Memorial Day Fun

We went to my parents' cabin in the NM mountains for our annual Memorial Day event.  Apparently, we didn't take one picture until the last day when we were packing to leave.

There are no pictures of my kids LOVING the zip line that Grandave installed.

There are no pictures of kids riding the four wheeler.  

There are no pictures of the kids hiking up and down mountains.

There are no pictures of the kids playing in the creek.  Actually, there was no creek.  NM is experiencing drought conditions.  It was incredibly dry up there.  The creek is dry in many places.  The foliage is suffering.    The kids would come in covered in dust, because the ground was so dry.  W kept asking to change socks.  Their once white socks were black looking by the end of the day.

I did get this one shot of all the grandkids.  

Here's the parents with the grandkids.

Baby K had a good time on her first trip to the cabin.

The menfolk are already planning improvements to expand the zip line.

The porch was blown off during a windstorm earlier in the spring so there are plans to expand the cabin out that direction.

I just hope there is some rain up there soon.

TOT Finale

S has been participating in his TOT (Teams of Tomorrow) at Mother's Day Out all year.  The teacher comes on Wednesdays and pulls them out of class to work on gross motor skills that primarily use a basketball.  He says that is his favorite day of class.

They had their final performance.  As usual, he was a little hesitant to go up there.  

After a few minutes, he was warmed up and ready to go.  

This is his dramatic "I am so tired from working so hard" face.

They demonstrated their dribbling skills.

They also had some fun with bean bags.

Here's the whole class doing some ball handling skills.

Here's S and Miss Tot.  They had a great year and now he wants to try playing basketball as a team sport.

My very humble child wanted to take a picture with his new TOT trophy and all his other awards.  He was very proud.

He did a great job and I glad we found something that he enjoyed so much.

Sunday best

I have been patiently waiting to put this adorable outfit on Baby K.  We received this at a baby shower before she was born.  It is so cute on her.  Who doesn't love a little sailor suit?

She kept the hat on all through church.

One of the best parts to dressing her is getting the boys' reaction.  They think she looks so cute.  It's funny, because they don't care what they wear as long as they have Superheroes on their shirts.  They definitely care what she wears.  I find it a little ironic.

I love watching them play with her.  It doesn't last long at this age, but they are getting better.  They relish their roles as big brothers. (except when she gets their legos)

Here's an outfit from Aunt Julie for her birthday.  This one allowed her to be fashionable and be mobile.  Those big dresses interfere with her ability to crawl around.  

Mother's Day

I had a wonderful Mother's Day!  (Here's some belated pictures.)

Here's me and my four little blessings!

Taking a friend's advice, I decided to get an individual picture with each child.

I just love that grin!

The one doesn't look at the camera often, but he is a handsome little boy.

This is my not so small child.  I am trying to get used to the fact, that he will shortly be taller than I am.

The boys purchased me all sorts of flowers and a new pot for the backyard.  They picked some favorites and added a couple new varieties.  We shall see how they do.

I had so much help from all the children that it was a little overwhelming.  One was trying to dig out the soil from the freshly planted pots.  One was trying to be helpful, but still manged to repeatedly drop soil in my hair.  

This helpful child was banished to another part of the yard.  Her help was no longer needed.  She loves to be outside.  She is positively filthy by the end of the day.

My other help faded away as the project took a little more time than they had patience for.  I am not sure what they are doing here.  They love to put on Superhero costumes and battle.  

The boys finished the day by grilling out steaks.  It was a wonderful day!  I am a blessed woman!

Ohio part 3

Here's the last of the Ohio pictures.  This is Sunday morning before church.  Kate was not wanting to cooperate with the camera that day.    At least I have a picture that shows we were all together.

Baby girl did pretty well for her first airplane trip.  The flying was a little rough in that she really likes to squirm around.  She is not a sitting sit kind of girl.  Thankfully, Southwest Airlines had a seeming endless supply of pretzels that kept her content.  She slept well at night, but didn't nap too good.  I am thankful she slept well at night.  

Here's S and Uncle Andy.  They had lots of fun together.

Husband was able to plant his mom a tree for an early Mother's Day gift.  She had lost a rather large tree this year, so she needed something in its place. 

Wright Patterson Air Force Museum

One of the highlights of our Ohio trip was visiting the Wright Patterson Air Force Museum.  It was the first time taking the kids.  It was part fun, part field trip.  J had studied World Wars I and II so I thought it would be a great museum for him.  It did not disappoint.

Here are the boys in front of some aircraft.  (Don't tell my husband that I can't identify this craft just by looking at it's nose gear.  I know- I am a failure as an aeronautical engineer's wife.)

I will admit that I enjoyed this museum.  My husband would have stayed there for days.  The kids loved it!

They have every (I mean every) aircraft that has existed for the military since the Wright Flyer.  There were several models with their "skins" off so you could see inside them.

The museum was set up by time periods, so you could get a good grasp on the development of the aircraft over time.

This was an early model of a wind tunnel that the military used.  They showed several wind tunnel models throughout history.

This was the "Bug" used during World War I.  It was the first development of a cruise missile.  

The boys were greatly disappointed that they could not climb into most of the planes.  There were a few things they were allowed to touch.  Here they are in the bomb bay of a World War II bomber.

They also removed two cockpits from fighter jets.  They kids were allowed to climb in these.  These had a blast.  They did this multiple times.

This has to be my first picture of the whole day.  Baby girl started fussing pretty loud.  She decided that she needed in the cockpit too.  She was so excited!

In the third hanger, we are looking at modern rocketry.  These things were huge.  

This room was full of complete or partially complete Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) used during the Cold War.  Their size was impressive and intimidating.

  

The boys thought the display of astronaut food was quite entertaining.  They showed what Mercury astronauts ate and compared it to modern day astronaut food.  It did not look appetizing.

The truly amazing part was that the museum was FREE!  I am sure paid by my tax dollars, but that could have easily cost us $50 at other facilities.  We are sure to visit there again.

Ohio trip

We just returned from a trip to Ohio to visit the Apple family.  We had amazing weather.  It was warm and spring-like most of the time we were there.  

We had no major travel mishaps this time.  Baby girl did ok on the plane.  She wasn't happy being restrained for 5 hrs.  We stuffed a lot of pretzels down her to keep her happy and quiet.  I can't say that I want to fly with a one year old anytime soon.  The boys did great.  I hardly heard a peep out of them the whole flying time.

My allergies were negligible this trip.  I received a depo-medrol shot from my doctor 2 days before we left.  I only had to take flonase and zyrtec.  I had a little trouble at the end of the day with some wheezing, but vastly improved over previous visits.  I am going to do that again next visit.  

Here is Grammie, Daddy, and the kiddos Sunday morning before church.  

The first thing we did was take the boys to the Lego store.  They have been waiting since we told them 3 months ago about the trip.  They had money that was burning a hole in their pockets.  S bought some Hobbit legos.  He did pretty well putting them together.

Baby K received some duplos from Grammie.  She really like those.  

The kind salesperson informed us that a Lego store is opening in SA soon.  The boys are dying to go to the grand opening.  A Lego Master Builder will be on-site building an 8ft tall R2-D2.  It's a little boys' dream!

We got lots of good visiting opportunities with the family.  Cousin Maggie joined us on a trip to the zoo.  We enjoyed hearing about her upcoming mission trip.

It's a very nice zoo.  There were lots of animals out and active that day.  

Every zoo that my children visit, they find animal sculptures to climb on.  Now we can add wart hogs to the collection.  

Outside the African elephant exhibit, there were some drums for everyone to play on.  Grammie is joining in with the boys.

Baby girl spent the day riding in her Moby Wrap.  She loves that thing.  I wish I had found it sooner.  It's been my favorite baby carrier.

Here's my silly monkeys!

The only down side to the day, was the 20+ bus loads of school children on field trips that were present.  It got a little crowded at times.

We had wonderful weather and everyone was sufficiently tired after walking through the zoo.  Aunt Janice was there too, but some how there are no pictures of her.  

More pictures to come of the rest of the trip.