August 2014 at The Parkers

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Time for our August review! (And again, I know – it’s like 5 months late. Just expect that all this month ..and maybe some of next month!) 🙂
In August…
We enjoyed the pretty flowers that were sent for Chayse and I from my work. And I started working again after a four week maternity leave. 

We went swimming at the pool at our friend’s apartment complex. Baby girl looked SO cute in her swimsuit from Crazy 8. And, Titan enjoyed getting to spend lots of time in the pool! 

Chayse wasn’t so sure about the sun. LOL 
We LOVE spending time with our friends Andrea & James! 

Titan realized there are perks to being one of only 8-10 kids in our ward’s Primary! I am seriously amazed at how much he comes out of Primary with each week. 
This was one of our first weeks back after I had Chayse and he came walking out with a balloon, a dessert, and a few other things. 

Chayse started to focus a little better. 

Broc spent a lot of time sporting his white coat and looking all official. 😉 (Seriously though, that is one handsome doctor!) 🙂

We made lots of visits to the library and got to meet a guy who has taken paper folding to the extreme. These animals/figures were even more incredible up close and in person. 

We also got to check out the local Fire Station’s fire truck up close and learn from the fire fighters about their jobs and fire safety 

We went on lots of walks up and down our street. And yes, I did let Titan out of house in a regular shirt, pajama pants and flip flops. Pick your battles, right?! 
This is his, “Hurry up Mom! You and baby sister are SO slow!” face. 

I watched LOTS of Gilmore Girls while Chayse nursed, and we snuggled. It seriously felt like those first 8 weeks all we did was nurse. But, now those eight weeks seem like a blink of an eye and I am grateful for the down time & bonding time we had. Nursing definitely forced me to slow down A LOT more than I did with formula feeding.
I choose Gilmore Girls because the episdoes make the time go by really fast, there are a lot of them & let’s face it, TV shows in the summer just aren’t that great. 
 (Note: Of course, it would have been nice if Redbox’s release of Gilmore Girls would have happened a little sooner. I was watching old school and had pulled out my Gilmore Girls DVD collection!) 🙂
We took Chayse to her first hip ultrasound. This was the first check they did, just in case. 

Baby girl after her appointment. She was SO tiny! 

We played lots of board games as a family. Monopoly was a favorite. (And were still working on getting moved in, as you can tell from the background of this photo!) 🙂

We went to the Drive In Movie Theater a town over and saw Guardians of the Galaxy! It was A LOT of fun and something we definitely want to do again once it opens back up for the summer. 

Baby Girl turned 6 weeks old! 

And she made lots of funny faces during nap time. 

We worked on trying to replace her two fingers with a Binkie and worked on her learning to like the Rainforest Bouncer Chair. 

And this is ultimately how Chayse felt about the Binkie. 😉

Titan’s supplies for Kindergarten through the PA Virtual Charter School came! 

I couldn’t believe how many boxes there were. It was like Christmas in August!

Baby Girl got lots of beauty sleep. 

…and bonded with big brother! These two are seriously the sweetest with each other! Love watching them interact. 

We went to a church BBQ. 

Where the boys played some kickball with some friends and Chayse and I cheered from the sideline.

We fit in some grocery shopping! Titan was highly entertained by this corn sign every time we went. 

We learned Chayse really likes the sound of water running. If she gets fussy and you turn on the shower or water, it generally calms her down. 

Chayse perfected her smile and started showing it a lot more! 

…and just perfected being super cute overall! 

I started working out again with some leopard print Nike’s that were my gift to myself for making it to six weeks nursing! (I couldn’t find the exact ones, so I linked you to similar ones. I purchased my pair at Nordstrom during their big sale.)

We hosted a game night with friends. And got to try a ton of flavors of Snyders of Hanover Pretzels that one of our friends brought! (PS: These are SO addicting & yummy!) 

I believe the game the ended up playing was Munchkin. A definite family favorite! 
Titan started his first day of school. We are homeschooling but using the PA Virtual Charter School program, so we follow their schedule. 

I cannot believe my baby boy has started Kindergarten?! Where did the last five years go??? 

LOVE this little man! 

Titan hard at work on his assignments. 

Chayse made friends with the bears on her mobile. 

…and she pretty much had us all wrapped around her finger ALL month long! 
After a very crazy June and July, August was basically a month where we just adjusted to being a family of four and slowly integrated work and school back into our lives. I was really happy that the scheduling worked out so that I had a month off after I had Chayse and then Titan’s school didn’t start until two weeks after that, and then my school didn’t start until two weeks after that. 
It definitely helped us to get our bearings to have everything not start up all at once. I was also glad that in August I chose not to sign Titan up for any extracurricular activities. I felt like we needed a month to just be and be homebodies and I was right! 

Gettysburg In A Day (With Young Kids)!

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As I mentioned in my last post, while my mom and sister were in town we took part of one day and headed to Gettysburg. (Gettysburg is about a 3 1/2 hour drive from where we are living here in Pennyslvania.)

The day we went, I had scheduled Chayse’s newborn photo shoot in the morning. I didn’t realize the shoot would be around 3 hours long, so we ended up with less time in Gettysburg than we had anticipated.

Truthfully though, considering I had just had Chayse ten days before, it turned out to be plenty for me and for Titan’s 5-year old attention span. 🙂

The first thing we did when we arrived was go to the David Wills House which is situated right next to The Inn at Lincoln Square. 
If you aren’t familiar with the Wills House, here is a little bit about it: “The David Wills House features five museum galleries and two recreated rooms, the David Wills Law Office and the Lincoln Bedroom. The museum will guide you through the days, weeks and months after the battle of Gettysburg. It illustrates President Lincoln’s historic visit to the devastated town, the immortal words of the Gettysburg Address and the legacy of hope and healing that they brought, and continue to bring, to our nation.” 

We only spent less than an hour at this museum (we got there right before closing) but it was definitely the perfect starting point for our mini outing.

For reference, the museum is open varied hours during the year. So many sure to check their times before you go! And admission is $6.50 for adults and $4.00 for youth. While kids 5 and under are free. Also, you will want quarters for the parking meters! We didn’t have any change and so I had to run into a local shop and luckily they were nice enough to make change for us.  

Titan with the Abraham Lincoln statue right outside the Wills House. 

The best part about this museum was being able to show Titan things like the actual room Abraham Lincoln slept in the night he wrote the Gettysburg Address. Titan got to see how rooms differ from the hotels we stay at today, and basically see first hand what it would have been like back then. 
While I know you can read all these things in a book or look them up online, there is definitely something to be said for seeing them in person. I know Titan has retained a lot more from our mini excursion than he would have had we just read about everything in a book. 

 

Inside the museum they had a lot of interactive displays and short 3-5 minute videos that explained about the Battle of Gettysburg, the writing of the Gettysburg Address, etc. 

I loved that there was so much for Titan to look at and watch. 

Baby girl getting snuggles from Grandma while we walked around the museum. 

After the Wills House we visited a portion of the Gettysburg National Military Park. This is a place you could easily spend hours. There are a lot of trails and paths that you can walk. It was close to getting dark though, and I wasn’t up for TONS of walking. So we just walked around an area located across the street from the Soldier National Cemetery. It was an area set up on a ridge and it was very humbling to think about the events that occurred on that same ground years before. 
If I remember correctly, Gettysburg was one of the bloodiest battles of the war and around 50,000 men lost their lives. For such a small area, that is a staggering number! It’s truthfully hard to even imagine. 
Ti guy trekking up the ridge. 

The view looking out over the ridge. 
…and in true boy fashion, Titan only wanted his photo IF it couldn’t be taken by one of the huge cannons. Which reminds me, standing by the cannons and looking out over the ridge started a great discussion on why you want to choose the higher ground in a battle ie. it gives you more perspective, you are harder to reach, it’s harder to run uphill vs. downhill, etc.  We also discussed how things evolve and change and why cannons aren’t really used any more in battles. 

The next place we decided to stop was the Soldier National Cemetery which was right across the road. This cemetery is where the Union dead from the Battle of Gettysburg are buried and it is also where President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

At the entrance to the cemetery, we stop for a quick moment so I could explain to Titan what this place was and why we need to show respect and be quiet as we walked around. 
I am so happy my sister caught this moment on camera. I think it is really important to teach our children history, facts, dates, etc. but I believe it is also equally important to teach them about respect, reverence, and showing our gratitude for those who have gone before us. 
As we walked through the Soldiers Cemetery and saw all of the headstones, it really put into perspective just how many lives were lost in the fighting. 
My dad is a huge history buff and had told us that there is a feeling in Gettysburg and especially places like the Soldier National Cemetery that is really powerful and humbling. After visiting the cemetery, I now know what he meant. There aren’t really words to describe the loss that occurred as brothers, friends, cousins, etc. all fought, sometimes even against each other! 

I am so glad Titan was with us for this mini outing and that he can now say he’s been to Gettysburg. When we talk about the presidents, look at a penny or even talk about history, he will almost always bring up something he learned from this impromptu “field trip”. 

…and this adorable little sweetie was content just to snuggle and sleep on my mom or sister the entire time. If she wasn’t eating, she was usually being held by one of them. It made it really easy for me to be able to focus on Titan for a little bit and to help make the excursion as educational as possible for him. 
After the cemetery, it was time for some dinner and we decided to give The Pub & Restaurant a try. (It was across the round about from the Wills House). 
If you are in the area and are looking for a good place to eat, I’d definitely recommend this place. The atmosphere was so picturesque and the food was really good as well! Plus, if you eat outside, you have a great view of the Wills House, the Gettysburg Hotel, and more. 
We did have some issues with our server, but I’m assuming not all their servers are as bad as the one we had. And really, he was only a bad server if you weren’t also purchasing alcohol with your meal. He seemed to only pay attention to the tables that were also drinking. Probably because more drinks means more money spent and a larger tip. Of course, we are usually awesome tippers, so it was too bad for him. 

Our view at dinner. Such a nice summer night! We couldn’t have asked for better weather!

We ordered a few dishes to share, and none of them disappointed! That pizza was as delicious as it looks!

…and so were these egg rolls! 
We did order more than those two dishes, those were just the only ones we remembered to photograph. 🙂
While we were sitting at dinner I had a partial view of The Gettysburg Hotel and I thought it would be a really fun hotel to stay at if we ever made our way back to Gettysburg. I thought the rates would be ridiculously priced though because of it’s location, but once I got home and did some research online, I found that rates start at only $109.00. So not too bad at all!

All in all, I think we were only in Gettysburg for four or so hours. I feel like with just the three stops we made though, we got a great overview and it was the perfect mix of interactive and just sight seeing for a 5-year old (and a mom recovering)! 
Since our trip I have been told that there are guides on CD that you can purchase like the Gettysburg Expedition Guide that will guide you all around the town and battle fields and give you lots of facts and information. (I would guess there is probably an MP3 version out there as well?! I just couldn’t find one…) I’ve decided if/when we go back I definitely want to do that OR I want to have my dad with us! He knows so much about the area and the history, I know we’d be ok without another type of tour guide. 🙂
If you’ve been to Gettysburg, I’d love to know what you did? Where you ate, what you saw, etc! 

While I think we covered the main things and got a good feel/foundation of Gettysburg in, I do feel like we just barely scratched the surface of what there is to do there! So definitely looking for more ideas for next time!

My Mom & Sister’s Visit to Pennsylvania

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Back in July (yes, I know I am about 6 months behind, but better late than never, right?!) my sister and mom flew out to spend some time with us right after I had Chayse. Here are  photo’s from their visit along with all the details…

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My mom meeting Chayse for the first time! 

Titan was SO excited to show off his baby sister! 
While I was really excited to see that they had devoted an entire suitcase/carry on to bringing me Kneaders eclairs!!! (Don’t get me wrong, I was most excited to see them, but I mean, Kneaders eclairs were definitely a close close second!) 😉
 Just the first of MANY ways they spoiled us while they were in town.
If you are ever near a Kneaders location, you need to try these!

Chayse meeting her Aunt Tara (my sister)!
Chayse definitely got spoiled by her grandma and aunt while they were here!
Not only did they bring some things we requested that you can only get in Utah, but they also surprised us with the eclairs, some new outfits for Chayse…

…and my old doll from when I was little! Blogging friends, meet my Cabbage Patch doll, Natty Guckus.
I was SO surprised because I thought Natty was LONG gone. My sister found her though when they were doing some cleaning in storage and after washing her and all her accessories about ten times, they decided to bring her to Pennsylvania and share her with Chayse. Too funny!

Chayse sporting her new maxi skirt from Grandma Cindy. Can you believe they even make skirts that teeny tiny?! Too cute! (If I remember right, my mom found the skirt at the Provo Farmers Market and I just happened to have a onsie that matched perfectly!)
Our first dinner, we decided to take them to try out Jethro’s! I think we let Titan decide where to take them, and this is where he selected. He really likes the fettuccine alfredo and meatballs that they have. 
The next morning my mom walked past our room and saw me half asleep holding and rocking Chayse. She quickly snatched Chayse up and told me to go back to bed.

Chayse getting cuddles and loves from my sister. 

Baby yawns! 

 When I woke up a little while later I walked down stairs to find two very happy and content kids and a super yummy breakfast of some of my most favorite foods!!! It seriously almost made me cry. This mom definitely appreciated the yummy food that she didn’t have to cook and the extra sleep! Pure HEAVEN!

Getting ready to head  out for the day! Don’t look too closely at the background, we were still very much in “move in” mode considering Chayse was born only five or so weeks after we moved to PA. 
Oh this girl! 

After breakfast we hopped in the car and headed to State College, PA to go to Panda Express and Trader Joe’s. Penn State is home to the closest Panda Express here in PA and if you know my son, you know he LOVES Panda Express. 
I figured the trip would give us a good chance to show my mom and sister more than just our little area of Pennsylvania and to spoil Titan a little bit too. 

A lot of the campus was under construction when we went over the summer but even with the construction, you could still tell it’s a gorgeous campus. I LOVED all the buildings and older architecture.

…and Titan loved that they had his beloved orange chicken. 

…oraneg chicken that we almost didn’t make it in time for! Apparently Panda Express closes early during the summer, so we arrived seriously with only seconds to spare! Thank heavens we made it in time is all I can say. Ti literally got the last couple scoops of fried rice and orange chicken that they had. He was one lucky little man.

After Panda, it was over to Panera for the grown ups to get their lunch. 

And then it was off to Trader’s Joes. I had only been in one once before like 4-5 years ago and my mom and sister had never shopped there. So when we saw there was one in the area, we decided to make a quick stop. 
On our way to the store, my sister and I both jumped on social media and got a list of things that are “must haves” from Trader Joe’s. I love how now with social media, you can immediately get any info you might need/want! 

On our way home from State College, we stopped by the hospital to visit Broc at work. 

One of my favorite photos of my favorite people! 

And finally, we made it back home. Of course, since my sister and I are both bloggers, we just had to set up our purchases really fast to snag a quick photo. 😉

(Note: You can find my sister at Keep Moving Forward with Me and actually this is a good time to say that about half the photos in this post were taken by her. She was nice enough to let me grab them off her camera before she left!). 

Baby girl was awesome during all of our errands! She’s going to be an awesome little shopper, just like her brother, I can already tell… 🙂

For the next day’s breakfast, my mom and sister made pancakes so that we could try out the Cookie Butter from Trader Joe’s. This was one of the items everyone told us we had to try and we were told it goes well with pancakes. 

We also enjoyed the flowers that an employee at Trader Joe’s sent home with me after she found out I was  out running errands with a baby who was less than a week old. The customer service at Trader Joe’s really is awesome! 
After breakfast it was off to a T-Ball game of Titan’s! He was really excited that my mom and sister were going to get to see a game! 

Batter up! 

Oh how I love this little man! 

Grandma was in heaven because she got the best of both worlds. She got to watch Titan’s game AND get snuggles from a sleeping baby girl! 

…and yes, that is Titan sitting in the outfield. I think it’s safe to say being a baseball player is not in his future. 😉

He did give most of it a good go though. 

Another benefit of having my sister and mom in town was that my sister took TONS of photos for us! She captured so many great photos and moments that we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. So grateful for that…and for all the laundry she did for me! 
Our laundry situation is all set up in our basement which is down an old set of steep stairs. My sister very nicely did at leat 5-6 loads of laundry while they were in town so that I wouldn’t have to be going up and down the stairs carrying things. Like I said, they totally spoiled me! 

Another dinner out, this time we tried out Traditions. A local Pennsylvania Dutch Restaurant and Bakery that is run by the Mennonites in the area.

Ti with Grandma Cindy and Aunt Tara. He LOVED having them here!! 

As far as our thoughts on the restaurant, it was good and fun to try out once, but I don’t know that I would go back time and time again. Definitely worth trying out at least once or twice though. 

Our view as we left the restaurant. Pennsylvania really is a gorgeous state! 
On our way back from dinner we found a fun park and decided to stop for a little bit. We didn’t last to long though because Titan needed a restaurant almost immediately upon arriving and the restrooms were all locked up. Luckily it’s a park we’ve been able to return to. 
A quick family photo taken by my sister. 
…and another yummy meal cooked by my mom and sister! Titan wasn’t the biggest fan of this meal. I think he called it, “Green YUCK!” but I really liked it. In fact, I’ve been meaning to make it again. When I do, I’ll be sure to post the recipe because it was really simply (I think) and really good! 

After that dinner it was time for some games. We all played Munchkin while I got to hold this sweet little sleeping munchkin! 

My mom and sister’s last full day in town we went to Chayse’s newborn photo shoot and then spent the rest of the day in Gettysburg. Gettysburg will be it’s own post though! This post is already REALLY long and Gettysburg would add on A TON more! 🙂

My mom and sister’s last morning in town, we ordered take out from the local crepe restaurant, Allegheny Creamery and Crepes…

This was the morning that my crepe addiction here in PA began! They are just so delicious and good! Plus, I mean, you don’t get any more quaint adorable of a restaurant environment! My all-time favorite crepe is their Nutella Crepe with Strawberries and Bananas. I’d order one weekly if it fit into our budget. 🙂

Last but not least, Titan talked my mom into playing a couple quick rounds of The Ladybug Game before it was time for her and my sister to head to the airport. I have to admit, I didn’t want them to leave! It was so nice having them around  to talk to  and do things with and I definitely got spoiled having the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. all done for me for a few days! Plus, they helped take care of Titan and Chayse letting me rest up a bit more than I would have been able to otherwise!
Thank you again Mom and Tara for coming to stay with us and for all that you did for us!!! 
(Note: Just for my own personal record, their trip was from July 17th-22nd. So Chayse was 6 days old when they arrived and 11 days old when they left.)