Miles' birthday

we had a wonderful time celebrating miles birthday. he turned 4 in june.
we are so thankful for his development and progress that he has made this year, especially verbally as he is saying more words all the time. we are also so thankful that miles has been so healthy. we know that God has his hand on our miles and is making him into just the little guy that he wants him to be.
for miles' party we did a car theme this year. audrey helped me make the car dessert. it was peanut butter bars with a candy bar attached on top with peanut butter, starlight mints for wheels and racing stripes with fruit by the foot. it was alot of fun to make and eat, although miles didnt eat his.

 miles really wanted to drive his car dessert but ended up enjoying his ritz crackers instead.

this boy loves hulk.

packing for our trip to VA

i kind of like challenging myself to do things as simple as possible. so i challenged myself to bring the least amount of clothing for our trip to VA. the key is to bring things that mix and match all together and wearing a pair of pants, one of the shirts, the scarf and cardigan on the plane.
here is what i took for our 5 day trip:
4 shirts (navy, black, gray, white bird)
2 pairs of pants (coral, purple)
1 pair of shorts
1 dress
1 light blue cardigan
1 multi colored scarf 
1 pair of gray chucks
1 pair of teal sandals
swim suit
jammies and other essentials (socks, undies, etc.)
thats it. and my family of 4 was able to pack all our clothing and stuff into only 2 carry on suitcases. and we had diapers and even managed to cram in the beach towels we ended up buying. it was awesome.
i dont have pictures of everything but you get the idea.

birthday freebies

did you know that you could get tons of free food for your birthday? this past year i had signed up for all the free food i could find on various websites. when my birthday came around i was swimming in coupons for free stuff, it was great!
here are the ones i used (i had more but i didnt have the time to get them all):
free steakburger with cheese and fries from steak and shake
free rooty tooty fresh and fruity from ihop
free cookie from chick fil a
free mocha lotta chill from cinnabun
buy 1 get 1 free pretzels at auntie annes
free cookie slice with purchase of soda from great american cookie company
free sub from firehouse subs (you just show them your id on your birthday to get the free sandwich)
free dessert at la madelines

our trip to VA beach

lets pretend like i didnt take a 3 month break from my blog.
in june, right after school was out, we went on a trip to virginia beach. my husband's grandfather turned 90 this year and we went to celebrate him. we flew, miles first time - he did good, and audrey's first time that she can remember (the last time we flew, also to VA beach, she was almost 2).
the trip went great. our hotel was good, the sleeping arrangements worked out beautifully (they gave us a rollout bed for miles and he slept on the couch with the rollout bed creating a barrier for him), and audrey got to make some good memories with great grandpa. it couldnt have gone better.
here are some pictures:

 the kids didnt like the beach. miles didnt like the water and got sand in his mouth. audrey didnt like that the waves were rough and she got salt water in her mouth. i enjoyed it, for the little bit of time i got to play in the ocean.

keeping busy and having fun

The kids have been having a great time lately.
Miles was a barista (don't you think he would get lots of tips just for being cute).
Audrey had field day. Sorry no pictures.
And a free book event. We got lots of good ones this year - 2 Mo Willems, the Amelia Bedelia shower book (which was one of my favorites as a kid), Grover's book of cute baby animals (another of my faves as a kid), Ramona Quimby age 8 (Ramona is still one of my faves), Martha speaks, plus many more. The kids read books most of the rest the day, it was awesome.

Miles is a busy dude

In the last week Miles has been busy. He made pizza and has been a doctor.

 Real men wear aprons.

And here is Dr. Miles, isn't he the cutest?!

book club

Audrey and I had our first book club meeting last week. She bought the book "Rescue Princesses" from her school's scholastic book fair and read it in a week, that's pretty good considering she's finishing up first grade and it's at a third grade level. Anyways her teacher is wanting to make sure that her students aren't just reading words but that they are comprehending the story. So I had the genius idea to have a book club meeting with her to make sure she really got it. And she really got it, even better than me.
For our book club we had ice cream cones for a dessert and then we dressed as our favorite princess from the book. Then we discussed the book, very thoroughly. I think Audrey enjoyed being the expert since I mixed up some of the characters. Then to finish up we read the teaser chapter for the next book in the series.
It was a lot of fun and we can't wait to read and discuss our next book, Jake is going to join us so Audrey is trying to find a book he would enjoy.

Here we are dressed as our favorite princesses from the book. Audrey is Freya and I am Jaminta. The princesses have special pets they rescue, that's why we're holding pets.