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!!

Turning 6-Party #2!

Over the weekend, we had Avery's  second party for our family and close friends.

Avery and I ready to party!

We had a not-so-nice day for her party. It was freezing all weekend-like low to mid 60s. We had planned to set up the bounce house like usual, but unfortunately that was out of the question. It was strange having people over in long sleeves and pants at the end of June (hello summer? Where are you?). But...we managed. Everyone arrived and we had snacks and a nice cookout.

Then we tried to get a group photo of all of the kids, which didn't work out all that well...

Avery opened up her nice gifts...

keychain

bathing suit #1

bathing suit #2

After presents it was time for cake!

She wanted another cat themed party so I scoured the internet for some cat cake ideas. This is what I came up with! I will say that I cursed at it many times in the making, but I think it turned out ok! She loved it and that's all that matters!

Happy Birthday, Avery!

Make a wish!

Despite the bad weather, we all had a great time! Party #2 was a success!

SIX!

Someone celebrated a birthday over the weekend in our house.

Avery turned 6! I can't believe I have a 6 year old! Mind.blown.

What's my 6 year old like?  She's fun, energetic (I wish I had a fraction of her energy), independent, sassy and loving (most of the time).

She's still in gymnastics, although taking a break for the summer. She loves school (yay!) and was sad to see it end last week. She loves coloring and drawing. She loves having us read to her too. And since she's learning to read, she does well finding words in the books too. This year she has really enjoyed riding her bike a lot. She also got some roller skates for her birthday and can't wait to test them out. Favorite foods these days include waffles, pancakes, any and all fruit, spaghetti, chicken, yogurt. She's been more "daring" with trying new foods lately which is good. Her and Cassie get along pretty well for the most part. We of course have our days and moments, but they really do love each other and play together quite a bit.

So how did we celebrate turning 6 (besides some parties?)?

Well, the day started with breakfast in bed because that's what the birthday girl requested.

They both ended up having breakfast in the spare room bed so they could watch a TV show (special birthday treat).

Then she opened some gifts from us....some clothes,

and a plasma car!

At her friend party last weekend, she had kids bring in donations for the animals at a local shelter. So, we decided to go and drop them off. The staff took her picture to put on their website and of course we checked out all of the animals while we were there.

After that, we stopped at our favorite local diner for lunch. Except that we all ordered breakfast food-including the usual huge birthday pancake!

The rest of the day we just hung around and played. The weather was terrible-it rained literally all day long. Her family party was the next day, so we spent a lot of time getting the cake ready and cleaning the house too. Our dinner that night was going to a frozen yogurt place since we had such a late (and huge!) lunch. Overall, it was a great day!

Happy 6th Birthday Avery! We love you so much!!