Christmastime at the Zoo

Yesterday morning when I went to wake little Carl up for school he said, "Mom, I just want to stay home and spend time with you." Never mind that I had been gone for four days, it was so sweet that I couldn't say no. So I told him to go back to sleep and I went back to bed too.

Later when we were all having a nice lazy morning together, we decided to go the zoo and see which animals came out in the cold. It turns out that a lot of them do. A lot more than in 100+ degree August, anyway. Here are some pictures of the fun:

All morning the kids had chocolate pop tarts on their faces because that's the ideal morning snack, and I kept forgetting to wash it off. :)

Recent activities

Our lives have been nonstop busy lately. We hardly remember what a relaxed weekend is anymore.

The kids are all doing well and our tiling project is getting closer to being done! Our great room and kitchen are complete minus touch up paint and baseboards! Here are just a few pictures -

Carl's first little league home run!

Carl's first little league hit!

The kids discover a new kind of fun...

jumping on the hotel beds!

No more time to write. Gotta get down to the pool!!!

Last minute mini-vacation

Today is Carl's birthday! Happy b-day sweetie! Tonight we are in a hotel room with all four kids who are luckily sound asleep right now. Why? Well, we were offered the chance to visit Disney world for free tomorrow, and one idea snowballed into another until we decided to pick the kids up from the school bus stop and escape town!
That didn't exactly work, but we did get away in time to drive to Kissimmee for dinner. I searched for a Cici's pizza nearby (cause that's our family's theme restaurant) and luckily there was one right next to the hotel. We couldn't believe our eyes when we pulled up. Hello world's coolest Cici's pizza!



Then we got the best table in the house - right under the waterfall.



Cadie ate the toppings off 4 pieces.



Connor enjoyed a brownie with extra Parmesan cheese on top.

And Chloe and Carl hit the arcade.

And then we checked into the Clarion Hotel Maingate just a few steps away. I have to put in a word here about how super super nice everybody is here. We got a steal of a price using priceline and I was hoping we could just sneak our 4 kids into the double room without anyone noticing. But when I asked for a crib for cadie the girl started upgrading us to a deluxe king so we would have a fridge for the "babies milk". I was a bit worried because that room only has one bed, and when I tried to say no, just keep us in the room with 2 beds she asked me how many kids we had. I couldn't lie, so I just told her, and she put us in this awesome room with 2 double AND a bunk bed! Plus the fridge and micro. All for no extra charge. If we ever do this again, I might just skip priceline and book here to begin with.

So here's the pics. The kids are in heaven.








We can't wait until tomorrow. The kids have no idea where we're going. Plus they've never been to Disney before anyway so it's gonna be soooo much fun.

Check back on the blog soon. We'll try to send in pictures often.

P.S. Thank you Uncle Aaron!!!

Chloe has other dancing skills too...

Okay, so I didn't post this before because I was embarrassed by my messy house. But she is just so cute. And I can now honestly say that since the kids have started school I have cleaned my house. :)

This is Chloe robot dancing, which she learned from watching the LXD on hulu.





If you haven't seen it yet, you should. We are hooked. (Robot Lovestory and Elliott's Shoes are our favorite episodes that we watch again and again)

Ballet afternoon

Chloe's ballet classes start up again tomorrow, and she's lucky that I got her new leotard finished just in time. I'm going to blog about it over on my sewing blog soon, but these are so cute Carl wants them here too so he can look at them at work. Why he doesn't read my sewing blog at work is a mystery to me :).

Anyway, Chloe decided to put on her new leotard this afternoon and brush up on her skills. She then convinced Carl to be her partner. I overheard her trying to convince him to go put on his church clothes (including shoes), but that was just too much. She had to settle for what he was already wearing, plus socks.

Connor tried to get in on the dancing too, but he kept knocking people over so I had to get him to help me in the kitchen instead.

Lobster Night

Last week my mighty hunter husband brought home dinner. It was lobster, yum. Lucky for him, he got to go on a  quick trip to the keys to get it. He didn't send me any picture of the beautiful views down there (bummer), but he did send me these:

Then he grilled them up for us. I wasn't going to take pictures of the kids eating,

But then Cadie was just too funny. I had been trying to feed her pieces of lobster off my plate, but she kept throwing them on the ground and reaching for the last lobster tail on the serving plate in front of her. After it had cooled off, we finally just let her have it so she would stop screaming. She was in lobster heaven.

Sunday Morning Video

The other Sunday morning, I was getting my YW lesson (about member missionary work) ready, and Chloe became really interested in the props that I was preparing. This is what resulted:

I love Connor's reaction, how he just sits there and fidgets, and then starts looking at the camera. Kind of like Jim.

Butterfly garden

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