"Maaaaa ma"

I never knew how sweet hearing those words would be until yesterday. I woke up after a LONG night of not sleeping and went down to make breakfast. The boys were in the kitchen playing and when I walked into the kitchen Zachary said "ma ma ma ma ma." I turned and looked at Rich to see if he heard the same thing I did and he had the biggest smile on his face and told me that he had been doing that all morning. I almost cried it was so cute!

I'm going to try and get a video of it so everyone can hear how cute it is! That little boy surprises me every day :)

Going once, Going twice - SOLD!

Woohoo in 4 days our house is officially off the market! We had an offer on Thursday the 25th, 6 years to the day that we settled on this house. We are so relieved but still pretty stressed out. If everything goes well with the home inspection we will go to settlement on November 20th (our 4 year anniversary).

We also took a ride up to Shrewsbury to see the progress on our new house. In just 1 week they have already framed *almost* the entire thing. We talked to the Lennar Realtor and she predicts we will be able to move in late November early December. Looks like it's time to start packing!

Here is the house all framed up.

Take a look, it's in a book - Reading Rainbow!

I got the cutest phone call in the world last night! My sister, Sarah, called me super excited to share news with me. I figured it was something about her house since she's in the process of putting it on the market. No, it was better!

Are you in suspense yet? My wonderful, smart and cutie patootie of a nephew is officially a reader! He just started kindergarten this year and they sat down to do some homework last night. I'm not sure of the details of the homework but it required reading a book together. Sarah said he picked Cinderella first but she swayed him to choose something with smaller words. So he settled on Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss. She said he did such a wonderful job sounding out the words and taking his time. I could tell she was beaming just from explaining it. Needless to say, I'm a very proud Auntie :) Way to go Collin!


Here he is ready for his 1st day of school. I can't believe how big he is!

Annie's Playground

Today my friend Dena and I took the kids to Annie's Playground in Belair. This was such a cool place. The playground is a dedication to a little girl, Annie, who was killed by a drunk driver when she was leaving the circus with her family. It was really beautiful and HUGE! I think the kids are still a little too young and wobbly for most of the stuff they have there. However, they did get out some energy which is all we could ask for on a beautiful day like today.

Here is a picture of the playground















Zachary going through the tunnel















Zachary riding the zebra















Dena helping Charlotte down "the slide of doom"














Dena and Charlotte swinging. We couldn't decide if this was a handicap swing or not. I think Charlotte is trying to figure that one out herself.















Charlotte is silly eating her lunch














Zachary really liked this "seat"

Out with the old, in with the new

What a week!!! We officially put our house on the market and today we went to Shrewsbury, PA and put a contract down on our NEW house. Rich and I are both totally in shock. We are nervous, excited, giddy and plain exhausted! Everyone cross your fingers that our house sells quickly so everything will fall into place perfectly. We plan to go and take pictures every couple of weeks to see the progress. We can't wait to see it all finished and move in! Hopefully we'll get to celebrate Christmas in PA!


Here we are in front of the homesite with our purchased sign!!!

This is the homesite. They project it to be finished ready to move in by Dec.

This is a small picture but this is the front of the house. We aren't sure of the colors yet.

Zachary passed out as soon as we started driving. Buying a house is hard!

Storyville at the Rosedale Library

Today Zachary and I met my friend Dena and her daughter Charlotte at the library for some afternoon fun. This was mine and Zachary's first time visiting Storyville and I was amazed at how cool it was! They have little buildings such as a grocery store, theater, construction zone, toddler bay, a house with a kitchen, living room and laundry area. They even have an outdoor area with a fake mulch garden, a grill and a cute little outdoor table. The activities were great and I was amazed at how much the kids were able to do at their age. Here are some pictures!

Mystery Mornings

Every morning in our house is different. Zachary wakes up at different times for different reasons. He wakes up in odd positions: legs hanging out of crib, arms stuck, standing and jumping, you get the picture. Well this morning was like any other, I hear Z in his room "calling" for me, read: crying. I went in and opened his curtains, told him good morning, got out a fresh diaper and turned to get him out of his crib. Normally all of this is done robotically with my eyes half open. Today I was a little more awake than usual but when I turned to see my son standing in his crib, paci in his mouth, blankie in his hand and his shirt half off, I laughed my butt off. He had no clue why I was laughing but he smiled right back at me. I ran and got the camera and got a few good shots of my silly boy. Apparently he was ready to be out of his jammies!

The biggest mystery is when through the night did he get like this?? I guess we shall never know!

Unwanted Guests = Rude!

Especially when they are in the shower with you! Today while taking a lovely and relaxing shower as Z napped I looked down to see this...














Eekkk! I jumped out of the shower as quickly as possible. Of course my first thought was to take pictures so when I tell my story later people won't think I was overexagerating (I never do that). I got on AIM and told my sister about the beast and she directed me to A) grab a can of hairspray, B) grab a lighter and C) make a torch and set that *explitive* on fire. This sounded great until I remembered the infamous flaming pizza box of 2001. So instead of burning my house down, I just went for the extra hold Suave hairspray I have in the bathroom. I stood back as far as I could and sprayed until I couldn't stand it any longer. I ran out of the bathroom to catch my breath and went back in. He was STILL ALIVE!!!!! Bravery set in at this point, I grabbed my long handled hair brush and wacked him a good one, down the drain he went! Now I'm pretty sure his much larger mother will be hunting me down in my sleep tonight. Double Eek!

Growing Older but Not Up!

Today is Rich's 32nd birthday! Look, even he can't believe he's THAT old!

Here he is at 3 months old looking so cute and so innocent, and ohhh so much like our little monkey.

What a Witch!

Since Zachary has come into our lives I have found less and less time to give the doggies some well deserved attention. So tonight I decided to play dress-up with Raven.

As you can see Raven was none too pleased with the attention I was showing her.

Camden seemed a little left out so I put him in the costume and assured him that it was a wizard costume. (shhh it's our little secret!) He looks rather handsome if you ask me.

Zachary got a turn too. I think he's with Raven on this one. "Get it OFF Mom!"

Hershey Park Happy!

Sunday I took my sister, Miranda, to Hershey Park for her VERY belated 16th birthday present. The boys stayed home and did manly things all day while us girls road crazy roller coasters. The biggest disappointment of the day was finding out that the water park was closed. We were all dressed in our suits and got on the Tidal Force twice to get nice and soaked before heading over to "The Boardwalk." No such luck, we splashed over in our soaking wet clothes to find the entire area was gated for the rest of the year, BIG BUMMER! So we changed into our dry clothes and decided we would just ride all of the coasters for the rest of the day. We got on 9 out of the 11 coasters and even rode some of them twice. Our favorite was the last one we rode, it was called Storm Runner. It launches you from 0-72 mph in 2 seconds flat. 18 stories straight up, straight down and around many cork screws. I have to say that this was the craziest coaster I have ever riden! My body is definitely feeling the effects of the G-Force today. I had a such a great time celebrating your birthday with you Randi, sorry it took me so long!!!

Turkey Point Cook Out

Saturday we took a ride out to Turkey Point to visit my brother, Robert, and his wife Tammy. They were just having a few friends and family over for a cook out down at the beach in their community. We had a great time and Zachary got to see his Nana and Pop Mike too! Tammy and Robert are having a baby in early December and Tammy has the cutest little baby bump. I didn't manage to snag a picture though. Thanks to Rob and Tammy for having us out to visit!

These shoes are made for walkin...

and that's just what he'll do! Yesterday Zachary got his 1st pair of real big boy shoes! We met Grandmom at the mall and picked out a very stylish pair of sneakers. Zachary's feet measured a whopping 6 1/2! As soon as the sales lady put his shoes on he ran around the store. He even had his first misdemeanor, he became a thief at the age of 14mo when he ran out of the store before Grandmom paid! Here is a picture of Zachary wearing his new shoes. (the pic is a little fuzzy because I took it with my phone)

















Thanks again Grandmom!

Blankie Bear vs. Blankie Frog: The Duel

For those of you who don't know, Zachary has a lovie named Blankie Bear. He is exactly as he is named, a bear that is a blankie. Well in the past 2 weeks Zachary and Blankie Bear have become inseperable. I think Blankie Bear must have had a bad dream or something and decided to super glue himself to Zachary's hand in the middle of the night. I'm not sure, but where there is a Zachary, there is a Blankie Bear.

So I went to Target this week to get a duplicate Blankie Bear "BB" incase his current one ever gets lost, stolen, thrown in a shredder, etc, and the only thing I could find was a Blankie Frog "BF". So, underestimating the intelligence of my child I threw it in the cart. When we got home I decided BB needed to take a dip in the washing machine. I took Z up for his nap, whipped out Blankie Frog and turned to walk out of the room. Well either the Frog took a leap out of the crib or Zachary protested the switch-a-roo and chucked poor BF at me. I picked him up and tried to persuade Zachary that BF was just as awesome as his BB. He screamed at me and that poor poor frog went flying again.

At this point I had to give in and go get that smelly old bear from downstairs (he wasn't swimming yet). I walked into Zachary's room waving him like a white flag, begging for forgiveness and I got a great big toothy smile. He took him, popped in the paci and layed down without another sound. I guess the BB is here to stay!

Labor Day Weekend

I'll go back a couple of weeks to Labor Day weekend because it was such a busy and fun weekend for us.

First, Zachary and I took a road trip on Friday to visit my good friend Susan. She was home from Florida visiting her family in Ohio. I didn't realize that 5 hours in a car with a toddler was going to be tough! We made it to Ohio and had a great time. It was so fun meeting Cameron, her daughter, and Zachary had a blast. Here are some pictures from our visit:

We came back home Saturday and both of us were beat. Thanks Susan for having us out to visit!

Sunday was a jam packed day. First, we went to Ethan's 2nd birthday party. It was at an Enchanted Forest with a petting zoo, hayride and some fairy tale attractions. Zachary had a lot of fun petting the animals. He really loved the ponies.




























After the party we headed up to Cecil County for one last summer swim and crabs! Zachary enjoyed doing some pool side yoga while the rest of us had a cannon ball competition.

On Monday we celebrated Labor Day and Grandpop Chisolm's birthday. Zachary had a great time helping Grandpop cook and eating icecream.

Shew, glad that busy weekend is behind us!

You can hear it on the Chisolm Telegraph...

Hi! Rich and I decided we would join the land of blogging to let everyone know what is going on in our family! I'll try to keep up with this one better than I do with the food blog. Anyway, enjoy!