Hailey's First Day of School

Time flies... as today Hailey headed off to her first day of kindergarten!  Casey took her to the bus stop in the morning.  Below are a few photos of her ready to go!

Virginia Beach

One benefit of my job is that I often travel to Virginia and stay within 20min of Virginia Beach, VA.  So this year, while I was on business travel, Casey and Hailey came to visit me!

This was Hailey's first trip to a ocean beach!  She had the greatest time playing in the sand, waves, and looking for sand crabs that you can dig up when the ocean waves go out.

Casey loved the fact that we go to go out and eat at one of her favorite (and gluten-free) restaurants, P.F. Chang's.  Hailey was less impressed with their food, even though their chicken nuggets for kiddos were delicious!

Below are a few photos from VA Beach.

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Baltimore Aquarium

Casey and I took Hailey and Tyler to the Baltimore Aquarium in the inner harbor.  It was Hailey and Tyler's first visit to the aquarium.  Casey and I were shore that they the kiddos were going to have a great time seeing all the sea and wild life!  Well that last statement was about 65% true.

Hailey had a great time and wanted to see everything, but Tyler didn't want to walk, didn't want to be held, and didn't want anyone telling him what to do.  He was running into people, telling people to move, and generally not a happy camper.  I guess it is to be expected when you coupe up a 2 1/2 year hold for a 3 hour drive.

Anyhow, once we got away from the crowded areas, Tyler seemed to do better.  He liked seeing the fishies swimming around and around in the huge circular fish tank, and liked the turtles in the rain forest displays.  Below are a few photos from our trip.

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Hands-on House Children's Museum

Casey and I took Hailey and Tyler to the Hands-on House Children's Museum in Lancaster, PA.  We had a lot of fun visiting this time, it was a weekday and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.  As you can see below, Hailey enjoyed face painting.  Tyler enjoyed make believe land and the factory.

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Pittsburgh Visit

Tyler, Hailey, Casey, and I all went to Pittsburgh early in the summer to visit our good friends Andi and Rob.  Andi was having her wedding shower, Casey and Hailey attended.

While we were in Pittsburgh, we decided to check out some of the sites.  First was the Pittsburgh Zoo, it was a very nice zoo, but it was pretty hot that day, so hot that most of the animals were just lounging around. Tyler and Hailey loved the Elephants (there were some baby ones too)!

Secondly, we visited the Pittsburgh Children's Museum.  This place was awesome!  They had a huge exhibit associated with the Mr. Roger's show.  They also had several industrial exhibits; which I think were the favorites of the kids.  We spent about  an hour at the museum before heading to Andi's shower.

We finished our trip to Pittsburgh with dinner at the P.F. Chang's, yum!

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Butterflies: Bigger and Messy

We observed our future butterflies this evening, the kids noticed that there was a lot of mess in their container... yuck Hailey said.  They seem to be eating alot of their food now and they are obviously growing, longer than an inch now.

Bigger and Messy

Mother's Day Weekend

I know, I am late posting, but that's how it goes with kiddos.  Do I think Casey had a nice mother's day weekend.  It all started off with cleaning the house for her on Saturday, which obviously the heavens above were please with my cleaning as they blessed us with a beautiful rainbow that afternoon. ;)

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Casey and I enjoyed a movie later that evening, Blind side.  We both enjoyed it, check it out next time you are looking for something good.

Sunday, the kids got out their mother's day card they made Casey, it was huge, like 1.5ft x 2 ft.  Funny how the kids area already realizing how different aspect of gifts get more reactions.  We then hurried and got everyone ready and went out for breakfast at the waffle shop on Atherton.  We knew there was going to be a line and we were prepared, snacks, toys, games, etc just to keep them entertained till we got to the table.  It was definitely the least pleasant trip to the waffle shop ever.  I know it was mother's day, but taking like 25mins to get our food seemed a bit ridiculous.

We then went over to my grandmother's house to visit.  We also took some flowers and a vase.  She enjoyed the flowers and got a kick out of watching Hailey and Tyler play.

Later that evening, I cooked Casey her dinner request for gluten-free Mac n Cheese with grilled rosemary balsamic vinegar chicken. And to finish off dinner I made a Cranberry Mint Martini (her new fav).

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Happy Mother's Day!

MillBrook Marsh Nature Center Visit

Today I took the kids to the Millbrook Marsh Nature Center in State College. We have never been to the place, so we decided to check it out.  It was a nice day, sunny and not too hot.  The kids loved walking on the board walk, but also enjoyed walking on the grassy paths.

We saw lots of birds, even heard a wood pecker once.  We saw fish in the streams. We also got to observe a really big ant hill.  The kids were very interested in the ant hill, since it was almost 2 feet high.  We met some nice doggies and their owners walking on the trails.

Below are a few photos we took while on our visit to Millbrook.

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Butterflies: Hailey is excited and they are growing

So Hailey asked me to show a photo of her with her gift, the butterfly garden kit.  Here she is excited about her gift and can't wait to see how they grow.

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The caterpillars at this point are about 1/2 inch long.  They are also very active, moving around and eating a lot.

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Stay tuned for more butterfly updates.

Butterflies: Package Arrived

Today my daughter's birthday present from my sister's family arrived.  It is an Insect Lore Butterfly Garden kit!

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So basically as you can see in the image you get a container with butterfly caterpillars in it and a butterfly habitat.  The caterpillars are currently a little over 1cm long.

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Hailey and I are going to try to post photos and descriptions every few days just to show how they are growing.  Should be exciting.

Visit to Curiosity Connection

Being winter time here, there isn't really a lot to do in the winter for the kids (unless it snows).  So over the weekend we took a road trip down to Harrisburg to check out the State Museum's Curiosity Connection for kids.  Curiosity Connection is a hands on play environment for kids ages 1-5 and their families.  Time slots of 1 hour throughout the day have been created to provide an equal play opportunity, so we planned on attending the 2:30-3:30pm one.

We arrived at downtown Harrisburg around 2pm and found street parking (is free on the weekends).  Walked to the museum, and got our tickets for the play session ($5/person), and didn't have to wait to long until it was our turn to go in.

Mini Monster March

Tonight Casey and I took Hailey and Tyler to Wegmans to check out the Mini Monster March.  It was a lot of fun for Hailey and Tyler.  Both got a bag with some goodies, plus there were games and snacks throughout the store.  We definitely had a good time, thank you Wegmans!

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Record Snow

Old news I know, but I finally got around to getting my pictures off my camera of the crazy record snow storm we had here.  I took a photo on the way to work last Friday, check out the trees in the back ground.



The kids and I went outside for some snow fun on Saturday before the flurries turned to rain.  We had a good time making a snow man and rolling around in the snow.  Tyler enjoyed eating snow too!

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Hands-on House

Casey and I took Hailey and Tyler to Lancaster, PA this past weekend to a place called the Hands-on House.  The Hands-on House is a children's museum featuring many day-to-day activities miniaturized for the benefit of educating children.  Activities like farming, fishing, grocery shopping, acting, and manufacturing were just a few things the kids could experience. 

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Hailey's favorite experience was the factory where she could make widgets and learn about the processes involved with manufacturing.   Tyler's favorite experience was definitely the grocery store, he continuously pulled items from one shelve and put them on others.  It was so cute.  

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After the museum, we went to Carrabba's for some yummy food (they even had a gluten-free menu for Casey) and the kids were so well behaved.  It was  a fun day trip, if you get some time check out the Hands-on House.