Q&A #94

Say, are you going to NDSC in a few weeks? Wanted to see if there was a get-together of some fellow bloggers that I could sneak in on!!
Nope, I wish!!! We are really hoping to go next year though! It's just too far away this year. Have a great time!

Im glad that you got them LLBean bookbags. I promise you will not be disappointed in them. What did they get? Colors?
Kassidy chose this one:

and Kameron chose this one:


Which ll bean packs did you get?? I want to order some for my big kids (5th and 9th grades) and I was wondering about the sizes. My 9th grader needs one big enough to hold a zipper binder....
I'm not sure yet about the sizes, they're not here yet, but the one that Kassidy got is advertised as a "teen" backpack so I would assume it's big enough to hold lots of binders and books. I will let you know when ours come in.

And...On the beach thing!! We live in South Carolina and always go to Myrtle Beach. Have you guys been there?
We haven't, but I've heard it's beautiful there!!!

Those are really great pictures. How did you do the shadowed borders? I love that.
It's called Vignette and I used picnik.com.

I just love your collage. She is a little actress isn't she? LOL
LOL THAT she is!

i love this collage, please remind me where you did it at
This too was done at picnik.com. :)

Oh my gosh I meant Sesame Place not Hershey Park. Guess I had chocolate on my mind LOL! But they're in the uh, same state... right... yeah that's it.
LOL! Too funny! Well to answer your original question, Sesame Place is expensive, but they do a program called Hero Salute for Military Families so we got 4 tickets for free and the others at a discount. :)

Is Kassidy's hair in a french braid? Kinda looks like it...how's that going?
It is. No thanks to me. LOL My friend Stephanie did that. I've tried and tried and I just can't make it work!!! *sigh* I'm not giving up though... much to Kassidy's dismay. My brain gets it, my fingers just won't cooperate! LOL

Your poor kids. They never get to do anything fun.
I know, right?! They're so deprived.

Oh, and I'm right there with you on the bug thing. I went to have a shower one night and there was a spider who's body looked the size of a giant grape (but ugly black spider colourer)and its hairy legs were about 3 cm long. I SCREAMED (thankfully it didn't wake Eden) and threw an encyclopaedia on it. William had to come take care of it before I'd take a shower (I stood trembling in our room waiting whilst he rolled his eyes but went to take care of it) and then I made him throw the book away. Not a problem. We don't need to ever know anything that starts with the letter A, I'm sure of it. I mean, honestly, you'd have done the same no?
Oh absolutely. LOL

A Pampered Chef Giveaway!!!

Lora Leigh is having a Pampered Chef Giveaway for her 100th post!!! Hop on over and check it out! Be sure to enter for a chance to win! :)

A sneak peek

There's a sneak peek of Kennedy and Keeghan's birthday portraits yes I know, their birthdays were in May, the pictures were done the beginning of June and you're just now seeing them in July! on our photographer's blog. Enjoy! :)

Q&A #93

I have been a lurker for awhile (that sounds creepy), but finally had to give in after seeing all these vacation pictures....I am dying to know what kind of camera you use! Every single last one of your pictures look so professional - then I flip over to mine and they look...haha we'll leave it at that! lol Anyway, please do share :) And then please come back to Lancaster County (we live minutes away from Dutch Wonderland!) and do a photoshoot with my boy haha
LOL I have a Canon Rebel XTi (Digital) camera. I love my camera! Then I use picnik.com to crop and change certain ones to black and white or if I want to play with the coloring like on these ones:

I also use that site to do the collages and frames and stuff. Most of the features are free, but some you have to pay for... it's $25 a year... totally worth it if you take a lot of pictures... not that I do. *ahem*. I'll be back in PA in January! :)

Looks like a good time had by all! Have never made it to Hershey Park but one of these days, it's not too far. Is it expensive? I've heard that it is but I might be thinking of somewhere else.
We have actually never been to Hershey Park either. We went to Hershey World last year, but not Hershey Park. I've heard it's more for older kids so maybe in a few years when all the kids will enjoy it... assuming we're still going to Philly for check ups every year!

you are busy. School already, wow that vacation went fast?!
I know, right?! *sniff* I'm sad that the kids are going back to school already!

Well I took a big investment and bought LLBean book bags for my kids. My daughter is going into the 8th grade and shes had same bookbag. I got it in the 3rd grade, so 3-7th and still going strong. My other daughter has had her since 4K and shes going in to the 4th grade. They have a lifetime warrenty on these and they have there names on them.
You know, after reading through the backpack post from last year, I remembered how many people recommended it then too and decided to do the same thing. I let Kass and Kam pick them out this morning... except I just did their initials because then if they DO get tired of them or if they really do outlast their school years I can always pass them onto Kennedy and Keeghan! haha Kennedy still has her Groovy Girl backpack that she's using for preschool that's in good shape so she's all set :).

I'm buying school supplies fro pre-K, K(x2), 2nd and 5th grade....and I am NOT old. So, neither are you!!!!
OK sounds good to me! LOL

I'm confused (and who is really surprised). :) Do you have to be Canadian to play duck duck goose?
Ohhhh Leslie! HOW did you miss the whole Duck/Canadian Geese saga?! LOL Read here and here. Then you won't be confused! LOL

And according to Jen, there's no such thing as a Canadian Goose. hehe
The Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) is a wild goose belonging to the genus Branta, which is native to Arctic and temperate regions of North America, having a black head and neck, white patches on the face, and a brownish-gray body. It is quite often called the Canadian Goose, but that name is not strictly correct, according to the American Ornithologists' Union.[2]

That is so cute. She is a doll. I need to learn how to do something like that for my kids. That would be a great scrapbooking page. How did you do that? Did you use picnik?
Yep, I used picnik. I cropped each picture to a square, added the vignette to it and then used one of their pre-made collages. SO easy! :)

Just a second...where is one with her beautiful smile?? The one you took of her sitting on a bench while we were on vacation would be a great one...I love her "happy" smile....
She didn't have a "happy smile" when I was shooting that series of photos lol.

Looks like you all had a blast on vacation. When are you coming to FL? LOL I would LOVE if I could get to TN next year.
Hopefully next year, but we'll see... if you come here, that would be even better!!! :)

What a great time. It all looks like so much fun! Hey, we just found out this week that our team is heading back to Memphis this Nov. I was supposed to go last year but Carson had surgery right before. So I'm hoping when we get closer, we can figure out a meeting place.
That would be great! Hopefully Kellsey will be home by then too! :)

Looks like fun. Was Keeghan eating the sand? I haven't taken CJ to the beach yet, but I have the feeling he won't be too keen with the sand. When he falls outside he gets so upset if there's dirt on his hands. I have to wipe his hands off and then help him up because he doesn't want to touch that dirty ground again ;). Can't imagine him picking up handfuls of sand. So next time you are going to have to venture a little further north than New Jersey. To oh I don't know CT ;). Hey, if nothing else Frank could check out Sikorsky for the helicopters ;).
Oh no, he wasn't eating it. It was actually driving him NUTS that it was on his face! LOL It was wiped off right after those pictures. :) I was kind of hoping he would taste the salt water though thinking maybe it would detour him from drinking bath water but he had NO interest in even trying to taste the ocean water. Go figure! Poor Kameron on the other hand drank gallons of the stuff while he was on the boogie board. He just couldn't seem to keep his mouth closed!
As far as our next beach trip goes, if it were up to me, the next time we see an ocean it would be the Pacific! I don't think that's going to happen though! haha

Vacation Pictures - Part 14

Vacation Pictures - Part 13

The beach! On Sunday the 5th we went with my friend Jen and her kids to a beach in New Jersey called Spring Lake. I was a little worried about Keeghan because when we went to National Harbor he HATED the sand so I wasn't sure he was going to handle the beach well at all, but he warmed up eventually and had a good time.

Kassidy LOVED the water and stayed in the waves pretty much the whole time. Kameron went back and forth between the water and building sand castles. Kennedy hung out right at the shoreline and ran from the water, played in the wet sand and made lots of friends! :)

Jen, somehow I got NO pictures of Ryan! I don't know how that happened!

SHARK!!!!
















Jen's daughter Emily


Is there something on my leg?


Here, Kennedy let me help you!













A few more tomorrow :)

Wordless Wednesday - The many faces of Kennedy

Vacation Pictures - Part 12

More pictures from the 4th of July... courtesy of Stephanie! :)

Kids playing


Olivia, Kassidy & Megan


Beautiful Megan


Kennedy doesn't like the loud noises!


Don't you think it's loud Olivia?


Really not liking this!!!


When is it going to STOP?!


Just me.


Sweet little guy :)


Kameron waiting for fireworks. Waiting and waiting and waiting.


Kassidy and Olivia :)

Tomorrow... our day at the beach! :)

Vacation Pictures - Part 11

Here are the first set of pictures from the 4th of July. We spent the day with Stephanie and her family. First we hung out and ate... and ate... and ate. The kids swam. And we ate. LOL It was fun! Then we had the bright idea to go to the city for fireworks, which was a great idea in theory, except that they weren't doing fireworks in the same place that they did last year!

SO we paid too much for parking only to find out we were in the wrong spot, and then the parking guy laughed at us when he got to keep our $25 for 15 minutes of parking. He totally knew why we were there and he knew right away we were in the wrong spot. Jerk. Anyway, we found the RIGHT spot and got all settled in about 8:30. We figured it was perfect timing since it gets dark about 9:00. Then Sheryl Crowe started singing at 9:00. She sang and sang and sang. The kids were getting cranky and tired and she kept singing. We were too far away to really see or enjoy her so she was really starting to irritate me. GRR Around 11:30 they FINALLY started the fireworks! GRRR There were a lot of unhappy, tired kids (and parents) by that point. It was a good display though! Then it took Joe and Stephanie like an hour just to get out of the parking structure they were in! Crazy times in Philly!! I'm glad they were with us though! :)

Here are my pictures from the day/night and then I have some of Steph's that I snagged off facebook to post later! :)

Fun in the water!







Stephanie's daughter Olivia






Clonked out before the fireworks


STILL sleeping!


Kids playing duck duck goose (are they Canadian?)


Sisters :)


Brothers :)


Steph and Megan


Mom and Kass

Watching fireworks... FINALLY!

We interrupt this picture fest...

to get back to real life for a bit! LOL I've caught up to myself! I'm actually almost done! I still have pictures from the 4th of July and from the beach to post but Kennedy has therapy today which means we all need to bathe because we all stink and get dressed which we did NOT do yesterday and actually leave this house and the children all cheered!.

After that we need to go shopping to buy essential things like juice boxes and cereal because apparently the kids are DYING without these and juice out of a bottle and cereal without sugar just simply isn't the same. No one yell at me, I really only buy them Kix, but to them, that's sugar. We also need to get school supplies since school starts in just over TWO WEEKS!!! How can that BE?! WHERE did our Summer go?! I'm not READY! AHHHHH!!!!

So here's my to do list:
Showers and baths all around
Make sure everyone is dressed and they match (not each other, just themselves... you never know with those older two!)
Speech therapy for Kennedy
Lunch
Shopping
School Supplies for Kindergarten, 2nd and 4th grades. How is it possible I'm old enough to do this?!
Ohhhh and Backpacks (I didn't cave last year, remember?)
Juice Boxes
Cereal
Stuff to make spaghetti What do you mean I didn't talk about that up there? Yeah well... I just decided it sounds good, leave me alone!

Then maybe we'll go swimming... maybe not... they'll be all clean and bathed after all! We'll see! Enjoy your day! I'll be back with more pictures later, I'm sure!

Vacation Pictures - Part 10

More of my krew at Sesame Place!

Vacation Pictures - Part 9

On July 3rd we went to Sesame Place and met up with Gary, Marlene & Aleena, & Ecki, Laurie and Kayla.

Kennedy and Keeghan were in Elmo heaven!! We saw the Elmo Live show which was fun and then went on some rides. At 3 we went to the Character dining with Marlene and family, it was really fun! We got to see the parade, and of course the kids played in the water!

Kennedy stole Abby Cadabby's wand! LOL


Gary, Marlene and Aleena with Abby


Laurie and Elmo


Kennedy and Aleena


Bert stole Mommy's chair!


Bert and Marlene


Kennedy and Kayla... it was the best I could get!
Kennedy was about to splash me! LOL


Kassidy and Abby

For dinner we met up with Joe, Stephanie, Megan and Olivia (Joey was not there) who just got back to town from the beach! Joe and Stephanie graciously let us crash at their house but we had been missing them so it was great to finally see them and the girls!! Here are our 5 year olds all together! Hard to believe they'll all be starting Kindergarten here soon!

Aleena, Megan, Kennedy & Kayla


Kam, Kass and Laurie at dinner. They became fast friends during the day!


Megan, Aleena, Kennedy and Olivia before we all went home and crashed after a long day!

More pictures from Sesame coming SOON!

Vacation Pictures - Part 8

On July 1st we went to Lancaster County to Dutch Wonderland. It was a cute little park geared towards younger kids. It was 1/2 water park, 1/2 amusement park. Kass and Kam still like the kiddie rides thank goodness, so they still had fun there!! (I don't have any pictures of Kass and Kam playing in the water because once we hit the enclosed water area, they were off on their own! Sorry!)

Kennedy with the Dutch Wonderland Princess. She kept looking at her like, "I don't know you!" haha


Riding the cars... the kids were able to go on most of the rides without us...
they don't need us anymore. *sniff*


Frank and Keeghan coming down the BIG water slide! He loved it! He's going to be our little thrill seeker! :)

My friend Jen told me to get a picture of the kids in front of the big pretzel. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded right up my alley. SO we saw this pretzel and I thought, "ohhh cool photo spot!" and I pictured my 4 sweet, smiling children posing by this pretzel and having this beautiful momento of our day at Dutch Wonderland to carry with me forevermore.
THIS is what I got.

I love my kids. :)

More Dutch Wonderland Fun! :) You can click on all of these to enlarge them! :)

More Washington DC pics...

And you thought we were past that! But these are Frank's, not mine! :)
You can see part one here and part two here. :) Enjoy!!

Vacation Pictures - Part 7

We went to Dave and Buster's in Philly with my friend Joy and her kids to just hang out and have fun. Joy and I have known each other online since just after Kameron was born and then we finally got to meet last year when we started coming to Philly for Kennedy's pre-op appointments. The kids had a great time hanging out and playing games and my mom and I lost a couple pounds chasing Kennedy and Keeghan lol. Most of these pictures were taken by Joy. Thanks for the fun night Joy! :)

Keeghan running through Stephanie's yard before we went to D&B


Kennedy figuring out how the game works


Leave me alone, mom! I'm DRIVING!




Kameron can't find the camera!


CHEESE!




Katie's funny!


Joy's kids Ryan and Katie playing a game


Playing ski ball


A group shot before saying goodbye!

Vacation Pictures - Part 6

On our last day in DC we were able to meet up with Michelle and her mom and kids at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Kennedy and Kayla had SO much fun together! Instant friends!

We tried to get a picture of all 6 kids together... this is the best I got! LOL Michelle got some too, you'll have to check out her blog to see!





Don't they look like they're conspiring some master plan?!


We're not doing anything, REALLY!


OK Kayla, when they're not looking, you run away! Sound good?!


Kassidy and Kayla under a big whale (I think)


The moms and the girls


One last giggle before saying goodbye!
Thanks Michelle and Kayla for a fun day!!! We hope to do it again someday!!!


Just a few more random pictures from D.C. and then onto Philly!