At Home with Go!Go! Smart Friends & Violet

Since Lily has started school, Violet has been playing more on her own (obviously) which has been fun to watch her imagination grow.  She tends to gravitate towards playing with toys where she can mimic the world around her.  We recently received the Vtech Go! Go! Smart Busy Sounds Discovery Home and she is in heaven!  

·         Explore the Go! Go! Smart Friends Busy Sounds Discovery Home with Miss Norah!

·         The interactive house features seven MagicPoint™ locations that encourage imaginative play and emphasize cause and effect relationships.

·         Simply place Miss Norah on one of the MagicPoint locations to experience her friendly personality, motion, lights and more.

·         Put Miss Norah in the elevator and watch as the elevator magically moves up and down.

·         Activate the MagicChat™ feature in the playroom, and hear Miss Norah and other MagicPoint characters (sold separately) chat and sing with each other.

·          Miss Norah also responds to other MagicPoint locations on Go! Go! Smart Friends accessories and playsets (each sold separately).

·         Press Miss Norah's light-up button, and she will come to life by introducing herself, sharing the things she likes to do and singing two sing-along songs. It's playtime where friendship leads to learning!

Even while I was putting the house together, she was playing along with the "yard." She had the puppy and Miss Norah on the swing and the slide saying "Wheeeeeeee!"

I love hearing Violet talking, pretending she's washing her hands when Miss Norah says to remember to wash your hands.  This has consistently become her "go to" toy!  With her 2nd birthday coming up soon, it's easy to figure out that getting her some other MagicPoint characters will be the way to go! She loves the puppy as much as she loves Miss Norah and of course, the puppy doesn't talk. :)

From the mom perspective... pulling a lot of pieces out of the box, I initially thought that it would be a daunting assembly! Boy, was I pleasantly surprised when it was very simple! The directions were easy to follow and even though Violet was trying to play with it while I was assembling, it still took no time at all and no difficulty.  Yay!

This interactive toy is perfect for my busy toddler!

She LOVES the elevator!  "Up! Down, Mama!"

This is our first Go! Go! Smart Friends toy and we love it so much, we will be adding to it!  Plus you can even connect some of the other Go! Go! Smart Friends toys together!!

Thanks so much for the opportunity, VTech!

For one lucky reader, VTech is helping me give away your very own  Go!Go! Smart Friends Busy Sounds Discovery Home! 

Contest will run from today until 11:59pm on 10/4/15.  Winner will be notified by email  and will have 24 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can find more information on VTech toys:

·         VTech website

·         VTech Twitter

·         VTech Facebook

*Disclosure: The VTech product, information, and giveaway have been provided by VTech. Please see my full disclosure.

He's Home!

{Catching up on summer posts still...}

After Andrew's two week visit to Arizona, he returned home on George's birthday.

It was a super hectic time at the airport on my end.

Upon acquiring my gate pass, Lily and I headed down to security, but the line was crazy long and the flight was arriving early. We headed up to the alternative security line that is out of the way and typically not long. Wrong. Lily and I waited a little bit while nervously looking at the time on my phone over and over.

I just knew, we would not make it. 

I headed back down to the main security lines and saw Andrew's flight flashing "Arriving," on the screen.  I sent him a text telling him that if I was not at the gate to come towards baggage claim and I would wait for him as soon as he got off the tram.

It's July, so I'm sweating anyway. Running all over the airport, carrying an almost 2 year old, I'm certain I got my workout in for the day.

Finally, I went to the side where I could speak to one of the TSA agents, explained the situation with my son's flight arriving at the moment and needed to get to the gate. He let me skip the whole line and with a thank you to the people in the front, I hurried through and onto the tram.  Sent Andrew another text telling him to wait at the gate, I was coming! 

Run off the tram, run up the escalator and run to the gate...all while carrying Lily.

 Empty. 

Panic is starting to set in.

I called my mom to ask what he was wearing when he left Arizona so I knew what to look for as I
headed back towards the tram. Just as I was about to get on the escalator, I got a text from Andrew asking me where I was and he was at the gate!

Whew!

Lily and I turned around and headed back towards the gate when finally I spotted him!

Ahhhhhhh safe at last! 

Lily was so excited to see Andrew...and he was just as excited to see her!!

Glad he's home the rest of the summer...I think his baby sister is too.

Spray Park Playdate

**Be sure to check out and enter my current giveaway...going on now through noon Wednesday!!


One of our playdates this super hot summer was at a local spray park! There are only 3 of them around the Pittsburgh area and we decided to hit one up with all the kids!  It's always good when the big kids are around to help and this was one of the rare times Andrew was home in between his trips this summer!

Lily wasn't so sure about it at first and just ran around the outer edge of the spray pad and would take off towards the park. 

Like I said, having the big kids around totally helps! Tracy and Stef's boys stayed with her on this park escape.

Eventually and with her big brother's coaxing, she was right in the middle and having a ball!

 

It was a busy day at the spray park and between the 10 kids {of ours}, there were a lot of things going on at one time!

Not to be held back because he's two and the biggest boys are double digits, Logan does everything the biggest boys do.

It was a super hot day where everyone played together, enjoyed cooling off in the water and had a great time!  I always think it's super fun to see all the baby girls together interacting. There's always a lot of laughter on the mom end.

 Lily going in for the side "huggin"

There was resting and eating going on throughout the day as well.

As the day went on, Lily definitely was happily splashing and playing in the water without Andrew to help her anymore.

 

 

This was one of my favorite playdates this summer! Lots of fun, sun and friends.  Lily and Andrew both slept all afternoon, but not until after we stopped at Sonic for a slushie on the way home. ;)  It was a happy summer day ~ one of the few days with Andrew home in the early part of the summer!

Last Week of One: She Thinks We're Just Fishin'

Wednesday we ran some birthday party planning errands amidst a lightning storm sprinkled with a little bit of rain.  After arriving home, we put Lily down for a short, late nap and George and Reagan headed to a local park with a pond for fishing.  Lily and I followed after her brief nap.

As soon as Lily and I arrived, it started to rain, of course. But, lightly enough that we stayed.

Upon getting out of the car, there were a bunch of geese hanging around and Lily immediately started shouting, "Chicken! Chicken! bock bock!"  and off she went to get them.

The child has no fear. Except of the vacuum cleaner.

Off we went to find Daddy and Reag, where Lily wanted to run and then get down where her daddy was and literally walk into the water. It was wet and slippery and as I said, the kid has no fear, so she is entertainment in her own right.

Reagan caught a teeny little fish and George showed it to Lily.  "No fear" Lily grabbed it to see the "feesh" and wanted it off the hook so she could hold it.



She ran up and down the steps and picked up anything she could find to throw it in the water~ mostly leaves and sticks, but then she decided her water sippy cup was good too.

She wanted to be with her daddy...

And then she wanted to be back up again with Reagan.

{yes, we fish in dresses}

The rain got a little bit heavier and Lily got a little bit squirmier with the back and forth up and down which was slippery because of the rain and mud, so Lily and I decided it was time to head home.

She's happy to do anything. Especially if it involves running. So leaving was perfectly fine with her too since the car was pretty far.





 "Bye bye Mama! Runnin!"

Last Week of One: Donut Day

While I'm catching up on the other summer activities and posts, I'm going to be celebrating

Lily's Last Week of One! 

I'm still in shock that we're here. Alas, there are a mere 7 days until her 2nd birthday.

This morning, we headed to the grocery store for milk. She took her purse with us which cracked me up because as we got to the front door to go out, she turned around and went back in saying, "phone. phone," going off to look for her phone she'd forgotten.  Little mimic.

Purses and phones in hand we headed off.

I decided we'd have donuts for her last Tuesday of being one.

She was happy with the choice as well.