Swimmin’ and Shoppin’

On Friday after naps we headed out to dinner at Claim Jumpers (something we don’t have, yum!) with Grandma’s brother and his wife.  There was a Baskin Robbins right across the street from our hotel so we skipped dessert at the restaurant and stopped for ice cream on the way back.

By that time it was straight to bed…not that they actually went to sleep.  I think they were up until about 10 o’clock, whispering, giggling, and getting yelled at in successive order. :P

The next morning we took them swimming after breakfast since we hadn’t made it back in time the night before.  They loved it!  Bug is SO much more confident in the water and swam all over the pool with her fun noodle.

And Boo Bear is quite the confident swimmer herself!  We had to make sure she had her life jacket on before letting her in the pool area so she wouldn’t drown herself! 

She was climbing in and out of the pool, swimming all over the place…even in the deep end!  She really didn’t want any help and was so proud of herself!  I guess she’ll be our little fish. :)

Grandma and Grandpa went visiting so after swimming we went shopping with Auntie Nae, Uncle Wade, and Waylon.  We got some fun puzzles at Target that the kids did later at the hotel.

We met up with Grandma and Grandpa at the mall and had some lunch before hitting the Lego store where Daddy spent all the birthday/Christmas money he’s been saving up for the past three years! I’ll have to post pictures of their creations when they are finished with these sets…quite impressive!

After the Lego store we headed back to the hotel to let the kids nap.  I stayed with the girls while T went with his parents to help get set up for the wedding (it was at his Aunt and Uncle’s house).

They came back for us and we all got ready and headed up to the wedding…pictures from that to come.

The Zoo

Our last big event…until the main event, that is…of the summer is over! 

(Well, that’s not exactly true.  We have another wedding to go to next weekend, but it is closer to home and if we spend the night in a hotel it will be more for fun and because we don’t want to get home super late, than out of necessity.)

Last night we got back from a four day trip to the wedding of one of T’s cousins!  It was a beautiful wedding and we had a great long weekend!

On Thursday morning the girls went to preschool, T went to work for a few hours and I got everybody packed and ready to go.  We picked them up at Miss J’s and hit the road!

We’ve been planning on attending this wedding since last summer and even when I realized I’d be pretty far along we still wanted to go.  I figured it wouldn’t be a problem, and thankfully it wasn’t.  At my dr’s appointment last week I told him our plans and he said he doesn’t usually recommend travel after 35 weeks, and to stop every 2 hours (there’s a risk of blood clots if you don’t move your legs every 2 hours I guess) so we took our time, making quite a few stops to stretch our legs.

We got to the hotel just before dinner time and met up with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Wade, Auntie Nae, and Waylon.  We got pizza and ate it in the hotel rooms before taking the girls for the promised before-bedtime swim.

The next morning we all met up with the other cousins and Grandma and Grandpa took us all to the zoo!  The kids were SO excited!

And it was so much fun to be able see everything with the whole family!

Black bears.

Bald eagles.

The little eaglets in the nest. :)

Boo rode in the stroller for the first hour or so and then the kids found this fun tunnel shortcut on one of the paths so she wanted out.

And then back in.  We pushed her up close to this so she could see the fish and she was squirming around.  “Getting wet Daddy!” she finally said.  The little waterfall was splashing all over her I guess, haha. :)

Turtles.

Some sort of frogs, I think.

The kids got so excited about the tractor and these tractor seats, which I thought was so funny since it’s something so common to us.  If they want to get on a tractor all we have to do is go out to Grandma and Grandpa’s.  Maybe they were just excited to see something familiar?

I got this picture of Boo looking through the peep holes at the polar bears, but then I forgot to get a picture of the bears themselves. :)

Wart hogs.  These guys were so funny.  There was one that was just running in circles around the habitat.  He was actually booking it really fast and the kids thought it was pretty funny. :)

Everybody went over to look at this monkey…

…and he came right down to the window like he wanted to check out the kids! I thought this picture was hilarious! It looks like he is smiling at Waylon!

And this fish thought Boo was pretty interesting!  She loved that it came over to her!

Cute little elephant. 

They had a little tribal section set up so the kids entertained us a bit with some drums.

The “daddy and mommy” lions.

The kids ran in this little area and Boo was saying, “I’m Daniel! I’m Daniel!”  I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about until I read the sign that said, “Lion’s Den” and realized that Bug and E were pretending to be lions and Boo was Daniel.  So funny. :)

Here was a similar den but the cheetahs were right there!  They didn’t seem at all bothered by the kids on the other side of the glass.

Little prairie dogs.

Daddy and Boo checking out the zebras, gazelles, and giraffes.

We ate lunch at one of the restaurants in the zoo and then went back and did the one area we had missed.  I had promised Bug earlier in the morning that we would get an elephant ear before we left so I headed back to the “Africa” section to get one while they went and saw the seals, sea lions, etc.

Everybody had so much fun!

Some of the family went into the gift shop, but we had plans to go to the Lego store after naps and get souvenirs so we waited outside. :)

Our little drama girls. :)

What a fun experience!  Thanks so much for taking us all to the zoo Grandma and Grandpa!  We had a great time!!!

Sing the Wondrous Love

A few weeks ago when Aunt Karen was here she played the piano so Noni and I could sing during the offering at church.  We did the old hymn, When We All Get to Heaven.  We really only had a chance to practice it a handful of times but the girls loved the song and both of them picked it up really quickly. 

It cracks us up when Boo Bear walks around singing it since it is a pretty wordy song.  She knows them all though and sings it with pretty good pitch.  I tried to get a good video but she wouldn’t stay focused long enough to give me both the first verse and the chorus so I got one later of her and Buggy singing it together.

In this first video she’s not enunciating very clearly because she was very excited about this musical combination of a rusted screwdriver, that she found in the dirt, and the decorative yard butterfly. :)

Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing His mercy and His grace.  In the mansions bright and blessed, He’ll prepare for us a place.

Here’s an example of her non-focusing.  She does this all this all the time.  A typical conversation goes like this…

Me: Boo, what should we have for lunch?

S: I tink we shoud have, oh yook! Dere’s Izzy.  We shoud have some peanut butter and, can we go outside af-ta yunch?  I want peanut butter and jelly.  Izzy can come outside af-ta yunch, wif me.  And bananas.  Yet’s have banana wif our yunch.

I guess it’s more multi-task talking instead of non-focusing.  It’s actually pretty impressive, as she can keep up several conversations threads at the same time.  So funny.

The duet.

One day we noticed that at the end instead of singing victory she is singing “bakery”. 

When we all get to heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be!  When we all see Jesus we’ll sing and shout the BAKERY! :)

She sure keeps life fun and interesting!

Lost Birthday Pictures

I had forgot about these pictures until I was cleaning up my phone the other day.  They are from my birthday.  I got breakfast in bed!  Juice, yogurt, mini bagel with cream cheese, and fresh-picked flowers from the yard. So sweet!  

T and the girls took me out to lunch so the rest of the pictures are from us entertaining ourselves as we waited for our food to come. :)

Love those faces.

I love my family. :)

Singin’ and Dancin’

This past weekend was another busy one for us.  We spent Friday night going to a local play.  It was really fun because we knew a handful of people who were in it, including our worship leader from church who Bug adores.  The play was great and the girls loved it! 

The only problem was that it didn’t get over until 9:45 and their bedtime is usually a firm 8:30.  Of course they didn’t sleep in the next morning…they were actually up a little earlier than usual!  It made for a little bit of grumpiness, but thankfully we had plenty of activities going to keep them occupied until naptime.

It was our annual town celebration, and the last parade of the season for Bug’s dance group.  First on the agenda though was a mini-concert by our worship team.  It was really fun, and the first time I’ve ever played the piano (well, keyboard) outside.  I felt like I was in a real band.  Haha :)

Papa and Mama (Noni is in Texas eating biscuits and gravy and hearing some awesome preaching at camp) came out to watch the festivities.  T brought the girls over to hear the worship team and they were dancing around with some of their friends.  Then he took them over to get lined up for the parade.  Boo got to ride on the float again since there was enough room (they’re on the far right).

The worship team finished the set and then I hustled down to where they were lined up so I could walk in the parade and keep an eye on the girls. Someone said we won first prize for our float/dance.  The kids do a great job!

After the parade we headed over to the park to get in on the BBQ that was going on.  We had to make a little stop to buy a pint of raspberries (that we had eaten within a block) and to pet the puppies that the humane society had out.  They were so cute.  If we weren’t weeks away from a new baby I would have been seriously tempted to take this little guy home.  So cute!

We sat in the park and had lunch with some friends and then let the girls jump in the bouncy house that was set up.

By then they were both starting to droop so we headed over to get some dessert since we’d been promising them we could.  I thought they would pick the kettle corn one of the booths was selling since they both love “cop-corn” as Boo says, but they both wanted a donut from the bakery. Why would you want popcorn over a donut as big as your face??

After all that sugar we headed home and they both crashed for hours.  Thankfully our Sunday was a lot more relaxed and we were able to rest up for another busy week.  The girls are at summer preschool this morning so I’d better get off here and go get some work done while I have a chance!