Great Wolf Lodge

We are spending this weekend with Nana and Boppa at the Great Wolf Lodge. When we came last year, Lucas was just a few months old so he didn’t get to do much. This year he is enjoying everything a little bit more.

It takes him a few minutes to get used to the cold water. (This little guy does not like cold at all and the pool is a little cooler than bath water!) Here is how he starts out each visit to the pool.

Isaac on the other hand, jumps right in and thinks everyone should be wet right away!

Boppa teaching Lucas how to get the water to shoot farther.

I’m not sure what he’s thinking here, but he sure is cute.

Isaac the fish. He loves being under the water!

Lucas and Daddy…

Isaac refuses to close his eyes underwater. Every evening he cries for 30 minutes about how bad his eyes hurt. (Last year he almost convinced me that there was something really wrong with him!) We got him these goggles to help keep the water out of his eyes. He loves being able to see under the water!!

We took a break from pool time to play in the arcade.

A little bit of arcade March Madness.

Big Guy…

Little Guy…

And this is what happens when big guys have too much fun...

They fall asleep eating their ring pops!

We’re checking out tomorrow, so we have one more day of fun and swimming at the Lodge. These boys are having a great time and should sleep for a week once we get home!!

Lunch Buddies

We are loving the spring weather!!

Monkey Business

This past weekend, we were in Fayetteville to celebrate Gage’s 4th birthday. Nothing says “I’m 4” like a trip to Monkey Joe’s! Isaac had a great time running and playing on all the bounce houses. Lucas, well, he wasn’t so sure about it  but really enjoyed the birthday cake!!

The birthday boy!

Isaac on the big slide…

Lucas and Daddy hanging out in one of the bounce houses.

A visit from Monkey Joe himself!

Some brotherly love…(Isaac was telling Lucas not to be scared of Monkey Joe!)

Needless to say, these two were exhausted after a couple hours of play time in the bounce houses.

Happy Birthday Gage! I still can’t believe you boys are already turning 4!!!

Astronauts

To finish out our week about outer space, the boys learned all about astronauts. We made space helmets out of milk jugs and foil and air packs out of juice bottles. Then we loaded into our imaginary space ship and headed off to Mars (Isaac’s favorite planet).

Aren’t these the cutest astronauts you’ve ever seen?

I’m pretty sure Lucas saw aliens on our approach to Mars. All I know is if my pilot makes a face like this, I want out!!

They had so much fun playing and learning about outer space. Now the hard part for me, figuring out how to make something else as much fun as these activities turned out to be. Nothing like setting the bar a little too high!!

Stinky Shoe

Lucas took the liberty of putting one of his brand new light up shoes away on Monday afternoon sometime. We have been looking for it every since. Tonight while Brian was giving the kids a bath, I walked through and told him “It’s gone, I’ve looked for three whole days now. There is no place I haven’t looked…” And as that last blurb left my lips one place became very clear to me…the one place I didn’t want to go…the only place I hadn’t yet looked…the diaper champ!

Deep breath, open the top, start to dig, and yes, this was at the very bottom…

And this was the total of today’s “loot” mixed in with a weeks worth of dirty diapers.

I’m starting to wonder how much of the other stuff we are missing pieces to, or missing all together got added to the diaper champ by our newest little garbage man and is snuggled up in a filth bag in county dump!

Outta This World

Last week, Isaac got a “learning” book at the library about planets. We have been reading through it and talking all about our solar system. I am very excited that he is totally into it and asks to learn more every day. Last night, I sat down and looked through the Pinterest site for a cool way to make a solar system model with a toddler. I’ll be honest, Pinterest let me down! (*gasp*) But then I do tend to take everything a little further than most people would. There was one pin that showed a kid with different color and size balloons to learn the differences between the planets. Take that, add a little bit of Rachelcrazy and you get this…

That’s right, today we turned the porch ceiling fan into our solar system. Complete with lessons on how the planets revolve and rotate! Isaac and I spent almost 2 hours creating our masterpiece. Isaac picked out the balloons using his library book as a guide, cut the strings to hang them from, carefully read the spelling of each planet to me out of the book so I could write it on the balloon, put key information on some “planets” (i.e. – rings, iron, red spot, etc) , and climbed up the ladder to help me hang and tape them each in place!  He did such a GREAT job, and he is so proud of his masterpiece!

Once we finished, we sat back on the couch and watched the breeze blow our solar system into motion. Isaac said, “But Mommy where’s krypton?” For those of you who do not know, Isaac is following in his father’s footsteps and thinks Superman is the greatest thing on earth. So being that I now have two Superman freaks in my house, I answered “Don’t you remember honey, Krypton blew up or in this case popped a long time ago so that Superman could come to Earth and help people.” Isaac followed up with “Oh that’s right and he crashed into that field, but do you think we could make Krypton anyway?” Now how can you say no to that??? So Krypton was added to the outskirts of our solar system…

Isaac informed me that Krypton was the biggest before it popped so it’s the giant green balloon hanging back in the corner of the porch. He also informed me that he would be popping Krypton once Daddy got home to see it! I think it was his secret motive all along. He knew Mommy wasn’t going to go for popping all the planets so soon!!

This turned into my favorite stay at home mom project so far. Isaac learned a lot from it and that couldn’t make me happier. But add to that 2 hours of quality time with just me and my little man outside enjoying a gorgeous 70 degree winter day, well that just made it that much more special.