Surprise!

Carli and I had a really rough day or two. One particular morning she asked for cereal for breakfast then when she came to the table broke down in tears because she really wanted pancakes! Oiy. She finally ate breakfast, and after she was dressed and ready for school, I sat her in my lap and gave her a hug, then told her I loved her. She burst into tears. Bless her heart, she's my overly emotional one!

Later that day, this beautiful bouquet showed up at the house. Thanks Keith, what a wonderful surprise to brighten my day!

 

Carli's Great Wolf Adventure - Day 3

Day three started at 3:30 am for me when Drew woke up to eat.  Thankfully he went back to sleep easily but since I was up I thought I would check on the girls...this is what I found.  Carli was sideways in the bed using Ava as a pillow and Ava was upside down clinging to the side of the bed.  (My flash woke them up.)  I got them turned the right way, on their respective sides of the bed and we all went back to sleep for another 3 hrs.  :)

We did our school work first thing so we wouldn't have to worry with it when we got home and again, the girls woke up too early and the water park was not open!  It was a team effort with our school work on this morning.  I handled math, Grammy gave a spelling test and Pa went over sight word books. 

After a yummy breakfast of Naggy's cinnamon rolls and school work, we got to the water park right at opening time! Drew had just woken up from his morning nap, so I nursed him while the girls, Grammy, Pa and Keith went off to play.

We only had one hour to play as we had to check out by 11.  Our plan was to play from 9 to 10 so we would have an hour to pack up and get out of our room.  We made the most of our hour!  The girls rode the slides at least 8 times...that's a lot of stairs.  Thankfully, us adults were able to split the stair climbing amongst ourselves!  (You can see the stairs in the picture above, right behind Drew and I.)

Grammy and Ava enjoyed themselves in the lazy river for a bit, while Keith and Carli played basketball in another pool.  Pa was enjoying the hot tub!  :)

 

When 10 o'clock rolled around we gave the girls the choice of one more slide and they opted for the "big family" slide.  It is so fun to go on this ride because we could watch the girls faces.  Ava looks absolutely petrified the whole time and as soon as it is over jumps up and declares we need to go again!  Carli's eyes get as big as saucers and as soon as the ride is over admits it was fun and she was glad she didn't go backwards!

 

Ava managed to squeeze in a few more small slides before we were able to get her to dry off and out the door.  You talk about pure joy, this kid had a blast!

Sibling picture before we headed out!

We all had a great time celebrating Carli's birthday a little early!  We were worn out by the time it was time to pack up and go home!  The smiles, laughter and shouts of pure joy were totally worth the sore calves, tired feet and lack of sleep!

We were so blessed that Grammy and Pa got to come with us.  It is so much fun to watch them interact with the kids.  The memories made are simply priceless.  They helped with all three kids and simply made the whole trip so much more fun.  Love this whole crew so much!

Great fun and memories - this was so much better than a birthday party!  :)  As we were heading out, Ava requested one last picture...she's such a ham!

 

Lunch at Rosa's and a 2 hr drive home...not a bad way to end a great three day adventure!



Carli's Great Wolf Lodge Adventure - Day 2

We all slept really good Sunday night!  Drew slept for 7 hrs!  He's a champ.  We woke up to come out in the living area and find the girls watching Disney waiting patiently for us lazy adults to get a move on!  We enjoyed some of Naggy's cinnamon rolls for breakfast and since it was only 7:30 am and the water park did not open until 9 am, we knocked out some of our school work.

I kept telling Carli that Monday was not her Happy Birthday, it was her Happy Due Date!  She kept us waiting another 10 days before making her grand entrance!  :)

 

Nine o'clock couldn't come soon enough for the girls!  We headed down as soon as we could and went on slide after slide after slide.  Drew took an awesome nap! Grammy has that special touch!

 The girls would have kept sliding, but that's an awful lot of stairs to climb and it was getting close to lunch time.  So we convinced them to take a break with a promise of more water fun after we had lunch.  We got cleaned up and headed out to the Rainforest Café where the girls found some Tigers and insisted on taking a picture since they were Troup Tigers.  :)

 

After a really good lunch, we walked the full circle of the Grapevine Mills Mall in search of the Disney store.  It turns out we went the wrong direction and made a full 3/4 of the way back around before we found it.  Needless to say we got our exercise in!  The girls had some gift cards that Amber had sent them for their birthday's and Christmas.  They had a lot of fun spending their "credit cards" and got some fun stuff!

 

After a short rest, we ventured out to get some ice cream.  Since Carli was the birthday girl, she got to get a free ice cream.  The rest of us used one of our $20 credits to indulge.  Then we were off to spend our Paw Pass credits at the Arcade.  Carli was reluctant at first b/c she would have preferred to have gotten to buy something or do a craft but she finally got into the whole game playing, and so did Keith!  I think Pa had just as much fun watching the girls play as they had playing!

 Carli really got into the playing and winning tickets!  Her facial expressions were cracking me up.  First she was disappointed that the ball didn't fall where she thought it should and then when she went to collect her tickets, the look on her face when the tickets just kept coming when she was pulling them.  So funny!

Ava was very intense and intent on collecting her tickets and folding them up nice and neat.  She worked very hard at getting them just so!

But when she hit the jackpot on one of the games and got 200 tickets at once, she let Keith and I fold them for her!  Ha!

In total the girls got about 950 tickets and each got some kind of ball.  They were happy and that's what matters!  We ended Monday at the waterpark.  Grammy & Pa watched Drew and Keith and I took the girls.  We went up the stairs to slide at least seven times...my calves were on fire!  Carli and Ava were all grins.  It was totally worth it!  After dinner in the room and showers, we all collapsed into bed.  It was a full day of fun!

Carli's Great Wolf Lodge Adventure - Day 1

I am not good a doing parties.  Honestly, they stress me out and I don't enjoy them.  My girls do.  Carli turns seven on October 1st but started talking about her birthday and her party way back in July.  We talked about what we could do and what we couldn't do and finally I gave her a choice.  We could go do something fun as a family or she could have a party.  She choose to do something fun as a family and we opted for a return trip to the Great Wolf Lodge.  So, we booked our trip, talked to our school teachers, invited Grammy & Pa and packed our bags.

We left Sunday morning.  We went to Shiloh for Sunday service b/c their service is early and we could get to Dallas in time for lunch with Uncle Danny, Grammy and Pa.  A nice benefit was getting to see a lot of folks we had missed seeing over the last few months.  We were pretty bummed that Ms. Patty wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it to church.  The girls sent her a "We Love You" message, but it just wasn't the same.

Drew did amazing on our drive.  He fussed a bit but not too bad.  We got to Carrollton and beat the Sunday rush at Babe's.  The girls thoroughly enjoyed getting to see Uncle Danny.  Ava  is still convinced he lives at the beach and was very impressed that he "drove" all that long way just to eat lunch with us!  :)

 

 

We broke the news to Pa that we were hitting up Ikea before we went to the hotel.  One, because Grammy really wanted to go and two because we had time to kill.  We didn't even go upstairs to the show room and just walked the marketplace.  The girls and Pa complimented each other nicely and had a blast!  :)

We got to the Great Wolf Lodge right at check in time and still had to wait for our room.  The girls told Pa and Grammy all about the big dumper and how they were going to be brave and ride the slides this time.  Drew was unimpressed and took a nap!

They gave us all wolf ears at check-in and Carli got special birthday ears!

 We didn't have to wait terribly long for our room.  Once we were able to get in, the girls were pumped to get to the water park.  Grammy was great and took the first shift of watching Drew for us.  The girls were true to their word and headed for the big slides right off.  The small pool area and wave pool where we spent most of our time the last two trips were a distant memory!  The slides were a hit!  After awhile, I went to relieve Grammy as it was apparent that Drew was done napping.  While Grammy and Pa took the girls on the slides, Keith and I introduced Drew to the water...he was not impressed!

I am not sure how many times we climbed the stairs to go down the slides, but as Keith put it the girls gleeful giggles and screams while riding the tubes down the slides make the trip totally worth it!

The lily pads are a favorite.  I'm not sure what the appeal is, but the girls did them at least three times.

After a couple of hours we were all wiped out and hungry.  We came back to our room for dinner and to get ready for bed.  Drew practiced his howling abilities since he got a new pair of wolf ears.  :)



 We bought the birthday package and it came with a door poster and birthday cake.  After dinner we sang to Carli and enjoyed her cake.  She was pretty excited!

Cake eaten and kids worn out, we were all in bed before 9!  Time to rest up for a full day of waterpark fun and adventure tomorrow!

Spoiled by Naggy

We've said it many, many times that we are blessed.  Last week was no exception.  Every September I have a shareholder meeting and it takes up two full days and every year we call Naggy to see if she can come help with the kiddos.  This year was no exception.

Naggy came, she spoiled, she loved and she spoiled a little more - she did her job well!  :)  Keith enjoyed getting to visit with her in the evenings and she even got to stay around a day after all my meetings were over and showed me the fine art of cinnamon roll making. 

The girls absolutely LOVED having Naggy here for a few days, and sure missed Pappy.  Drew did really well for the first time of going over 8 hrs two days in a row taking bottles.  He even took long naps for Naggy!  We are beyond blessed to be able to have Naggy come and help us out!