4th of July Weekend

We closed and moved into our new home in Florida during the 4th of July week. Our annual tradition has been to spend 4th of July in Ohio with Michael's parents, but it just wasn't in the cards this year; so we celebrated on our own for the first time. we worked on the house and Michael worked on Saturday and then we celebrated with a cookout and our own fireworks and sparklers. Sunday, we had a nice relaxing beach afternoon.

Our New Home!

Seminole, Florida

(located between Clearwater and St. Pete)

We are about a mile from the Gulf

4th of July Cookout!

Fireworks

Sparklers

I think this is the first time they have done sparklers...of course they LOVED it! 

Sunday, Beach Day!

Perfection!

Holiday Season

Here are some random pictures from the Holidays!


THANKSGIVING

The kids picked their favorite animals and then
the teacher game them an adjective to describe
their personality...Here is my
THOUGHTFUL KITTY

Meeka and Hope as Indians

Some cute turkey cookies we made for
Thanksgiving programs at school.

CHRISTMAS

Our Tree and Stockings

We always make some kind of Gingerbread house. This is our village.
Each child decorated 1 house.

I make White Chocolate Chex Mix
(or as a friend calls it, "white trash") as gifts for teachers
and neighbors, etc. The Santa hats are made from caramel bugles...
they are DELICIOUS! 

Melina with her teacher, Ms. Kelly Rice

Melina and her reading group girls wrote a play
which they debuted at  their class Holiday Program.

For the kids class parties we made white chocolate popcorn, with red and green sprinkles, and filled these snowman cups we made with it. Pop on a lid and the kids can take it home easily!

We took a day trip to EnterTRAINment Junction in Cincinnati with cousin Sammy Reese!

Meeka's Class Holiday Program

Christmas Eve
letters to Santa and cookies

Kids waiting to come down and see what Santa
brought! They all are carrying their bags of gifts
for everyone from the Secret Santa Workshop 

And the Chaos begins....




And then December 30 Michael left for Alabama

Celebrating America Miraglia Style

Family Photo - July 4, 2013

Our tradition is to visit family and celebrate the 4th of July with swimming, golf, food and fireworks! This year Logan played golf one day and Daddy and Grandpa were so very complimentary of how he played (and that doesn't happen from those two where golf is concerned)! He scored a legit 68, so all his time at the driving range this year is paying off!! He can't wait to get back on the course….Michael is even saying that I should get back out there. It's been a while, but now that we don't have babies it will be much easier. 

These super cute shirts were made my my sis-in-law.
Check out her shop at Trendy Shendy on Facebook.

It was a great weekend, but I always love coming home. This month is looking quite insane with multiple camps for multiple kids, dance classes starts again, and softball and t-ball go through the end of July….and the boys birthdays are in less than a month…they always sneak up on me…what to do, what to do??? And of course, we are still working on that Summer Bucket List!

Cartwheels on the green

And rolling down the fairways…
watching them set up the fireworks too!

Fireworks!!

My acrobat!

JUMP!

HUGS!!

Relaxing in the sun…does it get any better?

Carson drove and drove the "Carseat" until it ran out of batteries….twice!

Cousins

And nothing beats a ride on a beautiful summer night!
Can you tell she loved it by the smile on that face!

Easter 2013

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter! 

The weather finally turned nice, so we go out for an Easter egg hunt yesterday called the Egg Drop. There were 3 helicopters, 100, 000 eggs and about 3,000 kids! There was a lot of waiting for about 2 minutes of egg collecting, but the helicopters were very cool to see. And Carson LOVED it! All the kids enjoyed it, but he LOVED it! And it made me so happy that we did something that he got the most enjoyment out of, because usually the tables are turned and he is dragged to everything. 

Waiting for the Egg Drop

Carson entertained himself with his basket for an hour!

Helicopter

Another Helicopter

Collecting Eggs

On Easter morning, the kids woke up to find outdoor fun themed Easter Baskets. They got flip-flops, water guns, flower seeds, bubbles, chalk, hula-hoops, etc. We just don’t eat or need very much candy in our house, so the kids got very little this year.

Easter Baskets

The bunny also left a big puzzle for us to work on!

 We had my sister and her husband and 2 kids who were traveling through the area and Michael’s sister, husband and Sammy Reese for brunch. It was awesome to have all my kid’s cousins together! We had an Egg Hunt in our front yard, the kids played nicely together and we ate and drank hartily!

Cousins!