Camelback Tubing

We've never been tubing, but have heard a lot about it this winter.  So we decided to try it out.  We let the kids play hooky Wednesday and Thursday and drove a couple hours to Camelback Mountain to enjoy an afternoon of tubing.

 I know I looked confused, but I'm actually trying to avoid the sun in my eyes and pose for the picture.

 Hannah absolutely LOVED tubing.  She was tall enough that she could go by herself, and she took advantage of the freedom.  As soon as she hit the bottom, it was back on the lift to go to the top for another run.  Theo and I were just saying, "Where's Hannah?" when we saw her zipping down the hill.

 Theo really knows how to plan the right trip and booked us a room at a hotel with an indoor pool.  After a long afternoon of snow tubing we thawed out in a warm indoor pool.

Jersey-isms Pt. 5

One of the enjoyable perks here in Jersey, is being so close to the Boardwalk.  It's historical, scenic and very convenient to run on without having to worry about drudging through the sand.  I love running by the beach, without having to run ON the beach.  We finally got some sun last week after what seemed like weeks of snow and rain!  Charlotte and I had a lovely stroll, and then when we were done we decided to enjoy a sweet park.  That lasted about 5 minutes before Charlotte, who is newly potty trained, peed all over the playground.  Well, at least some of it, most of the pee ended up in her very absorbent Ugg boots.  It was my own fault, I should have had her go to the bathroom first.  But that ended up cutting our play date a little short.  I still got my run in, and soaked up the sun!  Sometimes I think, living in New Jersey really isn't all that bad! ;)

Girl Scout Safety Day

This past Monday I got to go with my girls to a Girl Scout activity called Safety Day.  I wasn't sure what it was about, but it was an activity and other than their bi-weekly meetings and cookie booths, they don't really get to hang out with the other girls.  I thought it might be fun so we went.  It wasn't bad, they had more girls than they planned for, so it was a bit crowded, but there were some perks.

 Here are the girls with some friends from the troop.  I can't even believe that Hannah is old enough to be in Girl Scouts, so much so that I didn't even sign her up until that day!  She's been going to Emma's troop, but will be joining her own soon, we are both excited for that.

I just had to get a picture of this guy. This was the first station we were at and this guy is a meteorologist who actually flew through a CAT 5 hurricane!  He's a rock star in my book!  I wanted to get his autograph. LOL!  I've always wanted to be a meteorologist, a storm chaser to be more precise.  It's so weird how excited I get about weather.  I'm not even kidding how serious I am about that.  I remember when I was in elementary school, I think 3rd grade, I checked out a book about weather from the library and wrote a letter to the weather station that helped write the book. They sent me a reply letter and books about weather.  I was so happy, you would have thought I got a letter from some famous person!  That's how big a dork for weather I am, LOL!  It would be a dream of mine to go back to school and actually become a meteorologist....maybe one day.  This part of the presentation was all for the adults, the kids were not interested in watching hurricane patterns as I much as I was.

 At this station the girls got this little pouch to use as a First Aid kit.  They got to decorate it and got band aids and gloves to put in them.  Although I'm pretty sure all those gloves have been turned into balloons by now.

 

 I didn't get pictures of the traveling animal shelter, but they have this trailer set up with kennels inside to hold animals in case you have to go to a shelter during an emergency evacuation.  It was a pretty sweet set up.  The girls then went to another station where they got to make cat and dog toys to donate to the trailer.  It was a good idea, in theory, but the girls are just too young to really figure out how to make them.  Once the ladies called time, and they had to move on I had several meltdowns I had to make better, and I ended up making at least 2 complete toys myself in the name of the girls.

 This guy was the highlight of the day.  He brought out the animals, so obviously the kids absolutely loved this part.  He had a box turtle, snake and a frog.  And if you ask the girls what their favorite part of the day was, they will definitely tell you the animals.

 The snow came and visited us yesterday.  They said it was going to start snowing around 9am and snow all day.  I thought the schools would close down, but they decided to just do a partial day.  Well, the weeny mom that I am, I was afraid that if I sent them to school and the snow started to fall then they could get stuck at the school, so I kept them home.  It didn't start to really snow until around 1 or 1:30, the same time the kids would have gotten out of school.  I should have totally sent them, all they did was fight with each other, but that's just how they show their love, right? Ha...
The picture above is what we woke up to this morning.  I'd say we got between 4 and 5 inches.  Just enough to play in, and dangerous enough when you drive.  Although I did have to drive in it today. 

I got an order for a cookie cake!  I was really happy that I got to do this, it was for a Coastie friend's husband.  This is actually his guitar in cookie form, sort of. ;)  I'm really happy about that chocolate disc in the middle.  I actually hollowed a little out of the cookie and used a cookie cutter to mold the chocolate.  Then when it hardened I just popped it in the cookie.  I delivered it in the snow covered roads, but I have to say, for an L.A. (Lower Alabama) native, I sure do get a thrill when driving in snow.  It can be scary, but it can be such a mad adrenaline rush!  I know, I know...I ain't right. ;) The cookie was fun to make, and I really liked the way it turned out.

The Best Kind of Fail

I found this cool counting game for Hannah on Pinterest:

I really liked the idea and for our Art class today (two birds, one stone ladies and gentlemen) she helped me make our own version of the game:

We decided to do a pumpkin instead, and used the candy corn with jelly pumpkin candy.  She LOVES this 'game' as I called it.  One of the die is for the corn and the other is for the pumpkins.  She puts the right number of each on the big pumpkin and then adds them up to give me the total.  Then I say, "Yes! 4 plus 6 is 10, good job!"  Then we clear the pumpkin and do it again, and again, and again, and again....and...again.  I had a chiropractors appointment which I thought ended our fun time.  But she wasn't near being done.

Here she is at the end of my bed with the game.  I told her it was night time and we would play the game tomorrow, but that just wasn't the answer she wanted.  She brought the game up to my room so she could keep playing with me.  I'm beyond happy that she loves this game so much, but as I titled this post, this is the best kind of fail.  I wasn't planning on playing this game WITH her for hours on end!  But, seriously, how can I complain when she is learning so much and being so dog gone cute doing it!

First Day NOT Back to School

I actually did it, I've been thinking about it for so long and it finally happened.  My kids woke up on the first day of school and....we didn't have to go anywhere.  We parked ourselves in our dining room and did a full days work of homeschooling.  It went pretty smoothly for the first day, I got to experience first hand how my kids SOAK up knowledge!  I was super boring, I focused on the basics, and yet they were awesome with it all.  I really hope this is the precursor to how life will be.  I know we will have our ups and downs, but for the majority I would love to have more days like this than the other way around.  We had Art today and for our lesson we did First Day of School photos.  We were going all over the yard trying to find the right lighting, we tried different positions until we could get a semi-professional pose.  It was so funny how much Miriam was getting into it, before I could say anything to the person I was taking the picture of she was behind me saying, "Straighten your back, pull your shoulders down, drop your chin...etc."  It was awesome!  I think I got some pretty good pictures, and here they are:

 Of course I couldn't leave Charlotte out, and yes, she is running around in the street in her pj's.

To celebrate our first NOT back to school day we ate dinner al fresco!  I absolutely LOVE when the weather is nice and we can eat outside.  The lights are a bonus.  The kids truly felt special and I was filled with love for each of these beautiful spirits Heavenly Father has trusted me with.  I can only hope and pray that He will give me the continued guidance to be the teacher He wants me to be, and the teacher that they need for many years to come!

A Birthday to Remember

Even though Hannah turned the big 5 last week, we finally were able to have her party last night.  She has been talking up Chuck E. Cheese for the past year!  I can't tell you how much I hate this place; video games, children running a muck, a giant rodent...but since my kids are limited to which birthdays they actually get a big party (1, 5, 8, 10, 13, 16) I was acquiesced to oblige.  I was, however, impressed with all that was included in the party package.  And also since that meant I didn't have to entertain or clean up after the party, Chuck E. Cheese has earned a gold star in my book.  That has not changed my mind what so ever to quickly saying 'No!' when Hannah asked this morning if we could go back today.  LOL!  Here are some pics from the evenings festivities:

She got a cool crown, that she wore the entire time.  It had 8 extra tokens, and she used every single one!

Miriam's duck face

Hannah's friend Elsa playing air hockey with her Dad.

Elsa's brother just chillin' with Chuck.

Charlotte has quite the throwing arm, she got at least two balls in the other lane, LOL!

The party crew getting ready for the show.

This was a bonus in  my book, I knew the mouse would come out for pictures, but what I didn't expect is that he was going to come party with us.

Hannah with her cake, and I feel I have some 'spaining to do.  When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted me to make, she said she wanted a Chuck E. Cheese cake because she "Wants to know what they taste like."  "Well, you are the birthday girl." I replied through gritted teeth.  It was good enough, and at least I didn't have to do the cleaning up afterwards...see! no bitterness here...

Rocking out on her awesome balloon guitar!

A cool medallion, which is hanging right up with Theo's and mine's running medallions.  Hey, it's a great achievement to make it to 5!

Blowing out the candles

Dance off with Chuck!

Time for poses!!

Charlotte has got to be my only child who hounds these fuzzy ginormous abnormal animal costumed people.  I thought Chuck E. was going to have to file a restraining order against her.  Here she photo bombed another little friend of Hannah's who was trying to get her photo with him. *Sigh* Sorry Lexi, she has issues!

This was another bonus, they have this Ticket Blaster that she got to stand in and the tickets swirled around as she tried to catch as many as she could.  I was feeling anxiety that she wasn't getting many, (I think she ended up with around 8, and that was with 3 stuck in her hair) I was afraid that she would be bummed that she didn't get many.  But there was a catch, this was just for show and she actually got 1,000 tickets afterwards! Phew!

Opening presents!

I think she fared well, two games, a My Little Pony plush doll with white glitter polish.  I didn't mention that we got her the My Little Pony castle with Princess Cadence and Shining Armor wedding set for her birthday last week.  Polish was the first thing to go on when we got home last night, she slept with Twilight Sparkle and this morning she couldn't wait to play her new games with her sisters!

She's telling her friends thanks for the gifts, Lilia is in the background and the little boy is Josh.  We had a really good turnout, plus it helps to have a big family so just in case there really aren't a lot of kids we give the illusion of a big party!  She had a blast and was so happy her friends could be there to enjoy it with her.

Thanks Chuck E.!!  You have redeemed yourself in my book.  See you in a few years...at least...hopefully...