Nanni Bubbles

We love our Nanni Bubbles(and no it's not her stage name :) - way back when Morgan could only say a couple of words, she could say "nanny" and "bubbles" and Kirk's mom wanted to be differentiated from Nanny Cherry at the time who was just "nanny" so she said "how about Nanni Bubbles" and so it began! She lives in Greensboro so we don't see her as much as we'd like but were THRILLED to have her come stay with us during the kids birthdays and the following week. Kirk's brother and wife were due to have their first baby that week so she came up for all of it so we got some great quality time with her while she waited for Tom and Tara to get home from the hospital. Thanks Nanni Bubbles!

Morgan's First Day(of 2nd grade)

I have got to hand it to my daughter and her lack of fear/anxiety over a new situation. I still don't handle things as smoothly as she does. I was nervous for her to start a new school district, since she wouldn't know anyone at this school or on the bus. However, the night before, she said she couldn't wait to go and got on the bus without any hesitation. So proud of her! (and she loved it-still does)

Morgan and Bradley's Birthday

We celebrate Morgan and Bradley's birthdays together each year since they are usually family parties with mutual friends. Morgan turned 8 on August 23 and Bradley turned 4 on August 24 so they are back to back. We did a fun "outback adventure" theme stolen from Family Fun's website. We took the kids on a walk thru the woods near our home in search of reptiles(fake plastic snakes and lizards we hid before they walked through) They had so much fun and unfortunately my photo files when downloaded are mostly screwed up! What the heck - they look so bizarre in my photo software so I may not get them back to normal so here are a few of the good ones!

Annie - The Musical

The best value in the Entertainment Book in our area is to use the coupon for La Comedia - you can use buy one, get one free and save $56 immediately and the book only costs $30 so my mom and I try to take Morgan each year to whatever the child-friendly musical is. We loved that the Humphrey ladies joined us this year - their first time and I think they were impressed with the place! Good food and this year, the girls in the musical (and the grown-ups) were amazing! We did the whole autography thing and pictures of the girls with the characters.

Morgan liked it!(and Bradley too)

Well, she came home and was very excited about her new room! Jumped around on the bed along with her brother who was equally excited! His comment was "I can't wait to see my room!" to which I replied "honey, mommy didn't have time this weekend but I will surprise you sometime" Awwww...poor boy and he is the decorating eye in the family - notices any new home decor item I bring into the house - concerning? know-just observant, right? He came back in after looking at his same 'ol room and said "this is my favorite room" - his sister's, how sweet but sad. Soon, Bradley, soon, I will try my best to do something fun in your room!

Morgan's Bedroom Makeover

Okay everyone - I worked my butt-oosky off this weekend and I must say, I am soooooo happy with how this project turned out! Morgan is turning 8 one week from today and since we just moved into this house a few months ago, I wanted to paint her room first - I think girls deserve to have rooms decorated first(primarily b/c I am a girl and I painted my scraproom/computer blogging heaven space FIRST!-the day the furniture was arriving) So I guess when I say I wanted to paint her room first, it is in comparison to all of the bedrooms. Anyhow, I posted a lot of pictures but I wanted you to see the before and after shots. It is probably easier if you start at the bottom of the post and work your way up b/c of the order of them-it will make more sense. I just must say how WONDERFUL the Frog tape(it is green) from Lowe's is to make stripes - nothing bleeds behind and I was doing a happy dance as I peeled it off the wall! Obviously, the comforter which we already had purchased, was my inspiration piece. I painted her dresser, changed out knobs on dresser, closet, and cubby doors, got her cute silver lamp at Goodwill, purchased the lampshade at Wal-mart so a total of $11 and tied some ribbon on it. The most exciting part is that she has been camping with her brother and pappy(my dad) and his wife all weekend and are coming home tomorrow so I am putting a sign on her door "surprise-happy early birthday!"-can't wait for her to see it! Oh, and after previewing this post, yes, I did get a little paint-crazy and painted the paddles of ceiling fan too - it does look cool!

Ryan and Lily's Playdate

My good friend Mary was off this week so she and Lily came over for the morning - we played outside for part of it and just loved the picture of the blue-eyed beauties - I didn't photo-shop the one (looks like I did) - I just had my camera meter set a little differently so it really must have brought out the colors in their eyes. We had a fun day with them!

Fresh Haircuts

I have a love of fresh haircuts on anyone (except myself b/c the bangs are always a little too short, or the sides, or the back, etc for the first week or two!) It is especially lovely for me to see little men, i.e. boys under the age of 10ish, with them-they just look so handsome afterwards!Therefore, I had to take pictures of my little men right after their end of summer cuts. I always splurge and take them to Great Clips - haha! I don't even like to take them unless I have a $4.99 coupon which I DIDN'T!! Since we moved, we haven't gotten on the local mailing list yet so I had to pay a whopping $10/haircut today! Robbery, I tell you! Anyhow, we were in and out in about 20 minutes with suckers and the boys do great for their cuts - clippers and all!

Fire Station Open House./Ice Cream Social

Today was the 61st annual Washington Township Fire Dept Ice Cream Social. We tried to cram a lot into one day since it was so nice out(very hot but nice!)- before this, my mom and I took the kids to our neighborhood pool. At the event, the kids enjoyed seeing and sitting in the vehicles, dunking people in the dunking machine and spraying with a real firehouse. It was catered very well to the young population, they even sprayed a bunch of foam onto the ground and let kids run through it and then hosed them down from a ladder after that! Morgan thought I was a mean mom because we had plans to meet our friends, the Wolfs/Goodmans/Montgomery's at Marions Pizza, followed by a trip to the Centerville Parks Waterpark so I told her she had to wait to get wet! We enjoyed pizza afterwards and went on to the park - you will see pictures of our outing below! We still can't convince Bradley to play in the waterpark part of the park - I joke that his OCD personality can't deal with the unpredictability of where the water may/may not come out of!

Extreme Home Makeover in Beavercreek!

I love the show, Extreme Home Makeover, so when we heard it was coming to Beavercreek (our old neighborhood), we were so excited! My mom, Morgan and I went over on Monday, the big reveal was 3 days later, to see how it was going - the amount of labor put into this is crazy, beyond imagination! It takes so many caring, thoughtful people to devote their time to help someone else - amazing! They shuttle everyone in from a car dealership that closed down by school buses so you don't have so much traffic in and out of this neighborhood. Anyhow, here are a few pictures of what we got to see. Michael is the tan man - one of the show designers if you don't watch it much. Can't wait to watch the actual episode when it airs - not sure when that will be yet!

Butterfly Festival

Hiking trails are excellent!

Morgan and Bradley at the kids station

zebra butterfly

a caterpillar wanted to come home on our stroller

lots of caterpillars waiting to cocoon

our family on the infamous bench

We decided to head out today to the Butterfly Festival at Cox Arboretum and face the crowds. I definitely feel that adding the 3rd to our family, as much as I adore him and his always scrunched up nose, that it sure makes outings more challenging. Between everyone needing dressed, fed breakfast, then naptime for Ryan, then lunch, it takes us all day to get out the door but we did it! Hooray for us! and we loved the hiking - thank goodness we had the jogger stroller! We will definitely go back for the hiking paths (maybe leave the stroller and Ryan with Nanny Cherry) Beautiful, perfect day!