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

Decemblur 2010

5 Christmases, Toy Story 3 On Ice, and SNOW, OH MY!

December was definitely the snowiest month we have ever had in our time here in NC.  Not only was the snow frequent, it was a good quantity, stuck around for a few days and was the perfect consistency for building.  We were able to build several snow men and forts - so many that when the last snow fell the children were no longer excited.  Instead Neil and I were seen in our front yard building them while the kids were playing inside. 

Macy went to see the new Disney Princess movie: Tangled.  She loved it and I must say it was rather cute.  It was more of a funny shrek like movie than the typical Princess - boy meets girl movie.  (Although that was involved). 

Neil found last minute discount tickets for Toy Story 3 on ice that we could not pass up.  So we ended up going and the kids were in awe.  They watched the entire show without blinking - somehow managing to scarf down my popcorn without even looking at the bucket. 

We took the kids to get their pictures taken professionally.  It was a combination of Macy's 4 year, Christmas and Tyler's 2 year all into 1 photo shoot. I'm not sure whose kids we took, but man were they the best behaved, most cooperative kids ever.  Everything the photographer asked they did.  There was no nose picking, no lip picking, no running away, no crying, it was amazing.  I wish I could have brought those kids home with me.


If there was ever a question about our kids being spoiled, I think the 5 rounds of Christmas put that to rest.  We started with the first Christmas the day after Thanksgiving with Yaya & Grampie.  Then there was a Christmas of presents from friends and the Glynns (Auntie Sarah, Uncle Mike, Evan & Cody). Then there was Christmas from "The GREAT" Auntie Kim, who spoiled them both so much that it resulted in a 10 minute video after it was edited down.  I think the best part was after Macy opened lip gloss, Tyler opened a glue stick and immediately started gluing his lips.  Then there was the actual Christmas on the 25th and a few days later there was a Christmas from the Bates.  I didn't think it was possible to have so many Christmases in such a short time, but each time the kids loved it and since we broke it up they actually enjoyed all the presents instead of just opening a mountain of presents on 1 day.  Macy actually let Tyler open his own presents this year, which I thought was a huge step for her. 

We took the kids to see Santa this year at the mall for the first time.  They both very willingly sat on Santa's lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas.  Macy asked for Care Bears and Tyler asked for Cars.  After weeks and weeks of searching, I realized Care Bears were not being sold in any stores, so I told Macy that Santa called me and told me the Care Bear machine was broken.  To which she said "That's ok, we'll just get one from the store then".  Thanks to the awesome Taylor family, they had a friend whose daughter had out grown the care bears and they were in perfect condition.  So Santa made a special appearance on Christmas morning to hand deliver the Care Bear to Macy.  While she was so willing to visit Santa at the mall and at the neighborhood party, she was extremely shy and scared of Santa being in her house.  Huge Thank you to Uncle Ricky for playing the part of Santa so well that Macy did not even question. 

Grandma (Marti) and Grandpa (Ed), Auntie Robyn and Uncle Ricky all came to visit us for Christmas.  Macy was so excited to have such a big sleep over and at the opportunity to eat in the dining room.  Macy and Grandma made a gingerbread train on Christmas eve, followed by yummy cookies for Santa. 

Auntie Robyn and Uncle Rich gave Macy an easy bake oven.  After daily requests to cook dinner in her oven, I decided to convince her to host a princess party where each princess would get their own cake.  She was so excited at this thought and had a blast with her little princess friends. 

Since the trash and recycle bin were over flowing, we decided to take some of the better boxes and cartons and turn them into bird houses and feeders.  The kids had a blast painting and hanging them up, but it rained a few days later and then it hit me that painting cardboard with washable paints was not the best idea.  Now we just have a bunch of trash strung up while the grass is covered in stickers and paint.  Regardless, the birds have come and checked them out. 

December pictures