Gwynn’s Birthday Party

We had Gwynn’s birthday party at Veteran’s Park.  She was so excited that she’d get to play on a playground at her party!

Mommy’s favorite dessert place, Steel City Pops, had a cart set up before the party.  Everyone thought that we planned that…but we didn’t!

We made painted sun catchers at the beginning of the party.

Waiting patiently for cupcakes, chips, and fruit…

Time for presents!

Gwynn’s new balance bike from Mimi…

Uncle Jeremy had to try it out!

Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate Gwynn’s 3rd birthday! We had so much fun!!

Gwynn’s Birthday

We can’t believe Gwynn is 3!

We celebrated her birthday on her actual birthday (July 5th) while her birthday party wouldn’t be until the next day. Of course we had to work Frozen into her gift packages.

She was pretty excited to come down the stairs. She knows when it’s an important day now. Christmas will be a hoot this year.

“For me?”

Nothing fancy for the birthday breakfast. Just a donut for each year.

“…and I’ll take two”

“Something is missing”

Nom Nom Nom.

Gwynn is THREE!!!

Gwynn has been talking about turning 3 for a looooong time. When we’d ask her hold old she is, she’d say “2” but it’s always followed with “I’ll be 3 on my birthday.”

We decided a few months ago that her birthday party would be at the playground (her favorite place to play).  Not a day has gone by that she hasn’t talked about it…who’s coming, what kind of cupcakes there will be, etc…

Here are some of our favorite things about Gwynn the THREE YEAR OLD…

• Her favorite store is Publix.
• Her favorite movie is “Frozen” (favorite song “In Summer”).
• Her best friend is Pop.
• Her favorite color is green.
• She loves to play hide and seek .
• She’s very assertive (especially when it comes to telling Luke what to do).
• She would play on a playground all day if you’d let her.
• She loves to swim.  We recently got her a “puddle jumper” floatie and she’s very independent in the water when wearing it.
• She loves to pretend she’s a kitty. We’ll ask her questions when she’s a kitty and she responds in MEOWs. She even yelled at Luke with a “MEOW!!!” when he did someone she didn’t like. 
• Her favorite things to sleep with are: Ellie, Monkey, Baby Elephant, Pink Kitty, Blanket, and Neck Pillow Monkey (I’m sure there are more that we’re forgetting about).
• She’s typically really easy to get to sleep. We can leave her in her room wide awake and she’ll fall asleep on her own. She sleeps until at least 7:00 usually.
• She loves playing with her cousins, Grace and Kate. She wants to do everything just like them.
• She is becoming obsessed with letters. She finds her letter “G” everywhere she can. She loves to find “L” (Luke’s letter), “D” (Daddy’s letter), “M” (Mommy’s letter), and “P” (Pop and Pink Kitty’s letter).
• Another favorite movie is “The Letter Factory.” She has learned about 80-90% of her letter sounds from this movie. We’ve had to watch it about 100 times and she’d watch it a lot more if we’d let her!
• We read on a parenting website that 3 year olds are supposed to be using 3-4 word sentences.  Gwynn has FAR surpassed that! She talks non-stop in very long sentences. Her articulation of some words is still a work in progress (she’ll leave off the initial sounds of words sometimes…say “nake” instead of “snake”), but being the teachers we are, we always make her practice saying the words correctly. I know this is just a developmental process, but I still bug my speech pathologist friend about it all the time! 
• Her favorite songs to sing are: anything from Frozen, Animal Sounds, Happy, ABCs, Jesus Loves Me, This Little Light of Mine, Itsy Bitsy Spider.
• We started her in dance this summer. She was VERY reluctant at first (screaming, crying), but as the summer progresses she is really enjoying it!  She follows directions in class so well (we are so proud of her for coming out of her shell and participating).

We cannot believe our sweet angel is THREE!  It’s really amazing how fast it’s gone by.  We are so blessed to have sweet Gwynn in our lives…we couldn’t imagine life without her!!

Gwynn’s Island (Part 5)

One of new things we did this time was go to Hallieford Beach. It’s a short drive from the island but still in Mathews County. What’s different about it is that the water stays about the same depth for a couple hundred yards. Even Gwynn could stand in the water 200 yards out!

Luke played in the water, but just for a bit.

As usual the crab eaters wanted to get a pot of crabs to boil and eat. Our family doesn’t eat arthropods, but Pop and Aunt Jen love them.

We went to the docks to pick up the pot of crabs.

We had to keep the kids close so they wouldn’t jump/fall in the water.

Here come the crabs!

With the crabs in hand it’s time to go to Uncle Bill’s to cook ‘em.

“Get back! Get BACK!”

Uncle Bill has sent untold crabs to a watery grave.

While the crabs cooked Uncle Bill showed us his potato gun. This is something we couldn’t get away with using in our neck of the woods.

Mmmm… crabs. If, you know, you’re into that.

Luke enjoyed watching the crabs cook.

Once they’re cooked they take on the red color you’re probably used to seeing.

It’s a lot of work to get the meat out of the crabs.*
                          *not pictured – anyone with the last named Belcher.

The family that tears apart crabs together, stays together.

Gwynn’s Island (Part 4)

One of interesting things about Gwynn’s Island is that it has its own museum despite being a small island with only a few hundred residents. We decided to make the trip to the museum with our family and Grace, Kate and Pop.

Here is a whale bone Pop’s dad gave to the museum.

Kate sitting in an old fashioned desk.

High fashion on Gwynn’s island circa 1900.

The museum curator gave us a tour of the place. It was very illuminating.

Kate trying on old fashioned glasses. She looks like Ben Franklin.

Gwynn’s Island is named after Hugh Gwynn, an Englishmen who came to the island in the early 1600s. Before the Pilgrams came to America this guy was supposedly saving Pocahontas from drowning. In return he got the island.

A terrifying close up of the statue. He looks like he’s about to kill Pocahontas with his bangs because she looked at him wrong.

This is an artifact that was found on the island which may prove that it was inhabited thousands of years earlier than previously thought. Only daddy cared.

Kate was really interested in everything… for about 30 seconds. Then she’d go on to the next item.

One of our favorite habits on Gwynn’s island is an after dinner walk. There was about 1/4 mile gravel road leading from the main road to the beach house and we’d go walking each evening.

This was a morning walk – you can tell because the sun is facing the camera and the camera is facing East.

The bit of woods separating the main road from the beach was nice and cool.

We saw Aunt Jen out for a run on one of our longer walks.

A couple of strangers up ahead… or are they?

It’s Grandma and Aunt Connie. The kids are showing off their “treasures” from the walk.

Luke prefers to be carried on any walk lasting more than 10 minutes.

Almost every time we’d walk by one particular house there would be rabbits in the lawn.

Here’s a woodpecker in a tree.

Fun times.