After Thanksgiving!

We had a lot of fun after Thanksgiving too! Mama Kay and Papa stayed at a hotel close to our house and generously took each child for a night during their stay. The children really enjoyed their special sleepover with their grandparents and we got to spend extra time with 2 out of 3 each night! Abbey up early one morning eating an apple at their hotel...they may have not quite realized how early the kids get up when they offered to take them overnight!

On Saturday they took all the kids to their hotel to play in the pool.  Then they took them out to lunch and an afternoon treat of ice cream!  Meanwhile, Paul and I went on an 8 mile run together (which we never get to do), went out to lunch and watched some football.  It was a very relaxing day!  Thank you Mama Kay and Papa!

On Sunday we set to decorate the house for Christmas.  This is always fun and always a lot of work, so we really appreciated all the help from Mama Kay and Papa!  Ben decorating the tree...

Abbey...

Juliette...

Thanks for your help Mama Kay!

Then it was time to put the angel on top of the tree...each child had a turn to try to put it on top!

Looks like we needed Daddy to do it!

We had such a great Thanksgiving and we have so much to be thankful for.  Most of all, we are thankful for our family, both near and far.  Mama Kay and Papa, thank you for spending the holiday with us - we had such a fun time with you and were so glad you came. 

Museum of Science and Industry

The day after Thanksgiving we loaded into the car to go downtown to our favorite museum! Everyone comfy back there?

The museum was all decorated for Christmas, so we couldn't resist the opportunity to take a picture of the kids in front of the beautiful tree!

They had Christmas trees from around the world.  Mama Kay showed Abbey one of the trees.

Look at these clowns we found!

Even more crazy clowns!

Then we waited for the imax movie about place racing.  I never knew that existed and it sounds incredibly dangerous.

The seats were comfy, the theater was dark...you can guess what happened next.  That's right, several people in our group fell asleep for a nice little afternoon nap!

That worked out well as it gave everyone a little boost of energy.  So we headed over to the submarine tour, which was really cool.  We have never been inside the sub before, but the tour was very well done...I highly recommend it.

Then they had a sub that the kids got to balance and drive down into the water.  They really enjoyed that!

And the subs had very small sleeping bunks, but plenty big enough for these two!

Papa would have had trouble sleeping in one though!

Then it was a quick trip to the members lounge for some coffee and hot chocolate (and a cute photo opp of Juju in front of the tree).

Another great trip to the museum!

Thanksgiving!

I know that Thanksgiving was a while ago now, but it's never too late to update the blog...right? We were so happy to have Mama Kay and Papa come up to visit us for Thanksgiving this year.  They arrived on Wednesday afternoon and we went to Make A Messterpiece for the afternoon.  Mama Kay and Abbey playing with the pumpkin play dough...

Juliette liked that station a lot too.

Abbey was making some pumpkin pies! 

Meanwhile, Ben was working on his own messterpiece!

On Thanksgiving day the weather was beautiful!  So we rode bikes and went to the park for a while.  Abbey really enjoyed riding her bike as it has been a while since we have done that!

Ben was happy to show off his biking skills as well.

While we were outside playing, look what was inside cooking!!!

Our beautiful table!  Check out those napkin ring holders the kids made last year.  Mama Kay commented that she liked them and Abbey reminded her that she had seen them before!

Abbey is ready to eat!  Too bad she only ate a roll!

Ha, our failed attempt at a family picture by the feast!

While we were digesting the dinner (and making room for pie), Mama Kay taught the kids how to play marbles.

It was a great day!

Medieval Times

I mentioned in a previous post that we went to Jubilation and won some silent auction items. One of the items were tickets to Medieval Times. We drive by the castle about once a month on our way to here or there and the kids have been asking forever if we can go, so this worked out perfectly.  Here is tiny Abbey (look closely - she is the pink dot in the picture) next to the castle.  She was in awe of it, though slightly disappointed at the lack of princesses in the castle! 

We cheered on the red and yellow knight...here is Ben getting his crown.

Go Red and Yellow Knight!

We got there early and had some time to spare before being let in to our seats.  Juliette seemed to enjoy all the pre-show festivities.

But we had to make our own entertainment while waiting....

Then we finally got to our seats. 

We could have not bought Juliette a ticket, but she wouldn't have had a seat or a meal...turns out that would have been completely fine as she spent the entire time in my lap.  She also only ate part of a roll.  So yeah, I think we wasted money on her ticket!

Ben, however, couldn't get enough of the food (after finally getting over the fact that there were no utensils to use).

Juliette then fell asleep and missed the whole show.  Oh well, at least Ben and Abbey enjoyed it!  We will go again in a few years probably.

 

Derby Time

Since Ben is now a Tiger Scout, we got front row seats to the Derby! The Pinewood Derby that is...what, is there another kind of Derby?? We have been looking forward to this for a while now. I remember my Dad and brother building cars and Paul remembers building his own cars with his Dad, so this was a real treat to experience it as a parent, especially with a kid like Ben who gets so excited about things like this! He got very into building it, decorating it, and making sure everything was ready for the big day!  Here he is with his dragon inspired car...

And here he is ready to watch his car's heat!

On your mark, get set...

Oh the anticipation!!!  GO!!!

Although his car did not win, he was still thrilled with the experience! 

Checking out to see who won...

A lot of the cars had really cool designs too, although some were obviously taken from online ideas (as there were multiple that looked very similar).  So although Ben didn't win a design award either, we give him props for coming up with an ORIGINAL idea :)
And there was food there too.  The girls mostly played with their friends, but after a while, Abbey took it upon herself to pass out food to anyone that was left!  What a great hostess!

All in all, a very fun afternoon.  And I think we have a few ideas to incorporate into next year's car!