Operation Strawberry Festival

**attention bloggy friends*** I wanted to try out Katie’s tip re Writer and let me tell you, much easier! I did this whole post in 4 min! I wanted to try lots of pics and video to see how it would measure up and yep.. 4 min is all it took! I HIGHLY recommend it! Give it a try!

A group of my mommy friends got together and headed down for a road trip to Plant City (yes that would be a 141 mile trip.. brave or crazy? You decide!) for the Strawberry Festival! This was no small undertaking as we had 9 kids under the age of 6 crammed into 3 cars and we were gone the entire day. I had so much fun taking a break and getting some fun time in with friends and watching all the kiddos together. The weather was just perfect. I am not kidding when I say those strawberries were some of the best I have ever had and the giant strawberry shortcake was beyond delicious! I half considered driving back down just for that, oink oink. We received a lot of looks and attention as we paraded through the festival with all of our strollers and little ones and had 4 different people ask if we were a daycare on a field trip, which I thought was funny. We were the mommy parade and we were on a mission! Everyone said we were crazy when I told them we were going with that many little kids but I think all in all it was a great day, even with the meltdowns. We saw pig races, ate yummy food, the kids rode rides and we all did a whole lot of laughing. I would say operation Strawberry Festival was a huge success. Will I be going back anytime soon? Probably not as I am still recovering, but it was such a fun time with a great group of ladies! I cherish the great talks, support, and encouragement I always find with these amazing friends. Thanks for the memories!

Luke, Sammy, Nicolae, & Gina

 

The parade of strollers

Choo Choo train ride was hilarious, some loved it, some hated it and the others were just flat out confused

and they were off!

I LOVED this shot of all the proud mommies, it was like the paparazzi. Letting our little ones go all by themselves!

checking out a strawberry patch.. little Giovanni was too small to be in this pic but he was there and taking it all in too!

 

They loved this old truck and were fascinated by the wheels their conversation had me laughing

So glad Gloria came along, she loves children and had such a great time with all of them and they sure love her!

Katie and Lukers (as Sammy calls him)

Check out little Mr. Gabriel!! Sneaky little thing, I promise I was already sharing with him but man.. I looked away for one second and he swooped in and gobbled up my strawberry shortcake! Now who needs to say oink oink????? ha! I love Amy and her boys!

Our little gang

Somehow I ended up pushing Sammy & Gracie in Suzanne's stroller and look who we found along the way

Pig Races!

This was where I had a little drama letting my boy be big on his own. I was so terribly scared for him to go on this ride! It just seemed so big and him so little but apparently I couldn’t go on and break it and I was peer pressured (don’t deny it you know I was ladies) into “letting go” and thankfully his angels kept him safe.. goodness he was high enough up in the sky I told him to wave to my Gram while he was up there!

This is about where I got a little teary, but they were giggling and I could hear Sammy above all the laughter saying “So fast! So tall! Helicopter Fun!”

Yep.. full tears here. At this point I think 4 people were reassuring me that he wasn’t going to leap out of there/ their little purple one wasn’t going to fly off

Look at our babies, they were so proud of themselves! All we heard were shrieks and giggles

Who knew they custom made a ride just for my boy, he drove his very own dumptruck that he named “Dumpy” ha ha

All smiles

Here’s Gina! She sure loves cars and trucks and she meant business on this ride, never stopped steering once

Fun day together!

Look what we found! Representing in good ol’ Plant City!

He picked out the strawberries for Gloria’s family

Technorati Tags: Strawberry Festival,Sammy,mommy

Mr. & Mrs.

One reason we were so busy in Feb had to do with Sarah's wedding~ it could not have gone any better and it was truly just a perfect day! It had been super cold here but for that one day, we had gorgeous weather and we all had a wonderful time. They were married in St. Augustine at the Casa Monica hotel and it was just absolutely gorgeous! I was some what anxious about Sammy doing his job as ring bearer since he is two now and we do have "two year old moments" as I call them. Thankfully they are not often but when they come.. you better watch out. I wanted to do everything I could to keep him on his best behavior so every moment of the days leading up to the wedding were planned out to the minute all to ensure he was on good sleep schedule and well rested. Thankfully his day of nap worked out perfectly and all was well! I felt like such a bad mommy as I stood in the check out lane at Target before the wedding, I stocked up on sugary gummy snacks, juice boxes, goldfish, basically all the junky stuff he never gets so that he we could keep him pumped up. It worked! He danced the night way until about 10:30 and was just as pleasant as could be! Anytime he seemed to be winding down or a tad grouchy I would open up some snacks and some fruitable juice and bam! He was back in action, ha ha. In fact it worked so well I have used the trick now at the Strawberry festival and at SeaWorld to make a long day pleasant..sshhhh don't tell.

The ceremony was so sweet, we were all happy that Pops and Esther (Sam and Sarah's great grandparents) made it up and were able to watch. Sam's dad cracked me up with his cheat sheet.. his only line was "her mother and I" but he had to write it on a bandaid on his hand b/c he was scared he would forget. I got a little teary as I watched Sarah stand there and exchange vows with the love of her life. I can't believe how far we have all come! I think back to that first time I stepped into their old house on Aba drive, I was some teen girl with a mega crush on a cute boy and was so scared to eat dinner with his family that I could hardly eat a bite! I was so nervous! I just remember how cute and sweet his little sister was, in fact talking to Sarah was what made me feel comfortable and loosen up. I remember I left there all the more "into" this boy all because of that family. They were all so close and the relationship between Sam and his little sister was so sweet and just really rare, something you don't usually see these days. He was such a good big brother to her.

The wedding was just amazing. All of their family came down so it was nice to see and spend time with everyone again. Sammy loved the dance floor! He sure tore it up out there. I loved watching him, he had us all entertained with the "love triangle" as we called it. Aiden, the other ring bearer is 5 and Layla the flower girl is 3. The three little ones all got along great and loved playing together but the dance floor had us all laughing. A love triangle emerged and Aiden would dance with Layla and Sammy would get his feelings hurt, then get brave and walk over to ask her to dance. He would grin ear to ear when she said yes and took his hand and they danced, but then Aiden would swoop Lalya away off into the night after a few min and Sammy would run to me with his head on my lap and say "I want dance wiff her". Awww!!! Just a foretaste of years to come my love. ha ha

The bride and groom seemed to have a fabulous evening and we did too! Congratulations Sarah and Brennan, we love you!

Few videos of Sammy dancing

Here is a link to a few pics their photographer put on her blog, just so beautiful and artsy..

http://www.oeilphotography.com/index2.php?v=v1 (click on featured and then Brennan & Sarah)

Here are some of our favorites I put into smilebox..

ceremony

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reception

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