Happy Birthday Lauren

It's hard to believe, but our Lauren turned 4 on Monday and to celebrate the occassion, we gave Lauren a Cinderella Princess Tea Party and she relished every minute of it!! It was such a wonderful surprise to have Cinderella waltzed into Lauren's party. To see the faces on these little girls was priceless and just such a magical moment for all of them. Lauren's face immediately lit up the room and she was all smiles from ear to ear.

This Cinderella was fantastic! As soon as she came through the doors, she took total control of the room and opened up by singing a number of Disney songs, danced with the girls, and did face painting. I have never seen someone paint so many faces so quickly! She was a pro.... All the parents just sat back, relaxed a bit and watched. It was great..... Lauren definitely enjoyed the spotlight on HER day and was surrounded by friends and family. It was probably one of the best 2 hours of her life! LOL.... It was worth it to see her having so much fun.

The days and weeks leading up to her birthday, Lauren has come to the realization that she is no longer the little girl..... now that she will be going to 'big' school next week with J&C, she now sees herself as a big girl and is so proud. We definitely don't want our kids to grow up too quickly, but time is out of our control, and they grow up whether we like it or not. She will always be our baby girl no matter what!

To those out there reading this, a big THANK YOU for the gifts, the calls, emails, FB posts, texts, and well wishes. Lauren had a wonderful time and is enjoying all the gifts she has received. We love each and every one of you and are blessed to have you in our lives.

Here are some pictures from her party!

Outer Banks - Earthquake - Hurricane Irene

Goodness gracious last week was certainly quite a week for the East Coast! We started the week with our annual family vacation to the Outer Banks (Corolla). This year, we did our beach trip with the Steimer family and had a great time. We arrived on Sunday and the weather was great. We managed to get a few hours of beach time in, which was much needed by all of us! It was great to be back at the beach. We waited all summer and it was worth the wait.....

Monday, the weather wasn't nearly as spectacular as Sunday, but we still got a few hours of beach and surf in. We packed it up by 2:00 and took advantage of some of the ammenities the area had to offer.

On Tuesday, news of Hurricane Irene making its way up the East Coast started to make us think about the rest of our vacation plans. On top of all this, an Earthquake struck VA! Holy crap, really?! A 5.8 quake shook right in Mineral, VA which is located about 50 miles west of us. We didn't feel a thing at the beach and supposedly the quake shook a majority of the eastern seaboard. Thankfully no one was hurt, most of the damage occurred at the epicenter of the quake, but many of us were still left in shock that it even happened at all. Still unbelieveable.

By Wednesday, it was definite - Irene was heading our way. We got a GREAT day in at the beach. Jack used his allowance money to buy a skim board and all the kids took turns using it. They all loved using their boogie boards as well. They had a blast and spent hours in the water catching waves. It was great. While the older kids enjoyed the waves, Lauren enjoyed playing in the sand.

After spending Thursday morning watching the news, we made the decision to pack it up and head home. On our way home, Stacey received a text stating that there was a mandatory evacation for Corolla. Alas, we made the right decision. Thankfully, this year we decided to buy travelers insurance and hopefully we will get 3 days reimbursed! We arrived home around 5pm on Thursday and stayed local the rest of the weekend as Irene made its way up the coast.

Thankfully there was no severe damage here, just a lot of rain and strong winds. We didn't lose any power, no flooding, etc. We are thankful to have missed the brunt of Irene, but pray that those not so lucky are okay and will be taken care of. Irene certainly showed her prowess as she roared up the coast and left a lot of damage stretching from NC to New England. Another natural disaster for 2011. I definitely think Mother Nature is trying to tell us something! Clearly she is angry with us!!!

Prayers for an uneventful week. God Bless...

Youth Triathlon

We are so extremely proud of Jack and Caroline for completing their first triathlon today! The interest began a couple of months ago when a group of us were talking about races and out of the blue, Jack and Caroline asked if there was a kids triathlon. I did some research and asked a few folks who we know that have kids who race and found a few races for the remainder of 2011. When we told them about today's race, they both committed to training.

The Youth Triathlon they did today required them to swim 50M, bike 3miles, and run 1mile. They both did a FANTASTIC job and we told them not to focus too much on what place they come in, but rather focus on finishing. They did just that!!!

In their age group (8-9), there were 9 girls and 3 boys. We think Caroline came in 5th or 6th and Jack came in 2nd place. We hope this race sparked an interest in doing more races. It was a lot of fun. Special thanks to Pops & Gigi, little sister Lauren, as well as the Huff family for making it out this morning to show their support and cheering Jack and Caroline on. It was a great morning. Way to go kiddos, Mommy and Daddy are SOOOOO Proud!

One on One with the Kids

For parents who know all to well how hard it can be to juggle work, house, and parenthood, getting one-on-one time with the kids is equally important, but unfortunately hard to do at times. Life gets busy and we forget to do these things. We try to make a conscience effort of it, but just don't do it enough! Wish we could......

However, the last couple of weeks we have been able to get the one-on-one time with each of the kids. Two weeks ago, Stacey and I took Jack to the Baltimore Orioles - Boston Red Sox game. We picked him up early from camp, dropped the girls off with Pops & Gigi, met Stacey in F'burg and headed up to Baltimore. We had a great time eating way too much ball park food and watching the game. Unfortunately, the Red Sox lost, but we had a good time anyway.

Last week, Stacey and Kristin arranged a play date and took Lauren and the Kainu girls to Busch Gardens for the day. Lauren had a wondeful time with all the rides and spending quality time with her friend, Mikayla.

Yesterday, Stacey surprised Caroline with tickets to see Miranda Cosgrove (iCarly) in concert down at Busch Gardens. She was ecstatic!! After we all woke up and got ourselves ready for the day, the girls headed out to spend the day at Busch Gardens before the concert. When Stacey was at Busch Gardens with Kristin, she found out that iCarly was going to be doing a concert. We decided it would make for a great surprise for Caroline, who absolutely loves the show. Caroline had a great time and really enjoyed the concert.

It's definitely moments like this we treasure with the kids. Hopefully we can continue to try to do these one-on-one days with the kids. Now it's my turn to do something individually with the girls, since Stacey had her "days" with them. It's just as important having Father - Daughter time too as it is for having those Mother - Son times.