An Update

   

It's 2017. 

I love this blog and I love looking back at the pictures and reading the posts. I wonder why I ever stopped. It seems like I have taken a lot less pictures over the past years that I haven't posted here and I would like to get back to that. I understand there is about a three and half year gap from my last post to this one, but it's important to start somewhere. Here where I will start.

In May 2014 after 17 long weeks of bedrest and 39 long weeks of an unexpected pregnancy I had a baby boy named Callan.

He completed our family that we didn't even know we needed completing. 

Little did we know we were in store for 3 months of Colic. You can't even begin to understand colic until you've had a baby that has it. So between a having a baby, and a baby with colic, and the rest of life things have been a crazy chaos for the past few years.  

But here we are: 

We are managing to survive; barely some days, my girls are grown up more than I can hardly stand, and this little boy runs the show. I look forward to a year of family, love, fun, and more pictures of our memories than ever before.

Summer Bucket List: Crew Tower Observation Deck

I have just been at such a loss for words lately, so I will let the photos do most of the talking. I have learned a few things from doing this whole mother thing for a few years now, and one of those things is that adding a scavenger hunt makes anything more fun. It's so easy peasy lemon squeezy too. One can simply Google image (like how I'm using that noun as a verb) any version of scavenger hunt and print. I searched "city scavenger hunt" this particular day when I knew we were going to be headed downtown to climb to the top of the, now, second largest building in Cincinnati: the Crew Tower. What I came up with was this one:  City Scavenger Hunt, but there are plenty to choose from.

Climbing the Crew Tower is something I've wanted to do for a long time, but it just hadn't happened until now. It reiterated that I am terrified of heights but provided some amazing views of my city on a beautiful day.

You can find Crew Tower Info here about the times they are open and the cost of $2 to ride the multiple elevators that shrink each time you get to the next Alice in Wonderland style, but is worth it for the views.

Pick your own Strawberry Patch

Of all of us the things on our Summer Bucket List this has been my favorite so far for sure.

Earlier in the week we had drove nearly an hour north of Cincinnati to go to a pick your own fruit farm only to find out that they don't allow children in the fields. I was pretty ticked, but we moved on and found a place even closer to home and south instead of north.

This place was a small family farm that had a huge field of strawberries for the girls to frolic in.

I love that they love to wear butterfly wings to places like farms.

To top off the super fun afternoon we ate the sweetest, most delicious ripe strawberries I have every eaten sold to us from the cutest grandma in the whole world. I love that my girls are meeting new people and leaning about where food really comes from and how much sweeter it can be.

Stargazing

So... I get these ideas in my mind of fun adventures and things to do with my girls. Sometimes I romanticize them and get this picture of a beautiful summer evening of stargazing in my head. We are laying on a quilt, the quilt that my kids will remember as the constant of their childhood, and we will look at stars and planets and enjoy the breeze of a June Saturday night in a state park.

But then reality sets in and the storm clouds roll in:

About an hour north of Cincinnati there is a park that stays open till 11pm and is far enough outside of the city lights that makes it optimal for looking a the sky (when it's clear skies of course). Stonelick Park offers free stargazing every Saturday with help from the Cincinnati Observatory. You can find information here:

http://www.cincinnatiobservatory.org/freestargazes.html


The clouds gave break enough for us to enjoy our bucket of chicken under a shelter and to explore the park, lake, and beach a little.

We will try again and have that romantic night under the stars that I had envisioned another Saturday, but this was a fun memory none the less.

Dairy Queen Blizzards and Baby Hair Buns

We are on a mission for a summer filled with memories, adventures, and new life experiences. I am shamed to say that my littles have never had the summer experience of a Blizzard from Dairy Queen until this day. 

When we were making our summer bucket list I threw it on there and didn't even give it a second though, because DQ Blizzards equates to summer time right?

I have seen around recently little girl hair buns and my girls are even cuter with them, they have both gotten to the age where they are opinionated about the way their hair is fixed or styled and I'm surprised they let me give them these buns, but I'm glad they did, because they are adorable.

Happy Memorial Day