Random Phone Pics

I dumped the pics off my phone onto my computer, so here are some highlights -- all in order but going back a few months!

Playing at a park. Wyatt kept saying "take a picture of me now, Mommy!"

Piper, on the other hand, never wanted to be still for a picture!

Playing a board game we created from a Kiwi Crate.

School valentines for this year - balls for Wyatt's class and glitter glue for Lila's class. I try hard to think of a non-candy valentine.

For Lila's teacher.

Taken at Lila's school valentine party. Piper stuck her visitor sticker to her forehead, just being silly.

The party consisted of making their own "trail mix" with all kinds of goodies (goldfish, m&m's, chocolate chips, marshmallows, pretzels, skittles, popcorn, etc.). Here Lila is checking out all the valentines she got from her classmates.

Valentine gifts for Wyatt's teachers - notepad and pen.

Wyatt's teacher's birthday is in the summer, so in February we celebrated her half-birthday. All the kids brought in half of a card and together we got her a gift card to HALF Price Books. I made a half cake for her. She was very surprised and really enjoyed it all.

I put half of my cake batter in a circle pan and the other half into 12 cupcakes. Luckily, there are 12 students in Wyatt's class, so it worked out perfectly!

Why she likes to sleep with the blanket completely over her head, I do not know. But she does.

Piper likes to wear this headband. She can put it on herself.

Dress up as your favorite book character day at school. Lila chose to go as Pinkalicious. She said she doesn't have a favorite book, so we just went with the costume we could do :)

Silence always means something is going on!!! In this case, she had managed to pull the inside of a marker out. By the time I got to her, the hands were blue. Unfortunately, it was not a washable marker, so her hands were blue for a couple days. Fortunately, her shirt was also blue :)

"Yay! Daddy is home!!"

They get so excited when Dad comes home from work (notice the headband again).

Random pic one day when the other two were at school.

Trying on t-ball equipment at the store.

Lila started t-ball in March. She's never really been interested in sports (kind of like her mama), but we thought the best time for her to try it would be when everyone else is starting out. One of her friends from school has parents who coach t-ball, so that's how we got the idea to try this sport. At first Lila did NOT want to do it, but finally after a few weeks we convinced her to give it a try.

Sometimes the things that come home from school need to be documented - and are just too humorous not to share - like this bucket list of Lila's.

Other things make me thankful - like this page from Lila's class dictionary. They each had to create their own definition of themselves. As I was looking through her book, I noticed that several of the kids put "sister" or descriptive words like "blue eyes" or even "nice" or "kind to others". But Lila was the only one who put "special to my parents" - and that was the first thing she thought to write! I'm so glad she knows she is special to us.

Outside on a nice day.

Pictures with my girls.

One time we went along to one of Lila's t-ball practices because the weather was so nice. There is a park near the field, so I took Piper and Wyatt to that for a little while during practice. This was inside a tube at the park.

I am happy to say that Lila has really enjoyed t-ball so far. In fact after her third practice, I asked her if she had fun when she got home. She nodded her head yes and then said, "You were right, Mommy. Sometimes you have to try something before you know if you like it." Haha, I should have had her write that down (the "you were right") so I can show it to her when she's a teenager :)

Wyatt on his new bike. Yes, he's being silly and sitting on the pedal. He loves to ride his bike around in a big circle on our driveway.

Lila's teacher recently had a baby, so I made a going-away gift for her (she will not be back before the school year ends).

Inside the take out box, I put a gift card to one of her favorite restaurants and a bunch of felt fortune cookies. I had the kids in her class answer some questions which I then turned into "fortunes". For example, "Where would she like to go on vacation?" turned into "You would like to vacation where your Grandma lives. - Lila"  Or "why is she a teacher?" became "You teach because you need the money. - Nolan" :) About half of the class answered questions for me, so I included a few fortunes from each student. It turned out cute, and the teacher really enjoyed it.

Goin' for a Walk

One day in March when the weather was really nice, we decided to go for a walk around the creek that runs near our house. We took the wagon, but it didn't take long before Piper wanted out. Wyatt likes to ride though.

My sweet, silly guy.

You can see his banged up chin in this picture. He decided to try jumping from the coffee table to the fireplace in our living room - and didn't quite make it! Instead he landed on the floor and slammed his chin on the hearth. Even with a thick blanket covering the bricks, he still managed to cut a gash in his chin. It had to have glue (the modern day stitches). I can't remember if this was before or after he fell about a week later on the driveway and reopened the cut. Fortunately he managed to let it heal the second time around, but I'm sure he'll have a scar to keep.

Ben made sure to stay close (so she wouldn't go swimming), but Piper was determined to walk on her own the whole time.

Looking for bugs (Lila's main reason for wanting to go to the creek).

Wyatt wanted out of the wagon when we found a field of "flowers" (weeds). It's nice to have lazy Sunday afternoons like this!

Mini Vacation

Back in February over President's Day weekend, we decided to take a little mini family vacation and go see some local attractions we hadn't been to before: the Legoland Discovery Center, SeaLife Aquarium and Ft. Worth Zoo. We didn't tell the kids where we were going until we got there! They were excited.

Legoland (which is what I will call it even though it was a smaller "discovery center") had a bunch of things to do inside, but the space was fairly small. Here you could build your own Lego car and then race it down the ramp. 

There were three rides. When you first enter you are given a little explanation on how Legos are made, then you are immediately in line to ride the first ride - a laser tag type ride where you can shoot guns at targets while you ride a car in the dark. So we didn't go back and do that ride because it was always busy. And I didn't take pictures because I was too busy shooting targets (plus it was too dark). The 2nd ride was little cars that you could drive around a track. Neither Wyatt nor Lila were brave enough to ride those (and Ben and I were too big). BUT, the third ride was a winner. It was a two-seater with pedals. The faster you pedaled, the higher your seats would rise as you went around. This is the best picture I could get of Ben and Lila (I just used the camera on my phone). She also rode it with me twice. We couldn't get Wyatt to try it though.

Meanwhile, Piper was having fun in the Lego pit. 

"Can't go over it? Then I guess I'll just have to go under it!"

Second time to ride!

This was probably Wyatt's favorite area too.

Piper decided she needed to gather up all the windows.

Legoland also had a 4D movie theater... where in addition to the 3D glasses, we also got misted with water or "snow" during different parts of the movie. We watched both movies they had (about 12 min. each).

Legoland had a small miniature city with several Dallas landmarks. It was neat to see. Every few minutes the overhead lights would dim, so we could see the city at night!

Here Lila is standing next to downtown Dallas, so you can see the scale.

Finally, right before we were about to leave, we convinced Wyatt to give the ride a try. You can tell he isn't so sure in this picture, but he enjoyed it once it was over! :)

We ate lunch before heading over to the Aquarium. Everyone enjoyed this too, but by far, Lila had the most fun of all the kids. She loves animals and asked all kinds of questions about the various creatures we saw.

This little bubble was under one of the fish tanks.

This picture is kind of hard to see because it was so dark, but Piper is laying flat on the floor looking through the window. We were above the large tank which had some sharks in it.

Looking through an aquarium.

Toward the end, there was a pool where you could reach in and touch some starfish.

Piper could have stayed in the water forever!

To continue the adventure (and decrease our driving), we decided to stay in a hotel that night since we were planning to go to the zoo in Ft. Worth the next day (which was pretty close to where we were already.) I didn't take any pictures at the hotel. We made sure to pick one that had a pool, so we could swim. The water was so COLD even though it was inside. We didn't swim long... ok, I didn't even get all the way in... that's what dads are for :) Everyone did a pretty good job settling down and once asleep, we slept all night long. 

The next day we went to the zoo. The weather was perfect - sunny and in the low 70s. Again, Lila loved the zoo. Piper did too, but mostly because she could get down and run!

One of the favorite things we did at the zoo was feed the birds.

Here's the moment the bird finally came over to her feeder. I had to hold her up to get her a little closer to the birds, so I took this picture by holding my phone out.

Wyatt also got a turn to feed the birds.

Taken with my DSLR. I love his bright little cheek. God is so creative!

I wish I remembered what this was called. Some weird type of eel I think - with lots of teeth. I took this through a window, or I would not have been that close! :)

This guy was sun-bathing right outside the food court where we ate lunch. I'm lucky the zoo employees keep their windows so clean!

This was Piper trying to pull Lila off, so she could have a turn "riding" the kangaroo!

Waiting for Piper to pet the goat before we moved on to the next exhibit.

Petting the goat (with Daddy's help).

Group shot!

Near the petting zoo there was a shoot 'em laser tag type game you could pay to do. We didn't pay, but Wyatt and Piper enjoyed pretending :)

When we were done at the zoo, we went home. It was a great little get-away!