Carys and I have had a lot of fun together lately. Last week, we started the week with a visit to see my sister, Lisa. We had such a great time. We took Carys for a walk in her wagon and then had lunch at A&W. It was so nice to chat with my sister and just have a relaxing afternoon together. I love that we live close enough to do this now! I also found out that my nephew took
a ton of pictures at Carys's birthday party! After not taking many myself, I was so excited! Thanks Travis for doing such a great job!
So, since I didn't take any pictures while we were with Lisa - here is a picture of my beautiful sister with Carys at her party. And the two handsome boys below are my super sweet nephews with my grandparents!
On Wednesday, we had our first playgroup meeting. There is a local church that is hosting a Mommy & Me group for children under 3, so we decided to check it out. It was so much fun and I think it's going to be really great for Carys to get some time to hang out with other kids. We played in the gym, sang some songs, did a craft, had a snack and then played outside. I was really excited to meet some moms with kids Carys's age too, so I think we'll be hitting this playgroup as often as we can.
On our way to playgroup!
Thursday was our first swim class and I was so excited for Carys. She LOVES the water, and has never shown any fear in the bath, pool or lake, so I thought it would be a good idea to get started with lessons.
We had a new YMCA built a couple of years ago and it is so nice. They have a great family locker room, so Carys and I had a nice space to get ready for her lesson.
She thought the key card was pretty cool.
Unfortunately, the key card was where the fun ended. The look above pretty much sums up her mood for the whole lesson. She clung to my neck and didn't want to let go! I was so surprised. She tried making her "scoops" in the water a couple of times, but then would just start crying and clinging to my neck again. Hopefully she'll get used to the environment and start enjoying herself, especially since we signed up for 8 weeks!
Saturday was a special night for Scott and me - we had our first babysitter for Carys and got to out on a date! We were so excited to find out the daughter of some close friends was interested in sitting. She just started nursing school and is so sweet. As far as I'm concerned, we hit the babysitter jackpot and I'm keeping her number readily available! We decided to start out slow for our first time out and let Carys get warmed up to her. She came over right before Carys went to bed and it didn't take long before Carys was on her lap reading books. We stayed to put her in bed and then headed out to dinner.
This picture is from my phone - I forgot the camera. We had a great dinner at Vintage Tavern and Scott was so funny. We ordered two appetizers, an entrée and then dessert because he said he wanted dinner to last as long as possible! When we go out with Carys we usually take turns scarfing down our food while the other one entertains/feeds Carys. I guess he was pretty happy to be able to eat and talk without interruption. Ha! After dinner our friends met us for drinks and we had an awesome time. Overall, it was a pretty expensive evening, but totally worth it to get some quality time with my amazing husband and be able to reconnect. We plan on making date night a regular occurrence!
We finished off last week with a trip to
Blake's Cider Mill on Sunday. I was so excited to go! I love everything about fall and nothing says fall like apple picking, fresh cider and doughnuts!
I used to go to Blake's with my family and have some great memories, so I was really excited to take our little family and enjoy the day. They added a lot of activities for kids and Carys loved checking everything out!
She was laughing at these ducklings running back and forth.
She was so interested in the animals. We read her
My Little Animal Book a couple times a day, so it was really cool to see some of the same animals in real life. She got this book as a birthday present from her Aunt Jenn. Her quads loved this book and so does Carys.
They had a huge corn maze. We didn't feel like getting lost, so we didn't venture in too far!
The older kids were having so much fun climbing the hay pyramid - Carys will have to wait a couple of years before tackling this one!
We had so much fun letting Carys run around and check out all the activities, that we didn't even pick any apples. It was getting really close to Carys's nap time, so after we finished our cider and 'hot from the oven' doughnuts (yum!) we decided to head home. I did buy some apples to bring home and made some applesauce this week. The house smelled amazing and it was so good!
This week Scott was out of town for work. Carys and I missed him, but we still had some fun. We went to our friend's beach house on Tuesday. It was hard to believe we were hitting the beach in September, but it was still so warm in the beginning of the week. Carys loved playing in the sand and water, so I was really hopeful for our swim lesson that week! Unfortunately, it was pretty much the same story. She did relax a little at the end of the lesson, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for next week!! We skipped our Mommy & Me group this week because we had an extra special playdate with our friends.
Flashback - this picture was taken in 2003.
Me, Tonya, Jenn, Dannette
These three girls are some of my bestest friends and we always had a ton of fun hanging as the Fab Four! Well, since those days, we've increased our numbers quite a bit and couldn't be happier!
Here's our crew...
Someone wasn't super excited about getting her picture taken, but thankfully Aunt Jenn has some mad photography skills. I think Carys was in that position for literally 1 second and she got it!!
So, that's what we've been up to! Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. After Scott being gone, we are looking forward to a low-key family day tomorrow!
