Reason #4,723 that we love Philadelphia

So, the day we were set to leave for San Diego, we received an unwelcome voice mail from American Airlines letting us know that our flight had been cancelled and they'd re-booked us for the next day. To make a long story short, after many tears were shed, fists shaken in the air, several phone calls to unhelpful AA representatives, and much help from online resources, we got booked on a flight leaving that evening (instead of morning) that would get us in at midnight, California time.

Determined not to waste our first day of "vacation" we decided to try out Smith Play Place in Philadelphia for the first time. It is a free park in Philadelphia with a TON of things to do for the kids. We had a blast, and honestly, I was astounded that all of this is open and free to the public (they do accept donations but they're not required).

Both R and RUS had a great time, and there was a lot of playground equipment I'd never seen before. I only snapped a few photos with my iPhone, and they don't convey at all the size and scope of this place--it is supposedly the size of five or six football fields, just jam packed with things for kids to do and play on.

DoodleBuddy

DoodleBuddy is a free iPhone application that we've been having a lot of fun with. Basically you can draw pictures on a bunch of preselected backgrounds or you can embellish your own photos.

This is the first picture R drew on it. I basically just handed her the phone and she figured everything else out on her own:
Then--I kid you not--R figured out that she could use actual photographs as backgrounds (the app goes into your camera roll and lets you pick pictures). I was really confused at first when she showed me, and then we got the great idea of taking close up facial shots so that we could do stuff like this:


We spent about 45 minutes before bed the other day having fun embellishing our pictures.

It's still going

I got reminded three times this morning alone that her name is Mary. It seems to be sticking for now.

The Sprinkler Ball!

R got the most awesome sprinkler from Great Aunt L and Great-Grammie S for her birthday this year!! Check it out!!!RUS was a little unsure about the ball so no great pics of him with it, but he was out there, too!

A Rose By Any Other Name . . .

After dinner today, R announced that she wanted to be called Mary.

I asked about some other possible nicknames--does she like Rosy or Romy?

"No! I don't like Romy, that's a boy's name!"

I assured her it was not a boy's name. Especially important because the way RUS says her name it sounds kind of like a cross between Ro-ma and Ro-my, and it's awfully cute.

I asked, "Do you prefer to be called R, or something else?"

"Just Mary," she said.

Then, as an afterthought, she added, "And maybe my last name could be Cinderella."

I said, "Maybe."

But, she said, "Mommy, you can just call me Mary, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

Happy Father's Day

To the best dad in the world. I'm so thankful to J every day for being the amazing person and parent he is.
We had a nice Father's Day. When he woke up, he got some goodies the kids made at day care--RUS made an "All-Star Dad" book full of red, white, and blue artwork and R made him a shoe card with her footprint inside, decorated a baby food jar with glitter and filled it with candy, and made a mold of her hand out of sand. She helped me fill a bin of Legos from the Lego store and she and I built a scorpion beach house for J with them. I also put together a Shutterfly calendar for J and had R fill out an "All About Dad" sheet.
ADDED: If you look carefully at the calendar in the picture you'll see a big mistake I made right on the front cover. Oops.

Here's a better shot of the "All About Dad" sheet.
It's hard to read, so here's the full text:

My Dad's Name is: Jamie
He is 50 feet and 2 inches tall.
He is 55 years old.
He weighs 102 pounds.
His favorite thing to do is: He likes to play with bad guys and he likes to play with little people.
He likes to go to: (she didn't want to answer this question so we left it blank)
His favorite food is: Burritos
My favorite thing about my dad is: I love him.
Love, R

We took the kids to a park later in the day, and then his parents came over for homemade pizza for dinner that evening.It was really hard to get pictures of the kids! R in particular ran away from the camera every time I pulled it out, and RUS barely stopped moving for even a minute. He was in love with all the things he could do on this particular play structure, including hanging and swinging--for a long time--from this bar.

Backyard Pool Fun!

It was really muggy and humid on Saturday so after taking the kids for a neighborhood walk, J and I turned on the hose and started spraying off their feet... it wasn't long before that turned into a suggestion to pull out the kiddie pool.J was a little annoyed with me though because he had a talking-to with R about not drinking the sprinkler water. And then while I was taking these pictures, I told her to stick her tongue out. Oops. But, aren't these some seriously cute kids? You can see how RUS just wants to do everything his big sister does!

R's 4th Birthday Party!

R had a lovely 4th birthday party. She got a new fancy party dress from Grandma and Grandpa and J and I got the yard and porch all decked out for the party, with the alligator blow-up pool and slides, sprinkler pool, sprinkler, and tiny pink baby pool.
R very specifically requested Princess cupcakes and Spiderman cupcakes, because we had invited all of her day care classmates and, well, some of them are boys. And "boys don't like princesses. Boys like Spiderman." So this is what I came up with:
When her friends started arriving, she was so excited!!!!
Here's RUS fresh from his nap. I'm not sure he's quite awake yet in this picture.
It's so great to have my parents come in town for R's birthday parties. She absolutely eats up all the attention, of course, and I love having my mom at events that I host.
This is the table of grandparents! The woman in the pink shirt is one of my closest friends here in Delaware, and she's R's "honorary" grandma. She has a granddaughter of her own, whose name also starts with "R." It's such a good letter, isn't it?
Grandmas!!!
This year, as last year, one of the big hits was the craft table. J found these really easy craft kits--airplanes, monsters, and crowns & wands--on clearance at Target so we snapped up a whole bunch of them and just dumped them all out on the table for the kids. They LOVED it. Here's R decorating her crown while taking a break from the water fun.
We served pizza and then I brought the cupcakes out for everyone to eat. The princess ones were a huge hit.
Here's R with her cupcake after blowing out the candles.
And then her friends crowded around to watch her open presents. I know a lot of people don't like opening presents at kids' parties but I really think her friends enjoyed it. I wouldn't have minded if we waited until after the party to open them but R was antsy to open them and all the other kids (who weren't still playing in the water & sand) seemed really interested in it.

Introducing Mary Rose

One of the biggest hits of R's birthday was this gift from Grandma and Grandpa (although there were a lot of big hits, to be honest with you--more pictures and updates will be coming up!)

Anyway, here's R opening up the big box--what's in it?
It's a doll!!!! "She looks like me!" R just stared at her lovingly for about five minutes. It was so cute.
Grandma and Grandpa had also found a dress for R that came with a dress for the doll. I cannot even tell you how happy this made R. She was so in love. Here she is posing with the doll, who has been named Mary Rose. I'm sure everyone can see where that name came from. Note that R has even put in her own headband to match Mary Rose's, and they both have leggings on underneath their dresses.

What a Difference a Year Makes!

Fourth Birthday: R with Princess Cupcake

Third Birthday: R with Elmo Cupcake

Opening Presents with Grandma and Grandpa

I have a whole slew of posts to make about R's FOURTH birthday, which was a few days ago. She had an amazing party, but before the party even got started, Grandma and Grandpa arrived and spent a few days with us. R was beyond excited at the prospect of them coming.

They went to the Delaware Children's Museum and then when they got home, we opened presents before heading out to dinner at a restaurant Grammie and Grampy had recommended but J and I had not previously visited.

Here are the kids opening presents. I'm saving one particular present for its own post.

R got an early birthday gift from one of her classmates, who couldn't come to her party. It was a bag chock-full of art supplies, including these paints, which she cannot wait to break out.
Here's RUS scouting around for mischief to get into.
R got some amazing clothes. Including a party dress that everyone at her party was very, very, very impressed with. In this picture she's looking at an adorable striped shirt. Here's RUS trying to get someone to read him his new book!
And RUS doing his very favorite thing in the whole world: snuggling. Good thing it's Grandma's favorite thing to do, too!

First Beach Visit of the Summer

For our first beach trip of the summer, we decided to try Lewes Beach instead of driving all the way down to the more touristy and crowded Rehoboth Beach. It was nice and overcast (the way Grammie likes it--all the better to avoid sunburn with!) and the water was QUITE cold! The kids had a great time and took a long walk down the beach and saw some pretty interesting things.

Guess what we did yesterday?

Here's a hint -- more pictures to come soon!

Cow! Cow! Cow! Hi! Bye!

The other day J and I took RUS to the mall. R was at day care, but he was out for the day with pinkeye. We had errands to run and so took him along. The Chick-fil-A cow was roaming the food court so I took RUS over there to meet him. He was really shy at first but then afterwards every time he saw the cow (we were shopping in Barnes & Noble, which is adjacent to the food court) he kept shouting and waving. It was "udderly" adorable.

He LOVES doing everything his sister does!

The other day I was putting R's hair into pigtails and RUS was very insistent he wanted some too. He tried to sit in my lap while I was doing R's hair, squeezing behind R, who was standing in front of me, and then ran over to the drawer in her vanity where her hair supplies are kept and tried to open it.

He understands everything you say, so when I asked, "Do you want pigtails, too?" he nodded vigorously and when I got the ties out ran over to where I normally sit when I do R's hair.

He was so tickled to have these in his hair, it was hysterical.