A birthday party with friends!

This is the first year we decided to let the kids have a birthday party with their friends. They really wanted a bounce house and we entertained the idea of doing the party here at the house, but....it's a lot of work and bounce houses are expensive to rent. So, we booked a party at our YMCA that we always go to. They do a bounce house party, give you a staff member to supervise and lead other games, provide a party favor and give you a room to use. A great deal, so that is what we did. The kids each invited 4 or 5 of their friends from their class, plus we invited our cousins, so we ended up with around 17 kids. They had a great time, and got really wild, but they were able to bounce it off in the gym. Here's some pictures from the day...

 The room before all the kids came!

 In the bounce house. At one point, all 17 kids were in there. They collapsed it.....

 Everyone out! Need to reinflate the bounce house!!

 All the girls that came!

 All the boys that came!

 Eating giant cupcakes from Cupcakes 'n More. Yum!!

 Looking at Xander's presents. He got Hulk legos, some car legos and a flying airplane. He was happy!

 Will also got Legos, a game and a cool ultra high-tech water gun. He's made good use of that lately in the heat!

 Grace and her friends. Grace got lots of craft kits, a barbie and some girly legos. Cute girls!!

Here's a couple pictures of the chaos in the gym. The staff member helping us was Elijah. He was a good sport. The kids chased him down and pestered him for the whole hour in the gym, but he just pestered them right back and they loved it! He also organized an obstacle course, as you can see from the last picture. That kept the kids occupied for a bit. 

They had a fun party and asked on the way home when they could have another birthday party! Brian and I were thoroughly exhausted, but I still had enough energy to go scrapbook for the rest of the night! The kids stayed in the air-conditioning and played with their new toys the rest of the afternoon. Our birthday party for family is this weekend, so more about that later!

Busy, Busy!

Sorry I have not posted since we've been back from vacation. As I'm sure I've mentioned, I started a graduate class at UNL, and boy is it a lot of work! A whole semester worth of work crammed into 5 weeks. I have class everyday from 9:15 - 10:50, so it requires a lot of babysitting. I am halfway through it and most of the work is winding down, but it has been a crazy three weeks.  Huge kudos to Grandmas Ellen and Pam who have been doing a lot of babysitting as I try to get all the work done for this class.

Here is what the kids have been up to since we've been back from vacation....

The week we got home, my mom enrolled the kids in golf lessons at Firethorn for 3 days. She took them and they really liked it! It was also good for me, because they were there while I was in class. I think we have future golfers on our hands. T-ball also started right when we got back. They have one practice each week and one game on the weekends. It has been hot, but they're troopers. I think they're finally starting to get the feel of the game. Grace fielded a grounder and tagged a runner out at 2nd at her last game. Xander is a good hitter and Will is quick on the infield. They play through late July, and I have some pictures I will get posted of that, soon.

Grace started dance at Club Kicks and really likes it. It's a combination jazz, tap and ballet class. So, she gets a little of each in every class. It's a class for 5-6 year olds, and she's a year older than all the rest of the kids, plus a head taller. I've been watching her through the window during class. Her little type-A self makes very quick and efficient dance movements, but it's not very flowing. She'll have to work on that!

Last week the kids were at bible school at our church every morning, and this week they've been at a day camp at the YMCA. This is a similar camp to the one they did the previous two year, they spend the day at a park going on nature walks, playing games, fishing and more. It's been hot this week, and they've come home sweaty, red faced and exhausted. Adding t-ball practice, dance class and swimming lessons on in the late afternoon/evening has made for some exhausted kids at the end of the days. We have been swimming a number of times at some outdoor pools, I look forward to having more time for fun things when this class ends on July 6th.

I will have lots of pictures to post after this weekend. The kids are having their first birthday party for friends on Saturday at the Y. We're having a bounce house and lots of friends from kindergarten coming. I'll post pictures later next week! Thanks for looking in on us!

Saturday, June 2

So, I'm not sure why this post didn't show up in the right order. All my day posts are out of order, so you can either read them in mixed-up order or scroll around to find the correct days. Or, don't read them at all, because they are a little long. As I always say, though, I do this for not only you all, but my recollection later, too. It was a nice vacation though, and I got some good pictures! Sorry things are out of order, though!

Even though we were a little tired from the night before, we got up early on Saturday and hit the road for a morning matinee of the Wizard of Oz at a Children's theater in a suburb. It was a long drive, about an hour, but the production was nice and I think the kids liked it.

A picture with all 5 kids. Will, Grace, Xander, Caden and Cole (Denise's 2 oldest).

 After the show was over, we drove about 15 minutes away to a place called the Morton Arboretum. It's a huge (about 1700 acres) botanical garden place right in the middle of the suburbs. It was kind of cool. We had a great time in the children's gardens and the maze. Plus, it was a gorgeous day!

 This is one of the coolest parts of the arboretum, the maze. If you went down a certain path, you could get to this tower where you could see the whole maze. The kids had fun running through it with Brian.

We left the Arboretum about 3 that afternoon and drove the hour back to Denise's house. The car ride was a nice quiet break! When we got back, we gave all the kids a shower and got them in their jammies, because all the parents were going out! Denise called her babysitter and she and a friend came over to watch all 6 kids so we could go out. We had the kids eating dinner when the babysitters got there and then I think they just watched movies (which was fine, because they were exhausted from all the vacationing!). We got home around 9:15 and all the kids were still awake, but barely. We put them to bed and then the adults watched a movie. It really was a fun night!

Tuesday, May 29th

We spent all of Monday driving in (we left around 8:30 am and got into downtown Chicago around 6:00 p.m.) Not too bad, and the kids were great in the car. All we did when we got there was unload the car, check in to the hotel and eat some dinner in the restaurant of our hotel. Then it was bedtime, because Tuesday was a huge day!

Tuesday was our first full day of vacation in the city. We got up early, walked across the street and hopped on a city bus that took us to the "museum campus" a place right on the lake that houses the Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum of Natural History and Adler Planetarium. Our plan was to spend the morning/lunch time at the Aquarium, then go to the Planetarium until it closed. So, that's what we set out to do. The kids loved riding the bus, by the way. They got to be real pros at public tranportation by the end of the vacation!

Some fun pictures of our morning at the Aquarium. They had some great exhibits. We got to see an exotic jellyfish exhibit and lots of neat fish.

We ate lunch on the patio outside at the Aquarium, and this was our view. A spectacular view of the Chicago skyline. I took lots of pictures.

The kids sitting out front of the Aquarium. Loved the view. I have a picture of my friends and I one spring break sitting on this exact ledge. I couldn't resist taking a pic of the kids there, too!

More pictures of them with the skyline behind. It was the first day and I was photo happy. Great pictures, though!

We walked over to the planetarium. This was the only place on our trip that wasn't super packed and over-crowded. We had a good time here, there were lots of interactive exhibits for the kids and of course, they love all things space. This picture is of a lady who was creating a vacuum with a machine and showing what ordinary things do when put in a vacuum. The kids thought it was fascinating!

 Grace must have been pretty tired. She fell alseep during our 3-D Imax movie about space junk.

 Daddy and the kids in front of the Gemini 12, a spacecraft that went into space with Buzz Aldrin and James Lovell.

 We didn't realize this, but the Planetarium closed at 4 p.m. Since we had decided to go straight to dinner and 4 was too early to go, we decided to walk around a little bit. Right next to the Planetarium, is a little stretch of beach and since the weather was gorgeous, we took of our shoes and socks and walked around on the beach. Of course, the water was freezing, but it was fun to sit on a beach for a while. We hopped on a bus and then the El (subway) to go to Rainforest Cafe for dinner. Incidentally, there was a fire that shut down a huge part of the subway system that afternoon, so our trip on the subway was unusual in that it was super crowded (rush hour!) and people were trying to compensate for the closings and the trains that were running were late. The kids were a little wide-eyed on that trip, but luckily we only had to ride for 5 stops and none of our stops were affected by the fire.

 Dinner at Rainforst Cafe was good, expensive, but good. Here is a picture of our dessert, a huge brownie volcano. The kids at it up!

The Sears Tower from our hotel roof. About 5 blocks away!

As if the day wasn't enough, it was early, about 6:30 when we got back to the hotel and the kids wanted to go swimming. The hotel pool was on the roof, so it actually wasn't too cold in the water, but the air was starting to cool off. They didn't care. They swam for about 45 mins anyway. Who has that much energy? They were exhausted when they finally piled into bed around 8:15. Another long day was ahead!