Reester and Easter 2011

Big weekend here at the Meek household. Friday was a day off so we tried out Plaza Fiesta with some friends and then on Saturday we celebrated Reester! Miss Reese turned 2 and what better way to celebrate but with an Easter Egg Hunt! We then headed to SC to vist with family and have the annual Reunion in Northern Georgia. Overall a great weekend!

Pre Easter Fun!

This week the kid's school had their annual Easter Bonnet Parade along with a Spring Fling which was a blast as usual which included an Easter Egg Hunt and a Petting Zoo. Here are pictures from the weekend

Good Bye Swings...Hello New Raised Bed

You might notice that they area behind the kids is missing something....we took down the old swing set this weekend (or Corbin did while we watched) and turned it into a raised bed. Dirt was delivered this week and after a good rain storm we should be able to start planting. Monday we had a taste of the strawberries that we are growing and Gwennie said they are "delicious!"

Miss Peggy's Having a Baby!

This weekend I traveled up to Boston to celebrate the pending arrival of Peggy's new baby boy or girl! It was also a great chance to see all of my friends from years past and their new children. Everyone looks great and so do their children. Here are a bunch of pictures from the weekend.

Haircut day....

Well...it was a warm day on Saturday and the dogs were panting so we decided it was time to get the clippers out. I figured a side by side of the before/after was a good idea so you could see how much hair we removed from the girls. Here are a few pictures from the weekend. '

Warm Weekend!

This weekend we celebrated Ben's 3rd birthday on Saturday with fabulous weather and fireman fun! Sunday we grabbed our bicycles and headed to the park and then topped off the day with s'mores by the campfire. As you can see from the pictures the kids pretty much loved roasting marshmallows....almost as much as their fathers! Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Giddy Up Gwennie's 4!

This weekend Miss Gwennie turned 4 years old! We threw a joint birthday party with her friend from school Lexi and had a pony and petting zoo in the backyard! As you can see the pony was a big hit as well as the 3 week old goat, the pig, the rooster, the sheep and the bunny! Lots of friends and family celebrated with us and overall it was a great party!

Lordy, Lordy.....

Look who's 40! Yes....Corbin turned forty on Friday. I somewhat surprised him (until we got to the parking lot) with a bowling party with his friends and our cousins that came up to see him! It was a GREAT party and we all had a blast. Here are the pictures from the party and Gwennie/Hudson enjoying the chocolate covered strawberries that GeeGee and PopPop sent over!

First Haircut...and a New Cousin!

This weekend after about 20 people telling us Hudson needed a haircut we finally caved and headed over to our favorite place (Pigtails & Crewcuts) for his first trim. As you can see from the pictures he was a trooper and was making funny faces at us the entire time. Here is the after picture.

We also are very happy to welcome another cousin into the family. After 22 hours of labor, Lawson Miles finally arrived. We are so happy for Sara and Mike! Here are some pictures of the haircut as well.

The Greatest Show on Earth

This weekend we had the chance to go to the circus! It is interesting to see how much the circus has changed since we were kids. I remember tents and smelling the circus from miles away. Now it is more of a production but the kids LOVED it.

Here are pictures from the day.

4 Days of Snow and Ice, 7 Days of Sun!!!!

It has been a while since we have posted for good reason...we have been on vacation! As you can see from the pictures the family spent some time in Turks and Caicos at Beaches resort. Overall it was a wonderful vacation and we are happy to be back but missing the weather!

Here are pictures from the week!

Just Chillin....

It's been pretty quiet around here lately. We spent New Years with friends and decided to head home after ringing in the new year to play a little Dance Central on the Kinnect. As you can see, Michelle was not going to lose her concentration! This week checked out the new Monkey Joe's around the corner and today is a snow day for all of Charlotte so our buddies came over for some TV, snow and play time!

Holidazed....

Well the holidays have come and gone and we are finally getting back to normal again. Over the last two weeks we have had a lot going on. Gwennie had her Christmas pageant at school and then we headed down to the Webb Family Xmas extravaganza! We ended the weekend with a nice visit with Aunt Nina, Uncle Bob and Granny Gary.

Then on Thursday GeeGee and PopPop flew into town for Christmas followed by Nana on Friday so we had a full house on Christmas! We all had a great time and enjoyed having our family with us to open presents. Then as an extra treat it snowed Christmas night so we spent the next day playing in the front yard! Here are pictures from both weekends and a couple of videos.

Happy Birthday Ayla and Santa!

This weekend was busy with me at a church event and the rest of the family celebrating Ayla's 4th birthday! I wish I had pictures from the ice skating princess party but the camera was with me at church. Sunday we celebrated with Santa and friends, Porter, Gwennie and Ayla were overjoyed to talk to the Big Man! Hudson, Reese and Cameron wanted nothing to do with him (they all still are feeling a little odd sitting with a bearded man in a red suit.) but here's hoping next year we will get a few cute snapshots.

A little Clark Griswold in All of Us....

As you can see here. We decided to go all out with Christmas this year. Compared to our neighbor down the street (picture is below but blurry because their lights twinkle), we need to add about 20 more strings.

We officially started the holidaze complete with the annual visit to the Christmas Tree lot (same place that the pumpkin incident was) but this time the kids were contained into a fenced in area to prevent another trip to the ER. All went well and we think this years tree is the best one yet. I also found the kids "brushing their teeth" together on Saturday. I think it was more along the lines of playing with the toothpaste but they seemed to have fun. We also shot some video from the ride over of Gwennie practicing for her holiday skit. Please note....be good for Mr and Mrs Sykes....

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we decided to stay home for Thanksgiving and have dinner with our close friends Michelle, Drew, Porter and Cameron who are also big fans of a parade! We started the morning off uptown to scope our parade spots (our group came prepared with chairs, strollers, and cones!!). It was a little chilly and rainy but everyone had a great time watching all of the bands and floats walk by. We then headed home to make dinner and watch a little football. Dinner was great and I think we have started a new tradition of parading and eating with friends!

Saturday we headed over to Granny Gary's for a nice visit. I forgot the camera in the car but the kids were having so much fun at her house that I am not sure if I could have stopped them long enough to snap any pictures.

Saturday night we stayed with Nina, Bob, Caroline and Megan (and their dogs Shiloh and Chloe) which might have been one of the best sleepovers ever. Caroline pulled out her old Barbie trunk (complete with 4 barbies, star rocker Ken and clothing to match) which might have topped Santa in the gift department this year. She LOVES the barbies and has carried her trunk around with her everywhere she goes. She also loves that Ken has stars on his head that change color. Hudson loved watching Elmo on their computer and telling Chloe "bang, bang!"as you can see from the video below.

Sunday our cousin Sara had her baby shower and it was great seeing all of the family together. I am pretty sure he's all set with Clemson gear for the next 18 years! Overall it was a wonderful weekend!

Farewell to Soccer...

Well...as you might notice from the picture, Gwennie is missing her soccer uniform. That's because she is battling a cold and ended up running a fever right before her game so we missed the finale of the "Pink Princesses" in action! Our good buddy Ayla brought over Gwennie's trophy and we hope this is the first of many (I think Gwennie wants to do ballet again so we might be back to ballet posts).

Gwennie also had her Thanksgiving performances at school this week. There are a bunch of videos of all of the kids performing. They all were so cute in their "countries". Gwennie is Mexico and in case you didn't hear here her part she said..."Hola from Mexico, I bring you salsa and chips!". We were a little nervous that "Hola, My name is Dora" was going to sneak in there but she's a performer through and through! To view the videos, click on the grey screen once the pictures finish to open Picasa Web and then the video will load.





And this is what we found at Target today.....

Boys...

This weekend we didn't take many pictures because I was out sick all day Saturday with a stomach bug that the kids brought home on Wednesday. The kids actually fared better than I did. They were only out on Wednesday and were back in action Thursday morning. I am still a bit queasy today and am hoping to get some sort of appetite back soon.

So...since I didn't take any pictures I figured I'd give a recap of the past month of what it's like to be the parent of a toddler boy. Mind you Gwennie was all over the place as well but Hudson seems to find ways to scare us more than I ever thought a little kid could. Let's start with about a month ago...that Saturday at one of Gwennie's soccer games he tripped and fell and landed on Corbin which resulted in him biting the sides of his tongue (nothing major...just a few tears and a little blood), then the day after he ran head first into the refrigerator and ended up with a large goose egg. Later that day we had decided to meet his godparents (and Crawford) at a pumpkin patch and as we were walking around, one of the employees was driving a bit too fast to park and as he passed us, Hudson turned and literally ran into the back tire of the moving truck! It's hard to explain (and still hard to talk about because I was right there screaming and right next to him) how it happened because he was all of two feet away from me. Anyhow, miraculously he "bounced" off the tire and was not hurt at all. The only thing he had was a little red mark on his head. Then just about every day that week he managed to run into something at daycare. And....tonight when he was running around before bath, he tripped again and when he fell both Corbin and I knew it was going to be another moment our hearts jumped into our chest. Luckily the worst of it was a fat lip and after a few minutes of tears and an ice pack, he was back in action.

Suffice to say that boys are nothing like girls and I don't know what I am going to do once he starts playing organized sports. As his pediatrician and our good friend Jennifer says "Hallelujah, praise the lord, there must be an angel watching over him". I can't agree more...thank you to the folks upstairs and sorry to keep you so busy!

Happy Halloween!

Wow...this year could qualify as the best Halloween ever! I was a busy week though! Thursday we had "trunk or treat" at school with the kids which was a blast. All of the kids trick or treated through the church parking lot in full costume while the parents decorated the trunks of their cars.

Friday and Saturday I was up at a youth event for our church which was another great experience...although the freezing weather (in cabins without any heat!) was something I could have done without.

Sunday we headed over to our good friend Ayla and Reese's place for a Halloween parade followed by trick or treating in our neighborhood. This is the first time Gwennie really understood what the concept was and by the end of the night her bag was stuffed and she was ready to head home to check out all of her candy! Hudson had his first taste of a lollipop and I think he's hooked as well!

Here are LOTS of pictures from the week!

Parade!

This weekend was the neighborhood Halloween parade! As you can see from the pictures, our friendly fireman paid us a visit and let the kids check out the firetruck and sit up front. Ayla and Reese were a mermaid and an octopus while Gwennie and Hudson dressed up as Woody and Jessie from Toy Story. Here are a few pictures from the day.