reading...

Annie Rice LOVES books. She always has. She carries books around with her everywhere. She sleeps with books at night. I've actually caught onto her trick that she hides books in the sides of her bed, so if I ever take books away from her at night, she still has some "hidden" from me that she can get! The other night I went in her room and found her sleeping on 8 open books, and I counted 23 books in her bed! 

Awhile back, a friend told me about the Disney Princess Me Reader. I knew Annie Rice would like it so I got it for her birthday. She carries the Me Reader around everywhere with her! She loved it so much, I got her another one a few weeks ago with different books. Over labor day, we were tucking her into bed and she asked if she could read us a story. We said yes, and she picked Tangled. We were in shock as she proceeded to read us every page word for word. Actually, she had memorized every single page! She has memorized 10 books because of the Me Reader. Last night when we got home from church, I got her out of the van and she started reciting Cinderella to me. So we decided to try to get it on video. She's very shy about it, so I had to read parts of the pages to get her going, but this video makes my heart so happy. Especially the beginning and the end. She made sure to say, "Disney's Pixar Cinderella, and they lived happily ever after." 

The Me Reader is an awesome toy for your kids if they love books! I've already gotten her another one for Christmas with 8 new books. 

girls trip....

This past weekend, I went on a girls trip to NYC with my sweet friends Dawn, Anne, and Ashley. I've been so excited about this trip because, well it's no secret NYC is my favorite city! I have to say, this trip was different because it was the first trip to NYC that I've ever been sick! I don't know if it was sinuses or a cold, but I looked like rudolf the whole trip and sneezed and blew my nose more times than I could count. Regardless of being sick, we had a blast! 

Friday, we started our trip with lunch at John's Pizza[my favorite pizza in NYC]. We did a little shopping on 5th ave and had our make up done at Henri Bendel's. We went back and got ready for dinner and ate dinner at Fig and Olive at 9pm and ended the night at the rooftop of the Empire Hotel. It was such a gorgeous view. We stayed out late Friday night, so we slept in saturday morning which was SO NICE!

Saturday, we shopped and ate! We had brunch at Bubby's, shopped in Soho and the east village. We went on a cupcake tour that was a total bust, so we skipped out after the 3rd bakery and instead bought gelato and crepes:) If we weren't full enough from all the food we'd had that day, we finished the night off with dinner at Dos Caminos! 

Sunday, we walked the high line, walked through Chelsea Market, shopped a little in Time Square and ended our trip where we started, with lunch at John's Pizza:)

It was a great trip! We shopped and ATE the whole time:)

 we got photo-bombed by minnie mouse;/

 This was the size of our cupcakes...

refreshing...

This weekend we had a mountain getaway with our good friends, the Rogan's and the Vedder's. I honestly wish I could have stayed for several weeks! I LOVE the mountains and the weather was absolutely perfect: cool, crisp, and fall like. We stayed in the same house that we did at Thanksgiving, and it's in the perfect location. My favorite part is how many deer are around. There's something so breath taking and peaceful about seeing wildlife[the non-dangerous ones] in the wild. Seeing deer, unclose in the woods is such a peaceful thing to me and immediately makes me thank the Lord for sharing His creation with me. 

It was so nice walking out in the cool morning, on the front porch with a big cup of hot chocolate with marsh-mellows in a sweatshirt and pajama pants.

Can you tell I had a great weekend? 

We really had so much fun. I have missed these girls so much since moving to Hartsville. We had a relaxing time and a much needed "catching up" time. The kids loved being together again. 

I didn't take many pictures, but here's a few! 

Kaz actually saw 4 bears! I really wish I would have, but it was a neat experience for him. 

annual labor day trip...

Over Labor Day, we went on our 7th annual Labor Day trip with our good friends from college, the Burns and the Newmans. We go some where different every year. This year we went to the beach, and we couldn’t have made a better choice! The kids absolutely loved it and had the best time together! It was so nice to see them all play together. When they went to bed, we played our annual card games until we couldn’t stay awake any longer and ate lots and lots of cookies:) The last night we ate 29 chocolate chip cookies;/ Annie Rice and Ashlynn became best buddies. They look very similar and had the same bathing suits, so we had to do a double take sometimes to see who was who. We also got a good glimpse into what having 2 girls is going to be like:) One minute they were best friends and couldn’t get enough of each other, the next minute they were fighting and upset. Regardless, they had a great time playing together and Annie Rice has prayed for all of her “friends from the trip” every night since we’ve been back!

We had such a good time and we are so thankful for our friends! We’ve already started planning next years trip;)

 Annie Rice and Ashlynn

 the whole crew[I was on the phone when this picture was taken;/]

updated pictures...

I recently took Maggie's 1 year smash the cake pictures. Even though she won't be 1 until October 1st, I wanted to take them before she started walking[she's close to it]. I'm seriously in love with these pictures. It's going to be hard to decide which ones to frame. 

I took a few of Annie Rice first and I can't get over how grown up she looks;/ My girls are growing too fast!