Happy July 4th!!

It was an action packed 4th of July camping weekend at Maumee Bay State Park. Grandma & Grandpa camped right next to us (much to the kids delight, they had brought cookies AND suckers along!). We took several walks by the nature center and checked out all of the critters.

Here are some of the animals we saw on our walk. The baby deer and racoons were soooo cute!

We walked up the "big hill". It was pretty darn big, and it offered a nice view of the campground and lake. For July, it was surprisingly chilly - felt like it was late September. I can't remember the last time we wore jackets and long pants for the 4th.

Alan also enjoyed watching the kites flying. Hey, is he actually napping??

Alan made us a delicious breakfast outside one morning. On another morning we had cereal - and the kids informed me that they didn't want to use their bowls anymore, because they were "baby" bowls! what?? waaaaa I guess they are growing up. :)

One of the best, most anticipated (at least in my opinion!) is the ice cream social that the park puts on. Where else can you get an enormous ice cream cone for $1? Yummy!!!

Here's the whole gang.

The park also had a bike decorating craft, and then a bike parade. Zack shows off his patriotic spirit on his decked out bike.

Sydney tells Daddy how it should be done! ;)

That night there was a concern down by the lake. The kids had fun rolling down the hill, again and again.

As it got a little later, we decided to bust out our "fireworks". We had some party poppers, which ended up being harder than we thought to fire off. But somehow Zack got his to go...

Sydney needed some help with hers.

Next came the sparklers.

And no burned hands!!

For a treat we cooked some Jiffy Pop out on the camp stove.

By the end of the night, after treats and watching fireworks, the kids were exhausted. In fact Sydney fell asleep on Daddy's lap.

By Sunday it was finally warm enough to go down to the beach.

A shrewd marketer has given all of the kids in the campground a ticket for a free ride on the slide. It was so much fun, who can go down just once? So of course we bought more tickets for the kids. They had such a great time on it.

On the day we left the campground we found this caterpillar. It will eventually be a monarch butterfly. We took him home and it him in Sydney's butterfly house. Within a day it turned into a chrysalis and we are now patiently waiting for the butterfly to emerge!

Zack's special weekend

Since we ended up going to Cedar Point on Sydney's birthday, we decided to take Zack to some special places too for his birthday. The weekend of festivities started out with a trip to Red Robin for the free birthday burger. Yummy!! (uggh, and how stuffed I was!!)
When they sang Happy Birthday to Zack, he turned the other way so they wouldn't see him :) Big sis Sydney of course helped him finish the sundae.


On Saturday we went to the new area at the Toledo Zoo - Nature's Neighborhood. It was really cool, and big!


The kids can climb all over the place and go down a secret slide.



There is even a shallow stream for the kids to wade through and catch foam fish and frogs. Zack was very proud of his haul.



We had a picnic lunch at the Zoo, and then it was off to the local water park, Rolf park. Even though it's kind of small, it's big enough for a fun afternoon (oh, and it's about 10 minutes from our house!!)

Zack loved controlling the water flow.

Both kids loved going down the slide.

Us big kids even got to get in on the slide action. Wheeeeee!!!

As you can tell by this smile, it was a great summer weekend.

Happy Birthday Zack!

Today is Zack's 4th birthday. Wow, where have the last 4 years gone?? Seems like just yesterday he was the cranky kid waking us up in the middle of the night crying! oh wait, that *was* just yesterday... I guess some things haven't changed much at all. :) Well you are now a confident, and inquisitive little preschooler - soon to be in "Pre-K". You want to know all of the answers and "Why?" is probably your most used word.

This is one happy boy opening his presents. It was also PJ day at preschool so it was a special day for you. Oh, and the first of the caterpillers that Sydney had gotten for her birthday decided to turn into a butterfly on your birthday, so that made it extra special! You got a t-shirt from Grandma W that has Lightning McQueeen on it, and it lights up. Too cool!

It was hard to think of some presents for you as it seems like out house is already busting full of toys. However, you did need a new camping chair, so that was one of your gifts. And what a great gift it was - especially since we'll be camping again soon, you will get a lot of use out of it. Too bad it makes your sister jealous and she wants a new chair too!

The things you asked for as gifts were socks and lip balm - no kidding!! Well everyone needs soft lips right? And running socks?, well they are just cool and who doesn't want to be like Daddy these days?

The cake was yummy (see the lip balm in front of the cake??)

Look out!! Can't wait until he gets to use this to torture us around the pool!

A Monster of a Cake

For Zack's 4th birthday he wanted a monster truck rally, so I came up with this design. The dirt is graham crackers and the grass is just frosting. My decorating tip make such great grass I try to use it as much as I can. I mean, who doesn't need a furry cake for their birthday??


I even found a place for "thumbs up" guy - who is often used a stunt man, but today he gets to rest and enjoy the festivities :)

oh, and I put this cake into our bathroom for the night so that it wouldn't suffer the same fate that Sydney's did (frosting melting when the dishwasher ran in the middle of the night).

Thomas, for Sydney?

No, it's not Thomas the Train - it's Sydney and she was telling us how she is going to marry a boy named Thomas in her school! What the heck? That came out out of nowhere - I hope this doesn't mean she's going to start getting boy crazy - she's only 6 years old! Luckily we haven't heard anymore about this. :)

Slip and Slide / Pool day

I spent the entire weekend in my house, sulking in pain. I had a sore throat and a fever, so when Monday came around and my meds were kicking in, I was more than willing to host the playdate I had planned before my sickness. The pool was a tad chilly for me, despite the temperature reading telling me it was 81 degrees. But the kids didn't mind much and had a lot of fun playing it in. Then we busted out the Slip and Slide Sydney had gotten for her birthday. It was quite enjoyable since I mixed in a little warm water with the cold :) Well, I didn't really get to enjoy it, but the kids had a good time. They each had their own unique style of making the journey down the long slide.


Some walked cautiously...

Zack geared up and did a crazy run, and slid into the puddle of warm water that was forming at the end.

.

The bigger kids took a running start and slid on the body board.

Jacob had to show us how it was really done.

This picture of Jack was my favorite though. He was just so darn happy!! so cute :)

8 things about me

My blogger friend Paige (Happiness Is) happened to tag me on this, so I thought I would jot something down. Yes, I really am supposed to be working right now, but I need a little diversion...

8 Things I Look Forward To:
* Our trip to Cancun in August!!
* Being able to read all of the magazines piling up in my office someday
* Our next camping trip
* Spending a whole weekend hanging around my pool and having a cookout
* Getting a tan
* The morning my kids will get ready for school on time, with no tears or drama!
* Spending the rest of my life with my wonderful husband
* Any night that I don't have anything to do!

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
* Worked out at the gym
* Went grocery shopping
* Cleaned the bathrooms
* Vacuumed only part of the floors (didn't have time!)
* Went to the library with the kids
* Spent about a half hour on the computer
* Worked on another 365 scrapbook page
* Read lots of books with the kids
(can you tell it was my day off?!)

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
* Be independently wealthy
* Stop cleaning my house
* Keep up with a monthly meal menu
* Keep my focus on one project at a time (haha!)
* Sit down and work on those random scrapbook page ideas that pop into my head
* Run a marathon like my hubby
* Deal with whining better (sorry Zack, I'm always trying to work on this one)
* Get more sleep

8 Shows I Watch:
* Survivor
* The Apprentice
* Jon & Kate plus 8
* House Hunters
* The Soup
* What not to wear
* Any home makeover show that is on
* Pretty much any reality show

So now I challenge my dear friend Jennifer (Our Corner of the World) to give me some insight into her life.... :)

Pico's nature area

Pico needs something to look at, so we finally got motivated enough to finish off the landscaping by the sunroom. Here is what it looked like before...

And now after...

It only took us 5 years to get this planned, and a couple of days to finish. It just shows how much easier some things are getting around the house as the kids are getting older. We sweated off a couple of pounds each working on it, it was hot in the sun! Luckily the kids were at Andrea's house playing so Alan and I had a few hours of quiet shopping time to pick out the rocks and plants. Another great thing is that we "repurposed" 6 of the plants in this area from other parts of our yard, so they were free! For some reason our landscaping was huge and over grown this year and we had to cut it way back. But now the mulch is finished for another year and the yard looks good. Maybe we should have a party!!

Shopping spree at Toys R Us

Today was the day the kids have been waiting for... time to spend some money! I think this was the first time we've taken the kids into the store to spend their own money. Their piggy banks had been filled to the max every since they "harvested" all of the cash with Grandma a few weekends ago, so it was time to empty them out a little and have some fun. Here they are with their bags of cash...

Sydney had the clear advantage as she had a birthday gift card to ToysRUs and a couple of coupons so she ended up only spending $8 (and she started out with a lot more money) and Zack had to spend $18, which pretty much cleaned out most of his cash reserve. Now we'll have to convince Sydney to take most of her money to the Credit Union, so there is room for more money in her bank of course :)

Sydney bought a motorized kitten and cat (I guess Pico doesn't sit still long enough anymore for her! haha) and miniture kitten playset. Zack got a Hector coal train (Thomas and Friends of course!) and a 5 pack of Hot Wheels cars. None of those purchases were surprising!

Sydney's Kindergarten Graduation

Today was the big day - Kindergarten graduation!! There were 26 kids graduating with Sydney. They sung several songs, which were cute. Our favorite was "kiss your brain" :) They also asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up - surprisingly none of them said Mommies. The majority was a teacher, and a vet (for the girls) and most of the boys said a pilot. One boy said he wanted to be a "baby doctor" which got quite a response from the crowd - so the next boy said the same thing!



Ms Tennille, her teacher


Sydney and Chloe. Chloe and Sydney have been friends ever since Sydney started at daycare (well, maybe not in the infant room, but I think they were friends in the toddler room!)

Sydney and Andrea

Grandparents...

It's true - she's got the diploma to prove it!

Chuck E Cheese birthday party

Sydney has been pretty lucky this year. We went to Cedar Point on her birthday, the grandparents brought her presents, and now a party at Chuck E Cheese! It was a good time for all of the kids. Luckily we got double tokens for booking the party on a Sunday (40 for each kid) so they didn't end up running out of tokens too soon.

We love Hello Kitty!

Zack is shocked at the amount of tickets he's getting.

The lucky birthday girl got an unbelievable 389 tickets!!