happy birthday ben: cupcakes and firepit

Hannah's favorite thing to do at our house is make cupcakes and it's always the first thing she asks about when she gets here!  We went to the store and picked out cake mix and frosting and came home and the little girls set to work.  I'm sure they'll be making them on their own in no time!

Cupcake decorating and tasting!

Jacob and the kids built a new firepit in the backyard so we were excited to try it out while Auntie Janne and Hannah were here!

We roasted hotdogs for dinner...

... and s'mores for dessert!

And spent the evening celebrating sweet Ben's ELEVENTH birthday!!

april randoms-- food edition

We went to the Grand Opening of Two Scoops Lake Norman and the kids got a kick out of the two scoop cones!

- Lunch date with just the girls at Firestorm Pizza -

We love having a fire and dinner with our neighbors when the weather is nice!

Lunch at Costco and "Geostrom" for pizza and movie night.

We went to the soft opening at Tacos 4 Life-- officially my new favorite tacos in North Carolina!!

Lunch date at Pei Wei-- we were so excited to find one only 30 minutes from our house!!

Ninety's is right by Pei Wei so we HAD to stop there after lunch!

We try and go to lunch once a week to try out new restaurants - it's much cheaper to go when the big kids are all in school!  This week's lunch date was at the newly opened Davidson Ice House with a stop at Whit's Frozen Custard afterwards.

girls' weekend: bon voyage breakfast

After we checked out of Shades of Green, we headed to Disney's BoardWalk for the Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast at Trattoria al Forno.

- Pastries, Abigail with the King Triton's Shipwreck (with Triton that was taken back to the kitchen immediately after we took a picture!), and the Golden Frittata -

The highlight of breakfast is meeting Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder as well as Ariel and Prince Eric.  While they did not come to the table in pairs, they did all make it around and were great fun to talk to while we enjoyed our breakfast!  It was the perfect end to a wonderful, whirlwind, girls weekend!

march randoms

Some of Ellie's favorites: lots of accessories, naps on the couch, making pizza, and shopping at Target (especially with a cake pop from Starbucks!).

March School Stuff: Ben and Lexie both celebrated Read Across America week with reading parties in their classes.

Nick gave a Tedx Talk on incorporating Minecraft into the curriculum at his school and tennis season started back up for Christopher.

While Grandma was here, we went to one of Christopher's away tennis matches and introduced her to City Barbeque for dinner!

We celebrated Pi Day with pizza for lunch at Ghostface Brewery and individual pies à la mode for dessert.

While Grandma was in town, we took a trip to Black Mountain to check it out and started our day at the Blue Ridge Biscuit Company for brunch.

We spent the rest of the day exploring the streets of Black Mountain with its cute little shops.  Ellie helped stock the shelves at the book store and was excited to find a little library outside.

Grandma's trip was timed perfectly to see Lexie's first soccer game-- and she made two goals!!

Since Christopher works at Chick-fil-A on Saturday mornings it has become a tradition to drop him off and grab breakfast before heading to the soccer fields.

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february randoms

The weather was great this month and all of the kids took advantage of it by playing outside!

We love making homemade pizza!  And I love that the girls do most of the work!

February is cookie booth time here so our weekends are full of booths at different places around town.

After her teacher said that she was squinting at the board, Miss Lexie got glasses-- they make her look so grown up!

Ben's request for a Super Bowl snack was cheesy piccolis-- Easy Cheese on top of pickle chips.  Bleh!!  The kids (and Jacob) all thought they were fabulous!

Chick-fil-A is one of our favorite lunch stops-- especially now that I know you can get just strawberries in the fruit cup!!  Though Ellie has been to the dentist at least six times, this was the first visit with no tears, and she's even excited to go back again in six months for pictures of her teeth!!

One of our favorite things to do is try out new restaurants in the area so we were super excited to attend the soft opening of the new Famous Toastery in Downtown Mooresville.  Such a great location and delicious food!!

Ben loves playing basketball and we love cheering him on!

Miss Ellie was so excited to get dressed up for her daddy-daughter dance at preschool!

- The Dad and the Daughter -

We love Chick-fil-A!

Ellie loves going to pick up Christopher from tennis practice because it means she can play at the playground until he's ready to go!

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christmas traditions

Ellie is the little helper in our house and loves to help with anything and everything!  She helped decorate our Christmas card envelopes and put all of the stamps on, she helps make dinner, and this year, she helped wrap Christmas presents.

Both Lexie and Ellie love to help out in the kitchen and anytime I need to bake something, I know that they're going to want to pour and scoop and mix.

Christmas cookies are their absolute favorite thing to help with-- especially the Hershey Kiss unwrapping, the rolling and the eating!

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is getting Chick-fil-A peppermint shakes and driving around to look at Christmas lights.  This year, we did it after Christopher's first official day of work at Chick-fil-A!

anniversary trip day seven: mickey's very merry christmas party (again!)

We started the last full day of our trip by checking out of Copper Creek Villas and checking in to the Polynesian.  Our room wasn't quite ready so we hopped on the monorail to check out the gingerbread house inside the Grand Floridian.

We had breakfast reservations at the Grand Floridian Cafe and Jacob was excited to find out he could order lunch instead.  Grand Floridian Cafe brunch: Delicious biscuits, French Toast (with awesome Madagascar vanilla butter) and the Reuben.

We got a text that our room was ready so we made a quick loop on the monorail and checked in at the Polynesian.

Our lake view studio had TWO bathrooms!!  And a view of Space Mountain!!

We spent the afternoon relaxing at the Poly and then went to the Magic Kingdom for our last night at Disney World and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party!

We had dinner at Casey's Corner and watched the Move It! Shake It! street party.

Casey's Corner dinner: We split the footlong hotdog with pulled pork and slaw and an order of corndog nuggets with cheese!

We love Cinderella Castle pics!!

Jingle Cruise is fun during the day and at night!

- Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party -

- Outside the Haunted Mansion -

- Inside the Haunted Mansion -

It's so spooky!!

We had fun wandering around Fantasyland riding our favorites again, and we stopped at Gaston's several times for the best ice water in the park (Orlando tap water is GROSS!!).

The Seven Dwarfs had a really short line (only about 30 minutes!) so we decided to wait and get a picture.

They started serving the treats for Mickey's birthday even though we were a day early so Jacob got the Steamboat Willie Cookies and Cream Cheesecake and I had the peppermint cupcake (not a birthday treat).

- Holiday Wishes -

- Holiday Wishes -

Can you tell that we like the fireworks shows??

We caught the midnight showing of the Mickey's Most Merriest Celebration show on the Castle stage in order to stay in the park a bit longer.  It's a cute show that we'll make sure to watch with the kids next time we go!

And then we waited for people to clear out of the park so that we could get pictures with no crowds.

I love pictures on an empty (or at least mostly empty) Main Street!

And all too soon, after a magical week at Disney World, our trip was over and it was time to head back to reality and relieve Grandma of her babysitting duties.  Can't wait until we can go again... maybe our 16th anniversary???

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