November 2012

Guess what, it’s only December 7^th and I’m updating the blog for November!  Don’t get used to timely posts, I reserve the right to go a year without posting at any time.  Our October activities overflowed into November.  Macy had her first school field trip to a farm.  She had a blast and it was so cute to see all the kids dressed in clothes that were totally them.  They got to pick pumpkins even though Halloween was over.  This worked though because prior to Halloween Macy refused to let us carve pumpkins.  So we carved them in November.  Tyler learned the Pumpkin Prayer at school and recited it for us complete with candle lighting.  He was rather proud of his Pumpkin Prayer.  We took the kids to the mall (before the stores opened) to get Christmas photos.  I decided to let them pick their own clothes and in true fashion to them, Macy picked to be gorgeous in sparkles and pink while Tyler picked to be silly with spider man Santa.  They had fun posing for pictures, especially with the candy canes.  What photo shoot would be complete without a candy cane sword fight?  And we managed to get all our photos just in time for security to come linger around us.  Tyler had a Thanksgiving feast at his school, where he said he was thankful for his friends Nolan, Zackee and Owen.  Macy’s class did a little show and also said their thanks.  Macy is thankful for her teachers, God and the new student, and our family.  Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Robyn, Uncle Ricky and Cousin Tori came to celebrate Thanksgiving with us.  Then we put up the tree, yes, we actually waited until after Thanksgiving this year to put up our tree.

Click here to view November pictures

A little catch up...

So I got a tad behind...or maybe a lot, depending on what you think can happen in a year.  There are now pictures for June 2012 - October 2012 in our photo album.  So to give you a quick run down on the goings on in the Harding house...
June - Neil decides to test me and say maybe we should try for a third.  So we agonize for a month.
June 2012 Pictures

July - Macy starts Kindergarten and we decide no third.  Instead lets build a ridiculously large playhouse in the back yard.
July 2012 Pictures

August - Well the playset is built but I'm still looking for something to do, so we rescue 5 puppies from a local pound and find homes for 4.  Flynn Ryder became the newest Harding.
August 2012 Pictures

September - after the mass chaos of 6 dogs and an extreme water birthday party, we need a vacation and took the best vacation EVER!  Kids has a blast, we had a blast, it was all good.
September 2012 Pictures

October - back to normal chaos with all sorts of Halloween festivities.  Macy was the Princess of Rainbow Fairies and Tyler was Bumblebee the transformer.
October 2012 Pictures

Given there are 5 months of photos for you to go through, I figured you didn't need to read a bunch of blah blah blah from me :-)  Enjoy the pictures!

Annual Pumpkin Farm Visit

Every we take the kids to a pumpkin farm with all of our close friends.  This year we went back to Hillridge and we couldn't have dreamed of a better day. The weather was the most perfect fall day and all the kids big and small had a wonderful time.  Click here to view our Pumpkin farm pictures.

NRUMP Pink Day

Today was Pink Day at Macy & Tyler's preschool.  In celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness month, they had a parade and balloon release to remember all those who are fighting breast cancer, have been lost to breast cancer and have survived.  To view all the photos click here: NRUMP Pink Day

Blog Backlog - May through August

May

May was ages ago and I frankly can't recall what we did aside from the pictures.  To explain a few pictures: Macy's crying outside because we released her butterflies.  She was extremely excited to release them, but once she realized they were flying away and not just staying next to her, the crying began and did not stop.  We went to the Zoo with the Taylor family where Tyler's love for Mr. Duke grew infinitely the second he got to go for a ride.  Course as soon as Mr. Duke was off of it, Tyler was on trying to figure out how to steal it from him.  

Click here to view May Pictures

June

June was a whirlwind of a month packed full!  We joined the entire Bates clan at a Bulls game where we got to meet Scooby Doo.  Macy had her first recital which was a long year in the making. The entire studio put on "Alice in Wonderland".  Macy's class was red and white roses. Every Monday for an entire year Macy asked how many more days until I can dance on stage. For that entire year I feared she would get to the stage and refuse to go on.  I'm beyond proud to say she got up there and danced her heart out as a beautiful red rose, loving every minute.  My other fear was she would be sick the day of the recital and she'd miss it.  Apparently I decided to take that illness for her and somehow came down with pneumonia.   To make her recital even more special YaYa and Grampie came down.  YaYa did Macy's nails and makeup for the show. In return Macy made them both fabulous cheerio necklaces.  Macy also scored a bike out of the visit which she had a blast riding around the house until we convinced her to take it outside.  Tyler got a new bell for his bike, which he thanked Grampie for installing by blowing it while he was trying to install it. 

Click here to view June Pictures

July/August

July and August were full of celebrations.  We had our annual 4th of July Celebration at our house.  Grandma and Grandpa came down to celebrate with us.  It was the usual food and great friends complete with a mini fireworks show.  This year the kids all stayed awake through the show, but Macy was still requesting Daddy stop so she could go to bed.  The kids both decorated their bikes for the Falls River bike parade (aka mass choas trampling).  Macy rode her new bike as proud as could be.  Tyler "rode" his tricycle with support of his tag team Neil and Grandma.  We went to see the Wake Forest official fireworks display which was the kids first major fireworks show.  They loved it!  After all that excitement we had a down day which was apparently more than we could handle, so we ended up getting guinea pig.  The Taylor's neighbor's coworker had a guinea pig in need of a new home, so we adopted Timothy, which the kids renamed Captain Hook due to an obsession with Disney's new show Jake & The Neverland Pirates.  The obsession is so great that Alexis and Macy had a joint Izzy birthday party.  We got so unbelievably lucky and happened to plan the outdoor pool party for the day after Hurricane Irene and we couldn't have dreamed of a better day.  

Click here to view July and August Pictures

Our family vacation to Florida

For Macy's 5th Birthday we decided we'd take the kids to Disney World.  We drove down in amazingly good time thanks to Neil's lead foot and spent the first day at Sea World, the second at Hollywood Studios, the third at Magic Kingdom and then a day of rest at Downtown Disney and the hotel pool before driving back home in even better time.  The kids had a blast and we definitely pushed them to the edge.  The first night at the hotel it took them a while to fall asleep.  They were sharing a room and Tyler was rather excited about that, but somehow Macy fell asleep through his antics.  The second night they were asleep in less than 30 minutes.  The third night there wasn't a peep from them when we walked out of the room and they didn't even make it out of the Magic Kingdom awake.

Macy was her usual unimpressed self at Sea World.  She did love the rope/obstacle climb that was completely unrelated.  We had a great time though and it was like we had the park to ourselves because there was no wait for anything and barely any people around.  Hollywood Studios was a little more exciting because we saw shows by Ariel, Belle and a stunt show with a guest appearance of Lightening McQueen.  The Magic Kingdom was without a doubt her favorite.  There were few moment when she didn't have a look of awe on her face and everything we did was immediately asked to be done again.  She met tons of princesses who were all so sweet.  I was quite surprised with the amount of people in line that they still took lots of time to make each little girl feel special.  Macy's favorite ride was the Peter Pan which I think she would have spent the whole day on if we let her.  Tyler's favorite was the carousal, which he and Neil rode many many many times, while Macy and I did second turns on Peter Pan, It's a Small World, Dumbo, etc.  I was rather impressed with the lack of wait times at Disney as well.  Neil did an excellent job of navigating us through the park to get to the key areas and avoid all the shops, until I managed to find us the perfect spot to watch the parade which was conveniently located at the entrance to the Christmas shop.  I of course bought Christmas ornaments for all of us while Neil had mini heart attacks and had to leave the store.  Macy is so my daughter because I was planning on only buying 1 family ornament when Macy found a Lightening McQueen with a Christmas hat and the year on it.  Then she insisted we buy a Peter Pan for Daddy, when I asked why her response was priceless "because he saves the day just like Daddy does" Now I'm itching to put up the Christmas tree and already scheming for a reason to do so.

Disney Vacation Pictures

September 2011

This September Macy turned 5.  I can't believe it's been 5 years already.  In true Harding fashion we couldn't just celebrate her birthday once, we celebrated 4 times.  The first was a shared birthday party with her bff Alexis to the theme of Jake & the Neverland Pirates.  See August for those pictures.  The second was a couple days before her actual birthday she had her bffs Avery & Alexis sleep over.  She wanted to do a camp out, but we compromised with a "camp in" which was tents set up in the playroom.  The girls were super excited about that.  In the morning we had cake for breakfast which Macy requested another rainbow cake which she had been begging me for since her 4th birthday.  On her actual birthday she had preschool orientation for her new school, so the next day which was the 1st day of school, they celebrated with cupcakes that we brought.  Her last celebration was with Grandma, Grandpa, Auntie Robyn, Uncle Rich and Cousin Tori that was a Hello Kitty cake.  After all those cakes I'm thinking I should have become a baker.  We also went on a fall farm tour where we learned that Tyler is in love with pigs.  He tried to climb into the pig pens more than once.  We also got extremely lucky and were at one farm 20 minutes after babies were born, so we got to peek in at the newbies.  At another farm we got to watch a baby chick coming out of its shell. It was a pretty exciting farm tour this time around.  We also had a tag along, Batman, Macy's class pet.  Every week someone takes the dog home and takes pictures and writes about his experiences with them. Since then, Tyler has requested to be batman for Halloween.  I'm not sure if he wants to be a dog or the actual batman because as far as I know he's never seen the real batman cartoon.  Macy is going to be a Marie, a white kitten, from the Aristocats.  Macy and Tyler both started their new school which is at our church. I was floored with how willingly Macy went into the room the first day.  I expected a little hesitation, but she pushed a parent out of the way and ran in before I could even say goodbye.  Tyler was so excited at his orientation that he ran in and gave the first adult he saw a hug.  He loves school and the only problems I have are on Mondays and Wednesdays when Macy goes to school, but he does not.

Click here to view the September pictures