Our Family Photos

A couple of weeks ago, we went out to the Grapevine Trains and took some family pictures.  Alyssa Maisano did our pictures. She is the one who did the kids Valentine pictures.  I think she does AMAZING work.  My main goal was to get a family picture to blow up and put in our living room.

She also got some great shots of the kids together.  There is something about the way they pose together that always reminds me of how much they love each other.  Even if they do fight like cats & dogs the rest of the time.

This was the biggest smile that we got out of Alex that day.  Just not interested in showing her dimples.

This one just melts my heart.  He looks so sweet!

Now a few more of the family...

One last one...This makes me think of the quote, "It All Started Because Two People Fell in Love!"

Fort Worth Museum of Science & History

On Tuesday, one of my best friend's from college came into town with her family.  We decided to meet up at the Fort Worth Museum of Science & History.  I had not been there since they redid it and was dying to try it out.  After we stood in the line to buy tickets, I found out that if I had brought my press pass then I could have saved 50 % on Tuesdays.  GRRR!  That would have been a lot of money since my ticket was $14!!!  Oh well, time to have some fun.  Our first stop was the Children's Museum part.

First up was a giraffe that tells you how tall you are.  It was really cute, & told Riley that he was 48 inches tall.  But then again it told me I was 5'10" when I am only 5'9", but still pretty cool. We couldn't get Alex to stand still long enough to figure out how tall she was.

Next stop was a little role play.  They had this fake ambulance and 3 beds with tons of "babies" in them. 

After spending some time indoors, Riley discovered they had a courtyard full of water toys.  So we headed out to the heat.  This exhibit let the kids spray direct lines of water at fans to spin.

This was the favorite of the whole museum.  The kids were able to connect pcp pipes with corner connectors to holes with water spraying out.  They were able to redirect the water to long straight lines or connect 2 holes together, or they even connected it to make a line of water that sprayed off the table and onto themselves.  OOPS!  :)

Finally I was able to convince the kids to go check out the rest of the museum.  We found this gigantic dinosaur foot print.

Then we moved over to another exhibit where the kids were learning all about inertia.  I have no idea how this worked, but the straighter the kids stood up the faster it spun in circles.

As a side note, I LOVED Allyson's outfit.  Her T-shirt said, "I feel a HISSY coming on" and then of course she wore her tu-tu.  Soo adorable!

At the end we walked through the DaVinci exhibit.  By now Alex had totally figured out the posing thing.  I asked Riley to pose first, but he was done with posing.  So Alex ran up to the wall and assumed her position.  Then when I didn't get out the camera fast enough she fussed at me until I took her picture.  Little Ham!

Then as were leaving for lunch, we found this chair and thought it made the perfect place to have all the kids pose.

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but the chair is made up of all the letters of the alphabet in order.  Then each letter had the texture or shape of something that starts with that letter.  For example the R had ropes all over it. 

Finally the kids were tired of posing, so we walked down the block to the McDonald's.  I have to say that our trip was quite a success.  We all had so much fun.

Riley's Music Camp

Last week, Riley attended music & arts camp at our church.  His week began on Sunday afternoon at 2:00pm.  Since class was only 3 hours and all the way in Hurst, I decided that it was best that I stay on that side of town while he participated.  Being that it was a Sunday, Randy stayed home with Alex. That meant that I actually had 3 hours without any children and nothing planned that I had to do.  Dropping him off was the strangest feeling for me.  I have never dropped Riley off anywhere and then had free time.  Don't get me wrong, it was strange, but also exhilarating. My mom came with me and then we had time to get some serious shopping done.  So the first thing we did was head over to Kid to Kid and buy Alex 2 new hair bows.  Then we headed to Gymboree to use my Gymbucks.  I bought both kids a fall outfit (long sleeve shirt & pair of jeans).  Then we had time to run in JoAnn's.  It was amazing how much time we had to shop without having to corral 2 kids at the same time. 

 Back to music camp, Riley went to class for 3 hours each day.  On Sunday, each child tie dyed their shirt that they would wear in the program on Thursday night.  Each day the did some kind of craft, went to story time, did a creative movement class, and choir.  Oh and the best part of the day was snack.  Riley was amazed with their snack on Sunday.  They had "Jesus Food"  I think in actuality it was humus, some kind of cracker, and grapes. 

Thursday night they showed off what they had learned all week.  Since Riley was only in Kindergarten they sang the first two songs, but were not part of the whole program.  Either way, I just love watching my child perform.  It makes me so proud to watch him.

Caleb's 2nd birthday

After playing all week, we made one more stop on the way home.  My cousin's little boy had his 2nd birthday party.  As I have mentioned before, he & Alex are just 6 weeks apart and so much fun to watch together.  Caleb is also a HUGE Elmo fan.  Soo cute!

Every time my cousin has a party, I'm so impressed.  She really knows how to entertain, plus she can find some really cute cupcakes & cakes.  I wish she lived here, so she could share her ideas & secrets with me!

They found this bounce house a couple of weeks ago on clearance at Toys R Us.  My kids loved it.  I think

the fact that it was a little smaller made it less overwhelming for Alex.

Having fun opening lots of presents!

Probably his favorite present of the day was this bubble generator.  Both kids were having so much fun.  Ahh! The power of soap! :)

More Sea World

After 2 days of relaxing in Bandera & playing in the waterpark, we headed back to San Antonio for one more day of Sea World.  The only show we missed the first time was the Sea Lion show.  That show is always pretty funny and this one actually had a really cute story line that went with it.

After the show, we headed to the where they keep & feed the sea lions.  For some reason in the past, we had always missed this part.  This year we were delighted to see a mama sea lion with her baby cubs.

After this last show, we headed to the water park.  Majority of our time was spent jumping in the wave pool.  Even Alex enjoyed this a little more this year.  I tried, in vain, to get Riley to go down one big slide.  We stood in line and carried our tubes all the way to the top.  But as it became time to get on the ride, Riley freaked out.  The life guard came over and told me that I could not make him go down the ride.  I tried to explain to this young kid, who obviously does not have any kids, that in 5 feet he will be just fine and having lots of fun.  He didn't seem to care.  So Riley and I deposited our tubes at the top, and walked the walk of shame all the way to the bottom.  Not to mention the fact that we burned our feet all the way down because now we were completely dry and that concrete was hot!

After our adventure in the water park, we decided it was time to EAT!  But instead we decided to feed the dolphins and head to a real restaurant to eat a late lunch/early dinner.

Finally it was time to go home, but not without one family picture.

We made two souvenir purchases while we were at Sea World.  The first was a pair of matching Shamu pajamas for the kids.  Alex's were pink & Riley's were blue.  Then Riley only asked for one thing while there and that was a stuffed Shamu`.  Riley has always been so good about that kind of thing.  He does not ask for much.  In fact he asked on Tuesday and Nana told him if he still wanted it on Friday, then he could have one.  Sure enough as were leaving, he turned and said, "What about the Shamu?"  So of course, he & Alex had to have matching stuffed Shamus as well.

A busy trip, but two very happy kids!

Bandera- Flying L Ranch

After we left Sea World, we drove an hour to the Flying L Ranch, in Bandera where my parents have a timeshare.  We only stayed 2 nights, but we absolutely loved the waterpark and slowing things down a little.  After we checked in, we quickly got our swimsuits on and headed to the water park.  The kids had a blast.

Then we realized it was getting late, so we threw on some clothes and grabbed a quick dinner from Dairy Queen.  Then we rushed out to catch the wagon ride for the night.

The kids really enjoyed seeing all the property.  Then we were amazed at ALL the deer.  There are SO MANY of them.  Good thing, Randy wasn't there.  He would be dying to hunt.

Along the trail ride, we saw this quiet serene river.  But then we got stuck and everyone had to pile out of the wagon, so that the tractor could get up the hill.  It was really funny and all the kids thought it was great fun.  Then we went down to visit their make believe ghost town.  Where we of course put Riley in jail.

Then I visited the bar with my children.

Finally we made it back just in time to enjoy some smores.  This was Riley's & Alex's first smores experience.

He loved it, but Alex not so much.  No problem.  More smores for Mommy!

Sea World- Shamu!

       Since we decided not to do a Disney trip this year, my parents wanted to take the kids somewhere special.  Of course we thought of Sea World.  Riley absolutely loves Shamu and it was still a trip out of town.  On Tuesday, we drove down to San Antonio and checked into the hotel.  Since we were short on time and plenty on heat, we decided to head out to Sea World that night to get our passes and catch the night shows.  Even for late in the day we were melting.  But we managed to squeeze in the Shamu Rocks! show and the other whale show.  We really enjoyed it, but were a little disappointed in the night Shamu show.  It didn't have much action and the whales were not that involved. 

The next morning, after a busy breakfast at the hotel we headed out for day 2 of Sea World.  The kids did great.  We caught most of the shows.  This time the Shamu show really did rock!  I am always mesmerized by the amazing things that those gigantic whales can do.  They look so graceful in the water.

Although Alex was more interested in studying the map than the show.  She takes after her mother & brother.

My other favorite show is the water ski show.  I really felt like this show had improved since last year also.  Lots more action and less of the dumb story line. 

After seeing several shows, Riley decided it was time for some action. This year he was tall enough to ride all but one rollar coaster, but one look at them and he decided he wasn't really ready.  So we headed to the "log ride".  Unfortunately the line was really slow, it took us about an hour and 15 minutes to get on the ride.  I can't imagine how long the big rollar coaster lines must have been. 

But he did love it.  Alex got in the posed picture, but her and Nana did not actually ride the ride.  We weren't sure she would like the ride, but we KNEW she would never stand in that long line.  After it was all over, Alex decided that she MUST have a snow cone to top off the day.  In fact I even bought a "chipwich" first for us to share.  That was not good enough.  So Gampa bought a snow cone! :)

Alex may not have gotten into all the shows or done much riding, but she did have fun dancing in the streets.

Finally as we were heading out the door, Riley wanted to pose with the Nascar.  He still says he wants to be a race car driver when he grows up.   Only if he is really successful, because otherwise this mamma thinks its too dangerous.

We had lots of fun at Sea World, but our reservations for that night were in Bandera, TX.  So we packed up and headed out for our hour drive.