My sweetie!!

Well, its official!!

Maddy is finally pacifier-free!! We took it away from her on Wednesday morning this week cold turkey, and she has blown me away with how well she adjusted to this big change.

She was MUCH more attached to it than Abby was at this age, so I was worried, but she proved me wrong and napped and slept through the night with no fussing! YEAH MADDY!!!!

Here she is today spending our Friday together while Abby is at school. Guess she has taken to chewing on her fingers now that the plastic stopper is gone :)

My Wrestlers!!

Now that Maddy is getting bigger (ALMOST 2...yikes!!!), she is finding her place in the family.

Specifically throwing her weight around when she plays with her big sister.

All of a sudden Maddy has taken to tackling Abby and they wrestle like this on the floor!!

Both get a kick out of it. Maddy loves pinning her down, and Abby loves rolling Maddy back and forth!

Transformation Central!

In case you missed out on the news, we are growing Butterflies in the Smith house!

The caterpillars arrived about 11 days ago, and spent 7 days growing and eating in their feed cup.

Then on Monday they crawled to the lid of the cup, hanging from it, and created their chrysalis. Now they have been moved to their permanent home in the butterfly enclosure. They should emerge as butterflies in the next 4-6 days. An update will follow once they are here!!

Abby LOVES this and really enjoyed watching the caterpillars grow and change.

Abby's NEW Bed!

For Abby's upcoming 4th Birthday, we upgraded her to a twin size bed, from her toddler bed!!

I ended up getting a great deal on matching twin beds (headboards/footboards) and they look great.

This way when Maddy gets older, maybe they can share a room!! Abby was excited at the thought of having Maddy sleep in her room one day. We shall see....

But for now Abby LOVES her new bed and had no trouble adjusting!

BIG Thank you to Grandma Smith and Grandma Donna for buying her all her new bedding for her birthday!!

Navy Centennial Ball 2011

Last night was our annual Navy Ball, but this year marked the 100th year of Naval Aviation, so the different aviation communities celebrated together at one HUGE ball at the Virginia Beach Convention Center, instead of hosting our usual annual individual balls. 

My mom flew in the night before for a visit, and stayed with the girls.

Because of the ball location all the way across town, us and three other couples got a limo for the night to take us to the event, bar hopping for two hours afterwards, and then to our respective homes.......around 2am! We had a GREAT time!!

 Limo ride out to the Ball

 The girls!!

 The Guys

A bit of a breeze in the air as we arrived. Thank you for Grandma Donna for staying with the girls, we had a BLAST and love our chances to get out and enjoy our Navy community and friends.

Abby's First Day of Older 3's Preschool

Abby started her last year of preschool this week! 

Next year brinigs Pre-K.....then Kindergarten.....oh my!!

(Not the greatest photos, she told me it was too sunny out to see! Oops, we were in a hurry)

  Thank you Great Grandma and Grandpa Reiss for her new bumble bee backpack and barbie lunchbox this year!

Her first day back (although it was the 2nd week of school.....big oops on my part for scheduling our vacation after school started) was a great experience. New classroom and new teachers, with some of the same students from last year. She acted like nothing had changed, and had a great time.

Outer Banks- Misc Final Shots

Our house was on the ocean side, so we got the sunrise in the front every morning, and the sunset off the back over the sound side every evening.

 Little miss personality. She can be a bear sometimes, but then equally cute like this!

 Maddy & Kolbey were silly a lot! The kids got along great, and made it pretty easy on us adults.

 There were LOTS of story times!

 We brought a lot of board games! So we played a few each night after the kids went down, before we hopped in the hot tub! If you like domino's, try "Spinner Domino's". Our friends brought it, and I'm buying it soon. Fun and brainless, but domino's!

 Maddy "chillaxing" with her chips!

 Kolbey loves to read!

 Our last 2 days (Fri/Sat) were cold and rainy! But we couldn't keep the kids inside ALL day.

So we ventured out in hopes that we could walk the beach still.......uh....NO! Once we got here to the top of the walkway, the tide was all the way up to the base of the sand dunes, leaving no room to walk, unless you wanted to get wet!

 So we went for a walk in our community instead! Kind of felt nice to get a taste of Fall, after a beach filled summer and vacation!

Outer Banks- Currituck Lighthouse

Our other small outing, just outside the neighborhood of our rental house was to the Currituck Lighthouse. Mike, Abby, Dan & Kolbey trekked up to the top! I knew Maddy would never make it....sure enough, Dan carried Kolbey the whole way up and down!

 Mike's neat amateur photography skills

 Great shot of the lighthouse's shadow looking down.....and Maddy and I are standing at the very bottom looking up in this next shot!

 View of the sound from the top!

Outer Banks- Kitty Hawk Wright Brothers Memorial

Our BIG outing for the week was our drive down  to Kitty Hawk, about 45 minutes South of where we were staying. It is the site of the National Park where the Wright Brothers Memorial sits.

The kids ran around, and we took in a piece of flight history!