Drew is 7!

My Sweet Boy-
Turning 7 this year in Disney World was just awesome! we had such a fun week celebrating the two October birthdays in our house!
-we got to go Trick or Treating at the Magic Kingdom when we went to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party! then we stuck around for the parade and the Castle Villain Show, what an amazing night!
-You and Camden got to dance on stage at the Polynesian Luau since you had October birthdays!
-you had fun meeting the princesses with your sister. Belle told you that you were handsome!
-You did Jedi training at Hollywood studios and were able to use the force to keep the storm troopers away from you and you got to fight Darth Vader with your new light saber skills! so fun to watch.
-not a day went by that we didn't get some toy, balloon, or candy to bring back to our hotel with us.
-we had fun on the water slide at our hotel.
-we had fun roasting marshmallows and watching "The Little Mermaid" outside at our hotel one night.
-you rode Space Mountain with dad!
-you got SO many characters to sign your book
-your favorites were the STAR tours ride and the Indiana Jones stunt show.
-you got a HUGE stitch to take home with us. You had lots of birthday money from family to spend while there!
-we went to downtown Disney on your birthday. We shopped in the huge Lego store and ate dinner at the T-REX restaurant.
We had such a fun time celebrating YOU turning 7 in Disney.
I love you Drew!
Love, Mom

Camden is 5!

Sweet Camden Reese-

 

your birthday this year was just MAGICAL!

 

We started the day by having breakfast with the princesses at arkersus princess hall at Epcot. We got to take a picture with belle when we first for there. We ate a little breakfast and then you and drew got to walk with the princesses across the restaurant in a promenade. Each princess came to the table for pictures and autographs. You hugged Cinderella. You also had a birthday breakfast cupcake!

We relaxed at our hotel until Grammy arrived. We all headed to magic kingdom. We took you to the bibbidy bobbidy boutique to have your hair and make up done. You loved sitting in the chair as Grammy and I watched you turn into a fairy tale princess right in front of our eyes. Daddy and drew were off doing rides but they popped in to see their little girl!

Mommy and Grammy took a few pics of you around the castle and then we headed to see Cinderella and Princess aurora in the enchanted princess hall. You were so happy to see the princesses. You grabbed their hands and happily took pictures with them.

Then it was time to head to Cinderella's royal table for your birthday dinner. As we walked into the castle people were commenting on how beautiful you looked and said "welcome home" since you were dressed as Cinderella! Dinner was delicious. You were so so so happy to bring your pen/autograph book with each princess as they came around to our table. You happily took their hand and smiled at me for each picture-wow! We sang happy birthday to you and you got a birthday cupcake. Our best dinner at Disney for sure!

After dinner we watched the Main Street electrical parade and the fireworks. Holding my sweet birthday princess in my arms as we watched fireworks over the castle was a moment I will treasure forever. Truly magical.

We took a boat back to the Grand Floridian and saw the ending of the fireworks on the way back.

Happy 5th birthday to my sweet princess Camden Reese. My heart loves you baby girl.

Love you forever and always

Mommy

Drew is 6-A letter to my boy

my sweet precious son Drew-
you are SIX! holy cow, how did that happen?!?!?
we celebrated your birthday at Chuck E Cheese this year, Star Wars style. your friends from school and baseball came to celebrate with you. you also got to go on a field trip to the FTW zoo on your birthday. mommy got to go and chaperone :) You are amazing in every way. You are smart, you are kind, you think of others, you love Jesus, you are a great big brother and I love spending time with you!
You started kindergarten this year! it was an adjustment (for the both of us) at first. we did lots of kissing hands before drop off, but after a couple months-you learned to love school! you love playing with your friends (especially Cayman), your teacher adores you and you are doing great! (two perfect report cards to date!)
At Six years old you:
-love to color and draw
-love to watch Star Wars movies and the Star Wars Clone Wars series
-play Skylanders giants
-do art projects of any kind
-do playdoh
-play with orbeez since Chelsea and Lexi gave you some.

you have gotten really good at building legos by yourself. You and daddy also enjoy building them together. you have a sweet tooth (bigger than mommy's I think!) and you ask for "a junky snack" all the time! you will be in another room and yell out "hey-does someone want to come snuggle me?" I usually come running in, it's the cutest! you say you want to marry Chelsea or Lexi Wierenga and are afraid if you don't tell them they might find someone else. Adorable. You are a very picky eater. Although you don't nap anymore, you still sleep 11 hours a night. You are doing great at reading. You are very good at math too. Everytime we go out to a store, you ask to buy something. Music and Art are your two favorite specials times at school. in September you got a Star student award for being a great student in Mrs. Shark's class. You got strep throat for the first time Labor Day weekend and staying healthy this year has been a challenge since, seems like you always have a cough of some sort :(


I love you sweet Drew...
I love you more, it's happening!
love, mommy

Camden is 4-A letter to my daughter

Sweet Camden Reese!
wow~you are FOUR years old...where does the time go!?!?! we had so much fun at your American Girl Birthday party this year. You loved twirling around in your birthday pettiskirt. You were really into your presents this year and spending time opening each one and wanting to play with each one after you opened it. You had so much fun pushing the babies around the store in the double baby stroller. You enjoyed giving your baby doll sips of tea at your birthday celebration. We had so much fun at your all girl birthday party! When we celebrated at home on the 23rd, you had so much fun riding on Drew's gator with him, even though you got your very own minnie mouse VW bug to ride.

-you love playing on the iPad, mostly you love watching PBS shows on there
-you love your teachers and putting on your backpack to go to school this year
-you and brother still love taking a bath together. the two of you could play in there all night together-especially doing your cowabunga slides into the tub!
-you are the sweetest little mama to your baby dolls. kissing and hugging them all day long and feeding them and giving them juice.
-you like mommy to do just about everything for you-even when daddy is home :/
-you love carrying around your purse and putting on lip gloss. 
-when grandma and grandpa come over you start waving and telling me bye bye.
-you LOVE to have a pad of paper and a pen handy. you are always coloring and drawing. (sometimes on the furniture too)
-you always make sure our family is ready to pray before eating a meal.
I love that we get some mommy/daughter time this year while Drew is in school. We have fun shopping together, going to lunch together and just haning out together!
I love you my precious angel. 
Love, mommy 

First Day of School

Well today is the day that summer has come to an end. All the sudden, there were clouds in the sky, football on the TV and getting ready for school to start for both kids tomorrow.
We have had such an amazing summer together. I will feel sad to have my boy gone everyday now, but I think we are also ready for this journey to begin.
Tonight, we read "The Night Before Preschool" with Camden and tucked her into bed.
Then I got to read "The Night Before Kindergarten" with Drew. Then we read "The Kissing Hand". Sure loved reading that book with him and I know I will for sure be using my kissing hand tomorrow while he is at school. Before we sprinkled the "Ready Confetti" that Mrs. Shark gave us under Drew's pillow, Drew started making a wish on every star, blowing his magic wish onto the star, and then placing it under his pillow. I don't know if he was stalling going to bed (there had to have been 25 stars to wish on) but it was just darling to listen to him. His first 3 wishes were; 1. that there would be lots of fun things to do at school; 2. that he would make lots of new friends, 3. that Austin would be ok (Austin's mommy told us that he asked if he and Drew could hold hands together on the way to school). and that they got to play together at recess. Among the rest of the wishes that we worked on together were. -that mommy wouldn't cry too much after dropping him off, -that it wasn't raining on our way to school, -and that we got a good parking spot so we wouldn't have to walk too far!
I have packed his lunch, put a special little note in there for him, have his clothes laid out and am ready to get up early to make pancakes for my lil man before his first day of kindergarten. (ok so Daddy ended up making the pancakes!)
I also have Camden's clothes laid out, as she starts her new Pre-K tomorrow in the afternoons. We are excited for her and think she is going to love her teacher and her class!

Both kids had a great first day of school. We are excited for a great school year!

Clean Teeth!

Both kids had dentist appts today with Dr. Clapp. I knew that at 5 1/2 years old, Drew would go back without me with no trouble. Camden on the other hand, I figured would be a screaming mess before she even left the waiting room. The hygenist and I decided that I would hold her hand till we got to the door to the back office and then I just told Camden to follow Drew and she allowed me to let go of her hand and I snuck quickly back to the waiting room. I sat there tapping my foot, wondering how many minutes would pass before they came to get me to tell me that she is screaming, won't cooperate, and they can't get her teeth cleaned. I kept waiting. Waiting. Then about 30 minutes later out walks my happy girl with no tears in her eyes. I was told they got her xray, cleaned her teeth, Dr. Clapp came to look at her teeth and she did not shed ONE tear? I was literally so happy, I almost cried. Really. Drew was still getting his teeth cleaned and sealed so when we went back to get him, I asked if Camden had any cavities and she did not! I told the girl, this was the best dentist appt. Camden has ever had, and she told me Dr. Clapp had said the same thing! I think at age 3 1/2 I still had to walk back with Drew, he liked me to be sitting near him while his teeth were cleaned. So proud of my girl! we went out for frozen yogurt after to celebrate!

Summer Time!

 walking to the fiesta in Gloucester

Well, it has been over 6 months since I have done a blog post, so sad! I seem to post so many updates/pictures on facebook now that the blog gets neglected, but I was reminded on our recent vacation back to MA that our family still likes to get updates on the blog. It's also my way of documenting so much of our days. so here goes, back to blogging! :)
We have had a great summer so far. We started the summer off with 2 week intensive swim lessons for Drew at AquaKids and he did great, it was exactly what he needed to get him swimming for the summer. Then we had a week of VBS at our church and since then we have been sleeping in, staying in our jammmies entirely too long (and loving it!) and spending lots of time at the pool. We went to Boston for 10 days and spent lots of time with family at the beach and at grammy's pool. We were so thankful for cousins who like to play just as rough as we do! Drew and Chase (only 3 yrs old) got along so well and played so nice with each other. Thanks to Chase, Drew lost his 2nd tooth. We were thankful to Chase for saving us a trip to the dentist :) Drew's adult teeth seem to be coming in before the baby teeth fall out, so we were about to go back to Dr. Clapp to have him "blow" out loose tooth #2!
This whole week we have done nothing but hang out at home and visit with friends. We are enjoying these lazy days of summer before next month when my baby will start kindergarten!!!!!!

playing at Good Harbor Beach

summer 2012