A STAY-cation part 1

So we bought a house this summer--big expense! Therefore rather than go on a vacation, we decided to convince Dad to take some time off from work and do things locally instead. This also was nice because our kids were then sleeping in their own beds every night and we could cook food at home that we knew they would eat, etc...

So last week we had a BUNCH of fun things we did.

Tuesday the DMA! The first Tuesday of every month the Dallas Museum of Art is FREE!! We've never been with the kids and decided to go! Don't know that I'd go again, but it was fun. We got there right when it opened, looked around a bit--kids asked LOTS of questions about what they were seeing--nudity, violence, etc. Then we geared them to a WONDERFUL story time with a very talented lady who told stories and did a readers theatre about DRAGONS. Then onto a pretty lame craft of coloring a star.
While they were coloring with markers (not a Lindsey friendly thing) we found this wall full of textures that was touch and feel (way more Lindsey friendly). Then we found these cool chairs that are made by gluing a bunch of cardboard boxes together and cutting them on their sides. Pretty cool idea....
The kids area was a bit more interactive and cool but after those two things, the museum was getting pretty crowded and overwhelming. So we decided to head to FREEBIRDS for lunch (which we hit right at lunchtime and it took WAY to long) then we dropped Dad back off at work. It was overall okay.

Then the next day our COUSINS came! Shelly and Kaitlyn are weeks apart in age and great buddies. Aunt Laura made them matching pajamas for Christmas and they thought it was so fun to dress alike!!

Sam's pet names

Sam is 3 1/2. Usually at this age children start naming stuffed animals and at least with Kaitlyn most everything was named "Kaitlyn" after her. Sam has started doing this, but now he's branching off.....

Meet RASPBERRY JUICY:

Stephen is quite bothered that this takes a shot at Sam's manhood, and has tried to convince him to shorten it to "RJ" but Sam will have none of that.

Then there's PEANUT BUTTER:

Anyone noticing a theme here?

Then the collie A&M Mascot dog whose real name is Reveille has now been crowned HAMBURGER.

And this little penguin who we got the other night in a McDonalds is sometimes HOT DOG and sometimes OREO.

Hangin out at the new digs

So once we get a bit more settled we'll take some pictures and post them for you to see our new house but here are some random shots of us in our new house. We're loving the space it was so needed by our growing family, I however am still getting used to the hour it takes to vacuum (and with brand new carpet the fuzzies require it every other day) and the nearly 2 hours it takes to deep clean all 3 bathrooms. But I'll manage because it's such a good place for us to be!!
Kaitlyn is learning new boundaries of how far she can ride her bike....

After about a week of daily pestering, we found Sammy's tool box in the garage....Lindsey enjoyed his tools too....
And after being outside for a bit it was time for a water break!

Fire Station Tour

We joined a few friends for a tour of the local fire station. We had fun, here are some great shots!
Kaitlyn was eager to try everything,

Sam was a bit hesitant......

Kaitlyn really enjoyed using the hose!!

They needed a volunteer to model all the fire gear so that in an emergency a usually fearful sight of a fireman in his gear would be something familiar--so I volunteered. Don't I look "HOT"?

And here is the only shot of all three actually looking at the camera.

OVERALL Girl

I'm just looking back at the posts and I'm realizing that Lindsey looks like she's in a clothing shortage and I thought I'd offer an explanation.

We're attempting to potty train Sam and in that Lindsey has observed and learned the ease at which to remove a diaper. She LOVES being naked! At least twice a week we peek in on her before we go to bed and find her naked.

She's also really stealth at this activity so during the day she'll remove her pants and diaper and if I'm lucky no "accident" will be involved. So we've pulled out all the overalls we can find because they're an article of clothing that she hasn't figured out how to remove, so those combined with a onesie is the outfit of choice these days--it's for my sanity!!

4th of July Fun!

4th of July was a day full of family fun! Well, as much fun as we could have the weekend before the big move. The day started out with the ward pancake and freedom toast breakfast. Stephen ran around like a mad man helping the activities committee run the event so he didn't quite get into any photos. But we had fun and spent good time with good friends.....

Elder Allred (one of our favorites) and Sam were a team playing water balloon volleyball,

Lindsey was loved by Arhely and Dani and Sandra Hamblin.

Then after the breakfast we literally RAN home, but on church clothes and came back to the church to attend the baptisms of these great little boys, Chase and Jacob Barnes. These kids are awesome! They totally know the gospel and have been taught well! This is especially impressive seeing as though their parents were baptized a little over a year ago--a goldenly wonderful family!! We love the Barnes and are so glad to call them our friends.


Then later Grandma and Grandpa came over for a BBQ and we went to see fireworks. We'd never let Sam and Kaitlyn go see fireworks before because we thought they'd be scared and it always started a bit late but we napped them earlier in the afternoon and they were excited to go! Grandma was a good sport to stay at home with a sleeping Lindsey and Grandpa had to come along (he's a favorite you see...)

First stop: Sonic for milkshake treats. Kaitlyn wanted a strawberry one because it was healthy, Sam just got Chocolate!

YUM!

There was a free firework show not far from home and in order to avoid the crowds we parked and camped out at an LDS church parking lot just a mile away and we got out our camping chairs and....

Happy 4th of July!

Trains and Planes!

So in my attempt to "mix things up" with the hum and drum that can be the summer break, between all the packing and unpacking and moving prep we totally have to take the time out to do some fun! I realized that my kids have NEVER actually ridden on a REAL TRAIN. We LOVE trains, play with them, read books about them, talk about them, get excited to see them......so I remembered this fabulous park called Haggard Park in Plano not too far from us that is actually a stop on the real commuter train in Dallas called the DART. There is even a museum there and an original mail train car that you can tour.

We decided to pack a picnic lunch and ride the dart a bit then go to the museum and eat lunch and play at the park. I was so grateful for my dad who was able to tag along and give me an extra set of hands. Up until the last minute I wasn't sure if any of my mom with kids friends were going to be able to make it and the idea of managing 3 kids on something new and exciting like a train ride can be a little overwhelming. But in the end my friend Julie and her older 2 boys did come and we were glad to have them along because they were professional DART riders!

We even had a moment of mercy. I'm a pretty friendly gal and chat up pretty much any mom with kids. One got on the train with us and she asked us where we were going. My response was nowhere really, we were just riding the train for something to do and then we were going to picnic at the park. MAN WAS I GLAD I TOLD HER. Braden HAD to bring along his Thomas the Train back pack--insisted on it. And then, you guessed it, when we switched trains he forgot to grab it and although we realized it quickly the trains move on down the line. MIRACLE of MIRACLES this woman grabbed the backpack and a couple hours later knew exactly where to find us. HORRAY!!


It was a busy week because then a couple days later we hit the Airplane Museum that's out by Love Field. The tour part was a little crazy. The tour guides are these nice retired gentlemen who actually flew some of the kinds of planes on display and know a lot. But they're not the most patient or understanding about what kids need or would be interested in. So he passed up a lot of stuff we would have LOVED to spend more time on and he kind of labeled us as a troublesome group with wild kids who were going to tear the place down to the studs so that was kind of a let down......see? here we are on the tour, don't we look excited and engaged?

This was a cool thing, the Apollo Capsules was on display for us to see!

But at the end there was a Jay Jay the Jet plane play area and we had a lot of fun with that.

What a week full of fun huh?