RAZ-ma-taz

tea party!

ever since the girls were little, my mom has made a tradition of having tea parties for the girls each day while we are visiting her and tom-tom in tampa.  the girls look forward to these tea parties on every trip. this trip, my mom found a place where we could go have a more "official" tea party. the girls loved it...especially cooper because there were tons of dress up clothes and stuffed animals to have "pink tea" (a.k.a. lemonade) with. it was a special time to spend with mimie and was another in a long list of tea party memories our girls will hold onto forever. 

we did lots of other fun things during our stint in tampa...like playing with cousin peyton every day, swimming with manatees, catching a frog and even taming a wild bird...more on that later...

snapshot

we had a super packed, fun-filled day today. it started with ryan's soccer game at the crack of dawn (8am). afterwards, i went for a run while mel got the kids packed and ready for a hike at a new nature trail that we were looking forward to checking out. it had an awesome creek and a huge "wetland" that was super cool. there was also a good bit of bamboo that the kids enjoyed playing with.

<ryan aiming her sling shot at me, hmmm!>

 <creek exploration>

<hauling bamboo>

after our hike, we went home and got cleaned up and ready for a kids music festival that lisa lo.eb was headlining. it only lasted about an hour but was totally awesome. afterwards, we came home and played outside for an hour before heading back out to run some errands and go out to dinner. when we got home, we took ivy for a walk and the kids enjoyed climbing a tree and ryan had some fun with her scooter also.

 

while we were running errands, i took this picture of ryan waiting patiently with me in the car for mel and cooper. it tripped me out because i feel like it captures the essence of our 7 year old going on 13.

hopefully everyone will sleep in tomorrow, we all could use it!! melanie was in mexico city last week, is headed to chicago this week and then s. africa the week after. she also has a trip to india and canada planned and i have a trip to san francisco within the next 4 weeks. it's going to be a whirlwind!! 

 

fairies

ryan wrote and illustrated a book she called "fairies". here's the cover. the rest of the pages are here...

weekend round up!

we had a fun weekend. it started friday night with ryan's school dance. she danced her tail off and flitted about with all of her little friends. it was packed and hot and let's just say we weren't sad when it ended. either was she because one of her good friends was sleeping over so lou came home with us. the girls were wired after a fun night so they played and gossiped until they passed out around 11pm. in the morning, they did crafts and ate pancakes for the first couple hours and then we headed to the bo.tanical gar.dens. lou had never been so it was fun to watch her take it all in and our girls seemed to be experiencing it as if it were their first time too. we went through the rain forest, the dessert, over the canopy, we hung out near the frog pond, and went through the children's garden.

today may have been the nicest day of the year. temps reached 60 degrees and the sky couldn't have gotten any bluer. we ventured into town, ate lunch at a taqueria on the beltline and then hit the trail on our scooters. both girls got new ones that are fairly unique (3 wheeled-hip-propelled) so they both got lots of attention which they seemed to enjoy. we found an awesome huge tunnel constructed of natural vines that they crawled through and played in when their legs needed a break. we wrapped up the afternoon with a neighborhood walk so that ivy could feel some love too.

more pictures here; it's back to the grind tomorrow... 

chocolate princess overload

today was cooper's birthday party. it was also the coldest day of the year so far. as we paid close attention to the weekend weather forecast, we heard the term "arctic blast" and all we could do was laugh. her party was originally scheduled for yesterday but with high winds predicted and a chance of scattered showers in the am, we scrambled and pushed it to today where it was still unbelievably cold, but there was no precipitation and the winds weren't as intense either. we reserved a pavillion at an awesome park that we frequent. she had a chocolate princess themed day. we had a princess castle bouncy house and chocolate fondue with hot cocoa. we went nuts with all of the stuff we bought to dip in the fondue. there were strawberries and bananas, pretzels, graham crackers, marshmallows (which were dipped in chocolate by some, roasted in the fire by others), nilla wafers and oreo cookies. it was a chocoholic's dream. our huge crockpot was over half way filled with rich chocolatey goodness. mel had never made chocolate fondue before but she knocked it out of the park. the kids and adults alike were in hog heaven. i heard lots of people mention that they were so full they felt sick. it was a huge hit. probably didn't help that we also had a huge yummy cake that everyone chased the fondue down with. we also brought a coffee pot to make us hot water and had lots of cocoa to wash it all down. 

we hired the "ga bubble guy" who came for an hour with all of his bubble paraphenalia and "secret bubble recipe" that created the biggest bubbles you've ever seen. everyone was excited to create huge bubbles and were equally as excited to chase and catch some of them. he was definitely a huge hit.

we wound up spending about 5 hrs. at the park including set up/clean up so it was a long day but everyone had a blast which is all that counts!

when we got home cooper attacked her presents with a vengeance. everyone was very generous and cooper went to sleep tonight one happy little princess...

 

she's 4!

holy smokes, there are no babies left in our home... she's totally a legitimate kid in every possible way now. while it's been exciting to witness her transformation, it's bitter sweet. i can't believe all of the baby stuff is over for us, just like that. 

some of the things that she's said as of late that i never want to forget:

- "mama, i'll always give you sweet monkey hugs, no matter how many birthdays i have"

- "mama, will my curls ever fall out?" when i told her i didn't know and asked her why, she said, "because i love them and want to keep them"

she is such a girly-girl. unsure how it happened, but it did. she's got very strong wardrobe opinions that we've learned to pick our battles with. she's actually got a pretty whimsical sense of style that we rarely interfere with. she's fiery and strong-willed but will kill you with sweetness. she's dramatic. ohhhhh, is she ever dramatic. this kid could be an actress, and a damn good one if she wasn't so shy. she's got an incredibly narrow scope of food she'll eat to include anything with the word "chocolate" in the name. 

we had a really fun time celebrating her today. melanie and i both worked from home so that we could pick her up from school together and take her out for lunch. we also got her bff, willow which made the day extra special for her. after lunch, we picked up cupcakes and then headed over to retrieve ryan from school. once home, she opened gifts from her family/close friend. she was over the moon to get a scooter, a camel.pak in pink, a pink lady bug star projector and some princess dolls. she rode circles around the house wearing the back pack and holding on to the lady bug for the ride of it's life.  

then we headed out to meet some friends at the fern.bank museum. the kids had a blast exploring and eating cupcakes. cooper was exhausted on the drive home and passed out hugging her twilight lady bug star projector (thanks roberta! ; ). we rounded out the day with her 2nd favorite food after chocolate... pizza! 

now she's looking forward to celebrating valentine's day and mommy's birthday tomorrow. then we're having her birthday party on saturday so we've only just begun; there's still lots more partying to be had!!

 

hikes galore!

last weekend we went on two hikes. both were awesome. the first one was at ara.bia mountain which was actually fairly relaxing. we hiked out to an area where there were a couple of random ponds so the kids had fun playing in them. especially when they discovered this: 

yep, that's a $hit load of frog eggs. delicacy maybe? nah, ewwww. the kids however thought they hit the jackpot. they spent upwards of an hour building a "habitat" for the eggs to keep them safe. as a result, the adults got to lounge around and chit-chat which was actually kind of nice.

we also brought ivy which was cool, she seems to be loving all of the adventures we take her on these days.

our 2nd hike of the weekend was at stone moun.tain. dave and i took the kids and decided to attempt a climb. we only expected to get about halfway up or so but figured we'd just go with the flow to see what happened. well the kids did awesome. we explored a # of things along the way including a couple caves and also some rain made ponds. it was chilly and when we got to the TOP of the mountain; that's right, we made it the whole way up, even the last part that was pretty steep, it was really windy and cold!! 

cooper was a little nervous with the steepness of the final stretch so she went up on all 4's ; )

we made it to the top where there's a lift for those unable or not interested in doing it the old fashioned way... 

i was incredibly proud of the kids. it was a pretty tough hike and they did awesome!!

giving back...

the company that i work for, (did i mention that i accepted a FT position with one of my long time clients?), hosts a monthly charitable event for their staff to partipate in. so today a group of us met up at project open.hand to pack meals for terminally ill (in most cases) clients. i've been fighting what appears to be a sinus infection (thanks cooper!) and it seems as though i've stricken ryan with the funk. so since she wasn't going to school, and melanie had meetings scheduled all day before she headed to the airport for a client meeting, i decided to bring her with me. she did not seem sick enough to stay in bed all day. she was pretty excited to go to "work" with me. and it turns out, she was an amazingly hard worker! she and i were assigned a team function - one of us was to bag dinner rolls individually and the other one needed to seal the bags using a really fun machine.  she chose the fun machine job so i was stuck bagging rolls. the rest of our team worked an assembly line putting together what looked like "tv dinner" type meals.  ry and i packaged 500 individaully bagged rolls and the other 15ish people created 1258 individual meals. it was an amazing experience and one i won't soon forget. ry has already asked when we would be able to do it again so it is definitely something that we're going to do again as a family. i will also take her to other events that we do as a company. it will mean missing school in most cases but we think these life lessons are a million times more important than whatever material she'd be missing in school that day. here she is in action...

<little lunch lady>

<knocking out a crate>

how does the seed get to the egg when the dr. DOESN'T assist??

oh yes she did... she asked that question... out of left field... last night when we were driving home from dinner and were a couple blocks away from our house. serious sucker punch. we couldn't have been anymore unprepared. under my breath i volleyed to mel. she pointed out that the question was addressed to me so volleyed back. i proceeded to think for a moment about how to respond and then just started laughing...hysterically...uncontrollably...tears streaming...couldn't catch my breath. i might have even left my body for a moment because i remember seeing myself and thinking - woah, she's lost it! then, rather then mel swooping in and saving the day, she joined me. oh yes she did. joined right in and we both laughed and laughed and laughed and cried and cried and cried. at some point we re-gained some composure and ry asked what was so funny, poor thing. mel did have a good, quick response to that question thankfully so was able to divert the conversation temporarily. then we pulled into the driveway and i told her we'd answer her question once we got inside and settled. mel quickly grabbed the ipad to consult dr. google on what to say and i called one of my bff's who is a parent/teacher coach and is my go-to person for all things "kid". she said, "tell her the truth". keep it simple, but be honest. my instinct was, "but she's so young" and i so wanted to protect her from all of that grown up stuff. but truth be told, she's incredibly mature and ready. she's known about the mans "seed", woman's "egg" and "conception" for years now. we've successfully dodged the sex question because we've been able to easily describe how "she and her sister" were conceived and that seemed to satisfy her curiosity. but out of the blue, with no warning, she wanted to know the mechanics of how the seed "gets out of the man" and into the woman when the dr. isn't there to help. so i told her. mel took cooper in for her bath and ry and i had the birds and the bees conversation. and you know what, it was easy. she was incredibly mature, not uncomfortable or awkward at all, and either was i. after we discussed the, er, mechanics for a bit, i told her that we had an awesome book about it all that we could read together today. and we did and that was really cool too. there's lots more to the book that we've yet to explore but i suspect that will be something we continue to do over the coming days and weeks. what started out as a major parenting FAIL, actually had a beautiful result and a rite of passage of sorts.  

since i haven't mentioned the gecko in a while, i wanted to give a quick update on her as well. (we believe she's a "she" so that is the pronoun that i will continue with going forward.) we all LOVE her! she's really so cool. we take her out of her cage to hold and allow her to explore and we feed her a couple crickets daily. she's a really fun pet!

i've got more pics of this gecko in the last couple weeks than i've taken of my children. here are a couple from this weekend. she shedded yesterday and it was so cool to watch her basically pull herself out of the skin.

<smile>

new years in miami!

after a fun week in tampa, we headed south to miami to ring in the new year. i wish that i could remember all that we did because i know we had fun but it's been over 2 weeks now and my short term memory eludes me. so once again, i'll recall the highlights in pictures.

the girls played some mini golf with papa on the course he had built in his backyard:

we went to a botanical garden in miami beach:

we had an awesome extended family hangout dinner with aunts/uncles & cousins. we went to the park a couple of times and did daily bike or scooter rides around my parents neighborhood.

we had a nice lunch at the ameri.can doll store, had our annual visit at san.ta's en.chanted for.est, and went to a super cool science and discovery museum.

we ate a LOT of really good food. emphasis being on a LOT. if i wasn't looking back at the pictures of the trip, all i would have remembered is all of the gluttonous eating. my parents neighbors have a fire pit in their backyard and i think we spent the last 4 nights at their fire roasting marshmallows, except for the last night when we added graham crackers and chocolate to go out big!!

on new years eve we stayed in with my folks and had an awesome night. we had delicious dessert (of course), we played games and we watched the party in times square. cooper and i fell asleep around 11:30 cuddled up on the couch and ryan woke me up when she started the count down. she was soooo excited that she was up to celebrate the new year. the week was awesome, my only regret was not being able to spend time with many more close friends.

cooper had a really hard time saying good bye to uncle dave this trip. she's always felt close to him and aunt danielle but seemed to have been closer than ever to them both this time. if aunt d were at the house when we were leaving i imagine she would have lost it even more. saying good-bye is so sad! 

we headed back to tampa for a day on the final leg of the trip and had more fun with mimie, uncle ced, aunt jo and cousin peyton at the bowling ally. our plans were to hang at the beach which the kids were really looking forward to but unfortunately it rained so we were stuck indoors.

here's an awesome family shot that we got on the first leg of the trip when we went on the pirate boat: 

more pictures here...