Saturday, July 26, 2014

Big Man is 10

Since I have at least 15 minutes before I need to think about sleep I'm going to crank out a recap of Big Man's 10th Birthday!!! We celebrated a week early since we drove to Alabama on his actual birthday. He asked for a dodgeball tournament and thats we he got. We rented out our schools gym, Adam hooked up the speakers and served as the announcer and DJ and we completed everything with a Star Wars theme. The only two injuries happened to a mom and her daughter....I threw a dodgeball at the daughter square in the face and Adam followed suit by slamming another dodgeball into her moms chin as she sat on the sidelines. We declared ourselves OUT and didn't play anymore :). I thought it was soo funny that Big Man wanted to invite every boy in his class but only 5 girls (his favorite 5), 4 of those girls are the sweet girls he was with in Pre-1st and has stayed best buds with , the other one goes to our church and they have become close. The girls did play some of the games but also served as my helpers and rule enforcers.

This is after the party since there was too much chaos, I mean fun, going on during the party.
Look who got to come...we hardly ever have family in town for birthdays so having CC was a special treat!
Look mom, a GAMESTOP giftcard...this lil man racked up in the giftcard dept!!!!!
Playing knock out after they ate....we were trying to keep the barfing to a minimum!

Everyone seemed to have a great time and it was fun to see all of his friends in the middle of the summer!
CAN YOU BELIEVE WE ARE PARENTS TO A 10 YEAR OLD? YIKES!

Disney Wrap Up

I finally found the last of our Disney pictures....buried deep in the folders of my old computer. Don't get me started on ipads and their inability to help out a blogger.

One of the only characters who didn't have a memory maker person with him...Baby Brother was napping during their photo shoot!
 Playing around after riding Spaceship Earth...Baby Boy was still asleep :)
Them off to Morocco for the BEST MEAL EVER and Henna tattoos for the big kids and mommy! Theses were so funny to hear the kids talk about because mine ended up way darker than theirs...they would notice how theirs turned almost skin color.
I could eat this every day!!! Pita, Tabbouleh, Hummus, Rice with raisins and nuts, yogurt sauce, Lamb, chicken, and BAKLAVA for dessert!!!
Definitely the highlight of the night was watching our kiddos dance with the bellydancer....no stage fright and they wanted to copy her every move!
I took a video of this and they request to watch it at least once a week!
Big man with the Epcot dome behind him.
Playing in the bubbles while we waited for the night laser and firework show to start...they had lots of fun until they ran smack into each other.
That's about it...besides the memory maker photos.

Our summer is now in HIGH GEAR with both mommy and daddy scrambling to get everything done before school starts. Adam is working long days and nights and has everyone grabbing for his attention. I'm at home with the kiddos getting all of our loose ends tied up...mainly all appts finished, camps done, school uniforms bought, and worrying about my new classroom that I haven't moved into yet :)...(next week is the week). Oh, and our house is still under remodel :). I got the back patio completely laid...and some of the raised garden area also has a flagstone walkway now. Adam has 60% of the wood flooring laid in the living room, the mantle busted off, the wall between our kitchen and living room knocked out (not 100%, we just widened the narrow doorway opening by 5 feet) and ALL of our belongings are in the playroom.

BUT, BRES BATHROOM IS DONE!!! HURRAH!!! SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO USE OUR TOILET AT 2 IN THE MORNING ANYMORE!!! (she still does though)



Thursday, July 10, 2014

Alabama Summer Trip/Disney Day 5

Posting has taken a back seat to all of the traveling we have done over the past two weeks. We made our 12 hour trek to my parents home on E's birthday. We started out that day with breakfast at Ihop and then hopped in the car for a looonng drive. The kiddos actually did pretty good for driving during the day...except all the potty breaks...which is another advantage to driving at night...they only go when we wake them up :).

Then we headed up to Adam's parents home for about 5 days to spend the 4th of July with them. The kids loved swimming in the lake with all of their cousins and aunts and uncles. We ate good, played hard and slept a lot.

We left there and on the way back down south we stopped at AUBURN for the day! We only visited 2 sets of families since I knew the day was going to be long for the kiddos. We stopped at my "Auburn adoptive family's" house and swam and ate lunch and then the kiddos passed out right when they got in the car. I took Goober on a driving tour of Auburn and showed him all of the places that were important to Adam and me. He wanted to take a picture in front of the bowling alley where we met and then in front of the stadium. We also stopped at Toomers for lemonade and ice cream, something they had been talking about since finding out that Auburn was one of our stops this summer. We shopped, met up with Virg and then had dinner with another sweet family from our church in Auburn. The kids were pooped and we got back late to my parents home.

Now we are back at my parents house, going to free things at the Library, attending football camps at my former high school and packing our days full of visits to see family and friends. The kiddos are missing their daddy and we are squeezing in facetime when we can....or when we need it for behavior :).

I want to finish up my Disney posts before I forget everything!

We spent the last day at Epcot and it started early with the girls heading to the Akershus Banquet Hall for a breakfast with the princesses. We booked it so early that Epcot hadn't opened yet and it was fun to walk through the park and be one of 20 people there.
As you can see, Ribbit's hair lasted through the night and only got crazier..she wanted to wear the outfit she got at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and she was quite excited to meet princesses!!

Almost alone at the park...She also had to bring "Disney", her new stuffed animal with her!


The first princess we met was Belle, I have a better posed picture on Memory Maker but all of them were very sweet, gave out hugs, signed autographs and chatted with little miss thing.
Next was Princess Aurora, or Sleeping Beauty.
Cinderella was checking out Ribbit's hair as she got down out of her seat. It was so nice to just sit and eat a WONDERFUL breakfast while the princesses came to you. For anyone with kiddos, character meals are the way to go....NO LINES, air conditioning and all the autographs you could want!!!
Lots of hugs!!!!
She wanted everyone to meet "Disney" and love him as much as she does :)

Princess Ariel was next and after leaving Disney Ribbit declared that Ariel was her favorite!
SO EXCITED that Snow White is giving her an autograph!!!!
And then she started to "princess pose" which means half squinty eyes and her hands doing all sorts of weird things :)
And then music started and Ribbit ran and found Cinderella to hold her hand!
They walked around the whole castle waving to everyone ...look at Ribbit's hand, still posed properly!
The park still wasn't open yet so we snapped a picture in Mexico!
We found Chip and Dale!
Then we met up with the boys who ate breakfast at the hotel and then came on to Epcot. We rode the Nemo ride and then stayed to watch the dolphin show at the "Seas" area. The kids loved finding the turtles and sharks in the tanks and were literally running back and forth showing each other things. Then the found the scuba diver :)

I can't find the rest of the my pictures from that day right now ...but I'm positive they are on my computer back in Texas...so I guess I will do a part 2 of our last Disney Day later. HAPPY SUMMER!!!