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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Yo Gabba Gabba Live

Today we were able to take the kids to see Yo Gabba Gabba at the Fox for FREE! A friend sent out a text the other day asking if anyone wanted the tickets and I said that we would take them. The kids were so excited! Just recently Sam has started to watch and LOVE “GabGab”.

I think Reese was most excited that we were going to the same place where Mommy and Daddy saw Wicked.

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When we got there they were not letting people in to the auditorium yet so we hung out in the lobby. We got some popcorn and lemonade to help with the wait.

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It took both kids a few minutes to warm up but finally started loving the show. Reese danced in the aisle with all the kids.

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Sam wouldn’t let me put him down the whole time and barely cracked a smile but he danced the whole time.

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He is in mid-cough here but he is dancing.

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I thought the show was really good and I enjoyed it. Lance thought it was weird but it is! The TV show is weird. What a fun, fun time!

Side notes…

*Arrested Development was there and played Mr. Wendal. This was a fun act for the kids and parents. 

*Biz Markie was also there with “Biz’s Beat of the Day”. The parents in the audience cheered the loudest when he came out.

*Sheamus was there as the special dance friend. Not one person knew who this was when he came out. I kind of felt bad for him because nobody cheered the way they did for Biz.

Reese’s Pumpkin

Yesterday afternoon after we returned from the zoo and the kids took a power nap, Lance and Reese carved our pumpkin. This is something Lance does with her each year and I love that they can do this together.

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I think this was the first year she actually got in there and cleaned some of it out herself. I think that only lasted long enough for me to snap these pictures though.

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Lance let Reese draw the face on the pumpkin and then he carved exactly what she drew. I thought that was a great idea. Reese is very proud of her jack-o-lantern!!

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And I think it is super cute!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Boo at the Zoo

Reese’s friend, Emma, celebrated her fourth birthday earlier this week so she had her birthday party at the zoo today. The Zoo was holding a fun, Halloween-y kind of day called “Boo at the Zoo”. Needless to say, it was packed!! Everybody had a great time though.

All of the kids were dressed up. Reese didn’t wear her Halloween costume because we didn’t want it to get dirty so she wore her Belle costume. When we first got there it was super cold. As the day went along it warmed up some, at least in the sunny areas.

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This is a picture of all of the kids (minus Sam and baby Danny). Reese, Emma (the birthday girl), Claire and Thomas.

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Oh there is Sammy. I didn’t let him out of the stroller much because it was so packed. I just knew he would get lost. There were stations set up where the kids could get candy. It was really fun for them.

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In the Ford Pavilion they had a party set up. There was a DJ playing music, a hay maze, and Reese and Sam’s least favorite part, characters in costume. 

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The kids danced to the music and played with the hula hoops.

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While the big kids went in to the petting zoo, I took Sam out for some snuggles. They were back out quickly though because the goats started butting heads and that scares Reese so much!

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We had a special treat of getting to ride the train.

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Sam was thrilled and kept saying “Choo-choo”!

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Me and my sweet little monkeys!

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The whole group (minus baby Danny again) making silly faces.

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We had so much fun celebrating Emma’s birthday today!

Friday, October 28, 2011

Mad Scientist

Today we were invited to a “Mad Scientist” playdate. It was such a fun day! The mom who planned this was a teacher but now is a full time mom so she did an amazing job.

The first thing she did was talk to the kids about fall and all fall things. It was amazing to see all of them sit there and listen! It was like they were at school.

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Next she gave them all lab coats to wear. She seriously covered all the basics and then some!

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Then it was time for their first experiment. They put water and oil in a bottle to see how they separated.

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Next they put a couple of drops of food coloring in and an alka-seltzer to watch the food coloring combine with the water and fizz.

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The next activity was “Boo-Goo”. It was corn starch mixed with water.  Stirring it made it a hard substance but when you tried to pick it up it was watery.

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After the two experiments they took a dancing break. And did one more experiment after the dancing break.

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After mixing milk, food coloring, and Dawn to look like tie-dye, they had a story read to them.

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Some of the moms even participated in the story. It was so cute!!

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Sam was very interested in everything that was going on.

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The last exciting experiment was to see Mentos dropped in to soda. The kids loved seeing the soda shoot out in to the air.

Today was such a great playdate!! It was so creative and different for the kids. I know both of my monkeys loved it and I am sure everyone else did too.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Exploring!

After seeing that the weather was going to be so cold tomorrow I decided to take the kids to the “choo-choo park” for a picnic while the weather is still beautiful. We ate our lunch, played on the playground, and then went off to explore.

Next to the playground there is an open field. We walked through the field and then found a wooden bridge to cross in to another field. At the top of the hill in the woods there was this old little house.

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After we crossed back over the bridge we went towards the railroad tracks and saw this “personnel car” (that is what a sign on it said).

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We then walked around to go through the train tunnel. As we were going down the ramp to the tunnel the second train of the day passed by. This is what my view looks like when a train comes by.

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The train tunnel is actually really pretty.

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We made it to the other side of the tunnel and the slow train was still going by so Sam climbed up on the railing to watch it go by.

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When we were walking back through we decided to take a group shot. Sam was saying “HELLOOOO” over and over because it was echoing.

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It was a beautiful day exploring around the train tracks.

Hat Day

This week at school Reese has been talking about the letter H. Today, to wrap up their discussion, they had hat day. She chose to wear her Cinderella winter hat. And not to be outdone, Sam wanted to put a hat on too.



- Posted from my iPhone

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

An Early Birthday Present

For a while we have known we were going to get Sam a train table for either his birthday or Christmas. The other day I saw a train table on sale at Toys R Us. The only problem was that there was none online to ship so I had to look in the store. I swung by our local TRU yesterday to see if they had any. There were none on the floor so I just asked someone. She, luckily, remembered there was one downstairs that someone had not picked up. She brought it up for us and checked us out. It ended up ringing up $25 less than we thought it was going to be. That means I got it for over 50% less than the retail price. I was SO excited!!

We decided to go ahead and set it up. Sam doesn’t know what birthdays are so we didn’t think he would mind getting it early. After dinner Lance got started putting it together. He got the table put together before bed time.

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After the kids were in bed we put everything else together and couldn’t wait for them to get to play with it.

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Reese came in to my room at 7:45 this morning and said she could see the train table. She couldn’t wait to go downstairs. It was funny that she was just as excited as Sam.

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As soon as Sam got up, I got both of them ready quickly and sent them downstairs so I could get ready. Every time Sam sent the train through the cave and it sounded the horn he would giggle. It was so fun to see them play with the train table. I hope it brings a lot more giggles!!

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Happy early birthday Sam!

Monday, October 24, 2011

Me

When you ask Sam what his name is he says “Me”. Today I caught him on video. It is just in the first few seconds that he says this and then he starts being silly.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Full of Fall Fun!

We have had another weekend full of fall fun! Last night Jenny and I were both with out our husbands so we headed out together to entertain the kids. We went to a little Pumpkin Festival in our little downtown area. But first we started off with a pizza dinner at the Choo-choo park.

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This park is so tiny but the kids LOVE it and I love that I can keep an eye on them easily.

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After eating we headed out to check out the festival. There were bounce houses, slides, and tons of candy!

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Businesses had booths set up where they would hand out candy while getting their names out to the parents.

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There was also a costume contest. I didn’t bring my kids costumes for several reasons. 1) I didn’t think Reese would be able to keep hers clean and 2) I don’t have one for Sam yet! Harrison opted out of the contest and sat with us while Davis modeled his Rex (from Toy Story) costume.

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I thought he was the cutest little guy out there! He won the award for “Cutest Costume”.

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After the contest we watched a puppet show that the two big kids loved! Then we went back outside where Reese wanted to get her hair spray painted. She chose pink and blue glittery spray paint.

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The lady even sprayed some red paint in Sam’s hair.

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The big kids went in to the game truck in the back of this picture where they played sword fighting on a Wii.

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While the big kids played, the little monkeys were outside with me. Sam kept “petting” Davis. He would lean over and rub his head and say “pet”. He loves babies…even though this baby is only eight month younger than him. Ha! They will play great together in a few years.

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Walking back to the car Harrison got in the stroller with Davis so Reese wanted to get in with Sam. It was a tight squeeze to say the least but they just giggled.

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This morning Gigi came over and we headed to Reese’s schools fall festival. Last year we waited in line for over an hour to get Reese’s face painted so this year that was the first thing we did. She wanted to be a butterfly.

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The kids from the school put on a little performance. They sang two songs and Reese was so excited to do this.

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After the performance was over we headed out to find all of the fun stuff to do. Reese did the bounce houses, the giant slide and a few other games to win some candy.

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We also did the hayride. Both kids were very excited about this.

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After the hayride we left to grab some lunch and then headed to a pumpkin patch. There we once again rode on a hayride and were still just as excited.

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We ended up not buying any big pumpkins but came home with a hand full of little pumpkins.

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Gigi and I tried really hard to get some cute pictures but two little pumpkins were not cooperating.

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Finally the last picture of the day will do.

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As we were leaving Sam said, “Bye-bye punky patch.” Both kids had a great day and are getting some good rest time in right now.

I think we have officially experienced a ton of fall fun and we have one more exciting adventure next weekend!