Room Swap

While Evie was vacationing at G's house (post coming...), Jason and I swapped the kids' rooms.

7.28 Evie's last night in her crib transitioned to a toddler bed

7.28 Braylen's last night in the IKEA crib

As soon as the kids woke up on Tuesday morning, Jason was breaking down the white, IKEA crib and putting the crib front back on Evie's toddler bed.  He accomplished more before work that morning than we can accomplish in a week after the kids go to bed!  We were anxious to start the room swap.

Braylen moving into Evie's room (the green room) was an easy move.  It required the crib front being reattached, sound machine relocated, his clothes moved over, the changing pad & related gear switched, and the diaper champ (and all its odor) walked one door down.  Braylen was soundly napping in his new room by nap time on Tuesday afternoon.  His first nap in his new crib lasted three hours.  No problem with that transition.

Evie moving into Bray's room (the blue room) required more time and effort, hence tackling it while Evie was gone.  Evie doesn't have a strong opinion on things like color yet, so we picked out a paint color and room scheme without any much input from her.  We decided on a light purple and dot decals.  Jason and I traded off Braylen duty and painting on Wednesday (Jason took off from work).  We worked quickly and had most of the room put together by the time Evie returned on Thursday night.

Welcome to Evie's new room!

My parents graciously took the double bed from our
storage unit and traded it with my daybed.  A daybed
seems to be a great transition from a crib to single bed for
a little girl like ours :)

Her amazing clock still serves its purpose.
Braylen got his clock this week.  The
training begins...

Really excited to have the hutch back to
hold lots of stuff.  The desk minus the hutch
served as the changing station previously

The "evie" letters were bigger than we
expected, but we're happy the way it turned out

Evie is doing very well in her "big girl bed".  She had no issues sleeping in her toddler bed without the rail, so we figured it was best not to give her that crutch from the beginning.  No issues thus far; she's pretty good at staying in one spot all night.  

Braylen is pretty excited about Evie's bed too. He climbs up there and relaxes on the pillows.  There is plenty of room for both of them!

How you decorate a room when you have two toddler-ish
children.  You give them the iPad.

The white IKEA crib, which by the way is a GREAT crib for $99, promptly traveled across the circle to our neighbor that just delivered her third.  We wanted it out and she needed a cheap crib.  Win-win!  After 20 months with two cribs, we are a one crib family again.

Frederick Road Fridays

My love for Catonsville continues to grow.  Every Friday during the summer, the community gathers for an evening of live music, food, and dancing.  The weather has been amazing almost every Friday this summer for this event.  I finally remembered and planned ahead to attend a "Frederick Road Friday"!

The event is held in the parking lot of Peace A Pizza, so we arrived early to get a close parking spot and order some pizza before it got too busy.  I love an excuse to not cook on a Friday night!

Braylen gobbled down some yummy pizza

We invited two of our favorite Catonsville families to join us.  The kids were just as precious as anything sitting in their little chairs, clapping, and dancing.

The band played covers of some good dancing rock songs

Someone invite us to a wedding, please!

Have no fear, we have another video of Evie's dance moves

Did you notice Evie's rejection of Chase's offer to dance?  I guess she would rather dance with her brother.

Based on the pictures from other Catonsville friends on Facebook that night, there was face painting.  We plopped down right in front of Peace of Pizza to ensure quick access to the potty (and the huge sprinkle cookies) and clearly missed some of the other fun things going on the parking lot.  We know for next time!  I am so glad that we are in such a family friendly community here in Catonsville.  Life is great in 21228 :)

A Manila Envelope of Happiness

Today I got my most favorite piece of snail mail other than a check.  I didn't realize how much I missed this piece of summer mail the last 3 years until today.

The big Manila envelope filled with information about the upcoming school year sat in all its glory in my mailbox.  More importantly, a calendar with important dates was inside.

I immediately pulled out my life planner, colored markers and got to work.

My foul mood over a hectic morning with the kids quickly diminished as I went through September, October, November, and December putting "preschool" on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I also indicated "no preschool", "thanksgiving feast", and "parent/teacher conference".  I was in my happy place.  

If you are a schedule driven person or teacher you know this feeling.  It brought me back to my teaching days when I color coded my plan book, adding every faculty meeting, day off, and class.  I love this stuff.  I miss this stuff.  

I am thrilled to share that I received a call from Bethel Christian Preschool on Monday that a family is moving and therefore there is a spot open for Evie!  I am so excited for her to be at this school; I have heard only praises about it from moms at our church.  I already know she is attending with one of her little friends she knows from church.  Yeah for this opportunity for Evie to learn and grow this school year.

I am also thrilled that after 3 years of no big Manila envelopes, I will now be receiving one (until everything goes digital) for the next two decades.  I am back to the school year schedule.  I didn't know I would be this excited about it.

OCNJ 2014: Evening & Morning Play

Ocean City is the perfect family vacation spot.  Have I stressed that enough?  The beaches are clean and there is ample beach even during high tide.  The boardwalk is inviting for every age.  And there are enough ice cream shops sprinkled throughout the island to keep your sweet tooth satisfied.  I also love, love, love that OC has remained a dry town all these years.  It really keeps OC a special family oriented vacation destination.

We took the kids up to the boardwalk twice to ride the amusement rides.  With 8 PM bedtimes and should-be-stroller bound little ones, we keep our people watching window shopping to a minimum.

This year was Braylen's first time on the rides!  His sister and cousins joined him on all the favorite rides

All smiles on his first Wonderland Pier ride!

We know who wears the pants in this family 

We were so proud of Braylen for remaining
seated in his firetruck for the entire ride duration,
even the long loading time

Cole, on the other hand, was hanging over the side
of the boat, testing out the water

That's one distracted crew.  Good thing Evie has the wheel

Trip #2: Wardrobe change
A little preview of my little ones in 14 years

As parents of small children, this is what you are doing most of the time...

Leaning over to put your kids in and out of the seat.
Meanwhile your wives are hysterical at this "blessed assurance" shot

My sweet vertically challenged daughter was denied access to certain rides.  We stressed if she eats more food, then maybe next year she will be big enough to ride the roller coaster with her cousins.  Yes, Cole and Hannah rode the little roller coaster :)  But, it wasn't all tears.  Evie had her big, tall, cousin to be her riding partner and her fun-loving auntie

Hannah was in charge of making Dumbo fly

The frogs were a little too jumpy.
1,000 points for Auntie L

She's so BIG she can ride the "horsies" all by herself.
Bray-baby needed the adult supervision this year

After the rides one evening, we hit up some popular OC boardwalk sweet spots.

The sign says it all

The best part of Kohr Brothers is the way
they roll your ice cream in jimmies. (AKA sprinkles)

Being protective of her frozen custard around those gulls

Next up, Johnson's Popcorn
Yes.  We had frozen custard AND caramel popcorn.
That's true OC boardwalk eating!

Dig in!

Braylen grabbed his fair share of Johnson's yummy goodness

Love this place.

Another evening all 10 of us walked a block and a half to the corner ice cream shop.  The shop coined Tuesday evening "family game night".  There were board-games on tables, hula hoops, skip-it type things (yes 80's babies, remember those?!), a bean bag toss, and other random games.  It was a blast!

Yummy ice cream!

Evie might be the slowest ice cream eating out there

My talented boo- he can eat his ice cream while hula hooping

Bray's type of activity- tossing objects into a bucket

The whole gang tries it

Since we were up and ready by 7:45 every morning, we hit the playground to expend some energy and kill some time before heading to the beach.  We were one of the few families there that early.  It was nice to have the run of the place

Can you find all 4 kids?

Someone is always pushing an empty stroller
because one kid wants to be held...

So happy to have Hannah as Evie's
personal chauffeur this year.  

What a great week in OC.  We are so, so, so thankful that G & Poppop make this wonderful vacation happen every year.  We can't wait for next year; Evie is already talking about what she will do when she is "big"

Bye-bye

OCNJ 2014: Our not-so-professional photo shoot

We attempted to be that family this year that dressed in similar colors, all squatted by the dunes at dusk, and looked amazing in one big family photo.  

Shockingly, we almost achieved that!

Luckily the Hollencamp family posed for some great ones

a 3 year old "cheese" smile isn't so cute, but
happy her thumb isn't in her mouth and she's looking
at the camera.

An easy one to get right since there are no squirrely kids

Hettinger's... not so much.
When I said "almost" above, this is why :)

Spoiler alert!!

This will likely be G and Poppop's Christmas card.
Hopefully by December it will be forgotten and a surprise

Genuinely happy smiles

That's a good looking group of females

Then we tried to get creative...

Love G in this one.  I am monitoring Braylen and Evie
throwing sand... as you will in the next one

Clearly I have been in zero weddings that have done the jump
shot.  G's face is hysterical if you can zoom in.  LOL

Yup.  That's the circus right there

Love my boys

Maybe one year we will hire a photographer and do all kinds of neat Pinteresty-type pictures.  For now, I think we captured some good ones to put in frames and Christmas cards.