Hershey, the Sweetest Place on Earth

Another great Christmas tradition: our annual visit to Hershey with Marty and Stefanie. We've got it down now. First a visit to Chocolate World for the ride. Kelly loved the singing cows.

Then bundling up to head into the park to see all of the lights and ride the rides. A new stop this year: Shannon riding a kiddie ride by herself. This was her highlight. She wants to ride it again next year with the same random little girl.

Back into our groove: the carousel, followed by hot chocolate and a train ride.

Finally, visiting Santa's reindeer, the light show and spending way too much in the gift shop (I believe Marty is the proud owner of the world's largest kiss and the world's largest peanut butter cup).

Shannon's already asking to go back and sings the Christmas at Hershey jingle as obsessively as Chris does!

O Christmas Tree

Another great Christmas tree cutting adventure at Linvilla Orchards. It was a beautiful sunny December day (too sunny for Kelly's taste, she spent a good part of the outing digging through my purse looking for her sunglasses despite me telling her 75 times that I didn't have any sunglasses).

Kelly liked the little trees,

Shannon liked the hot chocolate,

and Daddy did a good job cutting down this beauty.

We love this family tradition!

Oops

Sorta skipped November on the blog. Why? We were WAY too busy!

Both girls started swimming lessons. Kelly and Daddy are swimmin' buds and Shannon is taking her first kid-only lessons in the big pool.

Mommy and Daddy spent a fabulous week in Italy.

A gelato a day...

And we celebrated Thanksgiving with cousins.

Happy Halloween

We had a fun weekend filled with Halloween fun. Cinderella and our little pumpkin got to don their costumes three times:

Friday night we went to the Y for "Trunk or Treat" in the parking lot. I'm not sure what they liked better, getting lots of candy or hanging out with Natalie the Pink Dragon.

Saturday afternoon we wore costumes to Andy's birthday party. Nicest weather for our princess and more candy!

And finally on Sunday night we dressed up for trick or treating. The daddies took the kids out in the Batmobile (umm, I want a Batmobile!) and came back with MORE candy.

It was Kelly's second Halloween, but her first fun one. She loved pumpkins. She wanted to hug them all of the time and even liked eating the raw pumpkin we scooped out to carve our jack-o-lanterns. She quickly caught on to "trick or treat" and "hap hal'ween."

Fall 2010

Oh my... It has been crazy around here (but then again, when is it not?).

This fall we've been cheering for our teams

Go Phils!
(Chris and the girls got to see Halladay's no-hitter)

Go Irish (or more importantly, chips and dip)

Chris and I made an adult-only trip in mid-September to Vail, CO for Kristin and Brian's wedding. We thoroughly enjoyed the vacation and even hiked down Vail Mountain.

At the top of Vail Mountain

Our fabulous hotel and fabulous CO weather.

The mountains inspired us to get outside more at home. So we took the whole fam camping. We knew that 2 adults, 2 kids and 2 dogs in a tent had the makings of crazy trip, but everyone did great and we had fun.

French Creek State Park

The girls L-O-V-E-D the tent


Our chefs whipping up some pancake batter

We've also made a few trips to Linvilla for apple picking, hayrides and pumpkins.

Copycatting me squatting to snap the photo


Somebody loves her big sister

Hayride buddies

And between regular check ups and a few boo-boos, we've been to the doctor's, dentist's, and vet's office ELEVEN times in the last 30 days. It's a good reminder of how lucky we are to be healthy!

Winston: 4 eye drops, 1 ear drop, 2 antibiotics, 1 pain med. Sadie: 3 eye meds, 1 antibiotic, 1 pain med. We've gone through a lot of cream cheese this month!

Ever Wonder?

Ever wonder where kids get their crazy expressions from?

Oh yeah.

5 second update

Shannon
Loves: Watching Caillou, wearing tights, singing ev-er-y-THIIIIING
Doesn't Like: Cookie Monster (been having nightmares about him)
Funny Phrase: Starting stories with "Soooo....," This one is yours and this one is mines"


Kelly
Loves: Playing outside in the "house" and bikes, climbing on everything (she can put herself in her high chair now- yikes)
Doesn't Like: Getting into her carseat
Funny Phrase: "where go?" "eeese, ee-sa! & daahhhhhn" (her teachers, Miss Elyse, Miss Lisa and Mr. Don)

Summer Yum

After eating our "Garden Dinner" tonight featuring lots of the cherry tomatoes we're harvesting right now, I realized that I this post had slipped through the cracks.

We've been blessed this summer by a neighbor with connections to a family farm who has started a micro-CSA movement in our neighborhood. She sends out an email when she's headed out to the farm and if you're interested that week, you just need to let her know and leave your payment taped to the door.

This is just what one week's box was filled with. It's been a delicious summer.

The Beach

The third annual McGee-Silvestro Beach Trip was a blast! Our newbie this year was baby Cole.

Shannon and Addie were old pros at the beach. They were both really into digging holes and seashells this year. (And they got to fly the great kite Steve brought.)

That's one of the few photos I have of Shannon at the beach because she spent most of her time out in the big waves with Daddy.

Kelly wished that she could be out there with them, but kept me on my toes in the the shallow water and the great "kiddie ocean" a sandbar created. She really wanted to go full-on swimming!

Back at the beach house, we had lots of fun too:

Yummy breakfasts

Magic carpet rides

Matching shirts!

Other fun: Mommies doing a Zumba class on the beach, naps, late-night (aka 10:00) grownup time on the balcony

Our family stayed a few extra nights so we also got to enjoy...

Playground time (and Kelly's British mod look)

Surrey ride

Playing games on the boardwalk

Listening to the music from the waterfront restaurants while watching the sun set

MORE PICTURES over on Monica's blog