Where has the year gone?

 

 

I’ve fallen behind, just a little. ha  Let me catch you up on most of our big events. I’m sure I’ve left things out, but oh well.

Our little family experience Disney World in May!! Matt has been so many times that he said he “NEVER” wanted to go again, but it all changed when he saw how excited his children were when they saw Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

Meeting Mickey and Minnie VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I didn’t realize that Disney had shut down Toontown so you can imagine the disappointment when Michael wanted to see Mickey’s house. All in all we had a wonderful time and plan to go back when they open it next year.

Disney VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

For Michael’s 3rd birthday we spent the weekend in St. Augustine. We spent the day on the beach and ate at the Columbia Restaurant for dinner.

Michael’s 3rd Birthday VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

We went to Suwannee Holiness Camp in White Spring for a week in June. This year they had two really good evangelist preach. I have always enjoyed campmeeting because it’s a time when most of the Rodrick family (my mom’s family) get together. This was the first year Michael was old enough to go to a class each morning and he had such a wonderful time and made lots of crafts. Madelyn was stuck on my hip during the church service because she didn’t want to go to the nursery. The last service always falls on Father’s Day and thankfully Matthew doesn’t mind spending it up at campmeeting.

Campmeeting VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

In July we celebrated the Fourth. We watched the parade with family and later on went to the airport in Williston and watched the fireworks with Matthew’s mom.

4th of July VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

A group of ladies and I hosted a Triplet baby shower for my BFF Stephanie and though the weather was horrible, the shower was a success! For some reason I only have one picture of the spread of food, so I’ll save you from having your mouth water and won’t post it.

Last for the month of July we took a overnight trip camping at the beach with my parents. We stayed at Anastasia State Park and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. We all stayed in my parents Pop-Up and thank the Lord they have air conditioning. I told Matthew if we ever make a habit out of camping then an RV should be in the mix.

 

Camping at the Beach VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Finally Summer is winding down. I got a call from Stephanie in the early part of the morning on August 17th saying that the time has come to have the triplets. I was a nervous wreck and wasn’t sure what to expect. I just kept praying for all to be ok. I only have pictures of Ross and Drake because Jacob started out have a little bit of trouble and was in the NICU. The end result is that she has three beautiful healthy baby boys!!

 

The Triplets are here!! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

You see Matthew is at his busiest from May through July with work. I’m grateful to UF for wanting only him supervising their major renovations while students are gone, but at the same time I would love to see him and take vacations with him. Matthew closed out his job in the beginning of August and wanted some much needed down time. What better way to do that then to take a week long vacation on Rainbow River. We rented a nice home for a week and loved that it was only 30 minutes away.

Blue Run Vacation VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

I think I’m going to end with August for now. I’ll try to post the rest of our adventures of the year soon. 

Is someone trying to tell me something?

Some of you knows this, but for the ones that don’t, I had Michael in May of 2008. I then turned around and had Madelyn is December of 2009. Both deliveries were at The Women’s Center at North Florida Regional. I got an envelope last year saying something about how I haven’t had a baby in a while so come tour our facility.

Well yesterday I got a postcard saying my invitation still stands. Ummm.. hello I was pregnant for 3 years in a row!! Not to mention the generous donation my husband and I had to give them in order to stroll out of the hospital with our two precious children. ha

 

Thought I would share a good laugh, Happy Wednesday!!!

Landscaping the yard

Matthew and I decided that when the last of the Frost hit, we would put landscaping all around the house. I thought landscaping our entire house would only take one full day. HA I was in for a shock. When Matt brought all these plants home, something told me it might take some time. Something else I didn’t consider was that my husband is OCD (Who am I kidding, he’s OCD on any project) when it comes to spacing out the plants from each other and a certain measurement off the house. It seemed like it took him 1 hour to plant 5 azalea bushes. The man had to measure EVERYTHING with his tape measure. 

Me and a few little helpers had to dig up the sod, wheel it over places in our yard that either didn’t have grass or fill in areas that had a dip. Talk about exhausting. After many days of doing this while watching the children, it was done. Matt decided after we dug all the grass up that he wanted to remove all the old mulch. Here I go again, working a few more days, watching children and removing all the old mulch. The ONLY thing I can say positive about this experience was that I got a little sun tan. Put me out there a few more days and I would have turned into a Mexican.

Next step was planting the plants followed by putting a irrigation system in. Matt didn’t want our family dog to get shot for digging in the planter so he re-wired our underground fence so that if Scooter takes one step into the bed, he’ll get shocked Ha Ha (can’t wait to see that happen). Two 16 foot trailers later of pine bark and we are finally done!!!

		Before Pictures VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

And here is how it came out. The grass at the back of the house has to grow back in. Once that happens, the yard will look a lot better.

		After Pictures VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

This project has made me learn that I would NEVER go into landscaping as a profession. I’m thankful that I’m able to work indoors and play with the children.

~Grace

Visiting Big Nonna

 

Matt and I have been planning a trip down to Boynton Beach to see his Nonna/Big Nonna. Michael calls her Big Nonna since Matt’s mama is called Nonna. Matt’s Nonna is turning 85 this month and this was the best time for everyone to be able to get together to celebrate. I was dreading the drive down because Matt wanted to drive there and back the same day with the children. Um… 4.5 hrs. there and 4.5 hrs. back plus stops; no thanks. Not to mention we haven’t joined the cool club of having a DVD player in the car. I talked Matt into staying in Orlando if I could get a cheap hotel room. So the Thursday night before we were suppose to leave I went on Priceline and “named my price” I put in the general location we wanted to stay in and said I wanted a 4 star hotel for $55.00 Ya’ll I got it!!! When it said a hotel accepted it and it popped up as Shingle Creek (which I’ve never heard of) I started to get worried. Matt said “Great, what did you get us into.” When I looked up the hotel online I couldn’t believe how “Fancy” it was. ha Shingle Creek is a resort with a golf course.

 

Matt and I loaded up the children on a Friday afternoon and headed to Orlando. The resort was so nice and what I loved was that they had a zero grade pool. We made our mind up that we would get up early and eat breakfast, swim until the children were exhausted, check out and pray they would sleep all the way there. We did all that and it worked!!

 

The pool was heated and the sun was out for the most part so it was a perfect day to swim. Madelyn really enjoyed it and kept holding her breath and going under. Michael on the other hand just stayed in the shallow part of the water crawling around on his knees telling us he was swimming. I think my poor child needs swimming lessons. We keep telling him that Madelyn will be a pro before he will and it doesn’t seem to bother him.

    

 

My brother Luke who lives in Orlando was having to work Saturday so since it was near by he stopped by for a swim with the children and hung out for a little while. He carried Madelyn down to the car when we went to check out and by the time we got to the car she had fallen asleep in his arms.

Once we got on the road we headed down to Lake Worth where Matt’s Aunt lives. A few of us met up there and were able to hang out before we went to Nonna’s place to get her for dinner. A side note, when his Aunt says she is going to have a little bit of food at her house, it means we better come starving because she always has a ton of wonderful dishes!! After visiting for a while, we then headed down to Boynton Beach to pick Nonna up.

Though it wasn’t cold, we wrapped Madelyn up in the knitted blanket that Nonna made her. Madelyn didn’t mind because she is either holding a baby doll or a blanket every where she goes these days.

Matt’s brother Hoss came down with their Dad, but went with us to pick her up.

From the first time I met Nonna, I fell in love with her. She is the sweetest little Italian lady you’ll ever meet. And when she was able to move around and live on her own, she could cook the best home made sauce with meatballs. For that matter, anything she cooked, she cooked to perfection.

We had a wonderful dinner and it was fun to be with all the family from there. After dinner we headed back to Aunt Joann’s and bathed the children and put them in their jammies. That was another good idea because once we got on the road they fell right to sleep and slept all the way home.

Happy Friday!!

 

After seeing and hearing about Just Dance 2, we decided to buy it. Though we haven’t had any parties, it has become the hit in our house. Michael loves one song particularly that has an alien, but looks like a frog. He calls it “The Frog Song”.

Since it’s Friday, lets kick off the weekend with a song and dance….

 

Michael and Madelyn dancing

I’m still here…

It has been a long time since I’ve posted. My family and I got sick towards the end of December and all took a turn being sick in January. Now that we are all feeling better I think I’m ready to start blogging again. ha

Matt and I don’t usually celebrate our first date anniversary when he asked me to be his girlfriend, but since we hit the 10 year mark he did something special for me. I came home from the store and he had a dozen roses above the kitchen sink with a card.

 

The card he gave me was so sweet and at the end he told me to get some dancing shoes that we were taking swing dancing classes in April. I can not tell you how excited I am. He on the other hand is not too thrilled but said it would be fun exercise. I didn’t think we were celebrating the day so I just told him Happy Anniversary and made him and the children dinner. 

Matt and I decided once we had Madelyn that Christmas was more about them then ourselves, so throughout the year if we want something, we buy it. We have been talking about getting me a gun and how I really want to take a gun safety course. Well along with the flowers and dancing lessons he got me for “Christmas” a gun. It will be in next week, but it’s pretty awesome.

It’s called a Public Defender Judge. The reason why they call it that is because that is what a Judge carries. Hmmm… I should ask Judge Smith what he carries. ha-ha  Funny how I use to feel very secure having just a cell phone while being in the car, but having children and how the world is just not safe, I feel better having something to protect us with.

I couldn’t post without putting a picture of the children up. I have found it to be a lot easier bathing them in here then in the tub. Also, my sis-in-law bought them the color tablets that turns the water. It is really neat and they think it’s awesome that one night they’ll have blue water and the next night they’ll have orange. It’s a little gross if you mix the color together though. We had what looked like a tub of blood thanks to Matthew.

Anyway, sorry it has been a long time. I will try to do better.

~Grace

Madelyn turned the BIG “1”!!!

I can’t believe Madelyn is 1 year old as of yesterday!! Wow, the time sure does fly by. She was born Dec. 7th at 12:46pm. She weighed 7lbs 11oz and yesterday her doctor said she’s 19lbs 3oz. She got a very good report and showed Dr. Lisa that she can walk. She didn’t like her diaper being off while sitting on the scale so she T-T’ed (not sure how you would spell that) all on the scale.

Here she is waiting for her doctor appointment.

Madelyn says: Mama, dada, baba, hi, and bye along with a lot of jibber jabber that only Michael understands. She is walking whenever she’s in the mood. Loves to climb, eat, play under the Christmas tree, LOVES bath time and music!!

Saturday, Dec. 4th we had a breakfast party for little miss. I think the breakfast party worked a lot better for me because I only stressed for 2 hours before the party instead of several hours leading up to it.

 

 

We served a breakfast casserole, blueberry and banana nut muffins, spiced bread, and fruit. This was my first time ever making a true birthday cake. I made a little something for Michael on his 2nd b-day, but nothing like this. I thought it turned out pretty cute and it tasted really good!

                                                                                                                                                                  

 

 

Madelyn got a lot of really nice things. Her Daddy wanted to get her something special from him only so he went out and got her a jewelry box and had her name engraved on top. It has Swarovski crystal’s on it to give it a beautiful sparkle.

 

 

This is one of the cutest outfits that her Aunt Stephanie made her.

Madelyn LOVED her birthday cake. Needless to say, we had cake all over the balloons, me, the tablecloth, on Maddie’s clothes and all in her hair. She got to do a little repeat of it last night on her birthday and made an even bigger mess. This time Michael helped her destroy the cake.

                 

 

After she got cleaned up from her cake and her party ended, she played on the table with all her gifts.

                

Maddie with some of her favorite people:

                 

       

  

This last picture was taken last night.

I love you so much Madelyn!!

Happy 1st Birthday!!!

~Mama