Vivian Loves Shoes

Vivian is the Imelda Marcos of our family – she loves shoes.  Henry views shoes as a necessary evil, but Vivian can’t live without them.  She insists on wearing them inside the house and even to bed!  At a recent outing to the Disney Store, she virtually ignored the toys and went straight for the Princess slippers.  And it’s not just the frilly shoes: she loves sandals, Tevas, tennis shoes, slippers, boots – if it fits on her feet, she will wear it.  We’re not sure where this comes from, but Elise does own half a dozen pairs of clogs.

Our New House

Finally!  We’re in.  After weeks of planning and preparation, we moved into our new house on June 15th.  It was a hectic week, but we managed to vacate our old home and get mostly unpacked at our new place in a few short but intense days.  Bryant’s mom came up from Alabama and was invaluable in helping us to manage the move.  We love the new house (especially the extra space), and the kids are really enjoying their backyard playset.  The only difficulty has been getting them to share the swings (see below) and come inside for dinner.  We still have a lot of unpacking and organizing to do, but below are some pictures of the new place.

 

 

  

 

Note: When we told Henry about the new home, he immediately asked if it would have a “dolphin swing.”  Our friends Brad and Tonia Powell have an outdoor playset with a bucket swing shaped like a blue dolphin.  Henry LOVES swinging on this, so we decided to get one for the new house.  It turns out Step2 no longer makes this particular type of swing.  However, Bryant found a few for sale on eBay and, after missing out on several bids, finally managed to secure one.  Now both kids love riding the dolphin swing (Vivian calls it a “shark,”, but that’s close enough).  As you can see, it’s really quite a superb swing:

Henry Does Yoga

In addition to soccer, gymnastics and music class, Henry also does yoga at school (one wonders when they find time for old fashioned things like numbers and ABCs…).  In June, his instructor invited parents to a demonstration.  Henry showed off various poses, including downward facing dog, but seemed more interested in making animal noises than poses. Below is our little yogi in action.

 

Dutch Wonderland

With our move just around the corner, we decided to take a break from home improvements and escape to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for a day out at Dutch Wonderland.  For those that don’t know, Dutch Wonderland is the Disneyland of Amish country – a small-scale amusement park that caters to young children.  Unlike other parks, most of the rides at Dutch Wonderland are designed for the under-five crowd and don’t have those annoying height and age restrictions.  As you can see from the photos below, the whole family had a wonderful time.  Henry got his face painted like Spider-Man, Vivian enjoyed chasing the baby ducks, and we all had fun riding the log plume, merry-go-round and leapin’ frogs (it’s more intense than it sounds). In the afternoon, we topped off our day with some cool treats at the Breyer’s ice cream parlor.  Not quite the Magic Kingdom, but they do have a (small) monorail and we were home in time for dinner.

 

 

 

Home Improvements

We closed on the new house in mid-May and began a frantic round of home improvements before our June 15th move-in date.  Coordinating multiple independent contractors proved more difficult than it should, but in the end, we were able to get the floors refinished, the interior repainted, and some asbestos removed from the basement in three short weeks.  Selecting paint colors proved to be one of the hardest tasks.  In the end, we stuck with the existing color scheme and only really changed the children’s bedrooms.  Henry made clear that he wanted blue – his favorite color (at least for now).  Vivian was too young to express a preference, so we went for purple (Elise’s favorite color).  We really struggled over the shade of blue for Henry’s room.  Bryant wanted something darker; Elise wanted something lighter.  In the end, we compromised and used both.  Early reviews from Henry were mostly positive.  In addition to the interior, Elise has been working hard to prepare a backyard garden.  So far, she has cucumbers, pumpkins, beans and tomato plants either in the ground or soon-to-be planted.  And in between all that, we also shopped for a new washer / dryer and mattress.  Busy times for the Morris family, but in a few short weeks, everything will be in place for our new home!

Memorial Day 2011

The whole family returned to Huntsville at the end of May to spend Memorial Day weekend with the extended Morris clan.  In addition to Kevin and Templa and the girls, we also got to visit with Mimi and Paw Paw and Bryant’s aunts, Pat Battiste and Beverly Waldrop.  The kids had a wonderful time playing with their cousins.  Henry especially enjoyed driving around the backyard in Micah’s motorized Barbie jeep and getting sprayed with a water hose by Paw Paw.  For her part, Vivian was thrilled to be surrounded by so many dolls and dresses.  We’re starting to think we may have a budding princess on our hands.  Below are some pictures from the weekend.