Fun at Mismo Gymnastics

About two weeks ago (because I'm so behind at blogging lately) JP's preschool class took a field trip to Mismo Gymnastics. Hunter's class went the previous the week, and just before that, JP attended a birthday party there for one of his classmates. By the time it was JP's turn to go for school, both boys were super excited because Hunter was able to join in as well. 

To begin, they did a few warm up stretching exercises and then they broke up into two different groups. 

 JP's group was first up on the bars where they had fun swinging and flipping over them.

 Although I believe JP was doing this obstacle incorrect, he had mastered the art of walking on bars. 

 Meanwhile, Hunter's group was practicing their balance walking across the balance beam. Hunter showed no fear when it was his turn to go across - he didn't even wait for someone to walk with him. He told me that when his class went to Mismo, he was afraid to walk across it alone, but not this time! 

 Hunter's group also practiced cartwheels, backward somersaults, as well as walking on their hands after hopscotch.

 Charlotte just hung out in the middle of the floor in her pajamas eating my lens cover.

 Eventually they switched sides of the gym so Hunter was able to hang out on the bars for a while.

 JP and his group were a little more skittish than Hunter's group was on the balance beam. 

 And they weren't understanding how to walk on their hands so they instead just stood on their hands like this for a while.

To end their time at Mismo, they had a little bit of free play in the foam pit, which of course was a huge hit!

Jim Raises His Eyebrows

I can't get enough of this video! I love when I get their first times on film to watch over and over! <3 kid="" p="" this="">

Family Trip to the Park + Our First Campfire This Year

I'm not sure how I was able to keep up so well last year with all the happenings in our lives. I'm completely out of order lately! So this post happens to be from last Sunday when we arrived home after our train ride to Izaak Walton Inn. When we pulled into town around 3:00, it was simply gorgeous out. The weather was perfect park weather too, so instead of napping, we took a trip to the dinosaur park.

 Charlotte loves to swing! She was just a mess of giggles and snot. Ridiculously cute too!

 Dad helped her down the slide, but she wasn't too sure about it. 

 Like usual, Hunter and JP ran around like crazy kids. There was an attempt at playing pirates, but it didn't last long. 

 I feel like every time we go to the park, I take a picture of them in this rocket. Now I need to find all of them...

 This green thing is one of JP's favorite things to play on because it swivels. He and Hunter both love getting dizzy on it. For example, see this video of him last summer. So much fun!

 After being gone for the weekend, I had no idea what to do for dinner, so Perry set to work on getting the campfire ready while I ran to the store for hot dogs. Hunter and JP LOVE roasting hot dogs and again, the weather was still nice enough to enjoy sitting by the fire. 

 Enjoyable for everyone except this chick. She hated it.

 They loved it. 

She told us how mad she was about this campfire the whole time. Refused to eat anything in lieu of crying. Even her crying is cute!

A Weekend Getaway

Let me begin by saying how HIGHLY irritated I am. Should I blame my sister Robin? No. Should I have used my phone to listen to the radio in the shower? No. But if ROBIN wasn't on the radio then I wouldn't have felt the need to listen. So I am blaming Robin. Sorry. My darn phone fell off the waterproof ledge and into the water draining at my feet. After leaving it in a bowl of rice, the ninja gods fixed the darn thing, all the while Verizon quickly sent me a replacement. Thankfully I didn't activate the replacement, because after a bathroom break on our way home from a vacation this weekend, my phone fell out of my pocket and shattered the screen. Go figure. With all the phone juggling I had been doing the last couple days, I inadvertently left the case for it at home. So instead of getting a free phone out of the deal, I'm paying $100 for my insurance to get me a new one. Yes, this was ALL my fault but if Robin wasn't on the radio....Gah.

Anyways. Perry and I had a little weekend getaway. We hardly get to spend anytime together alone so for my birthday, Perry gave me, rather us, a weekend getaway to Northern Quest Casino in Spokane. I was pretty excited, but was super excited to hear that we were also going to go to Chicago. A Broadway play for my birthday?! No way! That's when it started going down. Turns out he didn't actually book us room there. And we weren't going to the Broadway play "Chicago" it was going to be the band Chicago. Deal breaker. But his intentions were good! By the time we decided we would still stay at Northern Quest and just not go to the concert, they were booked. And so was downtown Spokane....

That took us to what we felt was our only other option, the Coeur d'Alene Resort. After a lot more discussion of what we would do in Coeur d'Alene since nothing was going on this weekend, we booked a room anyways and opted to go to the spa. A solid decision.

Grandma picked up all 3 kiddos and took care of them over the weekend while we headed out Friday morning for a little bit of relaxation. Whenever we go anywhere, we pop in our mixed cd's from way back when and see what songs we remember and if we can name the artist. And then this song came on... I couldn't help but to secretly film him. I'm horrible. I know. He's going to kill me if he sees this...

Who knew he could sing, dance, and drive at the same time?

The first thing we did when we arrived at the resort was to head to the spa for a couples massage. Amazing, but not long enough. It was so nice to relax and be pampered a little bit. For dinner, we headed over to Red Lobster to cure our seafood cravings. Plus who can say no to Lobsterfest? The rest of the night was a little foggy. We went back to our room, played a little Pass the Pigs, all the while having a couple mixed drinks before going across the street to Splash to get our groove on. I love dancing. I'm not any good at dancing, but I love dancing. I'll tell you what though, by the end of the night, I was the BEST dancer in da club. Flat out best. While Perry was out on one of his breaks, I befriended a table of Saudi Arabians guys, so I always had someone to dance with. My feet are still a little sore from all the dancing. Worth it.

I'm impressed that I remember to hang our room service menu on our door when we made it back to the resort. Still annoyed I didn't change the delivery time to earlier than 11, but still... Who would have thought that after a night of partying, I would be wide awake at 8 am feeling fine? For the next three hours I listened to my stomach grumble and Perry snore. Once we finally had breakfast, we wandered around town for a little bit before taking an afternoon nap. For dinner we ate at one of the resort restaurants called Bonsai, which had Asian cuisine. Delicious! We finished the night off with a few games of Backgammon before calling it a night. (Perry is getting too old to go out on consecutive nights! Hahaha) 

By this morning we were both ready to head home. We're parents. We missed our kids too much to stay any longer. But before heading home, we stopped by the mall to kill sometime. But it didn't open until 11am, so we had a bathroom break before hitting the road. A few things to note about the mall. 1) They had a hurricane simulator 2) They had a ProActive vending machine and 3) In the women's bathroom, not only could you buy tampons in the vending machine, but if you so desired, they also had candy for sale. They missed their target market by not putting chocolate in there instead...possibly a shot of wine too?

So Long Winter, Hello Spring!

The last few weeks have been full of countdowns. Count downs to birthdays, count downs to go to special places, count downs to see people, count downs to be the line leader.... you get my point. So today when Hunter said "Guess what tomorrow is?!", all I could think to say was Thursday, because after Thursday comes Friday and on Friday they get to go see Grandma Betty for the weekend. I was wrong. Go figure. Tomorrow is the FIRST DAY OF SPRING!!

I love winter, second to fall. I don't mind it being cold, as long as there is snow on the ground. And then after thinking about it, I realized that aside from our time in Whitefish over Christmas, I have really posted pictures of all the fun in the snow we've had this year. So before spring actually gets here, here's our last look at this past winter. 

 At the end of January, we finally had a significant amount of snowfall to go sledding at Nanny and Papa's house. I was there shoveling the driveway when Aunt Kim and Papa Craig showed up to help finish. Afterwards, Kim helped Hunter and JP break through the fresh snow on the hill out back.

I think Kim and I had more fun watching them.

That same weekend Perry made the boys their own sledding hill. It wasn't very big, and it only lasted a day, but it was equipped with stairs none the less. 

 So glad Hunter and JP got sleds for Christmas! 

 Our most recent snowfall at the end of February completely buried our backyard. We had a solid 18 inches in our yard. We lost our campfire pit at one point too. I'm pretty sure these snow tracks might have walked right over top of it. 

The drift on our garage just recently completely melted. And the tops of our shrubs in the middle of the front yard were level with the snow. Hunter even scored 2 snow days from school because of all the snow!

 Within a few days we went from below zero to the mid-40's and had a TON of puddles to jump in.

 We must have spent a good hour one morning jumping in puddles and playing in what was left of the snow.

I even let them smash me with a few snowballs before I threw them into the snow piles, over and over....

I'm a little sad to have winter over with already ready because it almost feels like it never started. As much as I hate driving in snow, I wish it would stick around a little longer than a few days! (It didn't help matters much that all three kids had colds during our last bout of snow, and with the weather being bitterly cold, I kept them inside.) But with spring starting tomorrow, I'm eager to be able to get Charlotte outside more, and utilize the trail system that practically starts two blocks from our house. She took her first wagon ride to the park the other day and LOVED it!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

You would think it would go without say that having a day dedicated to the color green would hands down be JP's favorite holiday. (And since his middle name is Patrick!) And then you would be wrong. Have I told you how much JP's loves the color green? Everything of his is green. Literally. I think it's been his favorite color since he talking? Remember the video of him talking about his green house? That was a year ago...and he still is talking about his green house. I've come to the conclusion that when I am clothes shopping, to just buy JP green shirts so he'll wear them, and then to also buy Hunter green shirts, because eventually they will be JP's anyways. Win win. 

I was a little shocked last night when I tucked JP into bed. I told him that since tomorrow was St. Patrick's day, he had to wear one of his green shirts. Apparently this kid has a schedule I haven't caught onto yet because he replied with, "But tomorrow is not my day to wear a green shirt!" Even this morning when he woke up, he refused to wear one of his beloved green shirts and instead picked out an orange one. (At least it had green on it!) Not only does he apparently have specific days that he can wear green shirts, but it's also worth mentioning that the only days he is "allowed" to have "cool" hair are, I believe, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. So many rules!

Anyways...This morning I made the kids pancakes for breakfast. Without them seeing, I tinted the milk green before I took it out of the fridge. JP was thrilled, because it was green, and Hunter just thought it was gross. 

  That didn't stop him from eating the green pancakes though!

 Good grief can little Charli eat too! She may be tiny but boy can she pack it away! Same with JP. He can be a bottomless pit too, but not this morning. 

Hunter was the big eater. I think 2 of the 3 pancakes he had this morning were eaten like this. With no syrup to dunk it in. No wonder he wasn't hungry at lunch! 

For dinner I was going to make Three Cheese Pasta Bake but Papa Craig (or Papa Craigy as JP has been calling him) and Aunt Kim showed up with fried chicken for dinner instead. I'm thinking that this holiday is going to last one extra day this year, just so I can cook the pasta noodles in green water to tint them green as well...

A Weekend Trip at Izaak Walton Inn

Hunter, JP, and Charlotte took their first train ride to the Izaak Walton Inn, along with Grandma Betty, mom and dad. We arrived at the Inn shortly after 9 and had a nice breakfast before getting ready to play outside.

With our bellies full, everyone bundled up to spend the morning snowshoeing. I think the jury is still out as to whether or not Hunter and JP enjoyed it or not. 

 This was not only Hunter and JP's first time snowshoeing, but mine as well! I had a lot of fun with it too! I imagine Charlotte enjoyed it too as she slept through the majority of it.

 Perry had to do all the hard work getting everyone strapped in. It was a little tricky for me with Charlotte on my back!

 Within minutes of getting their snowshoes on, both Hunter and JP got themselves stuck in this tree "hole." Hunter was able to get himself out, but with snowshoes on, it made it impossible for JP.

 These little boys were SO CUTE with their itty bitty snowshoes on!

 After a little snowball fight, Grandma and the boys hiked up this fairly large hill. Coming down was fun to watch as Grandma had to slide on her butt for most of the way.

 Although we had to take quite a few breaks, both Hunter and JP were troopers!

 And so was Grandma, who again found it challenging to go downhill! She used her snowshoes to ski down this little trail.

 After packing Charlotte around, my back was starting to hurt a bit and my hips were aching. So I finally sat down with my hubby in the snow and took a little break. With all the breaks we took, we got back to the Inn just as the little St. Patrick's Day parade was coming down the road. When I say little, I mean there was maybe 5 "floats" but the boys score a few pieces of candy anyways!

We spent the early afternoon inside relaxing. The adults worked together on a puzzle while Hunter and JP played trains. Once they started getting a little stir crazy, we took a little walk up the road.

There was a TON of snow piled along the road. Nearly taller than Perry! 

We walked until we made it to a bridge where Hunter enjoyed throwing snowballs off the side, even though he couldn't see over the berm. 

Meanwhile, Grandma got a little Charli, all the while sparing my back a little bit!

On the walk home, Hunter had more fun throwing snowballs, and even managed to hit dad with a few!

JP spent his time simply walking slow and punch the berms as he went. 

We made it back to the Inn just as the wind was starting to pick up a little bit, so we hung out by the fire place until the lobby area to warm up, before it was closed briefly for a wedding. Before leaving the lobby, we discovered our departing train was going to be a little late. Originally we should have been leaving the Inn at about 7:35 pm, but the board in the lobby showed it wouldn't be arriving until 9:15 pm. As the afternoon progressed, the later the train was scheduled to arrived. Eventually the boys fell asleep on the couches around 8:30 and after a lot of bouncing and shushing, Charlotte finally fell asleep too. 

Our train finally arrived at the station at 11:30 and by that point, everyone was exhausted from the long day. After another hour on the train and a short drive home, we all crawled into our beds around 1 am and passed out for the night, well everyone but Charlotte. And mom. 

Although the day turned out much longer than expected I think fun was had by all!