vacation (pt.3)

I’m getting a little antsy to move on from vacation posts, but want to share our pictures and what we did.  I’m going to combine last Wednesday and Thursday into one post and get us a little closer to done with vacation posts.

Wednesday we got a really late start due to some beyond amazing blackout curtains in our hotel room.  My husband granted my hotel request and got us a suite style room so we wouldn’t have to sit in the dark waiting for the kids to fall asleep each night.  When Jilly woke up Wednesday morning, she asked if she could go lie out on the couch in the living room area, we told her sure and figured she’d be back in shortly.  That girl fell back asleep and continued to sleep even after the rest of us were up and moving around.

Once we finally got ourselves already to go we headed toward the Arch.  I really thought I had read somewhere that our hotel was a half mile walk to the Arch.  Apparently I read wrong.  It wasn’t bad, but it was longer than I expected.

The kids LOVED going up in the Arch.  For Nate the best part was seeing a helicopter with it’s propeller spinning while on a floating helicopter pad along the shore of the Mississippi.  After we went up it, they pointed it out every time we saw it as we drove around the city.

Thursday we had plans to do both Grant’s Farm and the Science Center.  We again, thanks to the blackout curtains, got a slow start to our morning.  I thought I had seen that the Science Center was open until 5, but I was wrong once again.  We got there at 3:50 and it closed at 4:30.  We didn’t have nearly enough time to see and do everything, but were blessed by the parking lot attendant who waved us through as we left without having us pay.  It was once again a full day which left kids more than ready to crash at the end of the night.

vacation (pt. 2)

Tuesday was the day we were most excited to share with the kids.  One of our favorite things to do in the 3 years we spent in St. Louis for seminary was to go to the zoo.  We went there regularly, and after having kids said that we would one day take them there.  Whereas our local zoo has great indoor exhibits and puny (at best) 0utdoor exhibits, the St. Louis zoo has amazing outside exhibits.  We decided we’d do the zoo on whatever day happened to be the coolest in our days in St. Louis.  We weren’t the only ones who picked the coolest day!!!  It was busy but not unbearable.

Because of our zoo pass we were able to get a pass to several different extras for a total of $20 for the whole family.  We skipped a few of the extras, but we took advantage of the endless carousel rides, train rides, and visited the manta ray touch tank with it.  We would have done the children’s zoo and 4D motion simulator, but we ran out of time and energy.

The animals we saw were great.  There were 2 lion cubs who were putting on a show as they playfully fought with each other.  The baby and momma camel were cute but in need of a major haircut.  And although I couldn’t get the kids to touch one, I got to touch a manta ray.

It was everything Brad and I hoped it would be for the kids.  They had a great time, and so did we.  I can’t wait for the next time we get to go back!

And, because I love flowers and they were in full bloom all over the zoo, I have to share one last picture.

 

vacation (pt. 1)

Last Monday morning we set off on our week-long 4 city summer (technically spring if you ask Nate) vacation.  Day one was spent in Kansas City.  After tolerating some shopping with Brad and I, we surprised the kids with a visit to the new Legoland at the Crowne Center.  Nate had no clue where we were headed until we got almost to the door.  His look was priceless.

Nate’s favorite part was of course the educational part.  He loved learning how they make the Lego bricks.

They had an amazing depiction of some of the sites of KC in one room.  (It took master builders 6 months to build and then 1 1/2 months to set up once they moved it to KC)

There was enough in the main room for each kid’s interests and level to keep them busy for hours.  All three, plus Brad and I, had a great time playing and building.

After a full day in KC, we hit the road and headed towards St. Louis.  It was 3 or 4 hours past bedtime when we got in, but not late enough to not want to hop on the luggage cart for a quick pic.

80s without trying

When school sent home a note saying that the theme for the last pep rally day was going to be the 80s, I thought, eh, we’ll just skip that one.  The morning of the next shirt up in Nate’s closet was his KC Royals shirt.  I pulled it out, and he put it on.  (With Jilly we’d have to debate our way through 4 outfits before she’d finally put something on.)

At breakfast I mentioned to Brad that it was 80s day, but we were just going to let Nate pass on dressing up for this one.  Brad then reminded me that the Royals won the World Series in the 80s so he was dressed 80s without even trying.  That triggered me to remember that Brad’s mom had passed on a couple of Brad’s things a few years back.  We pulled out the KC Royals jacket that Brad had worn when he was a Kindergartener (in the 80s!).

80s day accomplished!

Now if I could just figure out how to relax Nate’s smile!  Poor kid looks like he’s in pain.  Seems to be the norm when I snap his picture lately.

Kindergarten Graduation

Today Nate became an official Kindergarten graduate.  Thanks to snow days not being needed, they were able to chop a full week off the end of the school year which means early summer!!!  It’s been so much fun watching him grow and learn academically, socially, and most importantly, spiritually this year.

Here is Nate and his best bud, Mara.  Her mom and I decided we needed to snap a few pictures of them in case their dreams of marriage eventually occur.  (I can’t begin to tell you how many “Mom, when Mara and I are married . . .” conversations have occurred in our house this year!)  Thankfully they should get to see each other over the summer since she happens to be a King of Kings member even though we’d never met before this school year!  Her mom and I have had many laughs on the playground after school about the conversations they have about each other at home.  Adorable!

During the ceremony, each student was received a reward.  Nate was recognized for class participation – from answering questions to sharing pray requests.

Nate and Mrs. Songster – an absolutely amazing teacher who LOVES her students

Nate and Grandma – we sure missed Grandpa, Grammy, and Grandpa, but we were thankful Grandma could make it

We are so super proud of our guy and can’t wait to see what first grade has in store for him!

Thanks Mrs. Songster, Mrs. Schrag, and all of Cornerstone Christian for an absolutely blessed first year of school!!!!

in the box

There is something exciting to kids about boxes big enough to fit inside.  Or maybe just any box – as my kids can fight over who has claim to just about any box that makes its way into our house.  When Brad said his mom had a big box and wanted to know if we wanted it for the kid, I didn’t even have to think for a moment.  YES!!!!  If my kids can have tons of fun with diaper boxes, they will LOVE a box big enough for all three of them.

After several rains, the box finally moved out of the garage today and to the back porch.  It now has double doors, windows, and closeable spy windows.  It’s been a house, a spy fort, a doctor clinic, and who knows what else I missed.  Because they know the length of time we’ll hang onto their box is limited, it’s easy to convince them to go play with it again.  The forecast is looking pretty favorable last I checked for it not getting rained on in the next couple of days.  Yay!

The downside of box turned playhouse:  all the toys, books, and stuff they carted outside to it.  (Even a trashcan and kleenex box!!!)

garden glimpse

We’re a few weeks into our veggie garden adventure, and we’re starting to see some filling in (and some gaping holes).  We knew we were planting early, but we had plenty of seeds in each package to be able to replant later if necessary.  Sure enough, soon after we planted it got plenty cool and at times cold again.  This weekend we’ll go back and replant some things and hope that this time they will take and sprout.  Even with it still being early in the game, we have quite a bit coming up and some of it is growing quite nicely.

Here’s a peek:

{tomato plants that will hopefully soon be able to go in the ground.  the tallest is getting its first few flowers!  yay!}

{carrots.  i’d almost given up on these guys coming up and thought we’d have to replant them all.  but this week we have almost all of their half rows coming up and filling in!  don’t think we’ll need to replant any of these guys!}

{onions.  these guys are slow and sparse.  we’ll probably replant some more of them.}

{spinach.  we have about half of a row of these guys that come up and half that didn’t we’ll probably go in and fill in the empty spots with more.}

{peas.  these guys are my favorite.  they’re adorable.  no?  well i think they are.  we had about a quarter of these guys come up.  since they are what Brad is most excited about we will definitely be replanting some of these guys this weekend.  oh, and do they need some sort of thing to grow on.  i’m assuming they do with they’re little curly grabbers that are growing.}

{lettuce.  salad anyone?  we’re are having major success in the lettuce department.  we have a full row of these guys.  i’m hoping everyone is ready for some greens!}

{strawberries!  i’m not much of a veggie eater, but fruit – more please!  our first strawberry is ready to be picked.  i figure it’s not fair if i snag it so we’ll pick it tomorrow and split it amongst us all!}

{here’s a picture of the garden as it looked this afternoon.  i’m definitely looking forward to when the flags aren’t needed to mark the rows!  soon!}

Now, if I can just teach myself to like peas, lettuce, spinach, carrots, onions, and tomatoes.  I’ll do the growing, y’all can do the eating!!!

Lego Party Time!!!

We were able to have Nate’s rescheduled birthday party last Thursday, and it went amazingly well.  We decided after having a friend party for the first time last year, that smaller is better.  Last year’s party was fun and fine, but it was a LOT of kids.  This year we went with inviting 3 friends, and it was perfect.

I just want to start out by saying that Pinterest is an amazing resource.  Most all of what I planned for Nate’s Lego birthday party was something I found via Pinterest or was sparked by an idea I found there.  Love that place!

One of our games was a Lego memory game.  I used foam board.  As difficult as this stuff is to cut, I definitely am hanging onto all those circles in case Nate ever requests another Lego themed party.  On the back side of each circle I simple drew a 4 or 8 dotted Lego brick in a variety of colors.  If I had hunted down Lego stickers, that would have saved some time, but I was going for simple.

I knew Brad would think I was nuts, but I talked him into helping me bring the train table up from the basement where the kids normally play with it.  It turned out to be a perfect home base for all of our activities.  For this game, each kid had a cup of random Lego pieces.  The goal is to use up all the Lego pieces in your cup first.  You get to roll the dice and put that many pieces on the shared board with each turn.  This game went really well.  They all loved having their turn to add to the building.  In the end they decided it was a jail.

For our Lego man hunt, I had 14 blue Lego men.  I put a square on 7 of them and a triangle on the other 7.  The kids were divided into 2 teams and the Lego men were hidden around our main floor.  Most of them were hidden in such a way that it was hard to tell if it was a square or triangle man.  If you found one that turned out to be the wrong shape you had to quietly put it back so the other team didn’t know.  In the end there was one of each that they had trouble finding and needed hints for.

I picked up a small Lego set (found in check out lanes at Target) for each kid.  They each got to open and build their car so that we could have races with them.  This was one point where I was glad for the number of kids being small.  Nate LOVES Lego building and rarely asks for help even on the larger sets.  Not every kid must spend all their free time playing with Lego sets though because Brad and I ended up helping out with the building of a couple of the cars.  I also found a Lego Friends set that was a purple and white little car that Jilly and I had built earlier in the day so she could participate in the races.  We did an official race, using the green board from the train table, but they were way more interested in their unofficial races.  (We differentiated their identical cars with a small Lego piece of different colors so we would know which car belonged to which kid.)

While they ate pizza, I taped all but one of the green circles from our Lego memory game to the large foam board.  I had also cut out 5 additional circles and labeled them 1-5.  We played a Lego version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey trying to get their circle to land where the missing peg was.

And, yes, my need to make sure everything was planned out, had a written out plan of how we would do things.

Nate was super excited about his Lego shaped candles I happened to run across at Target.

And just because she’s cute:

In the end, each boy got to take home a Lego man shirt like I had made for Nate and Jilly (Jilly’s didn’t make it in any of the pictures, but is purple with a yellow Lego person that has a bow on it’s head – she loves it!) and the car they had built.

I had a ton of fun with this party, from the planning to the hosting of it, it was a lot of fun.  We’ll see if he wants another one at some point . . .

watch her like a hawk

Last night at dinner Brad made a comment to Nate about needing to “watch Jilly like a hawk”.  They were being silly as they tried to get Jilly to finish her dinner, but the comment totally perplexed Nate.  He was curious, especially since it was animal related, as to what Brad meant by watching her like a hawk.  It’s too bad he was at school today, or I could have given him the perfect example.

Two of Laurel’s favorite things are bath time and climbing.  She managed to combine them both this morning, but she wasn’t that thrilled with the results.  Usually I bathe the girls together because it’s just faster.  I decided for separate baths this morning due to Jilly having just gotten over the fever virus.  I filled the tub and decided to change her sheets while she had some play time in the tub (the rooms are right next to each other).  Laurel was doing her normal and playing alongside the tub as Jilly played in the tub.

Next thing I know, I’m hearing screams of “NO!  No LJ!  NOOOO!”  I head right in the bathroom and find already bathed, fully dressed Laurel sitting in the tub beside Jilly.  Guess next time I need to “watch her like a hawk”.

Apparently she didn’t like the fully clothed and soaking wet feel:

Freshly redressed and banned from the bathroom:

Maybe if I gated her out of the bathroom more often, I wouldn’t have to do this every bath time:

And just because she’s so happy to be feeling better:

put us down in pencil

Although I know kids can change your plans quickly and often at the last minute, I’m still a planner.  It’s just the way I’m wired.  I like to put things on the calendar well in advance.  It’s not that we’re so busy we must plan 3 weeks in advance (although the bigger or kids get the quicker the days do fill up), but there is a certain peace I have in knowing things are planned.

We planned Nate’s party for Friday the 20th.  His birthday was on the 11th, but the Friday before and the Friday after wouldn’t work for various reasons.

So, when he came home Wednesday not acting like himself I let the kids just turn on the tv and veg.  It was a much more peaceful option than letting them play and listening to a very crabby Nate get upset over every little misstep of Jilly and Laurel.  As we headed up for bedtime, I noticed Nate’s forehead was burning up.  Brad mentioned that he thought it felt hot when he had gotten home from work.  I’m assuming crabby Nate was probably running fever since before I picked him up from school.

Thursday, fever won’t go away.  Must make a decision about the birthday party.  Party canceled, well technically rescheduled.  Friday, woke up with no fever.  Yay!  Oh, no, it’s back.  Must have just still had some ibuprofen in his system.  Glad party is postponed.  Saturday, fever still hanging around.  Trip to doctor.  Fever should ended Sunday.  Sunday, very slight fever.  Glimmer of hope!  Oh, what’s that Jilly?  You say you have a headache.  Yup, and a gradually increasing fever to go along with it.  Joy.

So, today was suppose to be a day of celebrating Nate and Brad’s dad’s birthdays, but no go.  We’ll have to pass on that one too.  At this point, I’m just hoping that this is all out of our house by this coming Thursday when we have Nate’s party rescheduled for.

We’ll see.  Never can tell for sure with kids.

At least it’s nice enough to still get outside some.

And, flowers are blooming which always makes this girl just that much happier.