7 Years

Happy Anniversary Ben! I love you!

Ocean City

We took another trip to Ocean City, NJ yesterday. It's so nice to have a beach so close, it's almost like being home in California! We're so glad we went...the weather forecast was looking ominous with 80% chance of thunderstorms and it was looking pretty gloomy in Philly, but we already had our sunscreen on, lunch packed, and were starting to sweat in our non-air conditioned house....so we took a chance and headed to the beach! It turned out to be 85 degrees & sunny! It was a blast! We got to the beach around 1pm then packed up & headed for home around 5pm and, not even kidding you, 30 minutes into the drive the torrential rain hit us! We really lucked out.

It was a team effort to bury Daddy in the sand, a first for Claira and Dylan....they thought it was awesome! Don't worry, he was very comfortable, we even made him a sand pillow;)

Such a water baby!

Burrr it's cold!

Dylan's crazy smile!

Trying out the water! He actually loved it this time, unless he was venturing without us then he would run for the hills when he saw a wave coming:)

Dylan's new board shorts, he is obsessed with all things dinosaur so when I showed him these at the store he went crazy naming all the dinos. It was so cute! I love all his dino knowledge. I also love that I paid about $3 for these babies!

We had so much fun and can't wait to go back!

Broken Heels

I rarely wear heels to church nowadays.

Reason #1: I've been working with kids for the better part of the last 3 years mostly 18 month olds to 3 years olds and I've found that moving quickly and sitting on floors isn't all that practical or comfy with ginormous heels on.

Reason #2: I'm utterly a walking wreck and can't make my ankles work properly...due to the fact that I never wear heels.

Exception: Thought I'd give her a go. Today I wore heels.

Good idea? No.

Proof? Yes.

Flats are sounding really good right about now. Look at that authentic battle damage! Lucky for me this happened after church. Goodbye disco ball shoes. I'll miss you.

Bartholomew...

is quite the mouthful of a name isn't it?

On Sunday night we were all sitting around the table as a fam enjoying good food and of course some good old silly conversation with a 2 yr old & a 5 yr old. Claira always likes to tell us what kind of names she likes. Boys and girls, and what names we should name 'our' babies...when we have them...later on;) (Take the hint mom & dad jeesh!) It started out with normal cute names, and then we started throwing crazy names at each other...like Robot boy, etc, etc...then Ben throws a real name at her, which happened to be Bartholomew. She laughs hysterically at this and says, "Barf-all-on-you?!?!". Never will I hear that name the same again. Never... and I love it.

Mail Time

We have a mail slot in our front door and the kids LOVE to race to get the mail when they hear the mailman dropping off our letters. Today Dylan was the lucky one who heard the mail, so he ran to get it. There were 3 letters, two of which he brought to me and one he kept for himself to open. He happily opened 'his' letter & excitedly states, "It's sixty dollars!" (this boy knows when his parents get excited about mail!) Sadly, it turned out to be a bill...and not sixty dollars, but we had some good laughs. Thanks for the smiles Dylan:)

Claira's Summer Haircut!

Claira has been wanting a short haircut for months now, so since I'm the self proclaimed family stylist/barber, I've been trying to get out of doing it myself for fear of screwing it up. Trims I can handle. Buzzing boy heads I can handle. Chin length haircuts I cannot handle. So this was actually Claira's first time going to a salon! Crazy huh?! She was SOOOOO excited and she picked out the perfect haircut that she wanted. She loved getting shampooed and watching her hair fall to the floor, she had this grin on her face pretty much the whole time.

She loves it!

Dylan kept asking her "you got a haircut Cweawa?!"

Yay for no tangles and total cuteness!

Independence Day!

We spent the day at home sleeping in, playing UNO, showering into the late afternoon..ahem, evening (me), and having a delicious bbq dinner feast! We weren't really sure what to expect with the firework show or if we'd be able to handle the crowds, parking, etc. We almost stayed home and hoped we'd be able to see some fireworks from a distance, but we decided to be crazy & just go for it! All we knew was that the show was going to be at the art museum (home of the rocky steps) so we figured we'd drive as close as we could get, then park and walk the rest of the way. Easy right? So we thought:) We didn't think the roads would be blocked so soon, so we ended up parking our car about 3.3 miles from the museum (yeah, we looked it up)

So we walk. Forever. Round trip: 6.6 miles...did I say we walked? I did say that right?

We laughed because the trail was so 'treacherous' (aka smooth bike path) that the stroller's wheels fell off...twice! Which has never happened before! It was our own mini pioneer experience. Losing wheels, trying to find bathrooms, carrying WAY too much stuff for a 3 mile hike...coolers, blankets, children, even a pup tent lol...etc:) It was quite the adventure and we had very sore legs and tootsies to prove it...on the bright side, we did end up working off the s'mores from earlier that day, a nice bonus! The walk was really beautiful though, we walked right along the Schuykill River the entire way. It was definitely worth it.

We got to the museum and lay down on our blankets, we were exhausted! The show was the BEST firework show We'd EVER seen in our lives. We were literally right underneath the show, it was so intense that we were screaming! ha ha, good times! Dylan was scared out of his pants...you can see him covering his ears in the pictures below, but a few days afterwards he talked about how cool the fireworks were and he's excited to see them again!

Sunset on the river

Ma girlzzz

Yay for America!

Watching the show!

Firework time!