Summer Leap List

I thought it would be fun to make a list (thanks to pinterest) of some of the fun things I want to do this summer with Anna-Kate and Thomas! I'm going to do a follow-up post at the end of the summer too! 

1. Have a backyard movie night

2. Go to nearby water park for the kids

3. Have weekly play dates (12)

4. Have mother/ daughter and daddy/ son "date"

5. Have mother/ son and daddy/ daughter "date"

6. Have a water fight

7. Set up a sprinkler like this or this

8. Do our own photo shoot

9. Make bubble snakes (source)

10. Eat snow cones... lots and lots of snow cones

11. Make a bouncey ball (source)

12. Do at least one service project a month (3)

13. Fingerpaint

14. Make a pillow fort

15. Make homemade popsicles

16. Play in the rain

17. See a movie

18. Cookout

19. Have a game night

20. Make smores

21. Make ice cream

22. Play with sidewalk chalk

23. Visit the library

24. Make homemade pizza

25. Built a crazy tall tower

26. Play dress up

27. Build a sandcastle

28. Go to the farmers market

29. Play hopscotch

30. Let kids "make" dinner

31. Assign daily chores

32. Make lemonade

33. Wash the van together

34. Picnic at the park

35. Water balloon toss

36. Make fruity drinks

37. Make an obstacle course

38. Pajama Day

39. Bathtub Painting (source)

40. Muffin tin lunch

41. Take a bath in the dark with glow sticks

42. Have a slumber party with a guest or two

43. Read as many books as we can

44. Write a letter to someone special

45. Have a backwards day: dinner for breakfast, breakfast for dinner and dessert before lunch

46. Family baseball or kickball game

47. Have a full on tea party with Anna-Kate and her dolls and stuffed animals

48. Make marshmallow poppers

49. Bubble art (source)

50. Write a letter to a Disney character (source)

51. Have a dance party

52. Balloon Vollyeball

53. Play freeze frame (source)

54. Make flubber (source)

55. Play animal charades

56. Blow up a balloon with baking soda and vinegar (source)

57. Paint with water colors

58. Have an indoor picnic

59. Make silly maker faces on a mirror

60. Sort change 

61. Street paint with a splat (source)

62. Do a letter matching game

63. Sharpie tie dye (source)

64. Make rainbow volcanos (source)

65. Make our own movies

66. Microwave ivory soap (source)

67. Play barbies

68. Color changing milk experiment (source)

69. Bake cookies

70. Apple stamp painting

71. Campout in the living room 

72. Indoor bowling (stuff socks in toilet paper rolls for the pins)

73. Play doctor's office

74. Make fizzy sidewalk paint (source)

75. Make giant bubbles (source)

76. Decorate for 4th of July together

77. Go swimming

78. Eat strawberry shortcake from our favorite place

79. Make peanut butter playdough

80. Go on a scavenger hunt

81. Go dollar store shopping 

82. Celebrate a crazy holiday (source)

83. Paint our nails

84. Play lava/ pillow game (only step on the pillows)

85. Paint rocks

86. Make a masking tape town (source)

87. Paint by number

88. Make ice cream in a ziploc baggie

89. Go to the beach

90. Go to the lake

91. Go to jump zone

92. Make homemade puffy paint 

93. Play contraption clean up game (source)

94. Make cloud dough (source)

95. Make shrinky dinks (source)

96. Go to the zoo

97. Decorate a window with window clings

98. Have a summer kick off party

99. Have an end of the summer party

100. Go on a special back to school shopping "spree"

I'm so excited about starting this list! 

What are you planning this summer?

Spring Round Up

Since I'm just really not making too much of a comeback like I hoped, I think it's time I round up a few of our favorite moments from the past couple of months! 

We have loved going to story time at the library! We got to go with our friends Shelby and Riley one day and they all loved it so much! 

Thomas has found new ways of making it through our shopping trips! haha

Playing while we got the oil changed one morning

My Sonic girl loves her cherry slushes, just like Momma! 

Sweet boy 

Anna-Kate is getting so good at writing! She still does a few letters backwards and upside down... which is why it reads "I love dappy" :)  

I've been trying to decide what to do with this grapevine wreath from my sister. I finally found some flowers for it. I'd just like to add our house number or initial before I call it complete! 

Big girl had her teeth cleaned and got a great report from the dentist! 

Here's a little Easter sneak peek! 

This has to be my favorite picture from Easter! Go on and make it larger so you can enjoy it a little more! :) 

This one came in a close second... Thomas was the ONLY boy in his class Easter Sunday! Poor thing was surrounded by ELEVEN girls! I think his face says it all...

One of our fun school projects! 

Anna-Kate's letter person! :) Super cute! 

We got to join her for an ice cream party last week! 

We have just had such a great spring! I can't believe that Thomas and I are done with "school" next Thursday and Anna-Kate only has 3 more weeks of school! 

Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful spring! Happy Friday y'all! 

Saint Louis- MEGA Picture Post!

Better late than never, right?? :) I'm going to keep my comments down to a minimum because I've got some many pictures! Sorry if it's too much, but this post is for my memories and my Grandma. :) (Love you!)

We headed to Saint Louis to pick Derek up on Friday morning. We made sure to stop in Sikeston, MO at Lamberts, so the girls could catch a roll or two!

Best friends! I can't believe that Kristen will be 5 in two weeks... which means Anna-Kate is 5 in just 4 months! 

The girls were begging to see the arch. Once we drove by it and got settled into our hotel room we had planned to walk to it, but they informed us they had seen enough of the arch and wanted to swim! I would have posted pictures but Thomas was TERRIFIED of the water and I had no hands! :) 

We went to bed early that night but at 2:00 I heard the scariest sound and realized it was the alarm! It kept saying, "This is an emergency. Please exit to the nearest stairway and come down to the lobby." I'm not the most rational person at 2 AM, so you can imagine the thoughts going through my head while carrying a 2 year old down 7 flights of stairs! 

It turns out someone pulled the fire alarm but everything was okay. We all got back to the room, but it took everyone a long time to fall back asleep. 

Sweet boy was ready for the Zoo! 

And this was the face Anna-Kate decided to give me... apparently it's her goal not to smile in pictures 

I have the 2 AM fire alarm to thank for the puffy eyes! Thomas is joining in on the silly picture posing! 

Thomas kept begging to see the "bish in the waa waa".  The fish turned out to just be coins, but Anna-Kate got that when she yelled "DADDY!! There's money in the pond!" haha

After breakfast, we checked out and headed to the Arch! The girls and Thomas were a bit cranky from the lack of sleep... so we didn't stay too long! 

Big helper taking our luggage down

We lost our arch enthusiasm

Finally a picture with Derek! :) 

We had SO much fun at the Zoo!! 

We learned that Thomas is terrified of butterflies. I'm pretty sure he was traumatized after we went into the butterfly dome. Derek said he acted shell shocked like a war vet. Poor thing! We've been home for about 2 weeks and it's still bad! He's afraid of every flying bug he sees. :( 

We had so much fun at the zoo, we lost track of time and didn't get to see the last exhibits! We were a little disappointed, but worn out! 

We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then headed home! 

Watching the fish... 

He loved the children's area

Watching the otter's eat! 

Anna-Kate had to ask the groundhog when spring was coming! 

We liked the goats from a distance... 

She loves animals

Already worn out at lunch but ready to see the Zebras! 

Excited for our train ride! 

Haha... I love this face of Thomas! 

Ryne being a typical teenager... 

Thomas loved the tiger! 

Carousel ride! 

Watching the giraffes! 

Yay! We finally found the Zebras! 

We had such a great time! I'm so glad we got to squeeze a little family time! 

Our Week

Anna-Kate's spring break has been this week, so we've been having lots of fun at home! 

Friday afternoon, we kicked things off by playing outside! Anna-Kate keeps calling tic-tac-toe "hopscotch", so I had to show her what hopscotch actually was. She and Thomas had lots of fun with that.

Derek had to work on Saturday, so I took Anna-Kate and Thomas with me to Sams. Thomas was a little grumpy, but other than that we had a really great little trip! (For those of you that don't know, we live in a small town so we have to drive about 35-40 minutes to get to Sams!) At the check out, "someone" dropped the yogurt on the floor! Sadly, I can't blame that on anyone... it was me! I felt so bad! I can be pretty clumsy! 

We also decided that Saturday was going to be Anna-Kate's first day blankie free! I want to go into more detail on that later, but I will say that the first few days were ROUGH! :) Poor girl! 

I might have gotten a weird look for taking a picture of this, but when you have two little ones and something gets dropped and it's NOT one of them, it's a pretty big deal! ;)

I spent Monday morning cleaning and getting things done around the house, but at lunch my ear was throbbing. I wound up spending a most of the day resting, trying not to make any noise so that my ear would quit hurting. I did have time to make some yummy spaghetti sauce (simmered all day). I love making meals when I can save some of it for another time! In this case, I have enough extra sauce for lasagna and another batch of spaghetti! I whipped up some cheesy garlic biscuits (Red Lobster copy-cat recipe) to go with our meal. It was great. As I was cleaning up I realized I was late to a big consignment pre-sale! I rushed over there and was shocked to see how busy it was!! I was late and there was still a huge line just to get in. Oh and the parking was crazy! The lines were crazy, so I just piddled around and took my time looking. I think some people were in line for at least an hour and a half! Crazy! I found a few really great pieces. Including a blue oxford shirt for Thomas that matches one of Derek's (Derek just LOVES matching outfits...ha ha). 

Tuesday, I tried out making some smoothies for the first time! I feel kind of embarassed about that but I just don't like the "grit" from the berries... and I can't stand chunks of fruit. I felt like it was important to stick it out so that the kids can have a healthy snack to enjoy. I think they thought it was kind of different, but I know they'll adjust to them. Thomas liked it the best. Anna-Kate's comment was "It's kind of getting on my nerves" talking about the texture from the berries. :)

Wednesday was another first for us, we went to the library for Story time!! A friend of mine mentioned that they went, so we met them at a nearby park and then went to hear the story! I loved it so much and Anna-Kate has asked about it every day. I think we will be back soon!

Story time was just what we needed to take our mind off the fact that Derek was gone to Saint Louis for business! I can't stand when he's away, but this trip is a little easier because we are meeting him in Saint Louis for a little vacation! (very little, but fun!)

The signature pose these days... 

It rained all day today, so I knew this morning was my only chance to run to the store. Do you ever feel like you're always out of something? Story of my life... haha. 

We just needed a few things, so we ventured down the Easter aisle! I love spring things! :) 

I still had a lot to do before we leave town, so I was pretty much in a cleaning/ cooking frenzy all day! Anna-Kate skipped her name so that she could help me make brownies and snicker doodle bread (thank you pinterest!!). She enjoyed it but right before dinner Thomas came in the kitchen saying something about her and when I checked on her she had fallen asleep! 

She was sitting up in the chair, but Thomas couldn't stand her being asleep so he tried everything to wake her up. Yelling "KATE KATE", hitting her leg... you name it. Eventually he settled for a good old gut punch, which was just enough to get a grumble out of her and a shift in position! ha poor girl! 

Notice, she's sleeping without any blanket! :) We have had the best blankie-free day today!

We had yummy chicken and dumplings for dinner and tried out the snicker doodle bread- yummy!! 

I've got every thing packed except what we need in the morning! We are leaving and picking up Derek's parents and brother and sister and then hitting the road! We are just staying one night, but I know we're going to have a blast! Anna-Kate is so excited about the Zoo on Saturday! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!