving!

Some pictures from Thanksgiving at Ma and Poppy's house.

We are all up and decorated for Christmas already also!

Indoor Soccer

2011-11-19T21:36:00.000-05:00

We are having a lot of fun with our first try at indoor soccer! DJ is playing, and the boys are all loving it! Today's game was incredible! We played a team that we had lost two a couple weeks ago. The first half of the game we played hard, the score was 0-0 for a long while, but, by the end of the half we were down 3-0. The second half started and then we were down 4-0, the boys were playing hard, but the other team was just so good! And then the above video was taken... if you watch patiently till the end, DJ get's the first goal for his team! Then, boom, boom, boom, we got three more and the game ended at a 4-4 tie! Wow! Great job boys!

Calendar Shots

2011-11-02T20:48:00.000-04:00

So we have had fun the past month or so. The baby that I watch needed a calendar to give out for christmas.... Here is what we ended up with for photos! Enjoy, hope they make you smile!

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-01T07:56:00.000-04:00

Doesn't DJ's face say it all! Friday night we went to downtown Rochester and watched a Zombie parade. We were very surprised when the parade stopped walking, the music started playing, and the 100 or so zombies started dancing together in unison to Thriller! What fun!

DJ started playing Indoor Soccer, this is a first for us and DJ already can't wait for his next game. He loves it! I am finding it challenging to get a good picture, through the glass, with no flash, of kids running at top speed, but I have a few more weeks to figure it out!

Saturday night it snowed. And snowed some more! We got about 20inches or so here at our house, easily up to my knees! This lovely pumpkin was a snowball I started in the driveway (mostly because I was tired of shoveling and wanted to clear the snow a different way) and James and I rolled to the front of the house. I then colored it with orange food coloring and used slushie mix that I had gotten on sale for the stem and face. Needless to say the face didn't last too long as it was root beer flavored, and the stem blue raspberry! yum!

What's Halloween without a good snowball fight?

We were pretty lucky this year that things fell just right that we were able to go trick-or-treating twice! The candy charts will just be that much better this year!

And then it was home to sort our candy under flashlight. Yep, we lost power again with this storm. Went out sometime Saturday night and we got it back Monday night. Not too bad this time!

And then we were off to a wizarding night of trick or treating on the actual night of halloween! Don't the kids look great!

Fall Harvest

2011-11-01T07:45:00.001-04:00

We have reached the end of our gardening season. A few weeks ago Kaylyn and I pulled all the carrots!

That's a lot of carrots! They are all washed and cut and in a drawer in the fridge, Kaylyn and I reach in and grab one whenever we want something to munch on. Yummy!

Did I mention that Kayoyn is taking Guitar now?

Some green beans from the second harvest... Yummy! and some carrots all cooked up for dinner..... It was a good dinner night!

Delaney's Soccer Tornament

2011-10-23T16:40:00.001-04:00

Ok, this was a big deal! Delaney has been playing soccer with the same group of girls for.... what? 4 - 5 years now? We have had fun, but we can count the number of games that we have won on one hand.... not many! This was it though, the final year... next year they all move onto middle school. The final year James could be the coach, the final year they could all play without having to try out and be chosen, the final year of playing for the suncook valley soccer club. Saturday was their very last tournament. Tournaments traditionally don't take too long, we play a game or two and then we get to go home. We don't win, but we do get to get some other stuff done that day. This year the tournament had three teams. Us, Northwood and Epsom. We had played Northwood the most during the season. Great games, we either tied or won by a point or two. They were pretty evenly matched and it was fun. Epsom we played twice, I think, and both times we lost. They were a great team. Going into the tournament we figured Epsom would come in first, and that it would be a pretty good fight between us and Northwood for second. 8:30am, our first game was against Epsom. Not a great way to start the day.... they got a point. Then what? We got a point? Delaney scored it! Wow! This was a 30 minute game... can we hold them off until time is up? OMG we did it! We tied! That's one point for each time in the tournament rules. Next up Northwood and Epsom. Maybe the Epsom girls are tired? Northwood wins 3-0! (we cheered them on!). Ok, that means that Northwood has 3 points now, we have 1 and Epsom has 1. Now it's us and Northwood... what will happen? Wow again, the two teams are very evenly matched and we tie 0-0. Wait a minute? I need to add that up again.. Now that means that we have 2 points (1 point per tie), Northwood has 4, and Epsom has 1. OMG! We did it! We made it to the finals! We can actually do this! A short break and now it is on to the final game. Wow, those poor Northwood girls, this will be there third game in a row! This is a full game.. anything could happen. First half, Olivia scores!!! Yeah Olivia! Our Goalie, Kyra, is OUTSTANDING!! She has only let one ball by her all day! Half time... the stress is killing us! Girls games are never this intense, the boys games are always, but the girls... NEVER! Ok, the second half is starting.... It's almost over..... we are still ahead 1-0... the ball is spending an awful lot of time at the wrong end of the field this time...... wait, here it comes, back towards the side we want it on.... Kira scores!!!! I can't believe it! 2-0! The final score, the final game, the final year! We win the tournament!! This is a big deal! Last year we didn't win a single game! I am so proud of these girls! They played their little hearts out!

Enjoy the pictures!

Fall has been very busy!

2011-10-15T19:42:00.000-04:00

First the sad news. Kaylyn's hampster died. M was sleeping over that night, DJ was at B's house, so at least Kaylyn had some fun company. The next morning the girls all came down dressed in black and we buried Madie in the back yard....

The next night the kids and I spent the night at Ma and Poppy's house, Daddy was helping to build a roof. We got to hang out with Aunt Mary and Uncle Joe, and even hiked Mt. Wachuestte (I know I spelled that wrong....)

Delaney has another week of soccer left.... so far they have won 4 of their games, tied 2, and lost one. They are having a great season!

Our annual "school picture" on the front porch....

DJ had his soccer tournament today. They did a great job. They won two of their games, lost one, amd made it to the semi finals. They lost that game, which ended their soccer season, but they played great and it was another wonderful season!

After the tournament, the weather was wonderful, and I wanted to go on a hike. We headed to one of our favorite spots, Blue Job, and had a great wonderful afternoon hiking! We ended the day by getting Kaylyn a new hampster! His new name is Milo... at least for now :-)

Playing in the leaves

2011-10-09T19:21:00.000-04:00

Taking pictures of kids playing in leaves is SOOOOO much fun! I couldn't imagine living anywhere that doesn't have seasons.... it would be sad for me!

2011-10-01T15:46:00.003-04:00

Here are some pictures from the Deerfield Fair this weekend, and some fun ones from DJ's soccer game this morning... it POURED! The boys loved it and will be talking about this one for years!

fall

2011-09-25T20:35:00.000-04:00

Oh, so many pictures to share! DJ earned his second black belt in karate, Delaney went on a sleepover with her girl scout troop, we went apple picking, and we went to a baseball game with pops! Click on any picture to make it bigger!

Baseball Hall of Fame

2011-09-05T21:23:00.002-04:00

For Labor Day Weekend we packed up the camper and headed west to go camping. Last year DJ completed a unit on Baseball so we wanted to hit up the Baseball Hall of Fame. We stayed at Glimmerglass State Park, a very clean state park, beautiful actually, but the sights were very open and dogs were allowed. We were awoken each morning to a yip yapping dog two sites down. Yuck. I now know better than to stay at a campground that allows dogs! We got in late on friday night because a portion of rt 91 in Mass was closed. We didn't go our preferred route of rt 9 in vermont, because of road closures. All the road closures were due to damage from Hurricane Irene. For a 10 mile stretch of highway on Rt 91, we took two hours of detours on side roads! We finally got the campground around 10:30pm. Luckily James and I are able to set up the pop up in 15 minutes, we honestly have it down to a science.

Saturday Morning we headed into the Cooperstown. I will never admit to being teary eyed when we first got there and for the opening movie. Nope, not me! Our favorite part was the display of the more current memorabilia. Pedroa's bat, Schilling's bloody sock, Ellsbury's bat, Youkouli's shirt.... etc....

We did end up leaving a day early. Thunderstorms were moving in. On the evening news we did see that NY had a tornado about 45 miles from where we were staying, I guess we made a good decision in leaving.
We made lots of stops on the way home though, Yankee Candle in Springfield, hiked a gorge in NH near Keene, Target to get some milk.....

We set up the camper in the garage when we got home, just so it could dry out. Don't want to leave it put away wet! The kids spent the night sleeping in the camper, in the closed garage. They were thrilled to still be camping. Dorks!

First Day of School!

2011-08-31T21:15:00.000-04:00

Ok, so before we talk about the first day of school, let's talk about the end of the summer. The kids spent a lot of time in the backyard building forts.... They were pretty proud of them.

We ate the corn we grew in our garden, it was chewy and meaty, but it was good because we grew it!

We took more than a couple of walks at our local state park....

We attended 10 Fisher Cats games this year. Happy say they have made it to the playoffs, so we may be hitting up one or two more games!

And finally, we started school..... check out the link HERE to see how much the kids have grown since the first day of school last year!

Ma and Poppy's Weekend Party

2011-08-21T21:03:00.001-04:00

We spent a lovely weekend on the lake for a "family reunion." The kids had lots of fun playing with their cousins, swimming, sleeping in the camper, playing card games, etc.....

can you guess which shirts kaylyn and I made??? (hint, think disney)

It's been awhile

2011-08-18T20:20:00.003-04:00

Oh, how the time slips by.... It's been awhile since I have posted much of anything... poor Pops! Let's see, what have we been up to.....

Kaylyn learned to ride her bike without training wheels. It took her, oh, about three seconds to figure it out. I I should have taken them off about three years ago!

By the way, we now have three photographers in the house. DJ has gotten ahold of my old camera and has gone to town. He brings it everywhere. Gotta admit, it is really nice having three points of view of things... If only there wasn't three chins :-)

Here is one he took as the six kids and I took a field trip to Squam Lakes Science Center. A spur of the moment thing....We had a great time and I was really glad to have someone else carry the camera for a change!

DJ and his friend B spent the week at soccer camp last week. The seemed to have a great time. I picked them up each day at three, hosed them off outside and then let them watch tv for awhile. They really liked their instructors with the british accents who cracked harry potter jokes all the time! The last day was a parent/kid game. The field was VERY crowded with players! I had fun watching the moms giggle at the british coach/kid when he played/talked. NO! I was not giggling also!

Wow! We got something edible from the garden this year! This hasn't been the best gardening year this year, but these carrots sure did taste yummy at dinner tonight!

And last, but not least, a shot of Delaney. She was annoyed at me for some pre-teen reason or another, and I told her I wanted to take a picture of the face she was giving me so that I could record it forever and play it at the slidshow of her reheresal dinner someday..... this was the shot I got. I think it says it all!