Dancing in September

September was SO busy, but we loved it! The last three months since we moved to Arkansas have kind of dragged on because we didn’t have a whole lot going on (well, Ryan did, but the kids and I didn’t). Ryan was on his Trauma rotation, which was rough. 12-14 hour shifts with maybe one day a week off. Luckily, the kids and I stayed busy which helped us deal with it. Kinsie started school, we had soccer practices and games, we had a visit from some family, and we visited our home in Indiana for 2 weeks…it was a great month!

Kinsie Starts School

We’ve been anxiously awaiting for this for a while now. As soon as we found out where we were moving, I started researching preschools. I wanted Kinsie to have a great experience like she did in Indy. I loved the Christian environment she was in there, and how much the teachers loved on her and really got to know her. After lots of research and referrals, we found the school for her. It is very similar to her last school, and we absolutely love it. Before school started, we went to an open house where she could meet her teacher and see her classroom, the kids loved running around the room and rolling on the beanbags! Kinsie has done wonderful there! Every day she tells me EVERYTHING about her day, and she is always excited to go back the next day. I also love how the school has a private Facebook group where they post pictures throughout the day so the parents can see what they are doing. This has been such a positive experience and has really helped Kinsie adjust and meet kids her age!

Kinsie goes to school 3 days a week, so that leaves Brax and I for some special time together. He definitely misses Kinsie, but he enjoys just having some mommy time too!

Labor Day Weekend

For Labor Day weekend, Ryan’s sister Megan and her husband came to visit. This was crucial for my sanity, as I was missing home SO much at this point. I really really needed to see some family. Ryan had one day of the weekend off, so he got to help us show them around our area. We went to the Farmer’s Market, the rock park, and ate lunch at the River Market. We also visited the Old Mill, a really neat little park that was featured in Gone with the Wind. The next day, Ryan had to work but I took Megan, Tim and the kids to the zoo. It was a hot, but fun day! We LOVED their visit. It was so nice to be around familiar faces again and be around other people we love.

Petit Jean State Park

Whenever Ryan has a day off, we always try to take advantage of it and do something fun. There are so many amazing parks in Arkansas and we are slowly getting to explore them. One park that some friends told us about was about an hour away, but was incredible! There were tons of hiking trails, camping areas, a waterfall, and lots of beautiful scenery. We went on a 2 mile hike to see the waterfall. Kinsie was an absolute CHAMP and walked almost the whole time. On the way back, she tripped and fell and needed a little break, so Ryan carried her for about 5 minutes, but other than that, she hiked by herself…and it was no easy hike! Brax wanted to be big time like his sis and he wanted to hike by himself too…but that wasn’t really possible with how strenuous the hike was. Ryan helped him walk some of the way, but eventually we just made him suck it up and ride in the backpack. Once we got to the waterfall, we climbed up behind it and just hung out for a while behind the waterfall. It was amazing! It was a great experience that we definitely want to do again.

Soccer

On my last post, I was a bit disappointed in the soccer program that Kinsie is in. Well, its still unorganized, but it’s gotten better! It turns out her coach is her teacher’s husband, so that helped make a connection and the coach really took more of an interest in her. She is really having fun too, which is the most important part! Ryan sometimes can make it to practice, and usually can come to the games. Brax loves watching and cheering on his sis…and giving Daddy kisses!

Gymnastics Day

We joined a “Mommy and Me” group when we moved here, and try to attend the events whenever we can. Our favorite has been the Gymnastics day. As I’m sure you remember, Kinsie LOVED the gymnastics classes she took in Indy. She was in HEAVEN at this place. She was sprinting around the place as fast as she could doing every activity possible. Brax of course tried to keep up, and he had a great time too!

Visit to Indiana

This was definitely the highlight of our month. This was a MUCH needed trip. I was craving my family and it was so good to spend time with them again. We had an amazing 2 weeks and did SO much. We did so much in fact, that our trip to Indiana will be its own blog post…so stay tuned! The kids loved seeing their grandparents and all their cousins. They were sad to leave them, but ready to be home and back to our routine. Luckily we’ll get to see them again in the next few weeks.

Kinsie’s Birthday

I’ll cover this more in my next post, but my girl had a GREAT 4th birthday in Indiana. She had a very special day, and was so happy to spend it with our families. We also had a small party for her at her favorite place, the lake. We were sad that Daddy couldn’t be with us on her birthday, but he still found a way to be with us in a different way!

September definitely kept us busy, but we needed it. So many positive things happened, which is helping keep our spirits up even on tough days. Arkansas is starting to feel more and more like home, and even though we miss everyone, we are finding ways to deal with that (Facetime is essential!) I know that the next few months will be busy, but I am really looking forward to it. October is always one of my favorite months, and we are excited to do our usual fall traditions in a new place. Stay tuned for our Indiana post coming soon!

November Adventures

The fall months always keep us busy! There is always a lot going on with birthdays, holidays and fall activities. Here were the highlights of our month:

Trip to Florida

Ryan is in the midst of residency interview season, so he is raveling around the country interviewing for different Emergency Medicine residency programs. When he got an interview with the University of Florida program in Gainesville, I volunteered to go with him without hesitation! At first we were planning on bringing the kids, but we decided to leave them with our parents and take a trip just the two of us. We hadn’t done this since our Honeymoon, so it was much needed! Since we were going to be in Florida for a few days, we also took the opportunity to visit a place that was on our Bucket List…Harry Potter World in Universal Studios. Ryan and I are both Harry Potter nerds and we have been dying to visit there. It was AMAZING. We spent 2 days there and loved every minute of it. We walked through Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, ate at the Three Broomsticks and the Leaky Cauldron, bought the Elder Wand, rode the Hogwarts Express, drank butterbeer and much more Harry Potter fun! Our other favorite area of Universal Studios was Jurassic Park. We spent a lot of time in the gift shop buying dinosaur souvenirs for the kids! After two days in Orlando, we drove to Gainesville for the interview. We walked the campus, and hiked through some of the local parks. At a park called La Chua Trail, we saw at least 50 alligators! One of them was blocking the trail so we couldn’t go any further. We loved exploring the beautiful town of Gainesville and we had an amazing trip!

Jurassic Quest

A month or so ago, Ryan’s cousin saw an ad for a show that was coming to the Indiana State Fairgrounds in November, called Jurassic Quest. She told us we should take Kinsie. We looked into it and decided to buy tickets. It was an awesome experience! We were in a huge warehouse and there were tons of life-size animatronic dinosaurs that moved and roared. Kinsie got to ride on a moving dinosaur, and then Brax joined her on a smaller non-moving dinosaur. There were also bounce houses, crafts, face-painting (which we didn’t do because there was a 2 hour wait!), and arcade games. Kinsie was in heaven! She told us that she never wanted to leave. Of course we eventually did, but both the kids got to bring home a stuffed dinosaur souvenir. They loved it!

Thanksgiving

This year, my school system changed our calendar, and we had one week off for Fall Break in October, and the whole week of Thanksgiving off. I didn’t like it at first since I only had one week off after the first quarter of school, but I actually loved having Thanksgiving week off. Ryan had the week off too, so we were able to spend a lot of great family time together. Earlier in the week, we got to go to Kinsie’s preschool’s Thanksgiving feast. She made placemats for us in class that included what she was thankful for. It was a lot of fun! Thanksgiving Day itself is always a highlight of our fall because we get to spend the day with both of our families. During the day, we went to Ryan’s sister Megan’s house for Thanksgiving lunch. We got to spend a few hours there with Ryan’s family, and Kinsie always loves going there to run around with their dog, Ali. Later, we went to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner with my family. The kids had a blast with their cousins and we had some great family time! Later that evening, Kinsie was having a slumber party with her cousins at my parents house, and my poor sweet girl got sick and we had to come and get her. We spent the next few days snuggling at home watching movies and she was feeling better within a few days. Our family tends to have bad luck with holidays…one of us is always sick on either Thanksgiving or Christmas. Fingers crossed that we all stay healthy this Christmas!

Thanksgiving feast at Kinsie’s preschool

Thanksgiving lunch at Megan and Tim’s

All the cousins gathered around the cousin table for Thanksgiving dinner

Polar Express

This year, we thought that the kids would really enjoy doing the Polar Express train ride. Ryan’s cousin’s kids are about Kinsie’s age and they love hanging out together, so we decided to get tickets for the same train as them. This was such an awesome experience! We all wore Christmas pajamas, rode on the train, drank hot cocoa, and ate cookies. We rode to the “North Pole” and picked up Santa Claus, who rode on the train ride back to the train station and visited with each kid. Kinsie had been talking about Santa SO much and couldn’t wait to see him, then once she did, she was so overwhelmed! She tried to hide behind me but I wouldn’t let her because I knew she wanted to see him. When he sat in the seat with us, she was super shy. (this was exactly how she was at Disney World last year when meeting the characters!) She told Santa what she wanted for Christmas, but very quietly! Of course afterwards, she couldn’t stop talking about how she met Santa! It was a lot of fun and a very neat experience.

As you can see, it was a great month! Like most parents, we love nothing more than to see our kids happy, so we take them to dinosaur shows and wear ridiculous Rudolph pajamas. Since Ryan is traveling so much, we really do our best to savor our time together as a family and go out and do fun things. We have a lot planned for the month of December as well with a trip to Florida (this time with the kids), and lots of Christmas fun!

Fall Fun in October

October is usually a very busy time of year for us with all kinds of fall and Halloween activities. This October definitely did not disappoint! Here are the highlights of our month…

Our New NIECE!

In the early hours of October 8, we were blessed with a beautiful baby niece, Kollyns Sophie Alane Robinson. My sister and I have always been in the delivery room for each other when we’ve had our babies, so I got to witness this sweet girl’s birth and capture her first moments on camera. We didn’t know the gender of the baby until her birth, and she was the tiebreaker among the cousins! Kinsie said from very early in Krista’s pregnancy that it was a girl…and she was right! Believe it or not, Brax was also very excited to meet his baby cousin. He was extra squirmy and trying to dive out of our arms when we visited her at the hospital! We all absolutely adore sweet baby Kolly!

Pumpkin Patch

Visiting the pumpkin patch is always one of our favorite things to do in October. Anderson Orchard is our favorite place to pick pumpkins, climb on the hay bales, and eat some delicious snacks (fresh biscuits with apple butter, and apple cider slushies…yes please!)  This year, Kinsie helped pick out her own pumpkin and loved showing Brax all the pumpkins. We had 2 very happy little pumpkins!

Zoo Boo

Our original plan was to go to Zoo Boo on Saturday, October 8…but baby Kolly had different plans and decided to grace us with her presence that day! We didn’t mind! Anyway, we ended up going a week later (Kolly may have broken a record on youngest zoo guest!) Ryan, the kids and I all went as the Ninja Turtles this year for Halloween. It turned out to be a beautiful evening, the animals were very active and the kids had a blast!

Pumpkin carving

If you remember from past Halloweens, pumpkin carving is one of me and Ryan’s favorite hobbies. This was the first year that Kinsie really got to help with pumpkin carving. She picked a Ninja Turtle, I picked Dory, and Ryan picked a skeleton dog. We made it a family event and we all helped in the process (well, Brax watched and provided enthusiastic squeals). We were pretty happy about our finished products!

Trick-or-Treating

This year, we went trick-or-treating at my sister’s neighborhood so Kinsie could be with her cousins. The neighborhood was perfect for the kids to go door to door and they did such a good job saying “trick or treat!” and thanking the people after they got their candy. Both of my kids were pretty pumped about all the candy they got, and Brax was even nice enough to give all his candy to Kinsie! It was a great night!

Another eventful October in the books. This one was even more special because we got a new member of the family. The holidays are coming up so stay tuned for more updates soon!

Our September

Our September was busy, exciting and hard. As I mentioned in my last post, Ryan was in Cincinnati for the majority of September. The kids and I stayed with my parents during this time…thank goodness for this, I probably would still be hiding in a hole somewhere had I dealt with the kids by myself the entire month. We all missed him, but Kinsie took it the hardest. Luckily, we stayed pretty busy throughout the month. Here is the rundown of our month…

Kinsie’s Soccer Season

This kept us very busy this month with practice twice a week and games on Saturdays. It was good for Kinsie though to be outside running around. It was a great season!

Grandparents Day

Kinsie’s school had Grandparents Day early in September. Both my parents and Ryan’s parents were able to make it, and I guess Kinsie was the only student in the school who had all 4 grandparents come! They all seemed to have a blast!

Birthday dinners

September is a busy birthday month for our family. My dad, my sister and Kinsie all have birthdays in September. On the evening of my dad’s birthday, we went out to dinner to celebrate the September birthdays.

Start of football season

These precious kids are enjoying dressing in their Colts gear and watching games with our family!

Cincinnati Zoo

This was one of the big highlights of the month. Since Ryan was in Cincinnati and couldn’t come home very often, we went to visit him and the zoo! Kinsie was super excited not only to see her daddy, but also to see her favorite animal, hippos! This was an AWESOME zoo and we had an amazing day.

Kinsie’s Birthday and Dinosaur Party

As you’ve probably seen in my previous posts, Kinsie turned three this month! We had a dinosaur party for her at the lake. It was a huge success!!

We had a great month, but like I said, it was hard not having a piece of our hearts with us. We are so glad to have Ryan back home and excited for the fall season!

Fall Break Adventures

Well my fall break ended 2 weeks ago, so this may be a little late, but better late than never! It always seems that Fall Break is one of the most needed breaks of the year for me. Starting off a school year is long and exhausting (procedures, beginning of the year testing, more procedures, more testing…you get the idea), then throw in working full days PLUS parent-teacher conferences before and after school during the last couple of weeks, I was beyond mentally and physically exhausted and ready for a 2 week break with my family. During Ryan’s third year of med school, they get one “break” rotation…where they aren’t actually doing a clinical, but are usually still expected to do something. The nice thing was that Ryan got to choose when he got to have this break, and what he got to do with it. So we purposefully planned it so that he would have this rotation while I was on fall break. He chose to do some emergency medicine research, which mainly required him to enter data into his computer…which he could do from home. So for the first time in a LONG time, Ryan and I both had somewhat of a break at the same time. As much as I would have loved to go to Florida with my family, we just didn’t know what Ryan’s schedule would be early enough, but it still turned out to be such a nice, relaxing 2 weeks. Kinsie was perfectly content staying at home playing with her toys and playing outside (it was a BEAUTIFUL two weeks). We also took little day trips to places like the Children’s Museum, pumpkin patches, and even downtown Danville! I’ll share some pics from each of our little adventures!

We were finally able to take Kinsie to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum for the first time. She loved it! Her favorite exhibit was the dinosaur exhibit. Ever since then, she’s kind of been obsessed with dinosaurs. She has wanted dinosaur toys, dinosaur fake tattoos, and even made Ryan dress as a dinosaur for Halloween! Ryan’s inner child is pretty happy about this dinosaur phase that Kinsie is going through!

Like I said, we had some beautiful 60-70 degree weather during my break. You already know how much Kinsie likes to be outside, and now she is starting to embrace the beauty of fall. She loves the colorful falling leaves, and has even starting collecting them, thanks to some inspiration from her cousins. Ryan gets really into any hobby that Kinsie currently has, so he bought her a leaf-collecting kit. Between collecting leaves, sticks, and finding colonies of bugs, she was one happy girl to be outside!

Downtown Danville is always festive no matter the season, and I drive past it every day on my way to work, so I had seen that they had a scarecrow display around the square. Kinsie really likes scarecrows (and anything else dealing with fall), so I thought she’d like to walk around and see it. Plus, this is the closest place to us that has crosswalk signs, with which Kinsie is still obsessed, so we knew she would be happy either way! She LOVED the scarecrows! Different local businesses made different scarecrows to display around the square, and some of them were really creative! Kinsie’s faves were the Doc McStuffins and Olaf scarecrow. After we walked around, we ate lunch at Mayberry Cafe (their salad bar is one of my favorite things in life). It was a nice little family day trip!

We went to two different apple orchards/pumpkin patches over break. We first went to Anderson Orchard just the three of us. We picked out pumpkins, ate biscuits and apple butter, drank apple cider slushies, and played on haystacks. Kinsie probably could have stayed there all night. We love Anderson Orchard because it’s cheap and not as crowded, but still offers lots of fall fun. Once my family came back from Florida, we all went to Beasley’s Orchard. We took a hay ride, bought apple snacks, and let the kids run around the pumpkin patch. Kinsie became a pumpkin-picking pro, and even later helped carve her pumpkin (post to come soon).

I was very grateful to have 2 weeks off with not only Kinsie, but with my husband too. It was SO refreshing, especially after a month’s rotation of him being in Muncie again. We got to have so much quality family time during those 2 weeks, which is all I ever ask for. We didn’t go anywhere super special or do anything extravagant, but we were together, which made it perfect!

A Pup at the Zoo

One of our new favorite fall traditions is to go to the Indianapolis Zoo Boo. Last year, Kinsie wore her skeleton outfit, but this year she was super excited to wear her costume – a dalmatian puppy. Ryan and I weren’t crazy about the dalmatian costumes in stores and online, so we made one, which was modeled after the dalmatian costume my mom made for my sister when she was young. A white crewneck sweatshirt, white pants and some black felt and boom – you’ve got yourself a pup costume! We also may have bought her a real dog collar with a name tag that says her name too! Anyway, Kinsie LOVES her costume. She wants to wear it all the time around the house…so we’ve been trying to find as many opportunities for her to dress as a pup as possible! The zoo is still one of her favorite hangouts, and its even better when her cousins are there too! The three musketeers spent most of the afternoon hand-in-hand, and eventually they recruited Uncle Ry Ry to join in on the hand-holding too!

Kerigan – Little Red Riding Hood, Kinsie – dalmatian pup, Briggs – zebra (“Marty” from Madagascar)

Checking out the animals

The pup with her crew

Our sweet pup

The three best friends that anyone ever had

We all had a blast at the Zoo Boo! Stay tuned for more fall and Halloween posts coming within the next few weeks!

Fall Family Fun

We have had an extremely busy fall season so far! Between teaching, the busy season of photography and chasing around a 1-year-old, I’ve hardly had time to breathe let alone sit down and write a blog post! Ryan has also had a very intense semester so far. He’s had an average of 2 tests per week, which means he is spending the majority of his time studying. I have to give him a lot of credit though, even in the midst of a very demanding semester, he has still managed his time well enough to enjoy lots of quality time with Kinsie and me. Luckily, this was the first year that IU had a fall break, so Ryan had about 4 days off at the end of October, and even better, it happened to fall on the same week as my fall break! Because of our limited time together, we are always thankful for any extra days we get to spend as a family.

As Kinsie gets older, she is becoming more and more aware of when her daddy is around and when he’s not. When he’s not home, she does ok and still has fun, but when he is home, she is clearly in her happy place. She LOVES having her daddy home and she will spend all her time wallering all over him and giving him hugs and kisses. While it is harder this year to have him gone since Kinsie is older and more aware, I am grateful that she was so little throughout most of Ryan’s time in Muncie, and that he’ll be back home with us before she turns 2.

We’ve had lots of fun adventures over the last month with our girl. We took her to the pumpkin patch for the first time, which she loved! She could have crawled around and climbed all over the pumpkins all day. We went to Anderson Orchard for the first time, and we were very pleased with it. Good prices and lots of fun family activities!

As I mentioned last year, Ryan and I always go all out on carving pumpkins. Last year was a little different because we were busy with a newborn, but this year we made sure that we made time for extreme pumpkin carving, and we even got to include Kinsie in the fun this year. We let her help clean out her own pumpkin. She wasn’t so sure about sticking her arm in the pumpkin and taking the seeds out, but she LOVED seeing her carved pumpkin all lit up!

Proud of her Hoosier bear pumpkin!

Ryan’s pumpkin- “V” from V for Vendetta

My pumpkin- “Olaf” from Frozen

As you know, Kinsie is obsessed with animals, so we take advantage of any opportunity we get to take her to the zoo. During the month of October, the Indianapolis Zoo has their “Zoo Boo” where kids dress up in their costumes or Halloween gear at the zoo. A lot of the animals play with pumpkins, and zoo workers pass out candy. It took Kinsie a while to understand the idea of collecting candy, but soon she became a pro. We later met up with my sister and her family, so the kids got to have cousin fun at their favorite place!

This year for Halloween, we dressed Kinsie up as her favorite animal, a bear. We were really excited to take Kinsie around in her wagon to go trick-or-treating for the first time. However, those of you in the Indy area know how awful the weather was on Halloween night. It was probably 30 degrees, windy and rainy…so we had to change our trick-or-treating plans. We just drove to my parents house and helped pass out candy to the brave and dedicated ones who did walk around outside. Ryan’s family visited as well, so our little bear still had fun!

Kinsie and I were very grateful to have Ryan home with us for a few extra days, and that he was able to go on all of our fun fall adventures with us. Kinsie always cherishes any time with her daddy that she can get!