Kinder Surprise

While Emily was in Serbia on a "workcation" she texted me and asked me if there was anything that our family wanted from Europe that she could bring home with her. I said, "Kinder Eggs for the kids to open." I feel like Kinder Eggs today are the equivalent of prizes in cereal boxes, or cracker jack boxes, in my day. There is a yummy treat and a small surprise to go with it. 

July 31, Emily had the day off - and the kids took super early naps -so we decided to go and play and open up our Kinder Surprises!

Lily's grandma in Poland usually sends over a Kinder Egg every once in a while and both times the surprise inside was an airplane. These kids had much different surprises in store for them!

Lily's surprise was a character from the movie: "Penguins of Madagascar." I think that the character is "Short Fuse" and he throws some sort of something. Eliza got a dragon. And I completely forgot what Harrison's surprise was because he was napping and opened his up at a different time than these two.

Eliza was more excited about the prize, Lily was more excited about the Chocolate, both moms were excited about how quiet it kept them for ten minutes.

Thank you Emily for going to Serbia and bringing Kinder Eggs to America for us. 

I think that next time we get together with the Sharpe family it's our turn to bring them a fun surprise... 

Dun, dun, dun... 

To be continued!

Marco's 6 Month Doctor Appointment

On July 29, Marco had his six month wellness check up.

 His stats quite surprised me.

Height = 25.83" (65.6 cm) 13%

Weight = 15 lb 9 oz (7.059 kg) 12%

Head Circumference = 43.5 cm (17.13 in) 51%

Because he is so small for his age I have to start bringing Marco in monthly to make sure he's growing properly, they just don't want his weight to drop but steadily increase.

The doc checked out his new tooth and made sure everything was in order.

Marco was a happy baby throughout the whole check-up, but Lily was a little jealous that she didn't get the same kind of attention. She found the doctor's tag and wanted to wear it. She was really sad that she, personally, wasn't able to give the tag back to the doctor.

I really like going to the wellness checkups because it's fun to see how much your baby is growing and developing and comparing it month to month. However, doctor appointments can be tricky. Making sure that one kid is adequately checked and all questions are answered, while balancing giving the older child attention and making her feel like she is helping and not being left out. Lily's in for a treat because next month it's her turn!

Asher's Birthday Party

Birthday Parties are the BEST! Don't you remember going to the best birthday parties as a kid? You would play the funnest games and eat the best food and open the coolest presents - all with your friends surrounding your side? Lily and I were so excited to be invited to Asher's Birthday Party on Saturday - July 25. 

The party was themed around the Disney movie "Cars" so our first "pit stop" was to the local fire department where we were taken on a tour of the facility and got to inspect the fire truck!

I was so proud of this little girl for getting in the Fire Truck.  This is the sixth time she's had an opportunity to climb in and explore the inside of this truck and each time she has really been nervous and hesitated to climb inside, but this time she was brave and ventured in.

The firemen wanted to tell us all about day-to-day life, and cool facts, and blah-blah-blah. But the kids were just interested in wearing their own fireman hats and looking at the truck.

Our next pit stop was to Asher's house where everything was decorated like a race track. The table was awesome. There were streamers draped everywhere and some were meant to look like you were going through a car wash. Red and black balloons covered the floor. It was pretty awesome. 

But not as awesome as this super fancy cake that Asher's mom made! 

It looked pretty fantastic and the inside was even checkered like a race-car flag!

It's a good thing that there are places where you can buy cakes like that because I sure don't have the time, energy, or talents to pull something off that fancy!

And the very best part about birthday parties is saved for the very last! It's opening presents! Kids are so excited about anything and everything that they get and they open up gifts and share their toys and everyone gets to play. It's so fun to watch all the kids take pleasure out of simple things!

Thanks for having a super-duper fun birthday party Asher. And thanks for inviting Lily! Everything was fancy-dancy and we can't wait until next year to see what kind of a party your awesome mom can pull off!

SIX MONTHS

Happy 6 Months Marco!

Marco is an incredibly happy, happy baby and seldom cries. In fact, he only cries when he is extremely tired and wants to go to sleep, and the remedy to fix that is incredibly easy.

New facts: 

Likes to rollover to get where he wants to be

Can push himself backward instead of crawling forward

Foods: 

Bananas

Sweet Potatoes

Rice Cereal

Squash

Apples

Prunes

Green Peas

Green Beans

(in order of Favorite to least favorite)

Enjoys:

Watching Lily do anything

playing in his bouncer

playing in his johnny-jump-up

jumping in Mommy's lap

sitting in his bumbo

being sung to

playing with toys and putting them in his mouth

Teeth:

1

(came on July 22)

Downsides:

Still wakes up once a night

This little boy is the easiest, sweetest, cutest, smiliest baby and we just love him and can't imagine our family without him. He makes us so happy and complete. 

Happy 78th Birthday Krispie Kreme

July 18, Krispie Kreme celebrated their 78th Birthday! Each year they hold a celebration in Winston Salem to commemorate this event since Krispie Kreme is headquartered, and was started, here.

We were a little late heading out to the birthday party, so we didn't get to participate in all of the fun activities - but we still had lots of fun eating our fair share of free donuts.

One specific station let you hand dip your own donut and then cover it in sprinkles. Lily picked up the donut and threw it in the chocolate dipping sauce, she didn't quite grasp the concept of dipping her donut. Luckily we had some great volunteer workers there who helped retrieve the donut and helped show Lily how to cover her donut in sprinkles.

Michal was in heaven because I let him eat my donut for me. He couldn't have been happier about that situation!

Lily and I checked out all the booths while Daddy stood in line for Lily to spin the wheel. 

She won a free magnet and a free chapstick. He was such a good Daddy to stand in line for her because it made her so happy to spin the wheel!

Besides a dozen bounce houses, face-painting, photo-booths, free drinks, and lots more lines of free things to do, Krispie Kreme had lots of vintage cars parked all over.

This particular car they let Lily inside to drive! She was more interested in honking the old squeaky horn than she was smiling for the camera! And in fact, this car was the actual car that the founder of Krispie Kreme drove.

Each year we have lived here we have celebrated Krispie Kreme's Birthday and we can't wait until next Summer to celebrate with them again!

People's Day

July 17, 2015

People's Day

DHG (Dixon Hughes Goodman) is where Michal works and during the summer they have a company party titled "People's Day." On this day the company rents out many venues at Tanglewood Park and it allows for employees to bring their families and mingle with their co-workers (and their families) for a day filled with fun activities.

Michal had to work in the morning so we went in the afternoon for their little social, and then headed home for naps.  After naps we headed on back to go swimming at the Pool inside Tanglewood Park. Lily was so happy to be in her swimming suit wading through the water. When we headed to the lazy river and jumped on tubes, Lily was over it after about 90 seconds. She kept saying, "Get off. Get water." 

We did get out, and we headed over to join Michal's coworkers at the pavilion close by. But on the way we had to make a slight detour to visit the train.

The highlight of the night was watching Andrew be mischievous and try to stick his head in the ice cold water. Soon, he had a little sidekick who was trying to imitate and copy his actions. I don't think that she was expecting the water to be as cold as it was, she just wanted to be like Andrew. The whole way home she kept saying, "Andrew again. Andrew again."

It was good to get together and socialize with Michal's coworkers in a very relaxed setting. It seemed very chill and a good way to get to know people better. I like little outings like this... in fact, I like any outing where Michal gets time off to spend with me and the kids!

Making Cookies

On July 16, I thought it would be fun for Lily to make some cookies. But I thought it would be more fun for her to make them with a friend. So, we invited over her newest friend: Asher.

I debated which cookies to make and went back and forth about making chocolate chip cookies or snickerdoodle/sugar cookies. I knew the latter would involve a greater mess and more clean-up, but also the kids would have so much fun decorating. On the other hand if I made chocolate chip cookies they would just sit and watch me mix the ingredients. That would have defeated the whole purpose of making cookies in the first place. So mess snickerdoodles it was!

I let each of the kids pick out which sprinkles they wanted to put on top of their cookies and let them do the decorating skills. While Asher rolled his around the colored sprinkles like a boss, Lily delicately placed each sprinkle on her cookie one by one. When the cookies came out of the oven, they could have put a Minimalist or Abstract Expressionist artist (depending on which cookie you select) to shame!

When it came time to eat the cookie these two were as quiet as could be and definitely indulged in their hard work. I'm pretty sure Lily had four cookies and wanted more.

I can't wait until we can get together with Asher to make cookies again! Next time we'll pull out cookie cutters!