I love family time!

Our family took advantage of Karl being on shore tour and took a two week trip to NC and VA to see family. Along the way we saw some friends, had precious memories with family and got to do LOTS of great things. Here is a small snip-it of the great time we had.

 

On the way up, we had to stay in Anderson, SC, which just so happens to be next to Kristen’s hometown. Kristen was my college roommate for 3 years and I love every chance I get to see her and catch up.

On the next day, driving through Charlotte, we decided to make a stop to see the NASCAR hall of fame that recently opened up. It was nice to make a “pit stop” to break up the second day of driving all day long!

The girls were very excited to see Auntie Andi and Uncle Jason. They got right to doing one of their favorite things… Ring Around the Rosie. We also got to see the Wolfpack play basketball, and Brady LOVED the cheerleaders and all the lifts they did. THanks to Uncle J for being her spotter.

We celebrated Christmas with the DeWeeses. The big hit with the girls were their new pink cowboy boots and their paper jamz guitar.

While in Raleigh, I took the time to see some good friends too. I got to see my Meredith girls that still live in Raleigh. Also got to eat Khanki with Ashley. I loved sharing these special moments with my dear friends.

My mom and Ashley gave the girls these adorable knit caps that bow attach to. Here are a couple of cute shots of them wearing the new trendy accessory.

Reese’s actual birthday feel while we were in Raleigh. We celebrated by starting the day with one of her favorite foods, DOUGNUTS! And ended the day with one of her other favorite foods, pizza. We all enjoyed being a kid again at Chuck E. Cheese’s. However,  I will have to say Karl had a BLAST there!

Then after a week, we made our way to Williamsburg. Kim had lots of great activities planned for us.

First day we made our way to Busch Gardens to visit Christmas Town. There we meet Santa and feasted with him. Also, enjoyed walking through a magical lighted wonderland.

The next day we had all you can eat pancakes while watching Tangled in the theater. This was a very fun experience.

I know picture is random, but I thought you would appreciate this…Three females=lots of shoes!

We also opened presents at the Orthner family. The girls are blessed to have so many people that love them!

Beppa really enjoyed bringing her girls to the Nutcracker. She picked out these special fancy coats for the girls. Brady now REALLY wants to sign up for ballet classes.

SNOW…enough said.

We also visited the Yankee Candle Village where we dipped our own candles. On that same day, we had a BLAST at inflation nation, which had 9 jump houses…boy did I get a work out there!

Our trip home we were able to lunch with Uncle Jason and eat with Kristen again. But along the way Karl thought he would treat the girls to a kit kat bar…hind sight is 20/20!!!!

 

Merry Christmas friends and family! Know that this family loves you dearly!

The girls are famous

This is the display at Triangle Town Center's Picture people!

Word-FUL Wednesday: Happy Birthday Reese

Two years ago at 10:02 AM a very beautiful, smart girl entered this world. Ever since that moment so much joy, laughs, and good times have been had by the Orthners.  Reese has been my baby that has kept me on my toes, always coming with something new for me to adventure on as a mommy. Otherwords, I have had a lot of firsts as a mom with her even though she is my second, and I love this about her. She is her own self even though she has a sister only 18 months older. However, Reese is an amazingly great baby (toddler). People compliment me all the time on how good she is for her age, and while I am thanking me I just think how happy I am to have the opportunity to give her hugs and kisses everyday!

 

Reese,

Thank you for always giving me a reason to smile. Thank you for being a natural comedian. Thank you for laughing so light heartedly. Thank you for all those countless hugs i get everyday, always on your command. Thank you for being the best little sister possible. Thank you for showing love to those who aren't used to child affection and bringing a new person out in them. Thank you for being you! You are beautiful inside and out...

 

Good Gift for Preschoolers…

We have been playing with Reese’s birthday gifts all last night and all day today. We of course love them all, but I wanted to share one gift that is different and lots of fun…

 

SKY HIGH SCOOPS! It is from Target and all four of us love to play it. You evenly distribute plastic ice scream scoops. The object is to get all your scoops stacked on the ice cream bowl. If any scoops fall on your turn you have to put those back in your stack. It is electronic and tells the player how many and what color to stack. Therefore they have to count and recognize colors while using hand eye coordination.

 

If you have a 2-4 year old  I really recommend this game! I haven’t gotten any pictures of us playing (we were having too much fun to pause for the camera) but here is a YouTube video created by the distributor.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/LearningResourcesInc#p/search/0/HUOZe7C0aGU

Celebrating our Big Two Year old

Today we celebrated Reese’s second birthday! Reese requested a princess party and I was pleased with how much Reese seem to enjoy herself considering she gets shy in big crowds.

 

The guests dressed up like a prince or princess if they pleased. I bought Reese a Tiana costume during the Halloween sales, well when she saw that I owned a Snow White costume she thought it most appropriate to be Snow White as well.

 

 

The above photo shows us making the tutus which was a ‘craft’ for all to enjoy. The boys had BK crowns to adorn with star stickers.

 

The princess had quite the spread for her party: ring sub sandwiches, flower shaped PB sandwiches, edible princess wands, jello jigglers, fruit and veggie trays, and of course a princess castle cake. 

Reese carried around a peanut butter sandwich for a while and spent the whole time trying to eat all the sprinkles out of the center.

I love these pictures below, because they show her beauty inside and out!

 

 

Well how old is Reese turning? 1? 2? 5?

 

Happy Birthday my sweet sweet Reesey Poo! I hope all your wishes and dreams come true this year!

Christmas came Early (partly)

I put Reese down for her nap around 1 today. I checked her on the video monitor around 2. Expecting to see a sleeping girl in the monitor, I was shocked to see an empty crib. I ran to her room to see if she was okay since she obviously climbed out and I hadn’t heard from her. Well I came upon a locked door. When I got the key and opened the door, there stood my sweet girl holding her Curious George and her two pacis, as proud as she could be at her feat. How should a mother react to this new behavior? Cracking up hysterically, because that is all I could do.

 

So I kindly put her back in her crib and watched on the video monitor again to see if this was going to be a repeat behavior. Sure enough within 20 seconds she had her leg up and over the rail of the crib.

 

Well part of our Christmas gifts for the girls is new beds and bedding. Brady was going to move up into a full size bed and Reese was going to get the toddler bed Brady is currently in. Well necessity has it that the girls moved up beds this afternoon. The new fun bedding is still on hold though.

 

I think Brady was a lot more excited about this new sleeping situation then Reese.

 

Tonight Reese stayed in her bed for about a minute, then opened her door came out to me and said “all done mommy.” SO I sat in there with her for 20 minutes while she fell asleep. Then I kissed her sweet little hand whisper good night without her stirring at all. Then when I shut her door, I heard her say a few words, and I held my breath! About a minute later she was back asleep. Brady is currently sleeping with her feet on her pillow and head at the feet. I don’t think she knows what to do with all that bed!

 

Tonight is the first night in about 3 and a half years that I don’t have a ‘baby’ in a crib! They are growing up on me, and I am loving every minute of it!

Thankful for my Little Helpers

I know I know,  I am late on posting about Thanksgiving, but I have been busy prepping for Reese’s 2nd birthday party that is happening this weekend. But I wanted to share how awesome it was to have such helpful little cookers on Turkey Day.

 

Prepping the Oreo Cake and then giving Daddy a sample! What kid doesn’t love smash Oreos!

Getting recipe items from pantry and fridge. The girls both really enjoyed this task.

Cleaning and shucking the veggies. Then tossing all the scraps.

 

This is the resulting spread…Doesn’t it make you want to go back a week and do it all again?

I am thankful for my little helpers. But I am also thankful that on this year, my first thanksgiving spent away from my parents and siblings, that I was able to have great friends visiting from VA. Thanks for visiting us Melisa, Rob, Colton and Reagan. I missed my family dearly, but really enjoyed have friends I love dearly by my side.

 

Lastly, here is a piece of artwork Brady made at preschool. I love that she put she is thankful for ‘butterflies’.

Wordless Wednesday: Cutest Turkey Day Snack ever!