Happy Birthday Nicole!

Today we celebrated three years of this cutie pie blessing our lives!

She was excited from the second she woke up and was ready to party! If you ask her how old she is, you have a 50% chance she'll show you anything besides three fingers and an 80% chance she'll tell you she's six...and all of this while a sneaky little grin is on her face. And then she'll tell you the right age with three fingers :-)

Nicole wanted a beach, castle, chocolate birthday cake! So I made a sandcastle with seaweed on top in an ocean with coral and shells.

3 cake mixes and 2 bags of powdered sugar help make up this tasty treat!

Although the night before forecasted 80-90% chance of rain...this morning it was back down to 10% so we went to the neighborhood park! It misted a little, but was still great!

The kids LOVED the cake and I enjoyed giving the kids second helpings too! A few of the kids insisted they get the "blue" frosting, so they got some pretty big slices...and ate most of it too!

Michael got a whole piece of cake courtesy of Lora Leigh :-) and was wired for the rest of the party! He would not stop moving, wiggling, and exploring.

We drew a target with chalk on the wood wall and then had kids throw water balloons at the target. We also had a major bubble blowing party! I've never seen so many bubbles!

Nicole and Michael ran around catching and stomping bubbles.

Nicole is at the funniest stage. She opens presents by tossing the paper behind her, throwing presents on the table with scarcely a glance, and just looks for more things to take out of bags. Someday we'll help the "grateful for my gifts" stage kick in!

Nicole with Collin, Owen and Wesley. Opening presents is serious business!

Michelle and Nicole! Nicole barely took a second to stand still for anything, Jim had serious skill to catch this smile!

Nicole and Wyatt. Nicole can't get enough of her cars. She took them to take a nap with her today!

No it's not a giant chicken leg...it's a bat and ball! Jim said, "Michael's life will never be the same."

We didn't have any more wrapping paper, but the tin foil was just as exciting for her!

Nicole playing ball with Wyatt (apparently she wanted to bat the hard way) Watching bubbles and water ballons with Anna. We had so much fun with everyone- neighbors, friends from church and friends from work. We are truly blessed to be friends with such awesome people!

Katrina and Bob got Nicole her first pet, a beta fish that Nicole named Carrots. He will be the preschool classroom pet :-) so I'm sure you'll see pictures of him soon.

Here is some video of our day. I love the precious excitement on Nicole's face as we are singing "Happy Birthday" to her!

Video of the Goat Farm!

For those of you who receive updates by email, you probably need to be on the blog to see this. Enjoy!

Celebrity Dairy Goat Farm B&B and Silk Hope Horse Show

We had a very special weekend getaway to Celebrity Dairy Goat Farm Bed and Breakfast. Here are some pictures of our trip and our unexpected visit to the Silk Hope Horse Show too!
We stopped at Bojangles for some all you can eat before we checked in at the farm. Nicole loved helping her lizard sit down and eat!

As we pulled up (this place is 40 minutes from home) we had a beautiful view of this farmhouse-they have several bedrooms you can choose from and have a totally classic farm atmosphere. The owners show you to your room and show you the goats and then you're free to roam. They even have trails where y ou can see deer and other wildlife, but we didn't have time for that.

The evening milking was going on when we got there. Only a little was done by hand (which is good-could you imagine milking a hundred goats by hand morning and evening!?!) They have some hired help for milking and cooking, but they do that as well. They also take their cheese to farmers markets every Saturday.

Michael wasn't sure he wanted to touch the goats, but he giggled when I tried to help him.

Forget free range chickens, there is nothing better than free range children!

Michael liked chasing the chickens and they were very tame so it was fun to watch them dance just out of reach.

A huge tree had this thick rope swing. I determined right then and there that I want one of these someday!!

The goats LOVE attention and Nicole quickly became friends with them!

She pulled grass to feed them and even tried sticks and acorns just to see what they would eat.

Because there had been a forecast of rain, there was only one other family there for the weekend (and they didn't get there until late) so we had the farm to ourselves. The whole place was very peaceful and I was surprised that it didn't really smell that bad. I guess I'm used to how bad dairy farms stink (those of you that recall Mountain Piew will understand)

The "baby goats" at first scared Nicole because they would run so fast, but when I told her to show them how fast SHE could run, she got over it and had a lot of fun giving them lots of attention.

The sunset from our porch was so pretty. We didn't have a drop of rain despite the forecasts and the weather stayed warm during the day and perfect at night too. I was especially grateful that there were no mosquitoes!

Here's the view from our back door.

The house even had a playroom for the kids!

Nicole spent an hour playing at night before she went to bed. That is, before she was supposed to go to bed. She couldn't get herself to go to sleep before we went to bed too, so she was pretty tired today!

Breakfast was orange juice, grapefruit juice, fruits, omlets from your dreams(thick omlet with yearling potatoes, goat cheese, and other stuff that was delish!), pancrepes (yes that is spelled right) with syrup, homemade relish and sausage. Michael ate so much food everyone was astonished. 4 pancrepes, an omlet, 2 sausage, handfuls of cheerios and whatever else I could find!

Some fun statues were in the front yard!

The farm also has a ton of free range chickens. Nicole loved making chicken sounds and feeding them.

Nicole could have fed the goats for days!

The farm peacock had already lost his feathers for the season, but was still very pretty!

Driving home we saw a sign for a horse show and stopped by. Instead of the $15 per person entrance fees charged in Raleigh, this one was free and just as awesome!

There were lots of horse trailers and people all busy getting their horses ready all over. I liked how this was so much better than sitting in some huge stadium and not getting a chance to see the behind-the-scenes of these shows.

There was a 6 and under round. This girl was THREE!

Nicole told me on the way home that she wanted to ride a horse. A brown one. Can you guess why?

Sunset at our barbecue

We barbecued with four other families at Jordan Lake yesterday. The weather was perfectly warm with a gentle breeze. The sunset was beautiful, the food was great, and I had to take a picture of how gorgeous it was! The funniest part of the afternoon was when Nicole saw that some of the guys were going to go swimming so she ran off to the lake, taking off her clothes as she went. By the time Jim got her, she was down to her underwear yelling "go swimming, go swimming!" She's a fast little girl! I laugh every time I think about Jim chasing her down.

We played a little sand volleyball as the sun set. If you asked me years ago if I thought I'd ever live in North Carolina, I would have been like north what? But now, I can't think of a prettier, funner, kid-friendly, closer to beach, friendlier, more historic, non-expensive, more perfect state to live in! If only family felt the same :-)

First Week of Preschool

It ended up that just Nicole and I are doing preschool. This is probably for the best considering the pregnancy and how much I have loved developing a better relationship with Nicole. Doing crafts, singing and games in an organized way is really fulfilling as a mom too.

Michael naps during preschool, but then wakes up for lunch and we play during Nicole's naptime. If only mommy got naptime too!

Enjoying dinner. (see the video at the bottom for more)

I've introduced the concept of weather, months, and days of the week. She REALLY liked putting her birthday sticker on the calendar when we changed to September!

Nicole's attention span has taken little increases and her abilities have as well. I have increased my patience :-) and love the time with my daughter.