Resting Up for Race Day

Once everyone was up this morning, we all hit the ground running. Ben, BB, and Jessie went to pick up their race packets at the OKC Memorial Marathon Expo, Daddy-Man went to BB's house to work on the kitchen tiles, and Mom, the kids, and I ran some errands, stopped in at a craft fair, and took Daddy-Man some lunch. By the time the kids were down for their naps, the rest of us wished we were napping too!

The rest of the day was spent resting up for the big race tomorrow morning.

Bathtime with Nana.

"Nana, will you play with me?" - Noah


Ellie never wants to go to bed when she thinks there is fun to be had.

Resting on the couch with Papa before his bedtime.

On the Road Again!

No photos yesterday and no "I'm-sorry-I-didn't-take-any" post either... in short: we've been busy! Part of it is trying to get the house packed and moved into storage and the other part is the fact that we were leaving today to head to Oklahoma City for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon.

On our way, we passed some pretty serious looking smoke from several wildfires that have been raging across the state. Usually during this part of the trip, you can see for miles. Not this time.

We left a little earlier than we usually do so the kids were awake for a good portion of the 4+ hour drive.

After what was going to be a quick stop at Target... which resulted in us buying some {clearanced} furniture for Ellie's room, which barely fit in our already stuffed to the brim Sequoia, we finally made it to OKC, about an hour earlier than normal!

A Zero Photo Kind of Day

1 trip to Walmart for lightbulbs {and realizing after you get home, they are the wrong size}

+

1 3 hours to kill at storytime and subsequently at lunch with Daddy

+

2 little ones' naptimes shortened to less than an hour

+

3 shots {and 3 more to come in a week or so} , 1 screaming toddler, and 1 busy toddler {preschooler?} at a Well-Baby Check Up, by myself

=

0 photos.

I did manage, however, to get a video of them at storytime at the library on my phone:

{Mine are the ones that keep spinning, long after the others stop. ha!}

And, the stats from Ellie's 18-month Well Baby check up: 26.8 lbs {76%}; 34in tall {92%}; and a head circumference of 19.4in {96%}. Just a skinny and tall Little One, who is rapidly approaching wearing the same size as her older brother.

Photos {from My Phone}

{tonight @ dinner = Molten Chocolate Cake @ Chili's. Noah's Favorite.}

{Easter Sunday, before church}

{just after leaving Sea World}

Military Monday

Chick-fil-a here in Abilene has a Military Monday special: free nuggets! All four of us love Chick-fil-a, so when Daddy-Ben called to say he forgot to bring a lunch and wanted to know if we wanted to eat with him, we quickly said yes.

Noah and Ben love the ice cream.

Ellie loves all the food, except the ice cream.




And me? I love him.

{I love you most, Benjamin!}

I also love a certain little girl who, since the gate was taken down because of showings, sprints for my shoes every chance she gets.

Easter {HE is Risen!}

Happy Resurrection Sunday! He is Risen indeed!

Noah and Ellie woke up at about the same time, so once we took him to the potty and changed her diaper, Ben sent them to the kitchen, holding hands... I wish the one photo I had taken of that had turned out!

The kids were both excited about their Easter Baskets. Noah was really excited about his new "station and car" for his GeoTrax.

Ellie's favorite was her new sunglasses... and Noah's too, which she kept taking to Ben to have him put on himself.


While we were all getting ready for church, the Little Ones got to watch their new VeggieTales video. Noah calls it the "Robot Bunny Bob and Larry Movie".

After church, we came home to eat lunch and enjoy some family time before naps for the kids {and cleaning/packing, for Ben and I}.

We ate some Easter candy too.

And kindly shared it with one another.

An egg hunt in our backyard was thwarted by hail. And this is the small stuff before it started getting bigger - up to baseball size!

Happy Easter, from our family to yours!

Easter Saturday

This is how my day started:

Now that the house is for sale, we've got to keep it ready to be shown. Ellie was left alone while I was tending to Noah in the bathroom... and this is what I found when I came back to the kitchen. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry so I did what I always do - grabbed the camera. And then went to look for Ben.

Just before dinner {once we were fairly certain we wouldn't be showing the house today}, we dyed a few Easter eggs. And by a few, I mean three. We started out with six, but in the process of boiling and cooling, we lost three. {Which is fine with me, as I don't eat hard-boiled eggs.}

The kids loved it. Noah and Daddy colored them while Ellie and I watched and mostly kept our hands off.


We used the remaining stickers and egg holders on plastic eggs. Much easier for little hands to handle and much easier to clean up.

Noah loved the finished real eggs.

So much so that he wanted to play with them. And in the process dropped and cracked two of the three.

"Elmo is crapped {cracked! ha!}, Mommy. Noah crapped Elmo."

After dinner and baths, we set to work on making our Resurrection Cookies. Which was going well, until I added the Oreos {instead of pecans, since I'm allergic} too early.

Resurrection Cookies = fail.

Lucky for us, He's going to arise again whether we made our cookies correctly or not.

And.... it looks like the "Easter Bunny" might have gone a little overboard this year.

Good Friday

Happy Good Friday!

We got home a little late last night. Which meant I was too tired to try to make some Hot Cross Buns for breakfast: last night or this morning. A bummer, to be sure.

And this Little One? This is a much happier face on the way home from dinner than we saw on the way home from Sea World last night.

And, speaking of home... our home is officially for sale.

Thank goodness my real home is wherever they are.

Sea World {San Antonio}

What. a. night.

We didn't bring the pack and play for Ellie. Bad decision on my part. I was certain she'd be fine. But after lots of bed switching - Ben and I in one, the kids in the other; then girls in one, boys in another; then Ben and I in one, Noah in one, and Ellie in the chaise; and finally Noah in one, and the rest of us in the other - we all finally got a little sleep. Ben and I were a little annoyed when we were awakened by Noah {who slept wonderfully} only to find Ellie completely conked out and finally sleeping like a baby between us.

After some breakfast and once everyone was ready, we loaded up the Sequoia and headed to Sea World.

Noah was so very anxious to see some animals.

But once we were in the park and he saw the "dolphin train", all he wanted to do was "Less' go ride some rides, Daddy!"

But before we headed to the new Sesame Street Bay of Play, we headed over to feed the dolphins. Noah had no fear - unlike last time.


Ellie on the other hand, thought it was all good fun until we tried to get her close to feed them too. She decided to just enjoy the dolphins while clinging to the back of my shirt. Just moments before while we were just watching them, she was laughing, giggling, and clapping... go figure!


Once we got to the Bay of Play, we discovered something terrible.

Noah is too short to ride any of the kiddie rides the "dolphin train" ride that he was SO excited about. We tried to distract him by having Daddy take him on the giant playtoy.



It worked for a little while.

But as soon as he and Daddy came down the slide, he was asking about the "dolphin train". We told him they didn't have any more tickets. He wanted to go in the splash area, and feeling bad that he couldn't ride the ride, we let him. Mostly because we didn't think he'd get really wet {we just assumed he'd get a little wet, be annoyed he was wet and then be done}. Clearly we didn't think it through too much. We didn't bring a towel or a change of clothes into the park with us.

Ellie and I watched while Noah played and Daddy kept close by him.

Thankfully, Daddy had taken his shoes and socks off before he went into the splash area. He quickly took off his very wet shirt... and his shorts were SOAKED.

His souvenir was a Sea World shirt and new swim trunks.

After a pizza buffet lunch at Rosita's Cafe {seriously... not a bad deal with the 30% off that military receives!}, we had to stop to watch the "blue roller train" go down its track. I'm fairly certain the boy is going to be a big fan of roller coasters, which makes me happy!

We stopped in to check on the penguins.

And while Ellie and I were checking out the "little" King Penguin chick, the boys were checking on the "blue roller train" one more time.

We made it just in time to get some decent seats for the killer whale show, or as Noah called them, the sharks. Both kids were pretty excited about the show and clapped along with the music, pointing at the whales and shouting, "Shark!" or "She loves her baby!" and "Woooahw!"

One of the whales had a baby calf in January 2010. We're not sure if it was because of the baby or the recent death of one of the trainers in Orlando that kept them from getting in the tank with them.

All in all, it was a great trip to Sea World. Memories were made and fun was had by everyone!

And, we even got to "meet" Shamu before we left!

♥