Xmas Recap in Pics

Yep, life has taken over....I've been MIA for months now living life.
As we end another year, here are some pictures from our holiday....

Happy New Year everyone!

First Day

It's hard to believe that summer vacation is over. Seriously, where did it go?!  I feel like Avery was just getting off of the bus to start her summer, and here she is going back to school already.

I will say, we had a pretty good summer. Avery made a summer list of things that she wanted to do and I think we did all but 4 of them (out of about 25!). We were busy all of the time-we barely had any free days in our schedule, hence the lack of posts from me lately. Having her home ate up my "me" time while Cassandra napped so my time was spent with my big girl.

Tuesday I took a half day at work and took Avery to school to meet her teacher and drop off her supplies. Then I took her out for ice cream-just the two of us. When we came home, I took a pic of her in her shirt that will fit her someday!

2027 seems like a long ways away. Yet if someone mentions 2003 does it seem that long ago? Funny how 12 years in the future sounds so far away, but 12 years in the past seems like it was yesterday. The mind does funny things like that. I hope the time doesn't go too fast...I know we can't slow it down but I wish we could! I'm still wrapping my head around the fact that it's September already and it's time to think of school! I wish the years took their time like they did when we were kids. I know Avery felt like her summer break was long....for us, it was a blink of an eye. 

Yesterday we got our girl on the bus for 1st grade. First.grade. Hold me.  She was so ready too-even though she doesn't know many kids in her class. She's ready.

I'm so proud of this girl and how well she adapts to going back-no tears, no whining-just pure joy. Love her!

Cottage

I'm still trying to play catch up on here.

So many things I want to update about, but no time to do it!

And...school starts next week around here (say what?!) which is just crazy to me. Where did summer go?! I feel like Avery just got off of the bus on her last day of school!

Anywho....I thought I'd write about our family getaway to Owasco Lake a few weeks ago.

Gabe's family all went so there was a total of 10 of us staying in the cottage we rented. My sister-in-law did a lot of the research and planning on this one!

We arrived on Sunday evening around dinner time. We got in, unpacked the car and got dinner going pretty much right away.

A few shots of the house when we arrived:

Dining area

Living room

Master bedroom

bedroom (where Gabe and the girls slept)

view from the dining/living room area

a shot from out near the lake

You can see from the photo above, we had quite a bit of flat, grassy area. It was great! Lots of room for the kids to run and play and we had a nice flat entry into the lake as well.

We were there on one of the cool weeks in August-the one day it barely hit 70 out. Some days weren't very water friendly, but other days were!

Owen kayaking

My sister-in-law made this cute dessert for us one night....and it was yummy!

Mid-week we celebrated my nephew's birthday. His other set of Grandparents came in for some of the day to celebrate with us. Hard to believe he's 11 already!

Bianca and Avery

Opening gifts:

Of course we had to sing to him!

One night they had music at a nearby park. We went and met some of Gabe's cousins there. It was a lot of fun! The band they had was pretty good too! The kids had a ball!

Cassie, Avery and Raylee

As you can see, they were dancing up a storm-at one point, they even went up on stage!

This kid just cracks me up:

There was a family of ducks (6 babies and a Mama) that visited us multiple times a day. Of course we always gave them some bread. But they would come right up to you and take it out of your hand! The kids loved looking for them and feeding them!

baby ducks

Mama duck

When I was in Buffalo back a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon an article about the Finger Lakes area. They mentioned this store/cafe that makes and sells pancake mixes and have an all you can eat pancake breakfast. Of course we had to go and check it out. And the pancakes were quite good and very reasonably priced. Then you go and spend $100 in the store to make up for it!

Bianca, Molly, Mark, Owen

The cousins stopped by to visit us as well and the girls all had fun coloring!

Bianca, Raylee, Avery

And some other cousins came by and gave the kids a boat ride-which they loved!

Gabe and Owen went on a kayaking adventure! Owen tuckered out so Gabe ended up rowing both kayaks back home!

Gabe

Avery did quite well swimming with a life vest on! Go girl!

We went for ice cream one of the last nights there and it was stunning! The sun actually turned red at the end-it was breathtaking! The pictures don't do it justice.

We had I think 3 bonfires while we were there-the kids loved that too!

And before we left, we had to do a group shot to prove we were all there and survived the week!

Happy Birthday Brayden!

Over the weekend, we had Brayden's 5th birthday party!

It was a nice day-not too hot so not many people went in the pool at the party....just a few kids and my husband (because my kids said they were going to go in and then once he was in the felt how cold it was!).

But this pool Minion cake was so adorable!

And the kids opted to go in the hot tub-all 9 of them at once! It was quite comical! And it was funny that most of them didn't like the jets turned on, so basically it was like being in a warm tiny pool!

We had a very yummy dinner followed by presents!

Love the face he's making!

opening our gift-a Mario backpack

And a Mario lunch box

After presents, it was time to dig into that cute cake!

Make a wish!

We had a really fun time at his party and the kids had a blast as usual! Happy 5th Brayden!!