First Outdoor Soccer Game!

This Saturday, Sept. 17th, was a very exciting Saturday morning for us! After a month of coaching our little 3, 4, and 5 year olds,they all finally took the field for the first time in their first official game! This also happened to be Alex's first outdoor game ever, and we were so proud of him. Our kids played their hearts out ,and since one of our players had travelled to Poland with his family,we were one man down and had no subs, so we were extra proud of their team effort. We didn't keep score,though I know we scored at least 1 goal that I saw. Alex did really well playing the entire time and following directions for his Daddy who did the main coaching, as one of us had to keep Amaya entertained. When kids would get tired,we would sub them in and out of goalie and surprisingly this became everyone's favorite position. And for kids who had never played goalie before,they all did amazing at stopping the ball and not being afraid to go for it. All in all we were impressed with our little team's performance and so were all of their proud family members who showed up to cheer them on! Go Stembridge soccer and go Gray team! That us :)Alex and his teammate Gabriel both going for the ball with Coach Abe in the background!Alex playing goalie..he made quite a few stops!

Showing good sportsmanship and slapping hands after the game..we're gray and we played against yellow.

And of course cheerleader Amaya on the sidelines...

Welcome Fall

Today is officially the first day of Fall! It happens to be one of my favorite seasons, even though I get pretty bad allergies this time of year and have to face the weather is only going to get colder. Still, I really enjoy Fall. We have one of my favorite holidays--Halloween and only a week after that my little favorite little princess celebrates her fall birthday on 11/7. This past weekend, we visited my parents in the mountains of Western MD, and it feels even more like Fall there since it's much colder at a higher altitude. Their trees have even begun changing already! Of course, I found it absolutely necessary to take the oppurtunity for a photo op with both kids and the fall landscape starting to develop at their house. Enjoy my cuties looking fallish in these pics!

Love this pic of her...just such a naturalexpression she is giving me..with her mint in her hand of course!

Alex came up with the pose..haha..love it! He's always been our little model!

Hair,hair, everywhere...

Almost 2 years ago, I was thrilled that my beautiful little girl had finally arrived. After 8.5 months of a sore back, huge midsection, and 5 weeks of boring, painful bed rest after quite a little preemie labor scare, I just wanted to dress her up and put little bows in her hair. There was only one problem...my beautiful little girl barely had any hair! She was almost bald in fact, even more so than her brother had been when he first arrived. Soooo...thus began the process of waiting out the hair growth. It was rather slow going. At around 4 months,I was finally able to put a little bow in her hair. I remember being beyond excited that she finally had enough to sort of hold in a teeny tiny bow. The hair growth continued to be slow, and over time we began to see that her hair was mostly straight and almost black in color. Around 9 months, I was able to give her little pig tails that stuck out like little small horns on top of her head. Super cute, but still not requiring much hair. Now on the verge of her second birthday, her seems to be growing at an amazingly fast rate with new growth seemingly everyday she wakes up. In the past few months, her hair has reached the middle of her back already! I did speak to her father about cutting it,but of course there was a resounding "NO!" He wants to let it grow a little bit more before cutting her cute little end curls. She has finally developed a little curl in her ends,and we are pretty sure once the ends are trimmed she'll be back to stick straight hair once again. Now I deal with trying to "tame" her hair and where once there was an impatient sigh at the smooth scalp visible in the light unable to hold in anything fancy and girly, now there is a huge sigh at the thought of taking out the brush and getting it under control and out of her face. My how the times have changed..the hair times that is!
This is what wecall the "natural" look. Some people tend to call it "morning hair"..lolWow..look at the amount of taming that went on this particular morning...I must admit..I am good :)
You can really see the length here..can't believe her hair has gotten this long!

Baltimore's 1st Annual Grand Prix!

Labor Day weekend provided plenty of excitement for the Arceo's, especially Alex who is a racing fanatic. Our city hosted the 1st annual Baltimore Grand Prix, completed across the downtown area of the city near the inner harbor. We went down to witness the excitement friday night, visiting the Indy Paddock that was set up in the convention center, and watching the ALMS (Luxury cars such as Lambourghinis, BMWs, and Porsches) run their qualifying laps. Our journey started at the Light Rail station in Lutherville. This was a very exciting experience for the kids as well, seeing that they have never ridden the Light Rail before! Alex was a little scared at first, but warmed up rather quickly as he started to see scenery out of the train window. Once there, we watched the qualifying laps right up against the fence,and Alex's expression was priceless--just pure joy. We made our way to the Indy Paddock and saw all of the pit crews prepping for the big race. Alex was amazed at all of the tools in their stations,and with the amount of tires they had stacked up. He also loved watching the guys working on the cars. Saturday we started once again by taking the Light Rail to Baltimore St. then walked around seeing all of the sights for quite some time. We decided not to purchase Grandstand seating due to the fact that we got a late start, and it was expensive. Luckily, on our way to find a spot near the harbor to watch, we ran into a good friend of mine from Parkville, Sara. She and her husband and son were just getting ready to leave and she offered us her tickets for seating. We weren't sure if it would work, but it did and we were able to watch the ALMS race from our seats along Light St. It was awesome! It was defintely a hassle to lug 2 toddlers, 2 strollers,and our giant bag of stuff for them from the car, to the Light Rail, across the city through bars and crowds traffic and then lug everything back home again two days in a row,but sometimes you just have to suck it up when you know it's going to be a priceless experience for your children,and we made it work. We can't wait until the Grand Prix returns next year!He was so excited when he first saw the cars racing up close!Both kids watching the cars!This was so cool. Anders Krohn, a norweigen Indy driver, was being called away by his manager,but pointed to Alex in line and said, let me just shoot a quick pic with this little boy first. He signed a flyer for Alex and took his pic with him..so cool!

Abe and Alex watching the main event Saturday from the Grand Stands..Alex had to bringhis Indy car with him Saturday!
Abe and Amaya on the Light Rail

Purple Friday and...Blue Tuesday?

So everyone in the Baltimore area is familiar with purple Friday,right? On Fridays, we wear our Ravens gear or any purple article of clothing to show our support for the home team. Friday Sept.9th was our very first purple Friday,but it wasn't our kids' first color themed day that week! We moved them to a new daycare back in August and starting Sept. 1st, they began their planned preschool curriculum. Our daycare provider, Ms. Thresa, has started a wonderful early learning program for them. They are learning about so many different topics including: shapes, abc's and site words, colors, body parts and their functions, transportation and safety, cultural knowledge, they engage in outdoor play and so much more! We love their new daycare and it works out perfectly for our family. Anyway, every month they sponsor a certain color and for September the color is blue! So on Tuesday, Sept. 7th, they had blue day! Every child at daycare had to wear blue that day and they both had a blast picking out something blue from their closets for blue day! Abe and I participated as well and wore blue that day. Check out our colorful pics from Purple Friday and of course Blue Tuesday:)

Our last summer visit to Dutch :(

Our brave girl on her very first "alone" ride!

I say our last "summer" visit because we have season passes, so of course we tend to visit throughout the fall as well. BUT, in the fall there is no going to the waterpark :( We had a blast on August 20th riding rides, playing in the waterpark and eating pizza at Dutch Wonderland. This has become one of our favorite and the kids' favorite places to visit and we have so mch fun when we go! We are so fortunate because the park is only about 1.5 hours from our house and we get to drive through the beautifully scenic route that takes us through Harford and Cecil counties and into the stunning country landscape of Pennslyvania Dutch country (Think many Amish homesteads). The kids just love seeing all of the livestock along the way. Alex likes the cows and Amaya tends to like the horses. During this visit, Amaya napped the entrie way there, so she was able to stay awake longer in the park, and that led ot her actually pointing at a ride and wanting to go on it. Since Alex has always been afraid to get on most things by himself, we were leery of lettijng her go on, but we did and she had a blast! Looks like we have a future rolleroaster lover on our hands :) Enjoy some of our fun photos from DW...

Me and my little man getting ready to go on his favorite ride

Hmmm...looks like we have a turquoise and lime green on our hands...

Abe and his little cloneRiding the boat together

Another ride by herself...really looks like a big girl here!

Summer House Projects!

Since our little man is now 100% finished with diapers, we have had a tiny bit of extra money each month. So, this summer I had a long list of things I wanted to do with the house and was finally able to accomplish some of those tasks.

First, I wanted to re-vamp Alex's bedroom. He has had the same theme since he was a baby (dinosaurs and jungle animals) and we decied the time had come for him to have a more "Big Boy" look to his room. Basing my design off of his interests of course, I bought a new Cars comforter set and curtains, took down all of the nursery pics and put up a framed Cars poster and racecar frech board, and took the changing table insert off of his dresser and put some framed photos of the family atop his dresser. He came home from daycare and loved his room, and was so excited to sleep in his new Cars bed! I did not paint the room though. After much thinking about it, none of us could part with the bright green including Alex, so it's there to stay awhile! His new "big boy" room!

Secondly, I wanted spruce up our foyer/entry way--whatever you call it! It's been sort of plain jane for awhile now and I never could find the money or figure out what to do with it anyway. So, I did some brainstorming and bought a new console table, some fake plants, a new picture frame, candle, and shoe rack and organized the small space. Now, I think it looks awesome and I am not ashamed to hold my door open wide when we go inside :) In fact, not too long ago a neighbor came over to use the phone and all I could think about was "thank god, I finished the foyer! " lol

The foyer looks a little more inviting now!

My third project was little Miss Amaya's big girl bed. She's no longer a little baby, and she was showing signs of being ready, so a few weeks ago, we took apart the crib and put together the toddler bed that Alex had used. I was able to find a complete toddler bed set on clearance at Target for $7! Isn't that an amazing deal? And the best part is it is actually the one that matches the lamp I bought before she was even born. I guess it was so old by now, they were discontinuing the design, thus I got a great deal. She loved it at first, but it has been an adjustment. Just getting her to lay down and go to sleep hasn't been happening all of the time,but we usually carry her over once she's asleep and then she does fine. We're getting there with it! It's hard to believe there's no crib in the Arceo house for the first time in 3.5 years!

Amaya reading in her new big girl bed

Of course she has to be a princess in her new bed!

My fourth and final project of the summer was a new curtain/panel system over the sliding glass door in the kitchen. Our vertical blinds were getting really old and some were broken, so we decided to replace them with something a little different. We purchased a panel/rod system from Ikea and Abe spent many hours putting it together. This one is still not quite finished as we will more than likey add curtains to the outer edges and still need to trim the bottoms a little, but it's coming along and we love that it's different and more modern looking.

Not the best pic since I didn't have good lighting, but you can see our new system in place!

Oh and one last thing, I finally finished staining the deck this summer. Sorry the only pic I have of the deck is what it looked like after the hurricane toppled all of our furniture--it usually doesn't look like this! lol

This was after Hurricane Irene..usually the furniture is upright! lol Just look at the staining..that was all me and took many days because I did it 100% by hand!

So there you have it, I was a busy bee this summer and still have some more plans up my sleeve for the house--next on our list is making more workspace in Abe's office for the kids to work on their daycare projects and repainting, re-designing the upstairs bathroom. We'll get there sometime!