Fun at the Gymnastics Center

We had playgroup this week at a real gymnasium with all the trampolines, pits, and all sorts of equipment. All of the kids had so much fun! I got a picture of pretty much everything the kids played...so here we go! Here Elizabeth is on the rope swing...so much fun! (I even tried it!)
Walking the beam. I really liked this beam because it's hardly sticking out of the ground, the soft mats are right on the side so they couldn't really fall.

Swinging on the bars,

and getting tugged on the, hmmm, I forget what it's called but it was fun:) We could get the kids spinning fast!

Look how long the tramp is! The kids could get a lot of speed on that thing!

The pit was everyones favorite. It's the first time my kids had been in anything like it. They loved just falling all over in it!

We had a great time...we can't wait to do it again!

Patience is a Virtue

Elizabeth had a good lesson in patience today. After baths we had a little while until bed so we decided to play Candyland. Everyone, including Ben, wanted to play. Poor Elizabeth had to be so patient...she didn't even get mad when her brother was playing with her game piece! Ben actually did better than I thought he would, he mostly liked to play with his cards he got.


Whoo...what a smile :)

We had a fun game night!

Ruldolf the Red Nose Reindeer

Elizabeth and I had a great time on Friday going to Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer at the Children's Theatre. We went with a big group of neighbors and friends. There were no pictures during the actual show so we took a few while waiting for the show to start.

It was fun going to a live play with Elizabeth. This was the first live show (besides Elmo Live) that we have gone to and it was interesting seeing it through Elizabeth's eyes. She first of all didn't understand why all of the people were dressed like reindeer and wanted to know when they were taking their costumes off. I had to explain that they were pretending to really be reindeer and they would keep the costumes on the whole show.

Elizabeth and her friend, Elliott. Anabel and Baylee are in the background.

The show was a little different than the real story. There was a "scary"doctor in this play, according to Elizabeth, and she was ready to leave when he came out. He did have a gigantic shot, which was a little disturbing. All in all I think she enjoyed her first play. It was fun for just the 2 of us to go enjoy something together. (Grandma B was nice enough to babysit Cooper and Ben for me!)

Enjoying the Zoo

We have gone to the zoo almost every week because of Elizabeth's school - and we never really ventured to the end of the zoo. We were always so tired by then! Today we made it to the end of the zoo and found some really fun places for the kids. Here the kids are in the "barn".
Ben is riding the carousel. It had been a long time since either of the kids had been on one, and they loved it!

Elizabeth kept telling me "Look, I'm taller than you!" She thought that was very cool. We were the only ones there so the man gave us an extra long ride :)

Checking out the flamingos. It was fun for the 3 of us to hang out and enjoy ourselves at the zoo. I think they both had a really good time, I know I did!

Playgroup at the Bounce House

We had a great playgroup at a bounce place near our house. It's full of tons of bounce houses, slides, and obstacle courses that both of the kids love. Elizabeth can do all of the obstacle courses by herself! Yeah! So I don't have to crawl through and push her up all the tall ladders...of course Ben is another story :) He actually could make it up a really tall ladder on the slide, and he would slide right down all on his own. I followed him the first few times but he kept getting up to the top and sliding down without me, so I ended up just standing at the bottom, hoping he was being careful! He was - and he LOVED it! What a big boy :)

Ben was loving watching his sister slide down the slides.

You can do it, Ben!

Elizabeth - the Dancer!

This was a very special day for Elizabeth. It was her first official dance recital. Here she is doing her ballet routine. It was so cute seeing all these 3 and 4 year olds doing an actual routine together! They were so proud of themselves for doing their routine in front of their families. Now she is doing her tap routine to "Shout". We even practiced these at home ! Serious business here :) She actually just wanted to show her daddy all of her dances because he had to be out of town on her recital day. Tom's dad also video taped the dance for us too (thanks John!) so she's very excited to show him the finished product.

The end! Here she is doing the beam. This is where she gets the most nervous. She won't let the teacher let go of her on the beam.

She really likes the bars. She even goes to the top one!

Here are all of Elizabeth's cheering section. From the left, my mom and Cooper, Elizabeth, Janet (Tom's sister) and Zach (Victoria's little boy), me and Ben, Grandma and Grandpa H, and Josh. Elizabeth loved that so many people came to watch her. She's so lucky to have such a wonderful family who loves her so much.


What a cutie!

Elizabeth and her good friend Elliott. Great dancing girls!

On our way to school...

I took a second to snap our full car on the way to zoo school. Elizabeth is all ready for school - and she's so excited to learn about the long nose bat!
Cooper in the way back of the van.

Ben, say "cheese!"


Have a good day at school, Elizabeth!

Carnival

Elizabeth's cousin, Drew, had a carnival that he invited her to go to at his school. (Ben was home sleeping! He missed a lot of fun!) They had tons of games, food, and fun for the kids. Here Elizabeth is throwing a ring on the cactus.
Look at this giant blow up horse! The kids had a great time riding it.

The entrance to the carnival. Our little Texans!

Josh, Drew, and Elizabeth playing with moon sand.

She really enjoyed herself at the carnival. Thanks for inviting us, Drew!

Lazy Day

We're used to being pretty busy, going places etc... but today it was a pretty lazy day. We did have Elizabeth's dance class today, but other than that we just hung out! It was actually pretty fun just to play all day.

The boys were helping me with the laundry. At one point Ben was almost all the way in the dryer. I was torn between grabbing my camera and getting him out. Getting him out won (Cooper was also trying to shut the door on him so I thought it would be safer to get him out :)

Elizabeth wore this to dance today. The funny thing is I wore this same dance outfit when I was 4 at a dance recital. My mom saved it all these years so when Elizabeth saw it she really wanted to wear it. She looked so cute if I do say so myself!

Busy, Fun, Halloween Day

We had a very busy, fun, Halloween day. For some reason my pictures are not downloading in the same order I put them in, so this may be a little confusing. Before lunch we headed to Grandma B's house to trick-or-treat. Cooper is an elephant, Elizabeth is Fancy Nancy, and Ben is a monkey. Their first candy of the day.
In the morning before Grandma's Elizabeth and her friend Elliott took a pottery class where they painted some pottery, read a book, and had a snack.

Elizabeth enjoying her chocolate sucker from Grandma.


The half-naked boys enjoying their suckers. We had to undress them so they wouldn't drip chocolate all over themselves!

Here is the finished bowl. She painted the whole thing yellow and the teachers are turning the handprint into a turkey. The outside of the bowl has some red and green dots. We pick it up at the end of the week. I love handprint art!!

Here are Elizabeth, Josh, Ben, and Drew all ready to trick-or-treat. We all went together around our neighborhood.

Ahh! It's really bothering me how out of order these are!! Here are the kids enjoying their special Halloween dinner before trick-or-treating. Elizabeth and I planned the menu (it's pretty much the same one from when Jessica and I were kids and had our special meal with our family). We had grilled cheese sandwiches cut into pumpkins and bats, cheetos (we got the natural ones which weren't quite as good as regular 'cause they aren't neon orange, but still tasted great), orange jello with whipped cream on top, and pumpkin pie. I have never made pumpkin pie in my life but Elizabeth really wanted some so I thought I'd try it. She ate one bite and said, no thank you. Ben didn't want any either - and of course neither did Tom. So I made this entire pie that no one would eat! Oh well! Now I know for next year. It was a lot of fun to continue my families traditions into my kids memories - and make it a part of their tradition.

Another picture before trick-or-treating.

And another of the cute kids.

Elizabeth enjoying her Halloween dinner. We had a great Halloween!