Wiggly Play Center

My mom has been here visiting for a week and had to go home today. :( Since it was her last day here, we decided to do something fun! We went to the Wiggly Play Center. It is located here in Frisco and is the only one in the United States (there is also one in Australia). It was perfect for the kids. We ate lunch in the Yummy Yummy Cafe, the kids rode around in Big Red Cars, jumped on a Wiggles bounce house and slid down slides (all while Wiggles videos played in the background). Since I love the Wiggles, I thought it was great. It was a pretty small place, but that made it even better for young kids (who it is geared at). All 3 of the kids had a great time! Isaac was brave enough to climb up to the highest slide all by himself and slide down for the first time EVER (he has always been too scared to climb up the playgrounds at McDonald's, etc.)! I was so proud of him! Emma also had a great time, except for when she decided to be a drama queen and throw herself on the floor crying because I wouldn't let her steal another kid's shoes from the shoe cubby (she had picked out a cute pair of pink sandals and was trying to take off with them). Noah played the hardest of the three (I don't think he stopped moving the entire time we were there), and was the saddest to go. All in all, it was a really fun couple of hours!

Webkinz

Isaac's new obsession is Webkinz. I first heard about them a couple weeks ago from the girls in my Primary class. They seemed shocked and surprised that I didn't know what they are (I guess I'm really out of touch). When I mentioned them to my mom, she told me that she of course knew what they were (my dad sells them at his pharmacy), and she had been thinking of getting them for Isaac and Noah. So when she got here last Friday, she presented Isaac with his Webkinz beagle (who he named Woofy) and Noah with his Webkinz chihuahua (who he named Pablo). They haven't let go of them since! We registered them right away on the Webkinz website and the boys have been having fun taking care of them online. We've been enjoying "Webkinz World" where the boys can visit their virtual pets, play games to earn "Kinz Cash" to spend in the "W Shop" to buy all kinds of virtual stuff for their pets (rooms, decorations, food, clothes, toys, etc.), and even talk to their pets. Isaac is crazy about it and wants to be on the Webkinz site constantly. Even Noah asks multiple times a day to see Pablo on the computer. It really is a cute thing, but I fear they will drive me crazy with it in the end. Thanks Grandma!! :)

Emma's Portrait

I picked up Emma's one year old portrait yesterday. I didn't get it taken until she was 13 months old, but close enough! I kept putting off having it done because I kept hoping I would be able to convince her that it was alright to keep an accessory in her hair. As it ended up, I had to put the clip back in between every single picture (sometimes 3 or 4 times between shots). Oh well, she wants to be scraggly. She's still the cutest thing ever! I sure love her! It makes me sad how big she's getting, but it's really fun at the same time. :)

Finished!!! (No Spoilers)

David and I went to bed early last night, then woke up a little before 2:00 am, headed over to the 24 hour Walmart and picked up two copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", some caffeinated soda and some candy. We then started reading. After almost 11.5 hours, I'm finished!! I loved it! I laughed, I cried, I couldn't put it down! It was Fabulous! I'm sad that this is the end of the series, but all good things must come to an end. At least books can be read again and again! Big thanks to my mom for watching the kids this morning so David and I could read and read (he's still reading - he had about 60 pages to go when I finished).

It's Waiting for You . . .

We still need a lamp and some accessories for the nightstand, but besides that our guest room is complete! So, come and stay! Helen? Anyone else? "Y'all" are invited anytime you want to visit good ol' Texas. C'mon, I know you want to . . .

Mud

What is it about boys and mud? Isaac and Noah gravitate to the small patch of mud in the backyard. They love to dig, throw dirt all over each other and make a HUGE mess. I guess boys will be boys!

Where I wish I was right now . . .

The 5th Harry Potter movie came out today, and I wish I was watching it right now! This is the first time I haven't been able to see a Harry Potter movie the day it was released. How depressing! I bought tickets for David and I to go see it tonight at 7:30, but then I found out that Wednesday night is Young Women's, so all the potential babysitters are at the activity. I tried to get a non-member babysitter, but that didn't work out either. So, unfortunately, I had to go back to the theater and exchange the tickets for tomorrow night. If I had been able to get a babysitter, I would be sitting in the theater right now watching previews, only minutes or seconds away from the movie starting. Instead, I'm sitting at my computer thinking about how much I'm missing. Isn't it sad? I wonder if I'll survive . . .

Lightsabers

Isaac and Noah love to play with their lightsabers. They have at least 10 of them in different colors and varieties: blue, green, red, purple, regular plastic (like they are using in the pictures), lights and sounds, automatic pop-up, pool noodles cut in half (their favorite because they can really bop each other without getting hurt . . . most of the time). Isaac keeps asking me why I haven't posted any pictures of him and Noah playing lightsabers on the blog, so here they are! He also really wants me to scrapbook some lightsaber pages, but that takes a little more effort. :)

4th of July

Happy 4th of July! We had an eventful day. Some of the events of the day were fun. Others... not so much. We woke up and got ready early to head off to a Ward breakfast at the park. Before we left for breakfast I attempted a photo shoot with the kids. Pretty impossible to get 3 kids to look at the camera at the same time and smile, but at least Emma kept her hair clip in. :) The breakfast was great - good food, fun playground for the kids. We had a good time.


Then we rushed home to pick up the kids' bikes and head to our neighborhood Independence Day Parade. Kids from the neighborhood decorated their bikes, scooters, wagons, etc. and we all paraded through the neighborhood. On the way to the parade, Isaac was so excited and kept saying, "I can't believe I'm going to be in a real parade!" It was really cute. There was supposed to be a fire truck leading the parade, but they weren't able to make it. I don't think the kids minded, though. Some of the neighbors that weren't participating in the parade sat on lawn chairs in their front yards, waving flags, and waving at the kids as we went past. Then at the end of the parade route (the pool and park area) they had popsicles for the kids and prizes for the best decorated bike, trike, scooter, wagon, stroller, etc. It was good fun.

Then after a few hours relaxing at home, some water play in the backyard and a much needed nap for Emma, we headed to the Frisco Freedom fest. It was held in the town square and consisted of games, jump houses, face painting, clowns, food and fun. We had a pretty good time, but it was SO hot, the lines were long and Emma was really sick of sitting in her stroller.

We took a shuttle bus from a nearby High School to get to the Freedom fest (the info online said there wouldn't be enough parking). As it turns out there was plenty of parking available (maybe because we got there right after it started). I figured, "oh well, at least the kids got to ride on a school bus and they thought that was fun". When we got off the bus, David asked if we get back on at the same place she dropped us off, and the bus driver said, "yes". Apparently she dropped us off at the wrong place, because when we were trying to leave there were no buses coming or going anywhere near where we got dropped off. We could see buses going back and forth in the distance, but we couldn't figure out where they were going. It's hard to explain when you haven't been there, but the area we're talking about is pretty big. There's a huge soccer stadium, the entire town center, big parking lots and a busy street dividing it all. We stood there in the HOT sun for about 20 minutes, hoping the bus would come pick us up, then walked back towards where the festivities were taking place. We asked a police officer directing traffic where we were supposed to get picked up. He didn't know, but told us it was probably where we got dropped off. By this time the kids were melting down, Isaac was freaking out that we would never be able to get home and David and I were exhausted. So I decided to call on dear Amy to help us out. She was at the pool, but kindly came and picked us up and took us back to our car. THANKS AMY! When we got back to the car, sure enough, the buses were coming and going. I guess they were dropping off and picking up in a different location. But who knows how long it would have taken us to find it! The whole thing was quite a fiasco!!

After all that, we ate dinner and put 3 very tired kids to bed. We were hoping we would be able to see the fireworks from our house, but another house blocked our view. I found that if we walk down the street a little bit, we get a pretty good view, though. Maybe next year we'll skip the hot Freedom fest and let the kids stay up to watch the fireworks from down the street. Then again, maybe not...