Happy Easter 2012

I don't have a lot of pictures from Easter this year. The girls were not super cooperative at the same time - or at all. I am so glad that Easter is not about dresses, shoes, or pictures. I am thankful for the day set aside to celebrate the resurrection of my Savior.

Camping Trip - sort of

We planned a camping trip with Kevin's parents this fall. We didn't want to go too far from home because the last time we took Daphne camping, she woke up in the middle of the night and screamed hysterically and would not go back to sleep so I eventually took her home. Kevin's parents stay at KOA campsites all the time so that is what we went with this year. Our lives have been so crazy this fall that we didn't do a lot of research before we decided on a place to stay so we made reservations at the Granite City KOA. Once we got there - we realized that it wasn't quite what we were expecting. It was in the middle of an industrial park - so no hiking and not many trees in general and no fire pit. That was probably the more disappointing aspect because the girls were looking forward to roasting marshmallows and it just isn't the same over a charcoal grill.

The cabin was clean and nice but in the end we decided to just stay one night and head home for Saturday night. We spent a little time at Eckert's on our way home and then the girls just played and played with Grandma and Grandpa! The weather was beautiful so we still spent a lot of time outside - it was just at home in our own backyard!!

Here are a few of the pics from the weekend:

Yep, we are letting our kids watch a movie on the I-pad while we are camping. We figured if we can watch the Cardinal game (game 5 of the NLDS against the Phillies - so worth it!) while camping that they could watch a kid show on Saturday morning.

The girls all wanted to ride the ponies at Eckerts. They have a fascination with horses right now so this was their highlight!!

Silver Dollar City

We had so much fun last year at Silver Dollar City for the homeschool weekend that we decided to go again. Only this year, I didn't fill Norah's whole day with classes (last year we were racing to get to each class that we didn't get to do much of the normal theme park stuff until Sunday).

My parents were already in Branson - visiting with a cousin of my mom's. They joined us on Saturday at Silver Dollar City.

Here are some highlights:

(pay close attention to Lucy's face in the first 2 pics)

This ride looks like it is going to be fun!!

Maybe not as much fun as I thought!! This was typical for almost every ride!! She is not very daring - not that I mind it most of the time. She was very picky about what rides she thought were acceptable! If it went a little too high or just a little too fast - she didn't want to have anything to do with it!!

Daphne thought she was big stuff this year since she could actually ride several rides!! She loved it and she has NO FEAR!

I had to post this picture for 2 reasons: 1 - my mom's face is hilarious! 2 - it looks like she and I are the only ones on the teacup ride!

hanging out with Grandpa Steve

The little school house is probably Norah's favorite place to go at Silver Dollar City. We basically had to drag her out of there!!

We had a great weekend! We love Silver Dollar City - it is such a family-friendly, clean amusement park!!

The Magic House

*edited after Kevin pointed out some typos! oops. should have read it over more closely!

Kevin took the day off on Tuesday so we could have one last "hurrah" before starting school. We took the girls to Panera Bread Co for breakfast - choosing a breakfast place is quite difficult when you have a child with an egg and nut allergy. The ONLY things she can have at Panera are a couple of their bagels - but we can't get them sliced because of the cross contamination. Crazy. I guess she could have a yogurt - but I didn't want to deal with that mess before heading to the Magic House.

The girls had a blast at the Magic House. We haven't been for a long time mainly because I don't think it is easy to take 3 kids there and keep track of everyone. Norah and Lucy want to go one way and Daphne wants to go somewhere else. With Kevin and I both there - we could divide and conquer!

We enjoyed many favorite exhibits:

the electrically charged ball

one of many slides

waterworks

The Children's Village - the girls LOVED the baby hospital

The Star Spangled Center

The Construction Zone

The Alice in Wonderland Exhibit was super cute - the girls loved it! We are going to read Alice in Wonderland this year for school so it was fun for the girls to get to see some of the characters and scenes!

We stayed for about 4 1/2 hours before one (who shall remain nameless) of the girls started losing it.

We had a great day - the girls LOVED having Kevin take a day off in the middle of the week because he never does that.

Stay tuned for pictures of the first day of school.

Memorial Day Weekend (Weekly Check-In)

We spent the weekend in Indy with Kevin's family. His mom's 60th birthday is this week so we had a little surprise party for her. She knew we were coming over, but didn't know there would be a party when she got home from work. The kids loved surprising Linda! They were giddy and giggly while we waited for Linda to get home!!

Saturday morning - everyone headed to the parade for the Indy 500. Well, everyone except Daphne and me. Daphne didn't nap on the way to Indy on Friday and didn't sleep well Friday night so she needed to stay home and nap. And nap she did - she slept for almost 4 hours while the others were gone.

Sunday - all the girls headed to church while all the boys went to the race. We had Monical's Pizza for lunch - can't pass that up when it is an option. Shawna and I headed to Half Price Books while Linda played with all the granddaughters. Ummm, I love this bookstore and so wish we had one in STL. I bought a bunch of chapter books for Norah - 12 for $21. Love it!

Sidenote - not sure what the deal is but one or more of our kids get sick whenever we go out of town. Ergh. Norah is wheezing and running a fever, which means we may be heading to the doctor in the morning. Hopefully, this won't last long!!

Oh - and I am potty training this week. Daphne is ready so we are going to go for it.

Florida

We just got home from a vacation in Florida. We had a great time. We swam a lot, played a lot, and just had a lot of fun together. My favorite part of the trip was having Kevin with us for 10 days straight. Too bad he has to work today - blah.

Since I have little time for blogging these days, I am just going to post a lot of pictures

Look at that face! Daphne was not a fan of the ocean. The water was REALLY choppy when we were there so the waves were HUGE and loud. Daphne's most common phrase while in Florida was "Otean scawe me!"

Our first evening at the beach the girls just ran and ran!

While she didn't like the water - Daphne was content to play in the sound for hours!

Lucy and Norah spent most of their time in the water - but Daphne had them filling up buckets with water and/or wet sand for her.

We rented bikes one day and we all had a great time. Kevin and I got our workout in and the girls enjoyed the ride.

We went on a boat ride to Shell Island and then to look for dolphins. Lucy was not sure about the boat ride at first, but in the end she said she enjoyed it.

There is a dolphin in the picture above.

Daphne is driving the boat!!

The waves were huge the entire week!!

I set Daphne down with just her feet in the water!! She is totally running away!!

Feeding the seagulls

We had a fabulous time. It was so great having a week and a half together to just hang out!! I loved having the evenings with nothing to do but relax!!

Thanks to the Kilgore family for hosting us for Easter. We had a blast! It was great having all the girls together!!

Thanks to the Morrison family for letting us crash at your place on our way home!! It was great seeing you and just relaxing!!