Our Visit with the Novals

This past weekend, we finally went to Tampa for a long overdue visit with the Novals.  We finally got to see their beautiful house in Wesley Chapel, which was decorated so lovely and is IMMACULATE with 2 kids and a furry little dog named Lola running around (who btw, I almost stole and took her home with me cause she's the cutest dog ever).  For those of you that might remember, Andy and Jess are friends from high school and they started their family a little early when we were all in college at UF.  With Andy and Jess working in restaurants, Brett and I (along with my roomates) found ourselves babysitting Ayrial quite often.  We fell in love with her from the beginning.  We even had her 2 year old birthday party at our house in Gainesville. 

She is such a little teenager right now at 8 years old probably because she grew up around a bunch of 20 year olds.  I have so many fond memories of Ayrial when she at the age Brenna is now.  1) she would crawl into the desk cabinet of my entertainment unit in my bedroom and just sit there waiting for us to find her, 2) she loved to dance to a certain Zoe song on Sesame Street Online...but only a certain African song...the others, she had no interest in.  3) She ate a blue crayon on my watch...oops!  4) she would walk by our vacuum cleaner and say "Scary, Scary"  5) and she'd walk around for hours holding onto a giant marshmellow before she'd finally eat it. 

Then shortly after Brett and I graduated, Jaden was born.  So although we didn't get as much one-on-one time with Jaden, we still love visiting with him and seeing his little personality mature.  Both these kids are seriously the absolute cutest!  He talks with this deep sounding voice for a 6 year old and almost sounds like he has a NY accent, "Daddy, I want a RO bot"  I think he is sometimes victim to a bossy 8 year old sister so poor guy doesn't get away with much, but such is life when you are the youngest.  He would play with Brenna on the floor and then look at us (after we had been there for more than 24 hours) and go "Hey, what's her name again?"  lol 

On Saturday, we went to the pool in their neighborhood and while it was still a little chilly, the kids still had fun and Brett had fun going down the waterslide with them.

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Ayrial had a bunch of mardi gras beads and Brenna loved playing with them.  Ayrial would make Brenna say "Please" and then she'd give her a bead one-by-one.

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Here we are waiting for a table at First Watch on Sunday Morning. 

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They are getting so big!

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Ayrial and Jaden are such sweet kids.  They had fun hanging out with us this weekend and I think they liked playing with Brenna (at least until the novelty wore off).  They would all jump on the trampoline in their back yard and after having to be more gentle with Brenna on the trampoline too, Ayrial and Jaden would say something like "I think Brenna wants to get down now so we can jump higher"  "Oh is that what she told you?  Ok ;-) "  Ayrial also demonstrated a favorite new word this week which was "paralyze" and used it often in a sentence.  For example, "Brenna is paralyzed by Elmo" 

Thanks, Andy and Jess for a great weekend.  Wish we lived closer so the kids could hang out more.  xoxo

Easter 2010

This past Easter was so much fun.  Brenna participated in 4 easter egg hunts and she did awesome!  She totally got it from the very beginning and had more eggs in her basket than most of the other kids.  A big reason is because she didn't understand that there were treats INSIDE the eggs until the third egg hunt.  So while most of the toddlers would get an egg or two, open it up, see the treats, and then just sit and enjoy a snack, Brenna would gather as many as she could, thinking that the prize was the egg itself.  Once she actually figured out that there was food inside, she would take every egg out and one-by-one, walk up to an adult and say "Opee, Opee, Opee, Opee"  Now she wants to "Opee" everything.  Even if it's a toy that does not open.  "Opee, Opee, OOOOOOPEE!!!!!!"  "Sorry baby, that's a plastic duck, it does not open."  Cue meltdown.

Here are some pics from all of our Easter Egg hunts.  The first hunt was with the playgroup at Kendall's house.  We had to move the hunt inside because of the rain, but they had a blast nonetheless.

The first two pics are courtesy of Brooke Logue who is an amazing photographer and fellow playgroup mommy.  Maddy is saying, "These are all my peeps!"

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Brenna loves this toy at Kendall and Ella Kate's house.

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Struggling to get the group shot...

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The next Easter Egg hunt took place at Brenna's preschool but unfortunately I didn't get any pictures from that hunt, but I do have a picture of what she was wearing that day.  Wish she was smiling in the pic but the flowers were too pretty to pass up :-)

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Her third Easter Egg hunt took place at the Jupiter Community Center.  Here are some pics from that day.

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She spotted the bounce house:

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Kendall/Ella Kate, Amanda/Audrey and me/Brenna

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Love her bunny bow...

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Poor Audrey, she DID NOT like the hay...

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Lastly, we spent Easter Day at my parents' house and had a lovely lunch with Mom, Dad, Ed, Joann, Grandma Ruth, Jeff, Jackie, Jaime, Adam, and little Addison.    Brenna also loved this hunt although ants had gotten in several of the eggs.  My bad for putting them out too early in South Florida.

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She was happy in her dress for longer than I expected her to be.  By about 5pm, she was trying to get it off.

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