Everyone Loves the Mountains!

After our week at the beach, the kids and I were eager to come home and see Daddy again.  We took two days at home to get the house ready to put on the market, then we packed the kids up again and drove off for a week visiting family in Knoxville.  Really the point of the trip was for Brian and me to become Tennessee residents (drivers licenses) and get the cars titled in Tennessee.  Thankfully we were able to get that all done on Monday, which left us the rest of the week to visit with family and have fun in Knoxville.

One of the activities we really wanted to do with the kids was take them back to play in the mountains.  Our one and only destination with kids (so far) has been Metcalf Bottoms Picnic Area.  And since the week we were in Knoxville visiting Brian's parents, my parents also happened to be in town and staying with my grandparents, I had great visions of a road trip to the mountains with everyone.  However, due to schedules and appointments and then a terrible weather forecast, I thought we might end up missing the mountains all together this year.  But thankfully the weather ended up cooperating BEAUTIFULLY and we got to visit the mountains with both sets of grandparents and the great-grandparents!!  In fact, instead of heavy thunderstorms, we actually had SUNSHINE during our stay in the mountains!  AND we were able to get the same picnic spot that we've been to for three years in a row! 

Granddaddy spent time working on his carvings, of course!

Also as expected, Grandmother brought a book to keep her company.

Sarah LOVED the stream and was absolutely NOT content to stay in the shallows.

Daddy trying to splash the girls by throwing rocks near us.

Sarah and her two favorite people!

Sarah slipped and fell in the water, soaking her completely, but she barely seemed to notice because she was having so much fun!

Rock towers are a McDonald/Haubenreich family tradition that Brian and Nathan have embraced.

Here begins our traditional pictures.  Since this post is already picture-heavy, go here to see previous year's photos.

We are in the middle of packing chaos.  We start loading the truck tomorrow (Saturday) morning.  I will not be posting again for at least a week while we get settled in Boston.  Pray for us that all goes smoothly and safely!

Myrtle Beach 2013, Part 2

Of course while we were at the beach I wanted to get some good family pictures. We were mostly successful - I shot about a gabillion pictures (or 200ish) and decided that 10 were blog-worthy.  Unfortunately I didn't get the one shot that I really wanted - a great sibling picture. Man, those are hard to come by these days with my two independent-minded children!

We started out cheerful!

Then we were able to get the best sibling picture of the morning.

But this was our money shot right here!  What a great time these kiddos had with their Paw-paw and Gran/Mimi at the beach!

Like I've been saying, always happy in the arms of her grandmother!

So here's a fun little story.  Three days before we left for the beach, Sarah started crying in the other room and hobbled in to me with a bloody toe.  (I usually don't respond to a crying child in the other room unless its an obviously painful cry or it lasts at least 30 seconds, because, you know, there are kids crying all day long in this house and occasionally I'm trying to get something done!)  Unfortunately, she had somehow stubbed her toe and knocked the top of the skin off!  I calmed her down and bandaged her up, but my first attempt didn't stay on for more then 12 hours.  Thankfully, the next day Brian was home and did a better job cleaning the wound and bandaging her toe.  But we were pretty worried about how she would react to the sand that would inevitably get into her bandage during the beach trip. 

And the verdict?  She didn't fuss about her poor toe even one time.  However, whenever she wanted to remind someone about her injury, we'd have this conversation:
Sarah: "Boo-boo!"
Mommy: "You have a boo-boo on your toe?"
Sarah: "Daddy!"
And I could only guess that she was reminding me that Daddy was the one to fix her toe.   Daddy to the rescue!

Towards the end of our little photo shoot I was pretty sure I hadn't gotten a great picture of the kids together.  So I tried one more time.  "Kids, can you hold hands?  Can you smile for Mommy?  Can you look at Mommy?  Anybody listening?"  Yeah, Nathan making sad faces and Sarah completely ignoring me - that pretty much sums it up what I have to deal with around here!

But we were able to end strong with some Mommy and kiddo pictures! I LOVE this one of me and Sarah!

Then an ok one with Nathan...

... and the one with both kiddos wasn't even blog worthy.  Too bad!

There's one more thing that I need to write about - the window hide-away in the kids' bedroom.  By the way, the kids slept in the same room for 5 nights at the beach and then again for 5(?) nights the next week at Nana and Grand Dad's house.  I considered it a trial run for Boston sleeping arrangements.  Verdict?  It went surprisingly well!  The two problems were that they would wake each other up earlier then usual in the mornings and Nathan wouldn't go to sleep during naptime (which we solved after the first day by separating them at naps).   The first morning Gran just got them up when they woke around 6am (we hadn't discussed the plan and she and Pawpaw were letting me sleep in).  The next morning I heard them around 6:30, but then they got quiet again, and I assumed that one of the granparents had gotten them up.  Well, come to find out, Nathan decided he would get Sarah out of her pack-n-play by climbing up on the double bed next to it and then (couldn't get a clear answer from him on this one) he either pulled her out of the pack-n-play or he got in and boosted her up onto the bed.  Then they went and sat inside the curtain in their hide-away and looked out their window for over half an hour until Nathan's alarm clock changed color.  I was pretty surprised with their ingenuity and also that they were so entertained by looking out the window that we didn't hear a peep from them for so long!

Later in the week, all of a sudden none of us were quite sure where Nathan was (spoiler alert: in his window hideaway).  I thought I had seen him go out onto the balcony, but he wasn't there.  All the adults started calling his name and looking for him, and he wasn't anywhere to be found in the condo.  The door to the hallway was way super heavy, so we knew he couldn't have gotten out by himself.  Finally I had to gather up my courage and take a look over the balcony to see if he had fallen over our 14th floor railing.  With my heart in my throat I saw... nothing.  Then I had to look over the end of the balcony which overhung the other pool, and thanks be to God that I didn't see anything there either.  I mean, I seriously thought in my head "Please don't make me have to call Brian and tell him that his son fell over the railing at the beach and is dead."'  Finally, FINALLY he popped out from behind the curtains in his room (where we hadn't thought to look) and I don't think I've ever been so relieved in my life!  So, yeah, that kid loved his secret place and being able to watch out the window.

So other then that slightly traumatic event, the kids and I had a great time at the beach with Gran and Pawpaw!

Myrtle Beach 2013, Part 1

The kids and I met Pawpaw and Gran at Myrtle Beach three weeks ago for one last ocean vacation together before we all moved this summer. We stayed four nights, which was just about perfect!

One of Sarah's favorite activities, of course, was to hang out with Gran (physically touching her as much as possible).  Sarah is totally a mama's girl... until either grandmother is around, then I become a distant second in preference!

Most days, Nathan wasn't that excited to leave our suite and go down to the beach - he would rather stay inside or go to the pool.  Because, you know, the beach is so boring...

...with nothing fun to do at all...

...definitely nothing exciting enough for a three and a half year old boy to enjoy...

...just boring, really!

Just kidding, of course!  But it was always funny for him to be reluctant to come down to the beach, then to see him have so much fun in the water and sand. 

This particular project involved scooping sand and water from higher on the beach, then running to deposit it in the shallows.

Sarah didn't spend all her time in Gran's lap.  In fact on the first afternoon she was more excited then Nathan about the ocean and was braving the waves first!

Also on the first afternoon, Pawpaw and Nathan were refilling a large hole that someone else had dug, and Pawpaw unearthed some new-for-us beach toys!  Nathan favorite was this purple boat, which was put straight to work in both the sand and water.

But Nathan's FAVORITE activity of the week was floating around in the lazy river, and the rest of us were pretty happy to join Nathan in the fun.

,

Yes, there is some photographic evidence that I was there too!

Nathan's Nemo fish was a constant companion in the hotel room as well as on the beach and in the pool.  Though he did try and swim away once in the lazy river, amazingly he didn't get lost that week!

This and That (May Edition)

Here are a few random pictures from May to share, just because...
 
Nathan and I routinely  have differing opinions about his outfit choices.  Most of the time I like to let him just wear what he picks out, because I WANT him to pick out and put his clothes on by himself (much easier in the mornings for Mama).  But sometimes I just cringe.  Usually when he wants to wear his church shoes with his play clothes and especially when he picks out ridiculous socks to complete the outfit.  Thankfully after this picture, I remembered to confiscate his long white socks so he won't have the chance to repeat this fashion faux pas.  I'll return them when the Boston winter is upon us!

Nathan and Sarah decided that the Pilot needed a little work done one afternoon!

Our favorite cart at Harris Teeter is the red racecar cart.  There are two blue and one red racecar carts, and always before getting to the store Nathan discusses with me which cart he wants and tells me "we'll see" if the red one is there for us to use (that's my typical caveat when we discuss plans, so that he is reminded that things don't always go like he envisions).  Lately he likes to make sure he's sitting on the right side of the cart (not sure where that came from).  The cart discussion also happens at any store with special kids carts: Target, Walmart, Lowes, etc.

Unfortunately he didn't want to cooperate with picture taking in his most favorite of carts.

Nathan and Sarah both love to play with cars and a favorite place for Nathan to line them up is on the oven handle.  This particular morning the kids ran back and forth and back and forth between the kitchen and Nathan's room, carrying one or two cars back to the kitchen at a time.  Sarah puts her cars on "her" shelf in the pantry, while Nathan carefully selects and lines up his cars on the handle.  Sarah usually generously lets him pick cars from her stash to complete his line, but inevitably he gets to the last car and there's only about half a car's length space left on the handle.  What's a guy to do?!

A Rainy May Day

May was billed to my (by Brian) as an "easy" month.  Unfortunately, it didn't quite fit my definition of "easy".  We started off the month with a vacation week for Brian and the apartment-hunting trip to Boston.  While it was technically our first vacation together since well before Sarah was born, and we did have some lazy mornings to sleep in and got to go to dinner without wrangling children and highchairs and so on, it was a busy and slightly stressful trip.  And not quite as restful as I had imagined.  Then we came back to a pretty easy week for Brian, followed by a killer Friday-Sunday call weekend.  The following week Brian made it home for most dinners, but with the early mornings he was pretty beat in the evenings.  So the whole family was looking forward to a whole weekend off for Daddy.  Unfortunately Brian was sick sick that weekend with a terrible headache (migraine?) that cause him to sleep practically the whole weekend away.

On Saturday afternoon I started wallowing in self-pity, since the break (for me) and family time I was hoping to have that weekend had disappeared before my eyes.  But thankfully I thought to suggest a walk in the rain to the kids (it was sprinkling slightly).  We all got on our rain gear and headed down the street.  Nathan requested a "big puddle" to splash in, remembering months ago when we splashed in our rain-boots in a neighbor's driveway.  Unfortunately we made it to the end of the street without finding a decent sized puddle.  Then, across the street, I spied a GREAT puddle!  We splashed for a while then Nathan wanted to go back home and get some cars to wash in the puddle.

We strolled back home (where Nathan also discarded his rain gear since it had stopped sprinkling by that point) and both kids found a few cars to take back to the puddle with us.  I grabbed my camera, of course!  Washing cars was fun for a while, but soon gave way to crazy jumps...

...big splashes...

...and purposefully rolling in the water.

Nathan got WET, but was loving it!

Sarah decided she needed a quick break (she loves to mimic how Nathan goes potty on trees outside, and I finally had my camera to capture her in action!).

And I got one of my favorite shots of Nathan in a long time!

I'm so thankful that the kids and I ended up having a fun and memorable afternoon activity!  It was also a great reminder to me that if if we're having a rough day, just a little bit of extra effort on my part can really turn the day around!  The kids and I stayed and played at the puddle and watched passing cars until well past dinnertime, until a sudden meltdown from a tired, wet and hungry child forced us to quickly retreat home where we found Brian just getting up from his nap!