Birthday Bonanza!

Last weekend, we celebrated our friend Audrey's 6th birthday at her Circus party. 

The next day we had Maddies (almost half!) birthday. Every year, Maddie asks for a summer party outside at her house. This year, we waited to do it....and then it was overcast and chilly. BUT, we rented this huge water slide and the kids really didn't care. The party went on for six hours.

Side note: Isn't it huge? It showed up and I was like, "Oh, that's a little bigger than what it looked like online." It was tall and it was FAST. It took some kids by surprise, but they loved it!

We did the slide, water balloons, piñata and more.

We ended the day with dinner at Gustavo's with K and D.

What else have we been up to? I had to drop some client documents off in Goshen last week so I figured since we were so close, we might as well zip across the bridge to Pizza King.

We wrapped up our last dance lessons for the school year. Both girls asked to move to gymnastics for the summer.

Maddie swam almost every day with her friend Claire.

Maddie is doing really well. Both girls have swim lessons every day this week so hoping to get Syd swimming!

We picked some yummy strawberries!

Sydney told daddy, "Daddy, you didn't get to see me this morning so sit with me." It was so cute. Then he fell asleep and she thought that was hilarious.

Maddie takes her baby with everywhere.

We've been playing with all of our neighbors. There's girls behind us, next to us, and across from us. Never a playmate shortage!

Looking forward to a fun fun summer!

Bahamas!

Ahhh....I'm feeling it this week! Chris and I had an awesome time on a cruise last week with K and D, but returning to work has been crazy. So much going on here with our day jobs, my travel job and the end of the school year activities. Maddie has something every day!

Before we left, Chris got this shot of our girls.

 Seriously. How did I get so lucky?

We celebrated Mother's Day with our families and then headed to Jacksonville to get on the Carnival Elation!

It was a small ship but we seriously had the BEST time. Our cabin for the week was an oceanview with a pretty nice size window.

On our sea day we literally sat here. For hours. 

 And I read two books, took a nap, and NO ONE CLIMBED ON ME.

 We spent a day at Carnival's private island - Half Moon Cay. In related news, I'm looking to go back AS SOON AS I CAN. It was stunning. 

It literally looked fake. 

On our Nassau stop, we went to Atlantis. 

We went through the aquarium first. 

Explored the resort a bit.

Then we hit the slides! I wish I had pictures of the slides (videos are on my travel page!). They were pretty scary but we did them all....multiple times. 

We sat with 2 other couples from Kentucky and had a blast getting to know them.

I dropped it like it's HOT in the dining room one night.

Side note. We don't get to enjoy meals too much. Our first night, we were the LAST people in the dining room. Literally, the staff was all eating so we took that as our cue to leave. But seriously...great food, great wine, great friends. Danielle and I didn't have to cut anything into bites the whole week! We so enjoyed those dinners.

Kyle had five scoops of ice cream every night.

Every.single.night.

I settled for two - the Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake is about the most insane thing ever.

Even with a small ship, we still had tons of fun in the evening.

Singing 80's songs in the atrium!

Christopher did a long open swim at the beach and ran on the boat's track several days...which meant he looked like this most afternoons before dinner.

We loved our towel animals - they were all so cute!

We had such a great time just getting away from reality for a few days. Our parents helped us out tremendously with the girls and they had a blast.

Maddie took over tia's bed and left her a tiny bit of room to squeeze in.

Tia also went to the zoo with Maddie on her field trip and she loved it. 

(Maddie did. Tia....well it was a little wild for her! HAHA!)

Neighbors and buddies!

Coolest chaperone!

Mom had the girls sun-up to sun-down on Saturday by herself. I think she went home and slept for 15 hours after. :)

These were my favorite two pics of the week - literally the best depictions of our girls.

Maddie is up every single morning by 6:30 ready to rock the day. 

We usually have to wake Sydney up where she likes to stay cozy in a blanket, with glorious bed head, until the last possible second. 

 So thankful for a week to relax and for parents to manage it all at home for us!

That time we found jelly beans in Sydney's closet...

Chris is in full-blown Ironman training mode. Working out several hours a day. He does do some in the mornings and at lunch but almost always every evening. Leaving me some extra time with these two!

 Making our own pizzas at Old Chicago!

A nice night riding bikes around the park.

Our neighbors got new sand in their sand box which prompted a mermaid Maddie.

 

It's Derby season in the Bluegrass so Maddie participated in her school's Derby parade!

It's also Cinco de Mayo so we had a little Gustavo's with grandma.

Switching gears...

I mean how does one actually do this to someone's hair?

Speaking of...we're having a bit of a rough patch with Sydney. Earlier in the week I came into the playroom just in time to catch her before jumping off the house. Evidently she's been jumping off the house onto big panda.

I got that taken care of and I found something suspicious. The bathroom trash can had some candy wrappers in it one morning (we don't allow food upstairs.) The girls acted like they didn't know anything about it so I assumed Chris had eaten some candy and I forgot about it. 

Until last night. Chris went to check on the girls and found jelly beans scattered around Sydney's closet. And - this is so gross! - dumped into this toilet bowl cleaner holder thing we have. (Which doesn't hold a toiler bowl cleaner, but rather the sponges to clean the toilet....but STILL!)

I then found Hershey Kiss wrappers next to her bed and empty Nerds boxes under her bed. I asked her about it when she woke up and she didn't deny it. I asked her how long she'd been eating candy after bed. 

She held up three fingers. 

3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months? 

I have no idea. 

I don't even know how she got the candy upstairs or how it has gone undetected. We had a big talk about obeying, not eating junk after we brush our teeth, not taking food upstairs, NOT eating out of a toilet bowl cleaner holder, etc. And I thought she got it.

Until I caught her in the pantry walking out with a chocolate bunny.

So....all of the candy from Easter got thrown away.

Praying I can figure this little girl out. She challenges me!

But boy is she cute!

AND!!! We are headed out soon on a cruise with K and D ... and we are so excited for this adult getaway! This is our last cruise together when the photographer put us in the WORST (best?!?!) pose ever. Still makes me laugh!