a grand finale

I love a good grande finale they are loud and dramatic, showy and memorable.  A good grand finale can really stick in your memory.  I have seen and heard a lot of grand finales in my life from my marching band days to fire work shows.  Who doesn't love a good grand finale, they may even leave you with the chilly willies! It seems I am currently in the middle of my own little grand finale.

Ever since we have had a family Jay has traveled for work.  He loves his job and I love that he really enjoys what he does.  It does mean that at times I am at home to hold down the fort on my own.  I remember a certain trip he went on that was ten days long when Charlotte was just a couple of months old.  It was memorable to say the least.  This is one of the major reasons we decided to move back to Cincy.  All of our family lives in Cincy and it will be really nice to be close to them especially when Jay is gone on very long trips.

We move in just a couple of short weeks and Jay saved the longest trip for last.  He is gone for a total of fifteen days, stopping in twice for less than 24 hours each time to wash clothes and then he is off again.  Fifteen days is a long time, but it is easier to know that this will be his last trip before we move.  I had decided that I was going to do a picture a day and do a post about all the ways we kept busy while he was gone.  But after much consideration I decided that this would not be an accurate way we have spent our time.  That is why we have a family blog, to scrapbook and journal the adventures we go through as a family.  I surely can not put up fifteen pictures like these to show how our last few weeks were spent, they are not an accurate depiction.....

 

It seems that like with any good grand finale this is just the cumulation of all the events that I have experienced as a young mother. We are in day number four of the fifteen day grand finale and we have already experienced so much that pictures will not do justice.  Just in the past twenty four hours I have experienced a baby who refuses to nap, a jealous toddler who is tired of her momma spending so much time with the baby who doesn't sleep.  A little girl whose imagination just took off and is apparently afraid of the dark.  Thus why she stripped off all of her clothes and woke up from her nap extremely early yesterday and also woke up screaming her head off this morning at 4:15.  I have always wanted a child with an active imagination.  Pair that with a jammed swollen toe from running into the side of the couch, a swollen lip from my fearless daughter jumping off her changing table and me catching her with my mouth and stickiness that I keep discovering all over my body from a well intended ice cream run yesterday ending with a passionate toddler squeezing the cone until it exploded all over her whole family, we are really living up our grand finale in a grand fashion.

So although I could post fifteen sweet pictures of our sweet little family, that is not what I should remember.  I need to remember that at times life is simply crazy and you survive.  This will not be the last big trip of Jay's or the last time I could have produced a kids gone wild tape and sold it to make millions of dollars, but this is the grand finale at our current stage of our life.  Although it is a little bitter sweet, I would like to remember it.

-melissa

memorial day weekend

Our family had a great memorial day weekend.  It is our last official holiday in Virginia and we really got to enjoy it just the way we like: with close friends, a festival, a parade, good food and of course a ton of pictures.  If you make it to the end of this post we will send you a prize!  There are a couple of pictures!

We started our Saturday off with one of Charlotte's bestest friends, Connor and his family.  I think it might be tough for Charlotte to find such cute friends in Ohio, these kids just look so stickin' cute together!

These two were quite the strawberry picking team.  Connor's bucket was filled long before Charlotte's, but she got side tracked a little more than he did...

A few little bites never hurt anyone!

One of the highlights of the weekend was Charlotte's horse ride.  She waited fairly patiently in line, let the lady put on her hat and then adjust it to meet her tiny little head and then it was her turn!

She started with that intense look she gets with her lips all pursed and we were a little concerned for the sweet horse...

But once she found out how fun it was, she was thrilled.  She did not even look back to say farewell to her parents.  It was just a girl and her horse (and the two 4h kids).

Of course, when she was finished she wanted to hug and love the horse and wanted another ride, maybe another day.

On Sunday we got the opportunity to shoot a close friends family photos and had a great time with them.  It is always easy shooting pretty people and they are some of our favorites!  We followed their photo shoot up with a trip to Maymont to see the Japanese gardens.  Monday was a nice relaxing day, filled with laundry, cleaning, cooking and some holiday traditions that we have started as a family.  One of our favorite things to do on Memorial Day is to walk down the street and see our local town's parade.

Both kids were in their element.  Oliver was in the baby wrap and slept through the whole thing and Charlotte had a front row seat!

We love small town parades.  It has everything you need from clubs in old cars to fire trucks!

After our walk home we decided to bust out the sprinkler for the first time this year!

Both Jay and Charlotte got into it and C loved the "rain" and the "shower outside"!

Oliver also enjoyed the sites of his sis and daddy playing, I know he can't wait until next year when he gets to join in on the fun!

Any good holiday always includes a great meal.  We always do ribs on Memorial Day, Jay can make them better than any restaurant and we had some great sides this year.

Doesn't everyone shuck corn in their yellow bikini?

We ended up with some tasty sides to go with Jay's ribs: hasselback potatoes (yes that is slabs of butter and parmesan cheese shoved in that potato), vidalia onion pie, corn on the cob and a freshly picked strawberry chocolate pie!

At the end of the day we were all sleepy, stuffed, a bit sun kissed and some happy campers!  Thanks to all the people that have served our country to make this day and so many for our family memorable!

-melissa

mother's day

I know that mother's day was last weekend, but I have been too busy being a mother of two to publish a post.  I really wanted to put one up though because this blog is the closest thing to a scrapbook for my family!

Anyway, we had a great day!  All the kids slept in, so much so that we were almost late for church!  Happy mother's day to me!  Church was oddly familiar for us.  You may remember that on Jay's first father's day our number got put on the big screen (the only time it has happened her whole life) to come get Charlotte, because she was a hot mess in the nursery, well..... on this mother's day Oliver's number got put up on the big screen.  It wasn't because he was a hot mess, it was because his parents are.  We  forgot to put his formula in the diaper bag!  Whoops, after a quick trip to the store we were back in service like nothing ever happened!

After church we went to the best greek restaurant in town, Stella's, to enjoy a lovely mother's day lunch.  We got to spend time with our favorite Va mommy, who helps our family out weekly!

Here are some pics from our little lunch date with the Smiths!

Hope everyone had a great day!

-melissa

a swanky cincinnati dinner party

As many of you know we are in the process of moving back to CIncinnati.  Along with that we have been very busy the past two months going back and forth between VA and OH trying to decipher job opportunities and land opportunities and housing opportunities.  We have had an absolute CRAZY two months, but one thing is for sure they have been filled with blessing after blessing.

Last week while we were in Cincinnati we closed on a piece of land that our family is really excited about.  It is just what we were looking for with just enough land, in a great neighborhood and we could use any builder we wanted.  So of course, we needed to throw our first official dinner party!

We had both sets of parents out for dinner at "our house" and had a standard swanky dinner party.  At least as swanky as you can make a one stop dinner party shop to your local Walmart.

Everyone dined on fried chicken, sweet tea and an assortment of sides.  Charlotte really enjoyed the chicken and Oliver really enjoyed the view from his blanket.

We wanted to make sure that we were the first to break ground on our new land, so Jay and Charlotte did the honors!

Many more dinner parties to come at our new place and maybe next time we will have a place to invite people in!

Hope to see you at our new place real soon, maybe we will serve you something better than a Walmart dinner!

-melissa