December 2011

What a fun Holiday season we had this year. One of the best things about living in South Florida is the Holiday season. For the most part, it's never too cold to go anywhere and between Thanksgiving and Christmas we have the best outdoor events. We had our local town's Winter Festival, Christmas @ Yesteryear Village, The Enchanted Forest @ Hoffmans Chocolates plus Christams parades in almost all of the bigger towns.

This year we had a vistor from Thanksgiving until Christmas eve. Joey the Elf on the Shelf has joined our family. Joey arrived on our front door step a couple of days after Thanksgiving to watch over Cody and report back to Santa every night, then returns to our house and hides every morning before Cody woke up. We had alot of fun with this. Every morning Cody would get very excited to go find where Joey was hiding. It was super cute to watch him.... The one thing... nobody can touch the elf or he will lose his magic!

Christmas was so much fun this year with a 2 1/2 year old. He is really starting to understand what it all means and loved ALL the Christmas cartoons and carols. He is still singing Jingle Bells today. I tried to take every moment and memory in as I know in just a few short years my little boys will begin to turn a bigger boy and all the stories will be just a bit different.

Fall 2011

In September we took a road trip with the in-laws up to Ohio to
visit Craigs family. Cody had never met his only living great grand parent and we thought it was very important for Grampa Plaster to meet our little Monkey. We were also able to spend a few days with Craigs brother and family. It was a short trip for us but we has such a nice time. We saw Curtiss play in his last football game of the season, Miss Avery play in her Basketball game, visited the BEST pumpkin patch I had ever seen and a fun Fall Fair. We had a blast! but agreed, next tme we need more than 4 days to visit everybody.

October brought lots of fun Spooky outings. We have a really nice farmers market called Bedners (strawberry picking place)that has all sorts of outside events for all the different seasons. For October the had hayrides, a corn maze and a pick your own pumpkin patch.
We also went to The Spooky time festival at the South Florida Fairgrounds. They have the older kid section that has all the scary rides, haunted houses and scary people walking around. We of course went to the little tyke section that has trick or treating, bouncy houses and a few carnival rides.
Now you are probably wondering where our Halloween pictures are.... Well there are none. I made the mistake of not letting Cody wear his costume around the house before the actual day. Lets just say Cody was not having a good night, actually had a complete melt down and refused to put on his super cute Pirate costume... didn't even want to hold the sword or his candy basket. Instead of causing a HUGE scene at the in-laws we decided to skip Halloween this year. Note to self... next year, wear the costume for a couple of weeks prior to the holiday!

Late Summer 2011

Can't believe the last 5 months have passed so fast and apparently I have forgotten to update the blog. Alot of things have happened in those five months. Lets see... Where to start .. Here a bit from late summer.

In August we went to Seaworld for the first time for Craigs birthday. Cody absolutely loved it. We road on the kiddie rides and there was a big splash park and lots of games, but Cody's favorite was the Elmo and Shamu shows. He was in awe... just kept staring and pointing especially Shamu... He kept calling them "Willie" this because one of hos favorite movies is Free Willie. We had a great time amd agreed Seaworld was better suited for his age than Disney. Early next year we will be tackling Disney.....

Cody and I also went home to Mass in August for 10 days. We had such a nice time time. Because we were home for so long we were able to spend a good amount of time with all our friends and family. Cody was so good and cute with all the kids and his older cousins just ate him up, even grampa Elliot came up to see us. It was so nice to him with his cousins and all our friends kids. Really made me miss home....

We also had our pictures done with the girls and all the kids. We did this a couple of years ago when Cody was 6 months and since then of course the kids have grown so much as well as we had an addition of Baby Lucas to the mix. They came out beautiful. We were all very pleased with the outcome.

July 2011

Wow time fly's. Can't believe its already August and more than half of the year has already passed us by. We were pretty busy in July. We had a bunch of fun cookouts but the most fun was Family from Ohio was in town most of the month.

Craigs brother Travis and his family came in for about 10 days at the beginining of July, then the kids stayed for the remainder of the month. My in-laws take the kids for about 3 weeks every summer, its great for them to be able to spend the time with them and us as well. We made a point to see them at least a couple of times every week and Cody was just thrilled to have someone to play with all the time, both Avery and Curtiss are great with him.


We went to the beach a few times, the pool, lots of trips to the ice cream shop and a cool trip the alligator preserve out in Wellington. The kids were so excited to see a 10 foot alligator named Bob. We were very sad to see them go, but we have a trip planned for late September to ohio, so more fun times to come. Next on the agenda is Sea World for Craigs birthday. Pictures to follow soon.

Fun with Family & Friends ~ June 2011

Cody had a few fun playdates in the month of June. In the past few months we have become quite close with neighbors from our development. They have a 5 yr old daughter Cody absolutely loves and are expecting a son in August. We decided to go to Lion Country Safari a few weeks ago since we have 1/2 price tickets. We only stayed a few hours since it was so warm but the kids had tons of fun.... They fed the Giraffe's, played in the water area, rode some kiddie rides and of course lunch and ice cream. Despite the heat we all have a good time and Cody was fast asleep before we even got out of the park

We also had a great couple of visits with The Pikes and Kellen. Cody and Kellen are becoming fast BFF's. They swim and play and watch shows together. It's nice that they are now close in play age. They are only 10 months apart, but up until just recently, they didn't really play so well together. Now is a totally different story. It's really nice for us parents....

Grandpa Time........

My Dad usually tries to come down for Cody's birthday every year, but this year he had just had Knee/Back surgery and wasn't able to attend. Lucky us he came for my birthday!. We had a really nice weekend hanging by their hotel pool with Cody, going to see the rescued turtles (no pictures :() and dinner down town @ City place. Cody was very excited to hang out with Grandpa Elliot, while Dad and Chris were super excited to see how big and active Cody has become. It was a super fun weekend for all

Cody's 2nd Birthday Weekend

We were super excited again this year for Cody's birthday because my fantastic friends came for a visit and planned it around Cody's Birthday and the 2nd annual Bark & Bowl. The Bark & Bowl is a fund raiser for Canine Cancer research. Our friends the Pikes lost both there Golden Retrievers to cancer 2 years ago (within 3 months of each other) and has made this cause their life's passion and we help out as much as possible.

~Our first day with the girls was spent at the beach, then the pool and finally The Bark & Bowl. Cody was so excited to have "His Girls" here with him. All weekend he was saying... girls, girls, friends, friends. It was adorable to watch. My Mom helped us out with the kids so we could enjoy the night out with the adults.

Super Water Slide

~The next day was his party. I had rented a blow up water slide for the kids. They just loved it. Up and down the went for at least an hour at a time and someone had to stay at the top to help Cody up (he was a bit little for the last 2 steps) So Mama to the rescue... A great day it was and a good time had by all of us

~Party Pictures~

~The girls last day here was spent lounging by the pool and visiting. I am truely blessed to have the most amazing friends in our lives. No matter where our lives lead us we always make time to be there for one another and I have no fear that Cody will be as close with them as I am....

Mothers Day 20011

This year for Mothers Day we were invited to join Ambers family for Brunch at their Country Club. Mom met us at our house where we surprised her with the Rythmn clock she has been wanting since she moved here. She was beyond excited... Then off to Brunch we went. The Fountains CC puts on a beautiful Mother Day Brunch. The food was fabulous and the company was even better

On the way home we stopped @ Lowe's and purchased all the flowers for the front of our house. Mom and I spent the remaining part of the afternoon planting out front. I was a really nice relaxing day spent with my Mom...