Weekend in PA!

A few weekends ago we headed up to PA to spend the weekend with family and celebrate Lily's (Tim's cousin's little girl) first birthday party.  We will take any chance to get to go up and see our families in PA! (We even looked around at some houses while we were up there this time!)

We first visited with one side of the family and enjoyed a delicious breakfast and morning play time. The girls had a blast visiting with everyone and were very well behaved for waking up so early and a two hour car ride!

Nan, Taylor and Baby Ally

Aunt Megan (TiTi) and Baby Ally

Anna and Taylor

Emme loved the Mr. Potato Head on the fridge!

Uncle Tim and his niece!

Then we headed to the birthday party. The girls had so much fun finger painting (which I didn't get any photos of because I had to be hands-on), pinning the candles on the cupcake, eating cupcakes and candy, making cereal necklaces, and pulling strings for a pinata! 

Watching Lily open her presents!

We then headed back to Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Russ' house and settled in for the rainy afternoon and evening. The girls love helping Aunt Bonnie at whatever she is doing and they love that she lets them make their own pb&j sandwiches! She is brave!

They are always ready to help!

Hopefully it won't be too long until we are back up in PA! We are looking forward to our yearly trip in June and already have lots of fun activities planned!

Christmas 2013

On Christmas Eve, we went down to my parent's house for dinner. It was a nice evening filled with food and family. I snapped a couple of photos of the girls when I remembered, but instead I was enjoying family time. We had a delicious dinner, opened lots of presents and read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas before heading back home.

Claire

Maddy

Love this photo of my sweet Anna!

The twinsies

And the next day, we were up bright and early to head to PA.

We had Christmas dinner, opened lots more presents and then ventured outside for a walk in the woods.

Claire sound asleep on Aunt Terri! It had been a long long day and we didn't know it then, but she was sick!

Emily and Lily crawling around...

Since Christmas Day was such a long day, we decided to do our family Christmas the day after Christmas. It worked out great and everyone was ready for even more presents! (For the girls, it's literally like an entire week of presents, since they have their birthday two days before Christmas!)

I could not for the life of me get them all to look at the camera! I can't blame them though, it was Christmas!!! They loved everything and after each present Maddy would say, "whahoo". It was so cute! She would get so so so excited at everything!

Merry Christmas!

Trip to PA: Saturday and Sunday!

Here's the PA trip from 2011...I had just found out I was pregnant the night before we left. Tucker was so small and the girls weren't even sitting up by themselves!

Saturday morning we had wonderful bacon and eggs for breakfast and lots of beautiful fresh fruit! It was lovely! Aunt Bonnie and Uncle Russ are the best hosts!

As soon as breakfast was over, we headed right outside to the pool and sand!

*Nat is in the blue and yellow bathing suit, Madelynn in the orangey one and Claire in the dark blue.*

I absolutely think there is nothing best than a beautiful porch on a house! I love sitting on this porch!

Aunt Bonnie feeding the little birdies grapes for snack! These girls LOVE grapes!

After lunch and a nap, we all headed over to a local dairy farm that is a big attraction. Tim and I went there last year without the girls (see post above).

Tim saw a thunderbird and had to have his photo taken with it! There were so many old cars there. Tim has a 1983 thunderbird that was his grandfathers.

I got the girls strawberry ice cream and peach ice cream, thinking they would love it, but boy was I wrong. They each maybe took about 5 bites and that was that. Even Claire, who is my sweets lover, didn't want anything to do with it. 

My sweetest little one!

The next day, Claire was showing off how smart she was knowing where the water was coming from! If only she was a little taller we would have had a big problem on or hands!

Natalee and Daddy practicing driving...

Madelynn loved exploring the yard with Uncle Russ!

Playing in the old truck!

And then sadly it was already time to leave. Tim and I both could stay there forever, but that just isn't an option at this time because I MUST stay close to my family and Tim's mom. I will never leave without them, so unless I win the lottery and build a huge ranch in Wyoming with houses for everyone, we will stay close together here in MD. Family is just way too important to me and I would never chose to have my family far away from the ones we love. 

Within minutes of heading out, the girls were sound asleep!

And people ask me all the time, what is traveling like with four kids....well we bring a trailer full of stuff!  Haha! You do what you got to do! When you need 4 pack-n-plays, 3 travel high chairs, a bouncy seat, swing, toys, gates, food, clothes....ect, ect, ect....it gets to be a lot! Thank goodness I am very organized! So, the next time you complain about packing for one or two kiddos...think of me! :)

We have already reserved our UHAUL trailer for our big beach vacation in a few weeks! An 8-10 hour drive! My lists are already forming.....who says traveling with kids is TOO much?! I don't think so!

It's worth every single moment. For all those moments make up memories to last a lifetime!