BUSY BUDDIES

Will and Lauren came over to hang out with us for a few hours while Al and Christina attended a coworkers going away party, and James and Cora were so happy to have company! We ended up unintentionally breaking the night into 45 minute increments... Legos (boys in James' room, girls in the kitchen), dinner crossed with I Spy (to encourage kids to finish their ChickFilA nuggets - no taking a guess until you take a bite!), hide-and-seek (me against the kids - Jay "helped" me hide in obscure places while maintaining innocence to keep the kids off my trail - it was particularly funny listening to Lauren repeat every single phrase that another kid said, she did great all night in keeping up with the big kids!), and finally dancing to YouTube Lets Dance 4 video tutorials (thank you Auntie Taryn for that idea - I giggled so much watching them that my cheeks hurt!)

Cora threw in a few ballet moves here and there, and Lauren did her best to copy everything her big brother did, but the boys really stole the show. Those little wiggly booties were cracking me up! (Not to mention James' one-footed stomp/tap and side head bounce reminiscent of a couple of well known SNL characters...)

The videos I took are too long to post on Blogger, so click HERE to see Ghostbusters and HERE to see Gangnam Style. Don't mind the peanut gallery in the background (Jay didn't know I was filming). There was also many renditions of Let it Go and What Does the Fox Say, and one time through of each of Roar and Moves Like Jagger. I highly recommend this activity if your kids need to get some energy out and you want to just sit back and supervise...

CORA BABY

I just thought it was cute this morning that Cora brought Baby Joseph along for the ride to Daycamp (because she was cradling him and kissing him and being adorable). After I took her photo (I was the passenger, not the driver!), she asked me to hold him up front. Unfortunately, I had to decline, lest another motorist believe that I was holding a real baby out of a carseat...

FAIRY CUPS

Since daddy knew he'd have a lot of early mornings and late nights this week with it being ERDC LDP Week (a week when all LDP members convene for tours, seminars, trainings, and discussion groups), he went to the craft store after work and came home with glow in the dark paint to surprise our craft-loving kids. James was busy watching Teen Titans (we had all succumbed to the couch together after a day of fasting and testing for me - more on that in another post), but Cora jumped right up to see what project daddy had in store. They quickly (and so very seriously!) got to work painting tiny dots along the inside of clear plastic cups (we didn't want the kids to have glass Mason jars unsupervised in their rooms after bedtime...). James joined them after a bit, and I made one too (while Cora did a second one). Then daddy charged them up with his black light (kept handy for Halloween parties and insect collection nights...) and we sent two happy kids to bed with "fairy cups" (as they called them).

No, I did not take a picture of the kids with them in the dark (because - blurry mess), so just trust me that they worked.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAWPAW!

Last weekend, Cora spent a LONG time making you birthday cards, so you can expect a huge number of them in the mail soon (yes, we're still running late mailing your birthday present because one of the items we ordered has yet to arrive...), unless we can convince her to just pick her favorite two or three...

GRAND PARADISE WATERPARK

We spent the afternoon (4 hours) at the little waterpark about an hour and a half southeast of us and remembered to take a photo this time (when we were here 3 years ago, we did not). Instead of the Kennedy and Sanchez families this time, it was the Kennedy and Gust families that we hung out with. The park is mostly the same, if not a little faded and run-down since our last visit. They had built a new tall tower of steep-drop single-rider slides though, so that was fun (for the adults). It was SO HOT that the concrete nearly gave us blisters, and James refused to ride any of the bigger slides he was allowed on, but he and Cora both rode the two bigger slides that she was tall enough for, one of which we rode over half a dozen times:

(Not my photo. I did not tote my camera or phone around with me.)

I was pretty proud of them for bravely riding that slide. Of all the slides, many of which allowed double riders and tubes to ride on, they liked this head-first, bumpy, belly-dropping slide best... Other than that slide, we swam around the lazy river a bunch of times and spent a long time playing in the splash tower. It was a fun (and inexpensive) afternoon, and a good way to beat the heat while still being outside. Next year we might stick to a bigger waterpark though...

SUNDAY MORNING SNUGGLES

SUPERHERO SQUAD

James and Cora's pal Grady turned 4 this past week, so we joined his superhero celebration today!

Posing "fast like Flash" and like a sassy Batgirl was required before leaving home

 Helping Grady turn into a superhero in his phone booth, then making an emergency call

 This photo cracks me up... Our kids were particularly intrigued with the Bat Cave (AKA basement) and spent a majority of the party down there. One of the times I went downstairs to check on them, I found James driving the Batmobile with a drink in hand, while Bat Will and his daddy Al supervised little sister Lauren acting like a party girl in the backseat...

Superheroes watching superhero cartoons, and some face painting on the side

 The birthday boy, all ready for his song and dance (I mean cake)

 Mama Olivia dressed as Alfred to Grady's Batman, while mama Lauchlin wore a cool superhero compilation shirt. I almost wore my Hulk shirt and purple sparkle skirt...

 James and Cora with Cara Beth and Will

 The little superhero in our group - Mary Claire is running and talking and melting everyone in sight with her cuteness (though she won't be the littlest superhero for much longer - we learned this week that Aunt Sandy and Barrett are expecting their first baby around Mardi Gras!!!)

Jay chased James and Grady around with Thor's Hammer for a while...

Mary Beth applied superhero tattoos to lots of little girls...

Post-party dinner at Atami for chicken hibachi

 And post-dinner relaxation for mama and daddy after the kiddos crashed...

BREAKFAST BOOK

Not much makes me prouder than watching these two read together...

CORA'S CASTLE BOARD

 When Cora told us that she wanted her own Lego board to put all her princess castles on, we couldn't refuse. We decided to make this one a much smaller, table-top version (just a couple inches bigger than the 15" x 15" Lego Building Plate), and let her do all the painting herself (well, with some final touch-ups by mama and daddy when she wasn't looking).

 It turned out really cute with her Elsa castle and Ariel's grotto (she's almost done with her Jurassic Park set, then she'll do her Rapunzel's Tower and Hello Kitty sets), plus the additions of The Lego Movie Cloud Cuckoo Land and Double Decker Couch, and a Minecraft Ender Dragon (that she borrowed from James, without his permission...)

(Unlike James, Cora is pretty careful with and protective over her completed sets, thus the Lego Friends Yacht in the background that is still miraculously in one piece!)

PARTY FAVOR FUN

STRIKE 5...

Why is it that 5 out of 5 documented Captain Destructo moments have involved Cora?...

This occurred just as you're probably thinking, looking at the photo: Cora went to the bathroom to wash her hands after a syrupy breakfast and shortly after James came out to tell us that she had jumped up onto the towel bar and "made a nail stick out". Daddy was not pleased to have his lazy day interrupted with repair work...

SLIDING INTO THREE!

Sweet little Lauren turned THREE today and we crashed her entire day to celebrate with her and slide at top speed and eat cupcakes. We had a wonderful day over at the Kennedys! So much fun that when I put James in his pajamas before heading home (after one last evening slide!), he asked me if we were spending the night :-)

In addition to sliding, there were kiddie pools and riding toys and butterfly catching attempts...

Near the end of the party, we sang to the birthday girl, and she was just a little shy to have the crowd focusing all their attention on her. Not too shy to blow out her #3 candle though!

Most of the day we stuck to the rule of sliding one at a time (and waiting for the person at the bottom of the slide to move out of the way first), but after the majority of the crowd left, Christina and I (and Aunt Sandy) took turns riding with the kiddos.

Daddy did a cannonball! Sorta...

The kids did a couple slide trains themselves when the adults got tired of climbing the stairs (and even more tired of trying to extricate ourselves from the very slippery catch pool at the bottom of the slide...)

When applying sunscreen, more is always better, right?...

The kids were lightweight enough to catch air on that bump, land in the pool, then jump up and get back in line immediately. Us adults though, especially when covered in 2-3 kids... we crashed into that wall with a force and then just had to lay there for a bit while the kids all got to safety before we attempted to flip over and crawl out!

The water at the bottom was quite warm... and that's just the color of our lovely Fisher Ferry water, so don't worry about that warmth - that's just an affect of "feels like 110" temperatures...

After lunch, and present opening, and dinner, the kids destroyed Will's room (don't worry, we helped clean up before we left at bedtime) and Jay snuggled in with Lauren's new blanket... Perhaps we SHOULD have just stayed the night? ;-)