Music and Mozzarella

As a fun treat, we went to Music and Mozzarella at the Children's museum on Thursday night. The String Beans, a local children's singing group were performing. The kids have heard the String Beans' music before, so we though we'd take a chance and go see them. We've never been to Music and Mozzarella, mostly because it's on Thursday nights (a night we don't normally eat out) and it's always so hot. But, since it wasn't supposed to be terribly hot and we knew the kids would like the String Beans, we decided to go ahead and go. Kara and Sebastian came with us, we got there around 5. It was pretty hot in the sun, but not too bad in the shade. We ate pizza (hence the "mozzarella" part of the title). The singing started at 6:00. The kids and I were able to find spots in the shade down front, so we listened and dance a little to the music. About 30 minutes of that, and I could tell they were getting tired. So, Aunt Kara treated them to a snow cone then we went into the air conditioning and played in the museum for a bit. We can home with three hot, tired kids. But, they did tell us they had fun. It's neat to do something different like this once in a while.

Kansas City vacation

Here's a slide show of pictures from our vacation to Kansas City two weeks ago. I'll try to keep the post short, but I do want to put in some details for posterity!

We left Wednesday morning, and the kids were good in the car. They watched Mary Poppins, and it took most of the way there to get through it. We only had to stop once, too! We got to our hotel, and we think that it was the kids' favorite part of the trip. We had a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom loft suite. It had a living room, full kitchen, and the best part was, a bedroom with a door. So, when Brian and I put them in bed, we could shut the door and not have to be quiet in the dark, too. We tried to get them to take a nap when we arrived, but that took a while (see 1st picture). Once they finally did sleep for about 45 minutes, we donned our swimming suits and went to a water park in Lee's Summit, MO. It was a small waterpark, similar to Star City Shores, run by the city. It was more feasible for 3 little kids, rather than going someplace huge like Oceans of Fun where they couldn't do half the things there. They really had fun, even though the water was cold. That evening, we ate dinner at one of our favorites, California Pizza Kitchen. We tried to get the kids to go to bed early, but that didn't work so well. It was 10:00 before they finally fell asleep, and we paid for that the next day!

Thursday, Grace was up by 6:15. That was a huge mistake! With so little sleep, she was a bear that day. Overall, this wasn't such a great day. They were pretty naughty, presumably from too little sleep. But, we soldiered on. This day we went to the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead in Overland Park, I think it was the best part of the trip. It was full of kid-friendly activities, it had free admission and wasn't that busy. We did pay for the kids to ride a pony, which they loved. We walked around and played, and left by noon. We ate a quick lunch at our hotel and again, tried to have them nap. We put Will in the loft in our bed and separated the other two in their room, and that worked much better. Everone did nap for a while. That afternoon we went to a children's museum in Shawnee, KS. We were underwhelmed by it. We ate a quick dinner at a little deli recommended by my friend Jessica, then met Jess and her three girls at a place called Zonkers (think Amazing Pizza Machine or Chuck-E-Cheese). It was in a mall, so when the dads were in charge of the kids, Jess and I did a little shopping. The kids rode all the rides they had and played on a big climbing structure. They had a great time and it was so great to catch up with Jess. She's a friend from college and she has twin girls that are 7. Fun! The kids got to bed late that night, and were so tired! They slept much better this night, though.

No one woke up quite to early on Friday, but we did wake up to rain. Our plan was to go to the zoo, so we just went, deciding to walk around in the rain if we had to. It did sprinkle on us when we first got to the zoo, but later on it cleared off and go hot. If you've never been to the KC zoo, it's huge. Really spread out. Over 2 miles of walking trails. Unfortunately, with kids that are too big for strollers, but not big enough for walking 2 miles, it was too much. We saw about half the zoo, and took lots of breaks, but they still complained. We did ride the train and tram and they enjoyed that. I think we prefer the Omaha zoo, but it was still neat to experience a different zoo. That afternoon, we took a nice long, quiet, cool nap. Then we had dinner at McDonald's, where they got Shrek character watches that they still wear and talk about. Then we went to the movie Shrek in 3-D (which Will calls 3DR, we don't know why). I think they enjoyed the movie and loved their glasses. The brought them home, and still play with them. The only bad thing, is that a Friday night, 3-D movie for 2 adults and 3 kids cost $60! It was insane. Good thing we don't do that very often.

Saturday morning was check out morning. We got up and going to the sound of pouring rain. We were glad we had indoor activities that day. We went to Crown Center/Union Station in downtown KC. We went to Science City, a hands-on science museum for kids. We were a little underwhelmed by that, too. It was OK, the kids liked it. We were able to walk through the sky-walk to stay indoors to get back to Crown Center, where we ate lunch at Fritz's. OK food, but very neat ambience. Small toy trains on the ceiling bring your food on a tray and drop it to you. The kids loved this. After lunch, we hopped in the car and headed for Superior. The kids watched a movie for part of the time and slept for part of the time (it was a 4 1/2 hr drive!). We spent the evening at the lake with my family, stayed the night with Papa and Betty. We would have loved to play in the water and take a boat ride the next morning, but it rained all Sunday morning!! We ate lunch with my mom's family in Hardy, then drove home. Luckily with a movie on, the kids don't fall asleep in the car, so we were able to have them nap at home Sunday afternoon. Brian and I just collapsed and tried not to think about what we had to do on Monday, which is for another post........

Last day of Preschool

Here are some pictures of the kids on their last day of preschool. I also scanned the cover of a little photo album they made and brought home that day. If you click on it, you can see it more up close. It tells a little about each of them and they drew pictures of their family. It's very cute! You can see how different they are in their drawing and coloring. Grace's is very precise, Will's is a little wild, Xander's is sparse.

On a sad note, my last day of school was Friday and I found out, it really was my last day. My contract for this year was a one year only and I found it I'm not being hired back for next year. It's a long story, but the short version is, there was a lot of shuffling going on and the principal needs to hire an unassigned continuing contract person, who has seniority for jobs over me. I am very disappointed, but I always knew it was a possibility. So, I am at the bottom of the pile for jobs and I really don't know if there's going to be anything available for next year. There are worse things, I guess, than being a stay at home mom again for this year, but I just really enjoyed being at school and daycare was good for the kids. We'll see what happens, I'll keep you posted. But a few prayers and positive thoughts would be appreciated!! I'll post more after our vacation!

Lollipops

Here are some cute pictures that Ellen and I took for the kids' birthday party invitations. I'm doing a lollipop theme and I found a person on Etsy.com that would put their photos in a cute lollipop invitation. So, we got some big lollipops from a candy store and snapped these pictures in Ellen's backyard last week. We took around 100 pictures, and here are some of the cutest non-winners. You can see we are going with a primary color palette for the invitations and party.

School for the kids is over and I only have three days left. I think we're all ready for a break from our school-year routine. The kids are really excited for our little family vacation - we leave a week from today (Wednesday the 9th). I think they're most excited to watch movies in the van. They're very in love with the new DVD player. Being the mean parents that we are, we won't let them watch movies just around town. So, they haven't actually watched anything on it. The first movie in the car will make the drive to KC all the more exciting!

We had a nice Memorial Weekend. My friend Dayna got married on Saturday, so the kids stayed with Dale and Ellen for the afternoon/night, until Sunday morning. Sunday ended up being a cold, dreary day. So, we did our regular Sunday night pizza/movie night. We were particularly lenient parents that day. All of the Star Wars movies were on TV that day and we let the kids watch some of the non-scary/non-violent parts. Then, they got to stay up until after 9 for our movie (which was "Babe" the talking pig one. They loved it!) Plus they got pizza and a huge snack of popcorn and M & M's, which is unusual for them. I think they had a good day. Monday was a gorgeous weather day, so we went to the Niebuhrs for a BBQ and some outside playing. After a good nap, we went to Pioneers Park with Lisa and Chad, Carter and Camden, and took a picnic dinner. The kids played on the equipment, we ate, then took a little hike through the park. They were tired, sweaty and smelly when we got home, but they slept great on Monday night, so it was totally worth it!

Will is excited - he got his new car seat!! Ever since Xander got his new carseat about a month or two ago, he has been saying (EVERY time we get in the car) "I"m getting tired of my old seat, Mommy." Well, Saturday they were at Oma and Opa's house and Will stood on the scale. It said 41 lbs! He was so excited. He had to be 40 lbs to get the new carseat. So, Brian put it in on Saturday. Now whenever we get in the car Will says "I love my new seat, Mommy." Every time! Grace still only weighs 34 lbs. We think she will be 6 before she can have a new carseat. At this rate, she really will be six. She was 31 lbs at her 4 year old appt in January, so gaining 3 lbs in this 6 months is pretty good for her. She was 29 lbs at her 3 year appt, which means she only gained 2 lbs in that entire year. She really is getting tall, though. And her feet are growing a lot. She really will have long limbs and be tall, I think. Xander is growing a ton, too. His feet have exploded in the last 2 months. I just bought him some new tennis shoes, size 11. He's getting a lot taller, too. In fact, I think he'll also be really tall.

That's about all our news. I will wait and post again when we get back from our vacation on Sunday, so look for a post early the week of the 14th with vacation pics. Have a happy June!