Easter in the Capitol - Part 1

We were excited to be invited to the White House for the Annual Presidential Easter Egg Roll. It was a once in a lifetime type of opportunity, so we bought our plane tickets for Washington DC! This would be Brianne's first plane ride, so we were a little nervous on how she would act. We packed toys, snacks, the iPad and DVD player so we'd have something to distract her in case she got antsy.

We made it through security and onto the plane without a problem.  When it was time to board, Brianne went right onto the plane and sat in her seat without issue.  Even though it was early in the morning, we gave her a lollipop to help with the pressure change. She didn't seem to have a problem with the pressure but still enjoyed her lollipop.

Watching Ice Age after take off.  I even got her her own little ear phones, which she thought was really cool. She was a perfect angel through the whole flight, even when we had to turn the movie off for landing.

We were in DC for two days only, so we wanted to make the most of our time there.  As soon as we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we hopped on a double decker tour bus to see the monuments.  Brianne promptly fell asleep and missed most of the sites.  She did see a few, and thought every monument was a princess castle. Each monument belonged to a different princess - ex. The Washington Monument was Rapunzel's castle, the Capitol was Cinderella's Castle, etc.

Marty was in his glory seeing all the sites.

After the bus ride, we went to Museum of Natural History. It was super cool!  Brianne loved the dinosaurs.

A Fairy Tale Afternoon

Brianne LOVES Disney Princesses, so when the Disney Princess show came to West Palm Beach, we had to go!  Since West Palm Beach is a bit of a drive for us, we drove up a little early to have lunch and enjoy walking around City Place (the theater was right across the street).

City Place had a little train, so Brianne wanted to take a spin.

Enjoying a mini water fountain show.

Pretty girl in her princess dress.  I should have brought one of her real Princess dresses, but they were all worn out from being worn so much at home, so I thought this would be nicer.

Marty met us up there for the show. He couldn't pass up an opportunity to take his princess to see the Princesses!

The cotton candy man came around and was selling cotton candy with a crown attached. At $10, it was the most expensive cotton candy I have ever bought, but we still have the crown, so it was worth it!

All the Princesses as well as Mickey and Minnie for the grand finale!  The show is great and would definitely recommend for anyone who loves the Disney Princesses!

Big Girl Bed

With the new baby coming in a few short months, we decided it was time to get Brianne her own big girl bed.  We actually had a day bed and dresser in our guest room (what would become the baby's room), so we opted to just switch the furniture between rooms. Since Brianne was giving up her crib, we didn't have the heart to make her give up her room, though it definitely would have been easier on us in terms of moving furniture.

Brianne and I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and she got to pick out her new bedroom set.  So after Marty muscled the furniture into the right rooms, we set up Brianne's "princess bed".  Brianne loved her new bed, but we were a bit nervous that she would give us a hard time about going to sleep. But she surprised us again and went right to sleep! 

Here is the princess in her new princess bed!

Just like mommy and daddy, she wanted to read a book before bed time. What a big girl :o)

A Beachy Good Time

Here are some photos from a beach day we had back in April. Marty was on the campaign trail, but we still had fun with our friends, the DiPaolos! 

Brianne waiting patiently as we pay the parking meter. She is loving her princess sun glasses!

She was finally big enough to not be scared by the breaking waves on the shore. She wanted to jump right in! I had to keep a hand on her so she wouldn't get knocked over, but she did great holding her own.

Practicing her surfing skills.  She'll be ready to ride the barrel soon enough!  And you can see the baby bump in this photo  :o)

Mommy and water baby.

Monkeying around in the water with Bradley.  The great thing about this beach (in North Ft. Lauderdale, off Commercial Blvd - for any locals reading this) is that it is really shallow right at the edge, which is great for little ones who like to run around but aren't quite big enough to swim.

Someone thought it would be a good idea to take turns burying each other in the sand (I gracefully declined).   Here is Brianne burying Frank.

Bradley was a champ and got buried up to his neck!

Brianne didn't want to be buried all the way, but I was impressed she did it at all!

Relaxing in her Brianne-size beach chair before heading home.

Playing Catch Up

Soooo.... It's been awhile since I have updated the blog, so I am going to attempt to catch up and post as much as I can between April and August.  It has been a busy few months! Here we are horsing around at our local park back in April. Wow that seems like so long ago! This is also the start of Brianne's love of Hello Kitty. I think she would wear Hello Kitty every single day if we let her.

At this point, I was already 6 months pregnant with baby #2, but luckily, miss Independent Brianne was able to do most things on the playground unassisted, including making monkey faces.

Catching some air on the bouncy bridge.

Swinging all by herself on the big swings.  No more baby swings for this kid!

The Kiar Family is Growing!

We are thrilled to be expecting our second child in early August! We are having another little girl. Marty is super excited, though is feeling a little outnumbered. Brianne and Kiar #2 will be almost exactly 3 years apart. If Kiar #2 is early, they may just have the same birthday!

We told Brianne about the new addition, and if you ask her where the baby is, she points at my stomach. But I don't think she quite gets that there will be another person living with us, taking up some of our attention and touching her toys. This is also putting more pressure on us to get Brianne potty trained, and moved out of her crib.

I have been feeling great, and have fortunately had a relatively easy time with this pregnancy. I was lucky the first time around as well, so hopefully this means Kiar #2 will be just as awesome as Brianne. Time is flying and August 7 will be here before we know it!

Brianne seeing the first pictures of her baby sister. She is excited to teach her sister all about being a princess!

Carnival Fun

Brianne is just now big enough to fully appreciate carnivals, so when the St. David Carnival rolled around, we were eager to have a great evening full of fun! The very first ride Brianne wanted to try was the mega slide. This slide is easily 2 stories tall. Also, per the nice carnie working the ride, Brianne couldn't sit in Marty's lap - she had to slide alone on her own little mat. Marty escorted her to the top and set up her mat. As he was sitting down next to her, she took off without him! She flew down to the bottom and landed with the biggest smile on her face. I nearly had a heart attack watching her, but felt better when she jumped upped and asked to do it again.

Brianne at the top of the mega slide, getting ready to take off.

Brianne's favorite ride that night was the cars. She picked out her favorite car, put her seat belt on and was ready to go. She rode the cars at least 5 times that night. Side note - yes, we did let her go to the carnival in her princess dress.

After 5 times around on the cars, Brianne wanted to try out the dragons, which is a ride similar to the Dumbo ride at Disney. Since this ride left the ground, super dad Marty wedged himself into the dragon with Brianne to make sure she didn't get scared. Big smiles all around!

We capped off the night with a spin on the ferris wheel. We had a great time, and are looking forward to the next carnival!

Brianne Gets a Boo Boo

One Sunday evening, Brianne was in the bath tub, getting ready to climb out. Some how, she slipped and her chin connected with the edge of the tub. Marty and I were both within arms reach of her, but couldn't catch her in time. At first, we couldn't figure out where the blood was coming from, but she looked up at Marty and her little chin had a 1 inch split in it. Brianne cried for a minute from the initial shock of it, but then she was totally calm. Marty and I snapped into action, got her dressed and rushed off to the emergency room.

The Cleveland Clinic ER in Weston was surprisingly calm at 8:30pm on a Sunday evening. We were the only people there, and only had to wait for 5 minutes. The doctors were very nice and efficient, and had Brianne patched up within 10 minutes. Brianne was a champ through the entire ordeal, and sat very calmly as the doctors attended to her. Luckily, they could close her boo boo with skin glue and super band aids, and she didn't have to have stitches.

Here is Brianne showing off her special "stickers". We were very fortunate that our first ER experience was as easy as it was. Hopefully, we will not going back any time soon!



One month later: Brianne only had to wear her special stickers for a week. Her wound is all healed up, and is just a pink line on the under side of her chin. With diligent Mederma application, we think she will have very minimal scarring.

Butterfly Festival

Saturday, March 3 found us making our way over to Flamingo Gardens, a local botanical garden and wildlife sanctuary, for the Butterfly Festival. Brianne and I both love butterflies, and were looking forward to a great day celebrating our little winged friends.

Before we left, we had to check on our family caterpillars. We have a little butterfly garden on our back patio and just happened to have four little caterpillars of our very own. All four were present and accounted for, so it was time to head out to the festival!


When we got there, they were getting ready to do a butterfly release. So we killed time and had a cherry snow cone. Brianne was very gracious and shared her snow cone with me :o)


The festival had a lot of local vendors, some selling butterfly related goods (butterfly plants, wind chimes, etc), and others selling locally grown produce and crafts. We sampled some fresh strawberries, and then Brianne wanted to get her faced painted. Even though there were a handful of kids in line before us, Brianne wanted to wait to get her face painted.

When asked what she wanted, she said (of course) a princess! When asked what kind of princess, she said "a flower princess." So that's what she got. She was thrilled to be a pretty flower princess.

Right next to the face painting, some Japanese drummers were getting started, so we sat on the lawn and jammed to the beat. Here's the band with their dragon. Ironically, I don't think any of the musicians in the band were Japanese, but they still did a great job.

Brianne was so inspired by their performance that she wanted to try drumming.

We ventured a little farther and found the butterfly tent where you could feed live butterflies. They had little cups of Gatorade to dip your finger in. The sweetness was supposed to attract the butterflies. Brianne took matters into her own hands and called after them "come HERE butterflies!" Here we are with two - one on Brianne's hand and one on her shirt. Brianne wasn't afraid at all!

This one Monarch butterfly loved Brianne. It sat on her finger for a good 5 minutes, which gave me a great opportunity to get a good picture! Our home butterfly garden is specifically for Monarchs, so maybe this is one of our butterflies... Reunited at last (at least that's what we like to think :o)

Last but not least, we stopped by the animals. Of course being at Flamingo Gardens, we had to visit the flamingos! Brianne called them the "eagles". Her favorite animal she saw that day were the otters (she called them "seals").

Friday Night Food Trucks

For all the nice restaurants in South Florida, the latest culinary craze is Food Trucks - basically fancified roach coaches that pull into a parking lot and serve really nice food. I had heard great things about them, but had never actually gone. So when I learned there was going to be a food truck event at a park 5 minutes from my house, I jumped at the chance to sample mobile cuisine. And Brianne, forever my little shadow, was ready for anything. Mi Ma Debbie was also ready for some food truck action!

We got to the event around 6:30pm, and it was already packed. They had a DJ playing music and about 10 trucks serving everything from tacos to cupcakes and even a truck dedicated to french fries. We chose a truck called Nacho Business, and sampled the fish tacos and veggie tacos. Here is Brianne (wearing a princess dress) waiting in line with me. She had her eye on the DJ and was ready to boogie.


We were advised to bring lawn chairs with us, as food truck events have notoriously little seating, and thank goodness we did! Brianne had a chair just her size.


After tacos, we had to try the cupcakes. Here is Brianne enjoying a chocolate cupcake.

One of the great things about this event, besides the food, was all the people. There were a lot of families with kids there, and Brianne had a blast running around with them. She also danced her glass slippers off. At one point, Brianne took a break from dancing to gaze up at the stars. The funniest part was watching when the 30 some odd people in line in front of her all started looking up at the sky to see what she was looking at.

When it was finally time to leave, we had to bodily carry her out. Even the next morning she asked to go "dancing at the trucks." She is a little party animal in training!

Orange Blossom Parade

The weekend of February 25 found us riding in the Town of Davie's Orange Blossom Parade. Marty has been riding in this parade since he was first elected, so this event will always be special for us. This year, it was even more special because Brianne got to ride with us!

We got a really cool car to ride in for the parade - a steel blue Mustang convertible. I could definitely see myself in a car like this, except for the fact that there is no room for anything. It was a miracle we were able to fit Brianne's car seat and ourselves in it at the same time. But we sure did look cool once we were packed in! Here is Brianne soaking in the coolness.


Before the parade, we visited with our friends also riding/walking in the parade. Here we are with our good friend Lori Parrish, and her granddaughter Kaylie.


A quick family shot before piling back in the Stang.

While Marty and I sat on the back of the car, Brianne had to settle for sitting in her car seat. She still had a great view of all the action! She even helped us throw out candy! It was the cutest thing ever - she would throw it a piece at a time and each piece barely cleared the side of the car. But as soon as she ran out, she'd look back at us and yell "more candy please!" She was a great little helper.

The parade had a bunch of different groups riding in it. Here we are riding past the clowns. Brianne wasn't sure what to make of this clown, so she gave him a piece of candy. This parade is definitely one we will remember for a long time!