Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens

Since it's "only" supposed to be in the 90's today, the law firm (as my husband calls us....Erin and Erin....get it?) decided to take the kiddos to the Children's Garden at Lewis Ginter. We'll save story time for a hot or rainy day! They were super excited to get out and run till they couldn't run anymore.

Only in a mother's dream would this happen in real life:
They came across these hula hoops. It was funny watching them try to figure it out....it was freaking hilarious watching us try to show them :)


As if we don't have tons of sidewalk chalk at home...guess its more fun some place new.
Then we stumbled on the water play area. It sure did look cool:
Till the water came on:
That's ok, Hannah liked it!
They had to say bye bye to the water:
Then we climbed up the great big tree house (and by climb, I mean walked up the ramp):
They liked getting to sit up high and see everything down below:
Our little monkeys in their tree house:
I can NEVER get them to look at me at the same time!
And back to the water. Vince seemed more interested this time around....a little:


Soon we found the giant sand box with dinosaurs!
And he found the broom.....again.
And this is why we LOVE Hannah. You can put the girl in the cutest flowery dress and at the end of the day, she would so much rather sit in the sand.....
and play with dinosaurs.
Lastly, before our children turned into Mr. and Mrs. Hyde (thus quickly ending the trip), they played house.
Once again, I failed to get them both looking at me at the same time. Maybe another day!

Sheriff Woody

As promised, here's pics of Vince as Sheriff Woody (minus the cowboy hat). I have a feeling that we might be headed to the grocery store in this get up after he wakes up from his nap. Oh well, some battles just aren't worth fighting and this might be one of them.

Space Ranger

So if you haven't noticed, we're a little obsessed with Toy Story. Which is why Tony and I were excited to find a Disney store (and a Lego store....but that's another story in itself) while we were out shopping today. We got him Buzz and Woody pajamas, a Buzz t-shirt, and a Buzz backpack. He loved them! He was pretty tired and grumpy tonight so he wasn't at all interested in taking pictures but I bribed him with a paci. At least you get the idea. Up next, pics in the Woody pajamas :)

Potty Power

Vince surprised me (and himself) this morning when he went pee pee on the potty! I wasn't even trying to enforce that today! I took his diaper off to get him ready for school and he quickly went over to his potty, sat down, and starting peeing just a few seconds later! Unbelievable! I showered him with praise....as he was showering the carpet (even though he was sitting down, he missed a little). After stickering him up with "I did it" stickers, we called both grandparents to brag. I really didn't want to go to work today and lose all the training opportunities but we had to hit the road. I was, however, beaming with pride :)

Operation Potty Train Has Commenced

I've purposely been putting off the whole potty training thing until after the beach trip so now I have no excuse! I've spent this week arming ourselves with a few necessities:

Potty - check

Go Diego Go Underwear - check

Dora's Potty Book - check

Potty Training Boys (for me) - check

My Potty Reward Stickers - check

Potty Power DVD (as recommended by my friends at Three Little Monkeys Blog) - check

We've had the potty for a few weeks and its just been chilling up in Vince's bedroom till we were ready. He's sat on it both dressed and undressed a handful of times to check it out but never for more than a few seconds. I've mentioned that he was gonna start going on the potty and we've read our books together but he surprised the crap out of me (pardon the pun) when I went to get him after his nap today. I walked in the room and he said, "mommy diaper off poo-poo potty." Of course I ripped that diaper off and dragged the potty out. He sat and read and sat some more. We read 5 books while he sat there. He didn't pee or poop but I was so proud of him for just sitting there! Way to go Vince! Maybe this potty training thing won't be too bad :)

Hannah, dap!

So as you can see, I spent nap time today going through my phone finding videos...the quality isn't great but you get the idea. Here's the video of Vince trying to teach Hannah how to dap. She is so uninterested, she resorts to covering her ears to ignore him! Love it!

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Here's a clip of Vince singing......he probably shouldn't quit his day job though :)

Thursday Story Time!

Here's my crazy dancing fool shaking his sillies out at the library with Hannah.

Pool Party

Friday everybody decided to hit up our pool instead of the beach. It was great! We had so much fun with everyone! The kids mostly played with their toys:




While the big boys played ball:


Please don't pay attention to the crazy man with a monkey on his head in the background. Yes, it was that kind of party.

And the big girls drank (it's ok to start drinking wine at 11am (out of a solo cup), right?). Once the kids went down for their naps, we had some quality girl time.
Before I knew it, the kids were awake and ready to be entertained. So out came the foam stickers:

And popsicles:
I hope we spend tomorrow in the pool as well. The beach is just so sandy....haha, wonder where my child gets his dislike of the beach.

See, white boys CAN jump!

Here's proof :

All about the butt

You'll understand the title at the end, I promise! Thursday was absolutely beautiful! Too bad my child didn't want anything to do with the beach or pool that day :( We tried the beach for oh, 15 minutes before he was throwing a fit. The pool was more like 5 minutes. He was pretty content hanging out on the back deck though so we did a lot of that. Hannah on the other hand is a beach baby (and she was in a great mood....YAY!)



This is as close as we ever got to the water....ever.
After his nap, I tried taking Vince to the Coach store with me but after he practically felt up the sales lady (trying to grab her name tag) and walked around with 2-3 wristlets on each arm, I decided to make a mad dash out of there! Here he's actually posing with the wristlet and cosmetic bag that I bought (wallet not pictured). Yeah that's right, no real handbag for me this year. BUT, I did convert Erin K into a Coach believer. She got her first handbag and wallet. My job here is done.

After daddy woke up from his nap, we tried to make a family trip to the lighthouse but didn't realize how far the darn thing was so we headed back to meet up with everyone for dinner. Here's our pre-dinner pose.
We ate at the best BBQ place. It was called High Cotton. I'm not a huge BBQ person but it was delicious! Thanks to an iPhone app for recommending it!
All of us girls had to buy their t-shirts b/c we're "All about the butt" :) I wanted to get Vince one but they didn't have his size but here he is showing off mine!
I can't believe tomorrow is Friday!