Paint Nite

I had seen a ton of people doing these paint nite's and I wanted to see what it was all about.  So I decided to buy myself a birthday present in the middle of July off Groupon.  I invited a friend and we went in the middle of August.  It was so much fun and I cannot wait to do it again!

I know that this is definitely not a masterpiece but this was my first time painting and I am shocked at how well it turned out, I could be a little biased though...

Hall of Fame

There were 3 main reasons that Fred and I chose to move to Ohio for his rotations and one of those was the importance of football around here.  The Hall of Fame celebrations are something that we look forward to every year and it seems like they add more things on every year.  This year I ran the Hall of Fame half marathon in April, so it seems like they want to make this a half year event!  On my birthday weekend we went to the balloon festival and had a great time.

Then there is the parade.  This is probably my favorite part of the celebrations.  The floats are all so beautiful, there is tons of music and dancers, and you get to see so many football players.  Fred was on call and so the kids and I headed down there planning on him meeting us there.  It turned out that he was stuck at work and he missed the parade.  The kids and I however found the best spot to sit, Blaiden could run around a little and there was a family with a few boys his age right next to us.  Blaiden is never afraid to make new friends.

Fred went to the rib festival without us the next night because I wasn't really up to pumping the kids full of sugar and we were all a little tired.  Fred said that it was so fun, the food was great, and there was some good music the kids would have loved to dance to.

The last thing we were going to do was the kick off celebration in downtown.  Fred and I had a babysitter and everything but then the event got rained out so we didn't end up going, maybe next year. 

My Birthday

I have a love/hate relationship with my birthday.  I love the attention I get from all my friends and family, all just to celebrate me!  I love having a day to do anything I want and not cooking.  And most of all I love it when Fred spoils me!  The only thing I hate is that it means I am a year older.  This year I turned 29 and that may not seem like a big deal but that just means that next year I will be 30, yikes!  I am determined to make this the best year of my twenties!

I started celebrating a few days early because Fred's gift to me was a little shopping spree.  It was very much needed and appreciated!  On my birthday Fred came back home around breakfast time and brought me doughnuts, Blaiden all the sudden became a big fan of my birthday too.  Then we headed to our usual Friday morning playgroup.  When we came home we all enjoyed a nice long nap!  

When Fred got home from work Blaiden helped me open a few gifts.  He had picked out a new pair of flip flops and was very excited to give them to me.  We ended the night going to the hot air balloon festival and I ate a blooming onion for dinner! The kids had a great time.  Adilene started dancing for the first time and was the most adorable thing in the world.  Blaiden found a few little girls to play tag with.  Fred and I sat on the grass and just enjoyed the night.

The celebration continued onto Saturday night where we got to go watch fireworks and I got some cotton candy! It was the best ending to my birthday.  

Stepping Stone Craft

I found this craft idea on Facebook back in May and thought that the kids would enjoy doing.  It took me a few months to actually get it done but one morning in July I finally took the kids outside to create our stepping stones.  I had to mix the concrete by hand and so I had a hard time getting the consistency right.  Once I had all the molds filled we had to wait a few minutes for it to partially set up.  While we were waiting Fred showed up, Kiara was so excited she ran though all of the concrete!
When it was time to make our hand prints and decorate them it was a good thing Fred was home because it turned into a disaster with kids crying, things not working, and concrete drying to quickly and there were way to many rock in it.  Turns out I bought the wrong kind of concrete.
In the end we ended up with 3 stepping stones and one that broke in half, you cant even see the hand prints and they cant really be walked on.  I was trying to make a memory but this was definitely a fail.  Maybe we will try again next year when the kids are a little older and I buy the right kind of concrete!

It was so hectic that this was the only photo I managed to get and I took it through our kitchen window.

This is how they look by our play house.  Not very impressive but Blaiden doesn't seem to care much.

Horse Farm

We got to go to a horse farm with our Friday morning playgroup back in July and we all had a great time.  The farm is dedicated to individuals who have a disability and they get to take care of the horses and ride them as part of their therapy.  We didn't get to ride any horses today which Blaiden was very disappointed in but we got to do a ton of fun things.  Our day started out with us getting a sticker that looked like one of the horses we would be seeing later that day and coloring a picture.  Next we got to go play on a playground that had farm inspired play equipment like a tractor and horses.  The next part of the day was Adilene's favorite part, we went into a barn and got to see llamas, goat,s and sheep.  She went crazy with excitement! She was waving her hands and yelling, all while petting the animals. It was the cutest thing.

 The last part of the day we got to go in an meet the horses.  We brushed them and Blaiden was pretty happy to be so close the them.  The first horse we got to pet was named Thor.  This trilled Blaiden because he loves the Avengers.  He makes me laugh because he knew we were going to go to a farm so we all had to dress the part.  Blaiden wore his cowboy hat and made Adilene and I wear pants.  It was such a hot day that by the end we were all ready to change back into our summer clothing.

We ended our day with a picnic lunch and more playing on the playground.  I am excited to take Adilene back there and she can start riding horses when she is three. 

Kids Day Out

This was our first day home from our family trip and I think everyone was a little sad we decided to come home instead of getting a hotel.  We started to look for something to do and we found out that there was an event going on called "Kids Day Out," put on by a radio station.  Adilene took an early nap and Blaiden got to skip his nap once again and we went to go see what it was all about. 

When we got there it was packed, cars were everywhere and we didn't know if coming was going to be fun with so many people but we were there so we went to go check it out anyway.  We all walked around for a little while and Blaiden played on an inflatable obstacle course.  Then Adilene and I went to go get us all a snack and a drink, it was about 100 degrees.  Fred and Blaiden found a few things they wanted to do and one was mini golf.  Fred had told Blaiden that we would do this on our trip but we didn't fit it in while we were gone so this worked out perfectly. 

Adilene was getting upset in the stroller and wanted to get out so I took her to the toddler section with a bunch of Step2 toys.  She had so much fun, and of course the water was her favorite part.  Playing there really made we want to buy some of their toys!

When it was time to leave we headed to Sonic to get another drink and some ice cream because we were all so hot.  It was a very fun afternoon and it was a nice way to end our little family weekend.

Mobile Snapshots #9