Kindergarten

I can't believe my baby is in Kindergarten!!

Here she is on the first day of school.

Myrtle Beach

We took a last minute vacation to Myrtle Beach in August.  Johnny's brother and his girlfriend were nice enough to give us the extra room in the condo they rented.  It turned out to be kind of a bummer of a trip weather wise.  The first day was 90 and sunny.  The remaining days were never above 70 and cloudy or raining. We even left a day early.  Also, my kids wanted absolutely nothing to do with the beach.  Nothing.  We still managed to have a little bit of fun though!

Obviously, Paige is not to be outdone when Mommy and Daddy pose for silly pictures.

t-ball

Maris loves to play t-ball.  I am so proud (and relieved) to not have to force this on her!

I was a catcher and I remember it being far more exciting than this.

Can't forget the cheering section!  Little sparse that day.

Progressive Dinner

We celebrated our 8 year wedding anniversary in June.  We don't go out as much as we would like.  And we have a pretty extensive list of "must try" CLE restaurants.  So we thought a progressive dinner for our anniversary might be fun.

We started at Crop Bistro in the Market District.  We got drinks and appetizers.  It was awesome!  (Kind of wish we'd stayed for our whole meal!)

Must have been feeling pretty dapper.

Ready to start a fun night!

We ordered Balsamic Popcorn and the Grilled Flatbread.  Both were amazing.

 

Seriously, the popcorn was amazing...

Like really really good.

The building Crop occupies was built in the early 1900s as a bank.  It's cavernous, but beautiful.  Ask your server to visit the vault!

Next we went to Spice Kitchen & Bar in Gordon Square for our main courses.  It was okay, but not what we had been hoping for based on recommendations from friends.  Again, we wish we had stayed at Crop for the whole meal!

Dinner at Spice.

For dessert, we went to Rosso Gelato in Rocky River.  What a little gem of a place!  We'd never been before, but we'll surely be taking the girls back.  We've had real authentic gelato (and lots of it!) in Italy.  People who claim that American copy cats just can't get it right aren't lying.  But this place was nearly perfect!  Give it a try sometime!

For second dessert (what what?!) we went to Sweet Melissa.  We got a triple chocolate torte and chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake.  Delish, but we probably should have stopped at one dessert location!

 

Too.Much.Dessert.

All in all we had a wonderful time and we both agreed that we'd like to do this again in the future!  It's an easy way to try a bunch of different places while only employing* a babysitter for one evening. AND, I can't believe it's been 8 years!!!

*standard grandparent rates apply

The Themeless Birthday

Being that it was her fifth birthday, I probably should have let Maris pick a theme.  As it turned out, this was the most relaxed birthday we've celebrated yet! 

Suuuuuper excited about a gift of Ken doll clothes.

And a real china tea set.

Happy birthday Maris.  Your sister was too busy eating hot dog buns to be in the picture.

Happy Birthday Maris!

Happy 5th Birthday Maris!

Our Princess

Chocolate peanut butter cupcakes

The mustache dress I made for Maris.

Classroom

Maris lined up a few of her stuffed animals and dolls, plus one sister, to play teacher.  School even included a fire drill!