Asa and Physical Therapy...

Asa began physical therapy about 3 months after coming home from the NICU.  He wasn't holding his head up and needed just a little help reaching a few development milestones...which is pretty normal in premie babies.  

I am really impressed with the Pennsylvania Early Intervention program.  They are so on top of things and my children have greatly benefited from the program.  Our therapist Karen was great.  Asa loved her for about the first 20 minutes then he would scream, moan, cry at anything she wanted him to do.  She worked him hard and he gave us all a run for our money! What I have learned with both of my kids is we can teach them and push them but it comes down to whether they want to do it or not.  Asa didn't roll over until almost 9 months old.  He didn't crawl until Mother's day which was close to his one year birthday.  He is now almost 15 months old and not walking, BUT he is a happy content little man and we LOVE him!

 These pictures are from our last session with Karen.  You can see we were in the midst of moving out. Such a crazy few weeks for our family!

Our final trip to NYC...

New York City is such a fun place to visit, however Darin and I only went together once with out children.  That makes me so sad that we didn't take more opportunities to adventure in more often.  In my opinion it really isn't that fun of a place with children.  Although, I have friends who are pros at it.  I am too high strung!  I am pretty blessed to have a wonderful husband who took all the child responsibilities over so I could take a trip into the city with Stacia one last time.  We invited others to come with us but in the end it was just the two of us, which made for a fun trip!  Stacia, Codi and I had our own little NYC traditions which I don't think others really get.  First of all our favorite place to eat is Olive Garden.  Yes I know we are in NYC and we eat at the Olive Garden! mmmmMMMMmmmm nothing beats their breadsticks, soup and salad!

Then we had to walk off all that food so we took a stroll through Central Park.

 This picture totally reminds me of the League of their own when they do all the close ups on the pretty players then they get to the not so cute girl and her picture is to far to see her face. LOL!

I am sweating looking at us in those heavy coats!

 Stacia is such a girly, girl and love the flowers.  It really was nice to see such beauty in a dirty city.

 NO these people are not dead, homeless or taking cover!  They are New Yorkers enjoying the small piece of grass available to them...pretty sad when you think about it!

Our next stop SERENDIPITY!

For one of these babies....

 Frozen Hot Chocolate goodness!!!!!

 We even got to sit at the table that was featured in the movie "Serendipity."

Can you tell how excited we are!  

 We made a couple other random stops through Time Square... 

 Until it was time to see "The Phantom of the Opera" on broadway!  

We had to go on a Tuesday so we couldn't see a matinee which means we paid a pretty penny for our tickets....

 Only to sit in the NOSE BLEED SECTION!

 And we had to be THOSE people who sat in the wrong seats and had to be moved by the usher people.  AWESOME!

 The show was FANTASTIC!

We took the bus into the city this time (which I highly recommend if you are traveling without children. VERY AFFORDABLE!) The minute the show ended and the people were applauding the actors we jumped up to get out the door before the rush of people.  We ran through the streets of NYC to make our bus.  I am so happy Stacia has a good sense of direction in NYC because I had NO clue where I was going.  

Thank you Stacia for this fun trip.  I won't forget it.  You have been one of those people in my life that I can't thank God enough for!  You are truly my sister and I pray we always stay close.

Behind the Scenes of Blue Bell Season...

I can not believe how unorganized my pictures are!  I found more blue bell pictures.  Although these are more behind the scenes.  Many times Darin would come with me on a photo shoot and bring the boys.  Nash loved coming to Lockridge because of the creek.  This particular time he got to bring his fishing pole.  Notice the 3T FFA type levi jacket I made my 5T child squeeze into.

 Nash thought he was pretty cool dude with his fishing pole.

 This is what the blue bell field at Lockridge looks like.  This wasn't even a busy day, it can get pretty darn crazy!

And at the end of this trip to Lockridge Nash ended up falling in! Notice the wet trousers...nice.

Preschool Trip to the LV Zoo...

Nash's preschool class took a field trip to the Lehigh Valley Zoo.  I love the LV Zoo.  It is such a fun LITTLE zoo, it doesn't take all day and it is just enough animals to keep this age interested.  We first met with one of the workers and she showed up some of the animals.  She was a bit annoying as she went off on a rant about how people in the west are murdering the prairie dogs which are prey for the black foot ferret.  So since the prairie dog population is decreasing the black foot ferret almost went extinct...oops!

She let the kids touch a couple of the animals.  Nash was less then thrilled about it and she REALLY tried hard to get him to participate...NOT HAPPENING!

Asa on the other hand was going NUTS because he REALLY wanted to get his hands on those animals...that could have been tragic for the animal!

 Such a cute little class! 

 Ha! I couldn't resist taking a picture of these zebra's...

 Nash was funny.  He is such a social little butterfly.  He wanted nothing to do with the animals as much as he wanted to be walking, standing or talking with his friends.  

 This is Nash's little friend of 2 years Joseph.  He is a cute kid.  They both received speech together.

This was a fun outing and I realized how blessed I was to be able to stay home with my boys so that I could do fun things like this with them.  I hope I can always participate in their classes!

Walking the Halls at Church...

Church is a bit ridiculous when you have a child under 18 months.  There were times I wondered why I went, but then I remember the reasons for church and the example I was setting for the children. :)  Anyway most of the time Asa was WAY to loud to be in any class so I would be walking the halls.  Thankfully we would be in good company.

Such a cute little crew!  There were funny to watch as they would crowd together and steal each others binki's.  I think at this point Asa was the oldest and the only one NOT crawling.

 Asa was a HUGE fan of sister Terri Bussiere.  He loved her and would point at her when ever she came around, like he wanted her to hold him.  She would snuggle right up to her.  It was so cute and she loved it!

Fit Mama's...

It is no lie that I LOVE exercising and I talk way too much about weight, exercising, and eating.  I think it has always been a part of me as I watched people in my family struggle with weight.  I don't like feeling like I can't be as active as I want to be, or being too tired to play with my children.  So I work at it.  I am not a person who likes to workout alone and though I like getting up at the crack of dawn to go for a run it isn't always possible with Darin's work schedule.  We had a great basement in Pennsylvania.  There was enough room to have a workout group and play area for the kids.  So I invited over any mom that wanted to workout and give their kids a playdate.  Darin set up a projector, my friend Ashley brought over her BeachBody work-outs (Insanity, P90x, Brazilian Butt Lift, etc), and we exercised our hearts out!  It was great!  At one time we had 9 ladies there!!  The kids LOVED and truth be told my house NEVER reflected the amount of children that were running rampant unsupervised.

 Right before we moved I was too busy moving to continue the group.  Darin had a really yucky schedule so I had to do most workouts with the kiddos.  Stacia would come over at 5:30am and we would take turns running on the treadmill and doing insanity.  YES notice my children are awake at 5:30am!!  We should have just exercised at 9am if they are going to be awake!!

I stole this last picture from Ashley's facebook page.  I hope I can put something together like this in SC.  It was so fun!