Our Slow Week Turned Busy!

 We had a pretty slow start to our week... for the kids and I at least. Actually, Dave had a pretty slow week, too. He worked his normal hours but didn't have any overtime this week. It was a nice little break for all of us to have him off for three days in a row!

Dawson was being a goof and put on Ashlynn's tutu. He told me to take a picture of him and put it in our "yearbook" so here it is. He was making us laugh a lot.

And then of course Ashlynn wanted me to take a picture of her wearing the tutu, too.

Dave got free tickets to see a screening of Pixels. Me and Ashlynn didn't want to see it so we went to see Inside Out again while the boys went to their movie.

Dave actually got free tickets to a screening of Vacation, too. The kids stayed with my parents while the two of us went to see it. Dave really liked it and thought it was funny. I just thought it was ok. Just not my kind of movie I guess. The rest of the theatre was laughing except me so definitely don't take my word for it if you want to see it! Now what I am really, really, ridiculously excited to see is Hotel Transylvania 2. That's my kind of movie! ;)

Here Dawson is with a robot he built. He made like 10 different ones this day.

The kiddos had a dentist appointment on Thursday that went pretty well. Neither kid had any cavities and Ashlynn was so so brave and just sat there while they cleaned her teeth and took x-rays. Dawson gets really stressed out about doctors and dentists but he did pretty well this time, too. He put up a little bit of a fight but was pretty mellow compared to usual. And they were able to get two of the four x-rays that they needed for him... progress! Hopefully next time will be even better! They each got a cape on this visit.

After the dentist we went to Costco for a couple of things and when we got back out to the car Dave noticed he had won some rodeo tickets! The rodeo was starting two hours from the time he realized he won! We didn't have any plans for the rest of the day, though, so we grabbed a quick dinner and headed to Trax! We rode the train to the arena and made it with about 30 minutes to spare. They had a fun little petting zoo set up out front and a horse ride. The kids, especially Ashlynn (who is our little animal whisperer) loved the animals!

Here's Ashlynn petting a little horse and pig. There were also chickens (which she held) and some goats. She was giving the goats kisses and hugs. She loved everything so much. She seriously makes me wish that we lived on a farm just because of how happy she is around animals. She absolutely adores them!

They had fun on this little horse ride, too. Dawson was a little upset that he didn't get the black horse but he still had fun.

The rodeo was fun!! It's been a few years since we've been to the rodeo. The kids started getting a little bit bored towards the end until the bulls came out!! Bull riding is the best!

I love this picture that I took of the two of them after the rodeo outside of the arena while we were waiting for the train. Ashlynn looks so big!!! She's still my baby though!

This weekend we stayed over at my dad and Carrie's while they were out of town. We were dog-sitting and as you guessed it Ashlynn was in heaven.

We had a pretty fun week! Can't wait to see what this week brings!

Ice Cream and Bike Rides! Oh My!

I'm sure one day when the kids are older they are going to be super embarrassed that I put this picture in the blog but they do it so often right now and it always makes me laugh like crazy. Good memories! They're both sucking their nostrils in. They look hilarious!

The other day we took them out to ice cream. Lucky kiddos!

I'm still amazed by this awesome picture Ashlynn drew of Mickey. I love that she included little details like the lines on his gloves and the buttons on his pants. She did it all from memory too!! I love it!!

She said her and her babies were twins because of their hair.

We took the kids out to ride their bikes in the church parking lot. Our neighborhood has a lot of hills and they're not quite strong enough to pedal up them yet and going down them is scary for me to watch!! The parking lot was perfect! They rode around for over an hour just doing big circles around the parking lot. We need to take them there more often.

On Friday we went to the park/splash pad with my dad, Carrie, Brandee, and the kids' cousins. They had fun!

In other news, Dawson has his first loose tooth. I might have posted about it before but it's getting really loose now. I wiggled it the other day and pretended to cry and Dawson whispered to Ashlynn "she's got growing up issues" and he's correct. *lol* He's excited to lose it and I'm excited for him. My little man is growing up! I sure love him to pieces.

Ashlynn likes to pretend she has a loose tooth too. She wants to be like Dawson. It's cute. She's such a fun girl. She loves to play and will play with anyone. She's not picky. She loves to make people laugh too. Sometimes if I ask her to do something she'll salute and reply "yes sir!" and if Dave asks her to do something she'll salute and reply "yes girl!" She's my little sweetheart. I sure love her to pieces too!!!

I don't think we really have anything planned for next week... I'm sure we'll find some kind of fun to be had, though!

Our week - Sickness and Fun

It is a quiet Saturday morning around here! It's almost 9am and both kids are still sleeping! That's crazy! Dawson did wake up a little after 530 this morning and was watching TV in the family room. I knew he had gotten up too early and didn't want him to be cranky today so I asked him to come cuddle with me in my bed after his show was over and he did. And he's been asleep since.

Anyway! We had a pretty low-key week. Dawson was sick for a few days with a sore throat and a fever so we stayed home until he was better. We took him to see the doctor thinking he might have strep but it turned out to just be a virus.

Thankfully Ashlynn didn't get sick. Hopefully it stays that way!! She was hanging like a sloth on daddy's leg. (They had an exhibit like this at the kids museum we went to last week. You hang from a rope like a sloth and it times how long you can hang there. Ashlynn didn't want to try it there but she has fun doing it at home.)

 She calls this her Oh (the guy from the movie Home) hair.

We bought Ashlynn a new carseat that matches Dawson's. It's a slightly newer model (we got Dawson's last year) and the colors are different but they're both Frontiers. We LOVE these seats!! Dawson was still feeling a little sick this day but we wanted to try out Ashlynn's new seat so we went through McDonald's drive-thru for ice cream!

Dawson was feeling 100% better on Thursday morning (that's what he told me). So that was nice. Hailee, Drea, and Carson came over for a little while that night and the kids all had fun playing together.

Then yesterday was Friday which means Family Day! Dave made us a yummy breakfast to get our day started. And then even though we had spent the whole week at home already we decided to surprise the kids with the PS3, Wii, and the Nintendo DS. ALL of their video games got taken away (we unhooked everything and packed it away!) a few months ago because even though we only let them play for an hour a day, I felt like it was taking up too much of their time and they were getting obsessed with playing. I didn't like it. Since we have taken them away I've noticed a big difference in Dawson's attitude so I definitely think it was the right decision. But breaking them out for a special day every once in a while will probably be ok. We let them know that we were putting them away again when the day was over and they were ok with that. It was fun.

We decided to go to McDonald's for lunch so the kids could play and also get a Happy Meal because they have Minion toys and the kids have been asking about getting one. We very rarely get Happy Meals because it's so much cheaper to just buy a burger or nuggets and fries for them to share. But we make an exception every now and then because I remember how exciting it was as a kid to get the toy I had been looking forward to.

After they played for awhile we decided to take them to the Minions movie. They were super excited about that and after the movie Dawson said he liked it more than he like Inside Out!

We took a couple of pictures at the theatre. Daws with Ant-Man.

Ashlynn was pretending to eat popcorn with Charlie Brown and his friends.

And Dawson joined in on the fun.

Our week started off a little rough with Dawson being sick but ended with a lot of fun! :)

Happy 4th of July 2015!

 Happy Independence Day! Dave had to work for the first part of the day so the kids and I just hung out at home. Hopefully next year he'll be off so we can go to a parade like we did last year, the kids really enjoyed that! We're going to try to go to a parade on the 24th this year instead.

Here's the kiddos in their 4th of July wear! I thought they looked too cute!

We saw that the Waffle Love food truck wasn't too far from our house and they had flag waffles so we decided to go get a couple to share. As we were leaving the house the kids saw the flag that the Boy Scouts put up in front of our house and wanted to get a picture with it.

After that we headed to Waffle Love for a picnic. I love this picture of the kids and the truck!

Mmmm...waffles...that didn't really look like flags but that's ok. *lol* They tasted delicious as always so we were happy!

I love to watch her swing, she enjoys it so much!

Getting ready to watch fireworks! Nana, Papa, and Arika came with us. Yay!

I love my little family!! Dave saw a whole bunch of glow stuff at Walmart for 99 cents the day before so we decided to let the kids each pick out two items; one to wear and one to hold. They looked so cute!

Ashlynn squealed with excitement for a good 15 minutes of the show. It was so cute to see her so happy and so excited. After awhile I think she was doing it more for our entertainment but still it was cute. Here are some of the fireworks we saw. It was a really fun show!

It was a super fun day!

Family Day - Museum of Natural Curiosity

We like to take advantage of our days off together, which usually only happens once a week. Dave has Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays off but he usually picks up overtime on one of those days and I watch Collin Monday-Thursday and he's here pretty late so we can't really do much on those days. We love Fridays! Also known as "Family Day!" Today we decided to go to the Natural Museum of Curiosity. The kids and I went there last year on Dawson's birthday and loved it so we decided to go back when Dave could go. It was a blast! We're thinking about buying a pass... they're pretty expensive, but if we go 4 times in a year it will pay for itself. Hopefully we'd be able to go more than that! The pass is also good to the Museum of Ancient Life which is fun to explore, too. Definitely something we're going to think about but we might wait until next year since we already have a lot going on for the rest of this year!

Anyway, back to today! We started off the day by going to breakfast at Black Bear with my dad, Carrie, and Becca. After that we headed up to the museum. The first part of the museum that we explored was the Rainforest! 

Dawson went shopping...

And climbed a rock wall (he was like a few inches off the ground lol)

They had a blast climbing through this course with Dave.

After that we headed over to Waterworks.

The wind chamber was a hit again. Especially after being in the Rainforest!! It felt nice!!

I love the waterproof smocks and boots!

I'm not sure what the next part of the museum is called. It was all new to us, so it might be the Traveling Exhibits? I'm not sure though. There was a lot of visual effects and optical illusions. It was fun but we didn't take any pictures. 

After that was my favorite... and I think the kids' favorite, too, Kidopolis!! 

They have a dress up area with a stage, puppets and a puppet stage, a laundry room, a bank, a veterinarian office, a block room, train room, art room, a TV room (with a green screen so when the kids go on TV it looks like they're skiing or under the ocean)... that's all that I can remember off the top head. It's just awesome. 

Here's Ash working on some art...

In the magic room... they had floating heads!

The veterinarian room was definitely Ashlynn's favorite! She would have stayed in there all day if she could have!

She's getting the puppy ready for an x-ray.

Awesome x-ray!

Listening to the puppy's heart.

She even laid down next to the dog... lol I think I saw a glimpse of what she's going to do as an adult. It would not surprise me at all if she worked with animals in some way.

Dawson made a little movie. He would slowly move the rocket, then take a picture, move it a little more, take a picture, etc. When he was finished he hit play and was able to watch his movie. He had an astronaut in there, too, that came out of the rocket about halfway through. He thought that was a lot of fun.

He liked helping this guy build a chair, too!

We had been here for a few hours by this point and were all getting hungry so we went and got a late lunch at the little cafe they have. After that we were heading back to Kidopolis to explore some more and then after that we were going to check out the Children's Discovery Garden. Unfortunately, though, not long after we got back into Kidopolis Ashlynn told me she had to go potty. So I was walking her to the bathroom when she started throwing up all over the floor!! So... yeah... that was our cue to go home! We were all sad to leave because we were having so much fun but we knew we couldn't let Ashlynn go play more after she had just thrown up.

After we got home Ashlynn was acting fine and said she didn't feel sick at all. We were starting to think that something from the cafe just didn't sit right with her and we started making plans to go to a parade. A few minutes before we were going to walk out the door she threw up again. So we're home for the night now. The kids are excited that they at least get to watch the 100th episode of Teen Titans Go. They've been waiting for it all week and it's finally on now. Hopefully our baby girl gets better soon! The good news is she isn't acting sick and says she doesn't feel sick. Let's home she doesn't get sick anymore! She'll be sleeping in our room tonight just in case she needs us.