Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Parties, Presents, Music, Museums and MORE!

We have been home from our big journey south for almost three weeks now.
Wow! It has been a fast three weeks. February is already here!
It has also been a very busy three weeks.

Here's a recap....

Remember our friend Jordan?

Well she is in Africa now. Doing some studying abroad this semester.
Before she left we got to go to her "going away" party to tell her goodbye.

When I told Kade we were going to tell Jordan bye before she left for Africa, his response was,
"Aw, Mom, I wanted to go to Africa when Jordan went to Africa!"
Gotta love that kid. He seriously has been asking to go to Africa for a while now....wants to go see all the animals over there. We told him we would love to take him to Africa one day but it would be several years before we could do that. So, maybe Jordan will get Africa all figured out while she is there and we can take her back with us as our personal tour guide!

Ryne, we all feel the same way.....super sad because we are going to be missing Jordan.
But she's coming back in May!!!

We finally remembered to give Kade is birthday presents from us.

It was 10 days after his birthday.
He didn't seem to care.

The crazy thing is, we saved the one thing that he had specifically asked for several times to give to him for his birthday and he hadn't even seemed bothered that he didn't get it.
Check out the look on his face when he saw it....

The Bat Cave!!

I asked him how happy he was to get his presents from us....

Yep, that pretty much says EXCITED, doesn't it?

And he played and played and played...

Let Ryne join him for a little while.


Then I had to occupy Ryne with something else so that Kade could get the Batcave set up just the way he wanted it.


And there is the set up. Notice all the Batmans, or should that be Batmen???
I think he ended up with 4 or 5 Batmen total. Plus all the other super heroes help out at the Batcave. The villains have there own "spot" to congregate as they prepare to attack the Batcave.


He didn't want to leave his new toy and asked if I would just bring breakfast up to him.
Since we made him wait so long to get it, I gave in to his request.
Yes, look at what a good mother I am....Poptart for breakfast, but hey, at least it is milk in the sippy cup and not kool-aid, right? Do I get any credit for that?

Ryne has found a new love of his own.

Roller-skating!


We made them start out on the carpet upstairs where it would be much safer for them. Kade really dances around on his skates and says he is "putting on a circus" for us. Ryne just wanted the challenge of the smooth floors downstairs. I couldn't believe how good he was. I didn't figure he would even be able to keep the skates under him and stand up. He certainly proved me wrong.

We made a quick trip to the mall one afternoon.

Stopped in the Apple store to see our friend Jacob.
We missed him but Kade found a video game to play while we were there.


Then we took them to the mall play area to let them burn off some energy.
It was quite busy and loud but the boys didn't seem to mind.
We wanted them to burn off energy because we had plans to go to the coffee shop that evening and listen to some music.

We packed toys for the boys but I'm not even sure they really needed them because they enjoyed listening to Mollie so much!


There she is....our friend Mollie doing her coffee shop show.
It was AWESOME! She is amazing and I am thinking that if I had just as much talent as she has in her pinkie finger it would be nice.

The next weekend we decided to take the boys to Seattle to check out the Children's Museum.

Ryne spotted this whale just inside the entrance and we could hardly get him to even leave it to go check out the other stuff.
And there was lots of other stuff. Just look....

Fish Tank


Camping


Marmot holes to climb around in.


Ryne liked the Marmot holes a lot. We came back to them several times.


Hunting under rocks for hidden creatures.


Ping Pong land with all kinds of crazy machines that did stuff with ping pong balls.


Ryne enjoyed hitting the button to make the ping pong ball get sucked up the tube.


Sailing!


Moped riding


I sat in the side car and got to go for a joyride myself.


Pretending to eat in a Japanese home


Ryne searching under rocks to see what he could find.


Fireman Ryne to the rescue!!

The Construction area was pretty cool...


He was working away...in a couple of years he can probably go in there and construct a house.


While Ryne was building, Kade was putting on a show at the theater.


Stopped for pretend lunch at the restaurant.

Then it was off to the grocery store!
I seriously think this was probably Kade's favorite part of the museum...

Steaks for dinner!


Weighing of the cucumber


Purchasing some bread from the lovely ladies working the bread counter.


Getting that buggy full!


Time to check out!
The checker said it was a grand total of 118.00.
We didn't bring that much money with us so we had to put everything back on the shelves where we got it.

And there was water to play in...

This is Kade playing in the water pool....Ryne was already soaking wet because he had been playing there while Kade and I were grocery shopping.


And a final slide from Ryne before we had to go.
A great visit to the Children's Museum. I think we will definitely try to go again sometime.

After all that play we were starving. Asian food sounded good to us so we went to Chinatown for lunch.

Kade was very happy to get the egg rolls that he ordered.


Ryne devoured most of Kyle's fried rice.


Poor Kade was so tired that I ended up having to feed him most of his egg rolls because he just couldn't seem to hold himself up in the chair to eat.

We had a really fun family play day! The boys did quite well and so Kyle and I decided to treat ourselves. He stopped for some coffee at a coffee shop he'd wanted to try. And then he took me by a Cold Stone Creamery for ice cream on the way home!!! A car full of happy campers!

They did so well on that trip that we decided the next day after our grocery shopping trip to take them to McDonald's and let them play and have ice cream. They had a super great time playing!
We only had one problem. Ryne had climbed up to the top level and just kept playing in circles there. He couldn't get down! Even with Kade trying to coach him down.

So while Kade enjoyed his ice cream cone....

Kyle climbed up to rescue Ryne!


And brought him down safely.

Just in time to enjoy a little ice cream cone of his own.

This past Sunday we had Super Life Parties in lieu of doing our Sunday night service since it was the Super Bowl and all. Kind of a kick off to starting up our Life Groups this week.
We had three different parties happening Sunday night.
And one of them was at our house.

Ryne was loving it because he figured out that there was lots of food.
He also figured out that meant it was pretty cool to hang out downstairs.


While all the other kiddos were upstairs doing their thing.
There were 15 kiddos there and 19 adults!
Yes, that is 34 people at our Super Bowl Party!!
It was lots of fun!


Here are some of the ladies hanging out.
And I certainly didn't do a very good job of taking pictures of everyone there but you have to see this one....

This is the living room where the football game was happening. The television is in front of the coffee table...notice only 1 person looking at the t.v.??? It was the most bizarre Super Bowl party I've ever been to. There were two LADIES who actually cared to watch the game. Everyone else watched here and there or didn't watch at all. Until the half-time show came on...then there was standing room only in the living room. It was hilarious!
But we think it was a great kick-off to our Life Groups starting up.

We will be having 6 life groups this semester.
How cool is that?
Three of those will be happening at our house!
Had the first of those last night and it was super good.
Sixteen people here to dig into the Word together!
Another one happening tonight and then our ladies group here on Thursday morning.
So excited to see what God is going to do through those groups this semester.

Now, in other news, we are having TWINS!!!
Nope, I haven't forgotten. That is what most everyone in our world wants to talk about right now so I thought I would save an update on them for last as a reward to those of you who trudged through the long post.
The twins are doing great. We had a doctor's appointment last week and got to see both of their hearts just beating away. It was amazing! Our doctor said everything looked great.
Our next appointment is the beginning of March and we are scheduled to have the ultrasound that will tell us what the gender/genders of our babies is/are. I am so excited to find out!!
Kade thinks it is a boy and a girl...but really he said he just hopes we get at least one girl.
I do have to say it would be nice to have some bows and ruffles around here but either way I will be thrilled. Because what we pray for these babies is the same that we've prayed for both Kade and Ryne, that they will be world changers. People who turn the world upside down for Jesus!!!
Be they he's or she's that is our desire. God already has preplanned good works for them to do and he knows exactly what gender He has planned for them. And I have complete confidence that God knows exactly what He is doing!!!

I am feeling well. Growing much faster than I did with only one baby inside. Guess that is to be expected. Haven't gotten over the hump of getting really tired every day. I have to grab as many naps as I can when the boys are napping. Which, is what they are doing now, and I'm hoping they stay asleep long enough for me to get a quick nap once I finish this post. I am trying hard to stick with my exercising. In fact I started today working with a trainer who can help me know what I should and shouldn't do while I am pregnant. For the next 8 weeks I am going to work with her and hopefully be in the best shape I've ever been while pregnant. I know I'm going to need to bounce back as fast as I can after these babies get here in order to carry on as a Mommy to four! So that is my plan...work hard now and hopefully it won't be so hard on the other end. Wish me luck with that one. My legs are like jelly after my first training session this morning!

Okay, now to grab that nap!

2 comments:

Amanda said...

I can't believe I never went to the Children's museum!! It looks amazing!! Glad to hear you're feeling well, and twins are doing well...I can't believe it's already almost time to determine gender. But at the same time I can't wait!! Love ya!

Granddaddy and C.G. said...

Grandaddy is so amazed that the Ryno can roller skate. Must be looking to open his mom a Sonic there in DuPont when he gets older!!:) He says that we do know that they are both very advanced, though. Looks like the Museum was a super great adventure for all of you. Maybe we will make that trek sometime when we come to visit. Thanks for taking your precious nap time to keep updated on what is going on in your lives there in WA. We love you all, Grandaddy and CG