Water Days

Here's Ivana with our kids on our first beach day this year.  I think it was at the end of March, which proved to be a tad cold, but I don't think the kids noticed.  Except for Ruthie - she always notices.

Brothie loved digging in the dirt!

Hmmm.  So did someone else!

Vera

My beautiful Ruthie

Noa could spend all day at the beach building sandcastles.  She gets lost in her own little world of creating.

We went to see real mermaids at the aquarium! After the (kind of weird) show, the girls wanted to play in the dress-up area.  Well, Lydie had her eye on a little girl who was wearing the outfit she wanted.  As soon as the girl took it off, Lydie snatched it up and stuffed herself in it.  She was not going to be outdone by someone else!

Sweet sisters

Queen Mermaid Lydia

Princess Mermaid Ruthie

Quick! Everyone act like a homeschool family!

Ahhh... and then there was my time with Russ on the beach, which was so much more relaxing than with the kids!!

Got the kids all suited up and sun-screened down for a morning at the pool and then we remembered the pool is closed for cleaning on Mondays!  Ugh!  Instead, I took them down to the pineapple fountain.  They loved it but it was screamin' hot and quite a rookie move on my part.  It was way too close to lunch time and a ton of work for about 15 minutes of mediocrity.  But, I'll say it again, the kids loved it!

Sister pic!  Two of them are peeing.  Can you guess which ones?  Stay out of the pineapple fountain, folks!

And then there was today's beach adventure.  2 hours of awesomeness - except for the pictures.  Some kind of blurriness was happening with my phone.  ???  And Caleb certainly didn't care about giving me a good pic.  He was too busy!

Ruthie, Lydie, and Ansley playing in the gully.  It was deep!  We kept having to move the kids down because it was getting over their heads.  I've never seen a gully so deep.

Blurry Ruthie

Blurry Lyd

Blurry Ivana and Vera

Blurry Evie

Evidently Everyone Thinks Kids Don't Get Enough Candy

I'm not kidding.  Everywhere we go these kids are getting candy.  Our apartment manager lives in the same building as us and if the kids are outside (which is all the time), she has a sucker every time she sees them.  She has been known to give them up to three suckers in one day...three sticky, nasty, teeth-rotting suckers.  Why?  Stop it.  The bank is notorious for their suckers too.  Today I took all of them to the Children's Museum and low and behold, today is National Hot Coco Day and we managed to get there at the exact moment that they were having story time, sipping hot coco, and passing out candy canes.  The kids were thrilled.  I was thinking about the sticky, chocolatey mess.  What are the chances? ;)

Sipping Coco in the medieval castle

Beautiful.  Both of them.

Challenging Thanksgiving picture

Seriously, could they get any cuter?

And if Brothie isn't getting candy when we're out and about, he's getting Oreos at home.  I think I am turning into my mother.

Took a trip to Bee City recently with a bunch of homeschool friends.  The kids love that place!

Noa and Lilly

Ruthie on the warthog

Add Broth

Ruthie and Harper on the dino

Lyds feeding goats

On the train

Noa really liked feeding all of the animals.  Notice there are no pictures of Ruthie feeding anything.  She is terrified of all animals, just like her mother.  There was a herd of chickens roaming around Bee City, tormenting her and myself.

Lyds on the "Daddy Horse"

Ruthie on the "Mommy Horse"

Sweet, little Broth was all tuckered out. 

'Tis the season.  "Happy Christmas," from Noa!

Recently, we went Christmast shopping and it totally wrecked us.  We were sooo tired.   

Ruthie found a helmet.

Lydie won't stop picking that thing by her eye.

Brothie and his Target popcorn

We had been waiting for these ants for our ant hill to arrive (from Utah) for a while and when they did, they were almost all dead.  Poor guys.  Noa thinks they are pets, so she's not happy that most of them are curled up in a ball at the bottom of the ant hill.  :(  Notice the contact information that I have to use to get more ants.

Lastly, Ruthie has been wanting to wear socks with her high heels lately.  It is so horrible.  Today she found socks that actually MATCHED her high heels!  Even worse!  That's how we roll, though.  I'm sure people wonder what we dress our kids in sometimes.  Answer is: We don't!  They dress themselves!

So, I have an obsession...

I love fake food!  I do!  When we only had Noa and Ruthie, I started making felt food for them and was determined to give them an entire pantry full of felt, but I think I only ended up making a tomato, a piece of cheese, and sandwich bread.  It was time consuming!!  So, because I missed my felt opportunity,  I decided to make all of this construction paper food for Ruthie and Lydia's school Thanksgiving party. Why?????  It took forever.  And I loved it.

Look at these cute mashed potatoes!

Turkey legs

Injury!  Snipped right through my finger when making the pumpkin pie.

Here's the line-up.  Not too shabby. If only my regular meals looked this good!!!!

Here's my 2 year old turkey.  Notice the hideous headdresses I made.  They were even MORE time consuming than the food.  Definitely didn't like that project at all.  Aaaaaand, I took it upon myself to make them.  I have no business doing that.

I told her to laugh instead of say "cheese" because cheese was not working.  Painful smile.

Here's all the little 2 year old turkeys.  Notice that Lydia is propped up on her seat.  She had just finished saying the prayer and I think she is the designated "prayer" for her class.  She is so dominant, and about twice the size of all the other kids, that initially she kept getting in trouble all the time in her class.  Suddenly, when they put her "in charge" of certain areas, she was an angel.  So, praying is one of her "jobs."  This kid is soooo funny.  

Here's the little 3 year old turkeys, with one 5 year old turkey thrown in the mix.  Can you spot her?  Noa was sooo excited for the Thanksgiving feast and was glad I took her in as my helper.  One of the other moms who decorated the table made a spot for her (with her name on it too) and she just thought that was fabulous.  They had a great time!

In other news, I took Noa and Ruthie shopping with me one day.  They are finally getting old enough to do it.  They are soooo cute and funny when I let them look through the toys.  I think both of them love to shop, but especially Ruthie.  She always wants her purse and her high heels too.  ;)

They kept discussing each item.  It was hilarious.

We had a few very cold days and our heater happened to go out at the same time.  The wonderful thing about living in the apartments is that things get fixed rather quickly (and not by us), but on this day we had to bundle up and wait longer than we wanted to.

Now we are back to our normal, sleeveless attire.  *Sigh*

Buddy boy, getting fussy in the car.

He keeps wanting to climb the CEMENT steps at our apartment complex.  FREAKY!  QUIT IT! I can tell we are going to be in for it in a few months...
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  
WE HAVE MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!