Maria Was Here...

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. Seems like we've been so busy with kids, work, school, traveling back home, and oh yeah, basically having someone sick for the past month and a half or better. It seems as if I've hardly had time to do any posting. Well, that's going to change a bit tonight.

Just last week, Feb 7th weekend, we were graced by the presence of little Miss Maria. It was part of our Christmas gift to Ryan and Mikhael. We volunteered to have Maria come to Des Moines for a weekend of fun while Ryan and Mikheal got a final weekend to themselves before baby #2 gets here.


Maria arrived on Thursday afternoon, Mikhael brought her over and stayed for supper. That night we played a little bit and took a bath. This picture is of the kids all getting their teeth brushed and getting rid of those sugar bugs. Maria's little hair doo in the tub reminds me of Poindexter from the old 80's Saturday Night Lives.

After a great night's sleep, the kids all woke up at a decent time. It was a good thing they all slept well because we had a big day planned for them. First item on the agenda after breakfast was to run down to the Science Center. Brayton and Lauren just love the Science Center downtown and we soon found out Maria did too. They got to touch snakes:

Make bubbles:

We also got to build with the giant building blocks, go vegetable shopping at the "farmers Market" and then put the vegetables on the conveyor belt. We got to play with the beach balls in the "physics room", they got to put together the giant legos, and put their hands on a static electricity generator globe.

After all the playing was done, we all sat down and had a nice picnic lunch. Colette had made sandwiches, bananas, yougurt, chips, pears, and of course little rice crispy treats. We then trucked it home and the kids took great naps.

Once everyone was up from their naps, we decided it was time to go to play at a park since it was 55 degrees out and all the snow was melted. The kids had a great time swinging on the swings and playing on the playground equipment.

When we got home, we ate a little supper. Then it was time to make some desert. Colette mixed up some sugar cookie dough, and we let the kids make cookies. Maria was so cute, we let Brayton and Lauren toss some flour on the table and Maria looked at Colette like "can I really do this too?" It was great fun watching all the kids roll out dough and use the little cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. As the picture attests, the kids got quite dirty and we ended up doing baths again Saturday night.

Sunday morning came and we ate our last little breakfast with Maria. Ryan and Mikhael came back and picked her up after lunch at Hy Vee. We were sad to see her go. But we had a great time.

A weekend of fun...

We had quite a weekend here in our household. Lots of playtime and lots of fun.


Saturday morning, after the girls each had their morning naps, Colette packed a picnic and we all headed down to the farmers market. We walked around and the best entertainment there seemed to be between all the dogs walking around and the street musicians. The kids loved watching the dogs, they wanted to pet them but we don't let them. Last thing I wanted was to have to take one of them to the hospital with a dog bite. Even when people would volunteer their dogs to pet, I would politely decline. Colette has had to fix too many kids' faces from dog bites over the years. The street musicians were also quite entertaining, the kids would just sit there mesmerized. After walking around for an hour, we found a nice spot under the tree to have our picnic. Everyone ate really well and then we had some kettle popcorn for a treat.


After the farmers market downtown, we made a quick stop at the park and played on the swings and the kids crawled all over each other in the tunnel. We got a good little movie of it attached below.


Sunday morning we went to Mass. I called Aunt Audra and Uncle Matt to see if they wanted to come to Mass with us. They did, and it was a good thing. All three kids were quite the wiggle worms in Mass and would have been quite a workload for Colette and I to handle on our own. After Mass we did brunch at Hy Vee and then retired for naps in the afternoon.


Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra came back over to our house about 5pm so that Colette and I could go to a friends baby shower for a couple hours. We got the kids Godfathers pizza and of course some blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. After dinner I guess the kids got treated to and Oreo cookie which they obviouslly enjoyed.


When we got back from the baby shower, we had a little more play time and the kids abruptly passed out when put into their beds.

Three little monkeys...Playing in the tunnel

Some pictures from the park on Saturday, the kids had a grand time playing in the tunnel.

Pictures, a funny story, and a Big Boy Bed update...

Colette took alot of good pictures today of Maria, Lauren, and Brayton...I'll post some of them here for everyone to enjoy.

Also, a funny story. As I've posted before, Lauren is really starting to talk more and more. Today, several times, she would point to Maria and say, "It's a baby."

Actually she said, "It's a baee"

Brayton is doing really well earning stickers for his big boy bed. He is now on number 20, he missed a day earlier this week because he couldn't find the "Magic Hankey" to wipe his nose. We had to talk to him so he understood why he didn't get a sticker. He seems to fully understand and has been doing quite well.

Earlier in the week, we awared him for getting to #18 on the chart. He got to go pick up his new pillow and has been sleeping with it the past few days. It's a green downey feeling pillow (actually polyester filled). If he gets to day 22, we'll let him go pick up sheets for his new big boy bed. Then on day 28, we'll take down the crib and he can finally get his big boy bed all of his own.

Swingin' with Maria

Today was our first full day with Maria visiting our house.

Ryan and Mikhael flew off to Seattle this morning, before anyone else got out of bed. B, Lauren, and Maria all slept in until after 7:30 am. After breakfast and some morning playtime the girls took naps until about 11am. When they woke up it was time for Colette to take everyone to the park for some playtime.

She packed the girls in the double stroller and Brayton being the big boy he is, helped Mommy push the stroller up the hill to the park. From the sound of it everyone had a great time playing at the park. Everyone got to do plenty of swinging in the swings, but Brayton felt he got the shaft. He normally gets to sit in the enclosed swings, but there are only two at the park up the street. So, Colette had to put him in the "big boy" swing. He didn't like it one bit. If you watch the video, he wouldn't even say "Hi" to Grandma.

After Colette wore them out playing at the park, the kids took great naps. I actually got home around 4:15pm and Brayton was still sleeping. We woke him up, ate supper and then proceeded over to Buellow's for the monthly "Flamingo Friday Night" party.

Phil and Beth had their little swimming pool out, and some of the other kids were playing it. So, we stripped the girls down to their diapers and let them play in the pool. Lauren immediately screamed, she thought it was too cold. Maria on the other hand had a ball. She was splashing and playing, pushing the boats around and kicking her feet all over. Brayton got in the pool as well, but of course was trying to splash everyone until I started splashing him back and he realized it wasn't that much fun getting splashed.

We came back from Buellow's about 7Pm and tossed all the kids in the tub for bath time. After some frantic washing of kids, we pulled them out and systematically got the diapers and pajamas on and then one after the other they all went to bed.

Not one kid cried when put down for bed, a good ending to a great day.