Frederick Keys Game!

On Saturday, June 14, 2014, we took the big girls to their very first Frederick Keys game! Let me just say first, I am so proud of how my girls behaved and listened. For a looooong baseball game, which at times can be extremely boring for a grown adult, my three three-year-olds and two-year-old made it through the entire 9 innings and fireworks. I love baseball, but I also find it boring and long. Also, with Madelynn and Claire potty-trained now, I was worried I would spend half of the game in the bathroom and although I did have to make many trips with them, they did great and had no accidents! Amen!

A few months ago while on the Keys website, I discovered that they have a free Kid Klub program for kids 12 and under. The benefits are awesome. You pay for the first game ($7 per kid) and then you get three free games per child. Each child gets a free hot-dog and drink, a t-shirt, a free ride on the carousel and numerous other benefits located in ad out of the park. You can't beat it. So I signed all the big girls up! We picked up our Kids Klub packet and off we went!

When we got there we rode the carousel and got the girls their free hot-dogs and drinks before finding our seats. You really can't have a bad seat in the stadium since it's not very big; only holding 5400 people.

After the girls ate their hot-dogs, I kept them entertained with popcorn, chili-cheese fries, lemonade and the promise of fireworks and ice-cream! Anytime a meltdown almost occurred, I reminded them of the fun day we were having and the treats to come! After the game was done, (about 8:45pm) and the Keys WON (5-1) against Myrtle Beach, all the kids are invited to run the bases. It was unbelievable just how many kids were there! Good gracious. We didn't let the girls do it this time but next time we will for sure. After that, the fireworks started and surprisingly the girls loved them too. They showed no ounce of being scared at all. Phew! I was surprised at how good the fireworks were and how long they lasted. They do fireworks for pretty much every Friday and Saturday night games, so I thought they would be a little cheap, but nope, they went on for a good 15 minutes and I was impressed at the quality! 

After the game we went and picked Anna up at Tammy's house and got the girls ice cream! Boy was it a late night, but they were not going to let us forget that we had said they could have ice cream for good behavior! (They don't forget much these days!) 

We didn't all get to bed until almost midnight (after baths!) but Tim and I both agreed that it was such a fun night with our family and we can't wait to do it again!

Last Day of School!

This past Tuesday (06/10/14) was Natalee's last day of speech at school. She has been going to speech once a week for a few months now and we are already seeing so much improvement. She is easily putting three and four words together now, and the best part is that we are able to understand what she is saying. I could always understand what she wanted and needed, but anyone else would have a very hard time. Now though, she is really sounding out words easily and repeating what we say a lot more. I am so thankful for early intervention!!!

Here is my big girl in front of her school! She kept saying, "no more school" all day! :) And we brought her teacher a potted flower to thank her for helping Natalee "blossom". ;)

She will resume speech in the fall when school starts, when hopefully all the girls will be going to school for half a day, everyday! Oh the happiness.... :)

Our Backyard!

We've been spending a lot of time in our backyard! Finally, we are able to enjoy the hot weather around here. The girls are loving their pool that Nana bought them, sandbox, all their outdoor toys and of course Anna loves swinging and watching her sisters. And I will say, it's not to bad to sit out there and get some morning sun with my little ladies!

We have gone to the "big" pool once so far this summer and the girls had soo much fun! Emily is such a good swimmer already! 

We also put in a vegetable garden this year with tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. I wanted squash and zucchini too but the garden just wasn't big enough this year. Next year though, it will need an upgrade to be bigger! These girls eat A LOT of fruit and veggies!

Anyway, here are some photos of our backyard summer days so far....

Natalee

Emily

Claire

Madelynn

Anna

Anna loves her thumb and she is so cute!

This has to be one of my new favorite photos of my Anabelle!

This little girl is growing up too fast!!!

If we don't answer the phone or the door, most likely because we are outside! :)

Happy Summer!

Strawberry Picking!

Last week I managed to get out and go strawberry picking twice with the triplets, once with Grandma and once with Nana! The girls had so much fun and were very good at picking strawberries...and of course eating them. Every time I asked Maddy where her strawberries were, she would say, "in my mouth"...opps! Oh well, they had a lot of fun and that's all that matters.

My three cute helpers!

Grandma and her girls!

With our first batch, we ate a lot of them plain, since they were so sweet and then made two big strawberry pies! And with our second batch, I made 8 jars of jam/fruit topping for ice-cream, pancakes, crepes and/or waffles!