Beauty and the Beast

Tessa had the day of her dreams this Saturday. My mom and dad bought tickets for Beauty and the Beast and took Tessa on an afternoon date. They saw the play, went out to dinner, and then came home. She was gone for about five hours, two of which involved a nice nap for Morgan. I had no idea what to do with myself, but it was blissful! We didn't get a picture of all three of them together (unless my mom has one in which case I'll update) but we did get a picture of Tessa and Grandma at home sporting the Belle jewelry set they got her at the performance.

Beautiful, isn't it? You need the gloves for the full effect, but probably get the picture. In other Palmer news, the kids brought home a virus from daycare that they both had last week. Fortunately we were all well Saturday for the show, but the plague hit me Sunday morning and I was out of commission all day. Tessa woke up Monday with a belly that hurt and cried the whole way to school, made me pull off the road for her to get sick, and left me with yet another sick day. These kids are killing me! Now that I feel better, my parents are coming down with it. Oh man, I think they'll be ready for the end of the month to come and for our stint here to be over.

Fall Fun

We've been enjoying fall/summer/whatever the weather decides to be! Today, with a high of 85, we headed to Blooms and Berries, a pumpkin patch in Loveland that we've been to several times over the past few years. Each kid picked out a pumpkin; the rule was if they could pick it up, they could take it home. Both picked surprisingly small ones. Tessa was thrilled that the Polca family joined us and she ran around for quite some time with Anna.

And now, my pictures decided to go out of order, so we'll back up to the week before when Alice in Wonderland and Morgan headed to Kings Island with the Bullocks. They had a great time riding rides together and trick or treating through the Dinosaur exhibit.

Love Morgan's mischievous grin in this one!
We rode the big carosel for the first time. I can't wait to go next summer and ride rides with both my little ones!
And back to the pumpkin patch now...


And Kings Island :)
If I had more time I would have redone the order, but you get the gist - these two have been having fun!

Home Sweet Home

So I think it is safe to share a few pictures of the new house, as everything is in writing now. Inspections, repairs, appraisals...etc. Very soon, we will be calling this house home. I included a few pictures of the things that sold us on the house. Nate and I were much pickier this go 'round when choosing our house because we do NOT want to move anymore. In our (almost) six years of marriage, we have lived five different places and this house will make six. INSANE! Not good for our sanity nor our budget. So White Blossom, here we come...to stay! Here is the outside...we love the garages being separate (makes for a bigger garage too) and I like the bay window too. Bonus for Nate: sprinkler system! Maybe our lawn will actually look nice now? Verdict still out.

This basement is pretty unbelievable! This is the playroom part of the basement and I am so excited to not have toys on the main floor! I'm pretty sure Tessa and Morgan will have no problem filling this up!
This will be Tessa's room. She loves it - the painting is pretty adorable! I hope she is not disappointed when she realizes this furniture doesn't stay. She thinks she is going to sleep on this bed. Ha ha!
We love the hardwoods throughout the main floor. Not sure about the guacamole-colored walls, but we do love the floors.
And finally, backyard was much more important to us this time. We wanted some privacy, yet to still be in a neighborhood. This yard managed to capture that, and as a bonus was fenced and included a playset and sandbox too!
We asked for the gazebo to stay for some shade. Now, all we need to do is move in! Say some prayers everything works out as planned this month. All our things are still in Minnesota, so hopefully there is a safe load, everything arrives in one piece, and the icing on the cake would be if someone decided to rent that lovely Minnesota home. Anyone?

Bring on Fall!

We've had a crazy, crazy couple of weeks. The house inspection has been done and we are still negotiating the repairs to be made, but hopefully we'll be living in our own house about 5 weeks from now. In the meantime, Tessa helped plant some mums outside Grandma and Papa's house. She actually was surprisingly helpful and loved all the gardening gear. I have high aspirations of creating a successful vegetable garden next year and it looks like she'll be a big help.

Since the kids are at a real daycare center now and not an in-home sitter, I've been working out BY MYSELF (or with a former coworker) before getting them. It is soooo nice. Now, we only walk in double stroller on the weekends or if I have to stay after for a meeting or something, As a result, we've spent several afternoons in the last two weeks at St. X running on the track. The kids love to just get some energy out and the entire track is fenced in, which is always good with my little Energizer bunny, aka Morgan.
Last weekend included a quick trip to Kings Island for P & G day thanks to Steve! We so enjoyed the couple hours we spent there. Tessa rode Woodstock Express, which will forever be known to me as "The Beastie" and Morgan enjoyed a handful of the smaller rides. It was a great morning there and we ended up buying season passes for 2012 for $49.99 a pass. Couldn't pass that up, especially since we'll be living about 5 minutes away next summer and it will be great to go up for an hour or two in the evening.
And to round out our free fun, my dad got free tickets to the Museum Center and we headed there this morning with Papa. We hadn't been there in about a year and they both had a blast. Morgan got out a lot of energy digging,
driving,
playing with the balls,
and splashing around!
Looking forward to rounding out the weekend with some fall fun and perhaps a bit of fall/winter clothes shopping for our favorite little girl, who seems to grow and grow and grow. Will it ever slow down?

Clearly I Need to Update More Often...

Here are a couple more pictures of the kids from Labor Day weekend. Tessa was so excited about the "baby party" for her soon-to-be-born cousin, Elliott and picked out this dress for the event.

Mike and Cortny had rented a bounce house, as seen in earlier pictures, but these were from Cortny's camera and too funny not to share. Morgan is all boy. One of my friends who also has a boy and a girl posted the following on Facebook and it pretty much sums up my children: someone once told me (when I was pregnant with my first) that little girls will break your heart and little boys will break your stuff - boy she wasn't kidding!

Can't you just see the "breaking things" in his facial expressions? This little boy is into EVERYTHING. I wouldn't have him any other way, mind you, but her certainly does keep us all on our toes.
Yesterday was a beautiful afternoon - warm, sunny, and the perfect breeze for flying a kite. Unfortunately Mommy was not allowed to touch the kite to help, but Tessa still had a great time running around the field at St. X.
Morgan, on the other hand, found some rocks to pick up and put back down, which entertained him for quite some time. Until he realized there was football practice going on. And then he made a beeline for the field. He managed to make it all the way down to the front row of bleachers, where I let them watch for a few minutes. But the players were literally right in front of us and I kind of felt like I was eavesdropping. Maybe in another year or two when he understands personal space a bit more, it would be fun to take them to watch a practice or game. Morgan was enamored, and if I could make a prediction, it would be that he will eventually be one of the ones down on the field. We don't call him Bruiser for nothing!

And last but not least, last Friday was grandparents' day at the kids' preschool. They enjoyed having Grandma Bullock and Grandma Helmick there for the afternoon to make a dirt pot (Tessa), eat dirt pudding (also Tessa), and have a snack and take pictures (Morgan). It was a cute little event. We've been very impressed with the preschool/daycare, Kids R Kids. Minus the hefty pricetag, I feel like the kids are learning a lot, they like their teachers, and it is very convenient.


In other news, we found a house. A great house we are going to stay in FOREVER. The inspections are this weekend and pending nothing goes awry, we'll be closing November 1, 2011. I will post some pictures of our new abode once the inspections are cleared! Until then...

Only in Cincinnati...

Do we go from extreme triple digit heat to cool 60s in a day. Last weekend began with an extremely hot, sweaty trip to the splash park at Sharon Woods with a picnic with some of our old neighbors from Charleston Park.

The day continued with a party in Batesville to celebrate Mike and Cortny being in town, and the guest of honor, soon-to-be-born baby Elliott. How do I not have any pictures of Mike or Cortny? Will have to borrow some from my mom's phone! The highlight of the party for those under 10 was the bounce house, where I also spent a large chunk of time. Morgan considered himself a "big kid" and this I was in the bounce house too.


And to round out the hot, hot weekend, we had to take the kids shopping for some cooler weather clothes, so headed to the outlet malls on Labor Day (along with about half the city of Cincinnati). Today will wrap up my third week teaching high school, which means I am 1/4 of the way through my first course and then I get a new batch of kids. Kind of hard to believe, but I am loving it!

A Birthday and the Washing Machine

Last Sunday was Grandma's birthday. Tessa insisted on getting her a Sleeping Beauty card for her birthday, complete with a punch-out crown. We all took turns wearing it...

I made a delicious flourless chocolate cake. I was quite proud of myself. It may not look super-fancy below, but it certainly tasted good and it looked quite beautiful with some homemade whipped cream and Heath topping. Yum! I think I've already gained five pounds back since living here!

Morgan spent a good chunk of her birthday dinner with a lid over his face. Boys...
And to add to Morgan's boy personality, he moved a stool over to the washing machine the other afternoon and climbed up. It was on, but Morgan delighted in lifting up the lid (so everything stopped) and then putting it back down again (so it started back up). Silly guy! I do not remember Tessa being quite so inquisitive.

I still can't believe how hot it is here. This second week of school wrapped up with weather in the triple digits. I picked the kids up from school and we headed to Lifetime for some swimming yesterday. Felt great to be in the pool! This weekend my brother and Cortny are in town from Seattle and we'll be celebrating baby Elliott with a shower and another get together. Going to be fun!