Friends in CLT

We had our friends from Raleigh come visit us one weekend in the spring 2016. It is always so fun to have the Wrights in town. We love getting to spend time with them. For this trip, both Julia and I were pregnant - yay! All our kids are within 6 months apart of each other. It's so much fun having friends with kids the same ages. It makes things so much fun when we get together since every kid has a buddy their age to play with. We played a lot at our house and also took our friends to Lazy 5 Ranch (2 pregnant women and 4 kids under 5 was an adventure for sure)!

This picture makes me laugh because L brought her monkey costume down to CLT and she would not take it off. It was so funny! Love that little girl and her personality! 

I'm just noticing Amelia and V's matching GAP sweatshirts. Cutest kids! 

My kids are always the happiest when friends/family come visit. 

Matching pregnant bellies - our third babies ended up being born exactly two months apart. Eleanor in June 2016 and O in August 2016.

Raleigh NYE

We drove up to Raleigh for New Years Eve. We went to the annual Harris NYE party (see here for last year). It was so fun to see so many of our old friends and catch up with everyone. We also stayed in a hotel this time around and had a fun swim day with our friends. We also went to the Durham Life and Science Museum before we headed home (it's our favorite museum). We love our Raleigh friends and we are always so happy to go back to visit!

Sleeping beauty. She tried to stay up for the NYE countdown, but didn't quite make it. 

These two

Bath buddies! I'm going to cry the day they have to stop taking baths together.

Spring things (part 1)

We are always up to something and this spring proved to be quite an adventure! I'll let the pictures do the talking...


Dan Nicholas Park:
This place is super fun! It was our first time there. About 45 mins from us. We met up with my friends (Marisha and Megan) and their kids. It rained a little bit, but it was still a nice day to get out of the house and play with friends.

Pool Days at Ray's:
We went to preschool days at Ray's Splash Planet. It's when admission is half off. It's less than 5 minutes from our house, so it was the perfect place to go in the mornings to swim. These kiddos sure love the water!

Spartan Race: 

Logan signed up to run a race with his cousin, Donnarae, and her husband (Jon) but they ended up moving away from Charlotte a few weeks before race day. Logan was left to run the race with Donnarae and Jon's friends who were super enthusiastic and encouraging along the way. Oh, and yes, they got super muddy. So proud of Logan. He is such a go-getter and loves to be active. 

Playing in the city:
With the city as our front yard (basically), we got out and played a lot this spring. I sure love the Charlotte skyline and the adventures of roaming our city.

                                                  

Farm Animal Days (in Raleigh, NC): 

Even though we moved to Charlotte, there was no way we could miss our beloved Farm Animal Days. This was our 4th year going! It's become a tradition. We were only in town for 2 days, but we got to visit with some of our favorite friends. We sure love our Raleigh people and miss them so much. 

NYE in Raleigh

Lucky us we got invited back to the annual Harris NYE party. We have been going since it started in 2011. The Harris family knows how to throw a party. This year there was a magic show and pinata for the kids, annual boys vs. girls game, chocolate tasting, yummy food/drinks, and a full house! We partied hard. The kids did pretty well staying up so late too -- thank goodness!  It was so fun to see many of our Raleigh friends and catch up.

Stole this picture from my friend, Christy, because I didn't take any pictures at all of the party. 

This is when the kids did the pinata. 

We also had the opportunity to stay with the Wrights and the Williams came down from D.C. too. It was a reunion with some of the best of friends! 6 adults, 6 kids staying in a two bedroom townhouse. Fun times! The only downside was the epidemic going on throughout the house. Seriously. I'm pretty sure at least one person from each family got sick. We ended up leaving early just because everyone was not feeling well. We made a quick stop to Downtown Raleigh where we went to the Museum of Natural Science. Hudson missed this place so much! I'm glad we were able to go for an hour before heading back home. Can't wait to go visit Raleigh and friends again!

 

All the besties together watching Frozen. Duh!

 (just missing Olivia -- I think she was napping).

These two are so stinkin' cute!

At the museum. 

We wore the kids out long enough for them to crash in the car ride home -- success!

Beginning of December

Happy 2015, but wait for it -- I'm still blogging about 2014. Ha! Just the month of December though.

So here's what we did beginning of December --


1. Decorated for Christmas -- complete with our very first real Christmas tree (new tradition). The kids loved going to pick out a tree. It smells amazing in our house (yep, we still have the tree up). We put lights up outside and decorated the tree for a family night activity.

Kids being helpful while picking out the tree

Notice how there are no lights and ornaments on the bottom? Kid-proofed it! 

Christmas lights outside

2. Singing Bears at Bank of America -- we actually did this a few times throughout the month. The kids loved it so much! 

3. Attended Logan's work party. His company does an annual Christmas party, and I guess it's a big deal every year. We got dressed up, had a sitter (from our babysitting co-op) and were party animals for a night. It was "rock n' roll" themed so the venue was at a popular concert venue in Uptown. There was even a live band (which unfortunately we missed most of it because we had to get the kids). Super fun night though getting to party and meet some of Logan's co-workers! 

3. Celebrated Logan's 28th Birthday (friends were in town too -- more about that below). 

Leilani and Hudson. These two helped make the cake.

Hudson decorated the cake. 

I think everyone should hire him as cake decorator. ;) 

I said, "make a dinosaur face" and this is what I got. Amelia's face is the best, in my opinion. 

4. Our friends, the Wrights, came to visit. It was so fun having them in town, even though we didn't do much besides stay in and play (somehow one of our kids usually ends up getting sick during these visits -- better luck next time?) 

Vito and Amelia watching the singing bears. 

Cuties 

Video: Hudson and Leilani doing what they do best -- wrestling