Iowa Trip Part 2: Children's Museum

We remembered how much fun we had a couple of years ago when we went to the Childrens Museum, and decided to do it again.  The kids had so much fun.  We were so surprised at how fast the time went by.  My mom had a hurt ankle and still managed to come along. We are glad she did, because it wouldn't have been as much fun without her, (unfortunately, I don't think we helped her ankle's healing process any.)

Aftyn loved taking all of the fruit and putting them in her basket and then putting them back on the shelf, and repeat.  It kept her entertained for about 20 min, I would say.  It was fun to watch her.

Quincey was serving all of the other kids ('customers') at the seafood counter. 

Then we took a pizza break. 

All that shopping and pizza making made us wanna play some music.

And dance

And then of course we needed to stage our own play.

Maiya had a blast 'painting' with shaving cream.

Then it was airplane time.

All in all a very nice and fun day.  We had to end the day with my favorite..... bubble gum ice cream at the ice cream shop next to the museum. 

Iowa Trip part #1.... CAMPING!

We have been so blessed to be able to travel and see lots of great things.  This summer we left as soon as we could and braved the 20 hour trip to see my parents in Iowa.  It was a long drive, but the kids did fantastico, and it was great to see my parents and lil' bro.   

This is what I do when I am bored on really long trips.... make crafts out of candy ropes. 

My brother Brad had the idea to go camping, so he found a place a couple of hours away in Missouri, and we had a grand time.  We got to hang out eat smores, set up tents, we even went on a row boat.  It was a great way to start our trip. 

 (In efforts to make this all sound too good to be true, I won't mention, the estimated 4 times we were woken up during the night with kids peeing their sleeping bags, or needing to go pee and not knowing what to do (and having to escort said child out to pee by a tree), or babies crying because of all of the peeing going on...... stuff like that. ) 

Geren, Brad, and Boogie! (p.s. I wish I could have gotten a video of when we put boogie in the water to get him to swim, his eyes got so big... he got the hang of swimming later on though.)

Relaxing on the boat.

Row, row, row your boat.....

Gently down the stream!

Setting up the tents

Quincey and Scooby

Sweet sisters

sweet siblings!

Ugghhh... are you telling me we have to sleep on the ground? I'm outta here!

Affy helping set up the tents.

Stinky socks make great entertainment for bored babies.

Pee-eew!

Utah Trip

We recently got to go up to Utah to celebrate Geren's Mom's retirement dinner.  It was great as always to see family, and gave us an excuse to visit one of our most favorite places on earth, Temple Square.  

Cousin time.

Going up the ramp to see the Christus Statue.

<3 td="">

I was kind of amazed how fascinated my kids were in the videos.

Nice views of the temple from Joseph Smith Building

They sometimes act like they love each other. I love those moments. ;)

 

Happy Baby.

Getting old is awesome.

I had a wonderful birthday. My kids spoiled me with presents, and my husband spoiled me with lunch, and of course my 20 week ultrasound fell exactly on my birthday!

(don't ask why my kids are wearing hot pajamas before bedtime in hot weather. no idea. ;)

Maiya gave me an 'Pink Oven Mitt with flowers!'

Quince gave me a pretty butterfly picture to hang on my wall.  I will never forget how sweet and shy he was giving me this present.  He looked as if he were about to cry out of fear I wouldn't like it.  Such a tender little heart. 

These Greek Gyro sliders were amazing.  I think I need to get these again, soon!

Our sweet little lunch companion

And of course, my Birthday Baklava!  Doesn't that have a nice ring to it?  Way catchier then 'Birthday Cake.' ;)

All in all, it was a fabulous.  I haven't had a difficult birthday yet (you know how people say turning certain ages are difficult for them.)  I am looking forward to getting older and older and older. Getting old rocks! ;)

Quincey's Kindergarten Graduation

I agree that graduation ceremonies are maybe a bit overdone, but my goodness it was sure fun to see my sweet boy graduate kindergarten. He felt so special. My favorite part was seeing him and his music class perform some songs (see video for cuteness overload.)

This is Quincey in his schools Fun Run, where all of the kindergarten boys raced together.  He did really well.  Except for how he told his whole class about how funny it was that he was knocking people out of the way with an elbow punch.  He did not get that from me! 

We got to come and play lots of fun games with Quincey's class, here is tug of war.

And an obstacle course!

Maiya on the rope

Ultrasound Pictures

 Luckily enough my 20 week mark fell exactly on my birthday this year and we got to have the 20 week ultrasound and find out baby's gender (A BOY!) on my birthday!  That made for a very fun day.  Our little guy was kicking and moving and grooving the whole time.  A very active one for sure.

Maiya kept telling us that she already knew the baby was a boy, and was a little perturbed that we were still talking about finding out if it is a boy or a girl.  So, when we told her that it's a boy, she said, "I KNOW!" 

Both big kids are very excited for their new sibling.  Something a little weird that Maiya has always done for Aftyn, is 'get the fuzzies out' of her toes.  And since this baby is a boy, she keeps telling Quincey that it will be his job to 'get the fuzzies out.' Pretty funny.

Getting Bigger!

Here I am at 18 weeks.  ( 17 weeks and 5 days, but I think it is more than appropriate to round up in most things in life, but especially in a pregnancy ;))

We are very excited that we are almost half way to meeting our new addition.  We are going to find out the gender on my birthday (May 30th), which was not planned, but kinda cool.  Quincey informed me, that he "really needs a brother."  And Maiya is also convinced that it should be a brother for Quincey.  But they said it would be fine if it was a sister too.  ;)