Blue Angel Show

One of my friend’s husbands is on the crew for “Fat Albert” which is the C-130 that begins the Blue Angel show. This is the airplane (to the left), and the family pictured below (Brooke, Joe and their son Gabriel):

The Blue Angel crew had a family day at which the families and friends came to watch practice. Then afterwards we got to go take an ‘official’ picture with the pilots in front of one of the jets. This is the first time we have been around aircraft that the girls have not been scared thanks to Karl’s NASCAR earphones.

We were sitting right on the flight line so we were VERY VERY close to the aircraft. What an amazing morning!!!

Then Brady, of course, has her own profile pictures from the air show…

Wordless Wednesday: What do you do with your time at the outlet mall?

The next karate kid

As much as being girlie runs through Brady’s blood, there are some ways I can “train” her to be anti-girlie…I am just short of typing tomboy here since she will never come close to that.

 

Before I tell you the story of Brady, I must give you some background info. For those of you that are married you are going to understand what I mean when I say this. After you are married and move in together you learn all the little details about your spouse, that you have no way of learning while you are dating. Some of those details are amazing and you wouldn’t trade for the world, like Karl happily cleans and scrubs the house each week. Some details you wonder is this the person I dated, but then you just laugh, like Karl when he sees a roach or spider has to get out the Raid and spray them until they are swimming in chemicals and the whole house in fuming, then he gets the biggest wad of paper towels to pick it up so his hands aren’t anywhere near the bug. You gotta laugh!

 

So I have decided that I will teach Brady to love nature’s creatures. I know some of you are going to be surprised by what I am about to tell you, because when I tried to get her to touch a caterpillar once on a picnic she freaked out. Well when we are in the house, she is okay with bugs. She picks them up (bare-handed mind you) and tells me they are suppose to be outside. So she opens the back door and drops them outside. She does this with spiders, bugs, etc. of any sort, dead or alive. Well this morning, she saw a house fly buzzing at the window. She said the fly needed to be outside. Sure, enough she caught that fly and put it outside!

We are in trouble! (but in a good way)

Lately, Karl and I are realizing more and more how intelligent our girls are. We don’t really have other toddlers to compare them to, but they amaze us on a daily basis with their imagination, memory or problem solving skills. Every time one of these stories come up, we look at each other and say “we are in trouble.”

So here are my two example from today that prompted me to write the blog. First, Brady walked into the living room while the TV was on NASCAR. The commercials were running, and a Driod commercial happened to be on. She said “That is Grandma’s phone!” For those that don’t know, my mom has had the Driod since last fall and Brady has probably only seen her 3-4 times since then. But the running joke in our family is that my mom might as well not have a phone because she never has it on her and if she does it is never charged (love you mom).

The next story was this evening we went on a family walk and came across a stray golf ball. Karl picked it up and Reese immediately put her hands out and said “ball, ball, ball.” Karl handed it to her where she happened to be standing in the grass at the time. Reese immediately walked off away from us, which puzzled us, but she walked over to the driveway and threw the ball so it would bounce. She knew, at 17 months old, that if she wanted the ball to bounce she had to walk to a hard surface! Karl and I just looked at each other and shook our heads.

 

We talked about how are we going to handle having two daughters that are infinitely smarter then us!

 

So I had already decided to share this blog with you, but had to of course wait until the girls were in bed to type it. Well, of course Brady had to shock us again while we were cleaning up her room….She was cleaning up her doll house (which has a mini-van and a beetle bug) and she reached under bed and grabbed a couple Jenga blocks and mumbled something about parking. Karl asked her to repeat herself. She stated clearly that she needed the blocks to set up the parking lot for the cars.

The difference Between an almost 17 month old and an Almost 3 year old

We have recently moved the “Little People” animals into Reese’s room, so there has been a peaked interest in them naturally. With our visit to the zoo this week, things really took off as far as identifying the animals. So Karl and I wanted to shot a video of Reese to share with the family.

http://picasaweb.google.com/orthner/May2010#5471190815779722962

 

Well Brady of course wanted the attention of being taped so we sat her down and asked her the same questions, and here is the resulting video.

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/orthner/May2010#5471191595117920642

April showers bring clearance sales at Target!

Brady and I were very excited about the rain boots and umbrella we found on sale at Target. She plays outside with them rain or shine. I will say however, if we leave the house with the sun shining then it starts to rain, she is very unhappy that she is not prepared with her boots and umbrella by her side!

Wordless Wednesday: WEEDS: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

Day out with Thomas

On May 1st we headed to Silverhill, AL (about 45 minutes west of us) for a day filled with trains. The girls don't know who Thomas the train is, but they do love trains, so we jumped on this opportunity. There were so many fun activities at the railroad station. First they both got a tattoo; Brady got a helicopter and Reese got a pink train.



Then we played in the inflatable jump houses while we waited for our "time" to ride Thomas. There was also a playground near by with the neatest teeter-tooter shaped like a plane that could hold kids in the pilot seats and on the wings!





Also there were about 8 tables of thomas tracks out for the kids to play with and bubbles to catch, a coloring station with stamps, a model train display, a story telling center (which happened to be Thomas videos on loop ;)!) There was a little train you could ride for free and went faster and wasn't inside a cabin.  Then the Thomas train you would ride at your given time. This actually was my least favorite part (and the only part you had to pay for). There were so many things to do and such a neat day. Next time we will go and just enjoy all the other activities and skip riding the slow big train.

[caption id="attachment_584" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The family on the little train"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_580" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Holding tickets to get on Thomas train"]

[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_581" align="alignnone" width="225" caption=""All Aboard""][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_582" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Waiting for the train to leave the station"][/caption]

Happy Mother's Day!

Now we all have a mother we can thank for bringing us into the world, but it is when you have a mom that makes today special. For as long as I can remember I have always known that my mom was someone special. I remember getting on my friends as a teenager for disrespecting their mothers, because a person that works so hard to provide you so much definitely deserves respect.

Thank you mom for showing me that I can lean on you.

Thank you mom for dealing with me, even when I didn't understand how much you were doing for me.

Thank you mom for being my go to person for advice.

Thank you mom for being you.

Thank you mom for being a role model.

THANK YOU MOM FOR BEING MY FRIEND!

Thank you Brady and Reese for making me smile.

Thank you Brady and Reese for fulfilling my dreams.

Thank you Brady and Reese for being more amazing than I could have dreamed.

Thank you Brady and Reese for making this easy.

THANK YOU BRADY AND REESE FOR BEING MY FRIEND!



One of the most treasured relationships is a mother/daughter relationship. I consider myself one of the luckiest people in the world because not just on mother's day but everyday I reap the benefits of the great relationship as a mother and as a daughter!!!

Is being girlie innate?

So as some of you know, I am not super girlie. I wouldn't call myself a tomboy either but I am not into getting all done up everyday. For my first baby shower I knew I was having a girl but didn't tell people because I didn't want a bunch of light pink stuff. So how is that I have raised GIRLIE GIRLS...yes, that is plural. I have known for some time that BOO is girlie. But recently I am starting to see it more and more in Reese. Here is my latest example..

Lately after her nap and in the morning we place her pacis (a collection of 5) on the dressing. If she asks for them before going to bed she gets to pick one, then we place all of them in the corner of the crib (if you are wondering the point of this is eventually the collection will decrease in size).  Here is the set of pacis:



You notice there is a red, orange, pink, green, and purple one. Well, this is always her choice!



SO GIRLIE

Wordless Wednesday: What do you see when you walk out your front door?

Brady's Blooms

Beppa (Karl's mother) gave the girls an indoor garden as a Christmas present. Okay, well I admit that this gift I think was intended for Reese, but she was more interested in eating the dirt so Brady kinda adopted it :)



The garden pots are made from recycled milk jugs so they are being green while having a green thumb...HOW FUN!!! In February, we were finally settled enough from the move we decided to get gardening. The three seeds included were sunflower, zinnia, and sweet basil. The set also included soil discs that had to be moistened and you had to wait 30 minutes before planting the seeds.

[caption id="attachment_543" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Those 30 minutes seemed to last FOREVER!!! At least in toddler world..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_544" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Oh man, still 17 minutes left to wait!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_545" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="30 minutes is up...time to fluff the soil!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_546" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="The girls favorite part, patting the soil after the seeds were in"][/caption]

 I always wanted to keep the pots at a level where the girls could check to see if any sprouts had come up, but Brady everyday would stick her finger in to "make a hole for the seeds and then cover it up, then pat pat pat". I feared that we would not have any growth at all.

By early March, sure enough we saw tiny sprouts on the Zinnia plants!





The sun didn't come enough through the window by kitchen table so we moved them to the window in Brady's room (the front of the house). The plants TOOK OFF!!! Brady got to water them every other day, which she throughly enjoyed doing.



So by mid-April, they were too big for their pots and needed to be replanted. However, we still hadn't seen any blooms on the two flowering plants. We did take advantage of using fresh basil in recipes! So we planted the three plants near the front entrance of our house (and near the automatic sprinkler).



 

 

[caption id="attachment_553" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="BOO felt the need to take pictures as well. Here is the view from inside the house..."][/caption]

Well, we have been keeping an eye on our garden. Brady waters it when she plays in her "pool." But recently we WE GOT A BLOOM!!! And three more are on the way...YAH! Thank you Beppa for such an fun, green and educational gift!

Wordless "I don't want to type but I know you guys wants a post" DAY: Reese's back curls are hanging!!!