Spring Break with Grandma

For the kids' spring break, Andy went to spring training games in Phoenix with his brothers and my mom came here to spend the week with the kids!  The timing was off for us to take a family trip and for Andy to do his annual trip with his brothers so the kids and I stayed home.  We are taking a big vacation this summer so the kids have that to look forward to.  

Drew, Kayley and Ryan had another great week with Grandma!  The weather was really nice when she got here so the kids spent a lot of time playing outside in the backyard.  The creek in the backyard is their new favorite outdoor activity.  They spent a lot of time building an "island" in the middle of the creek and then learned all about Mother Nature when we had a rainstorm and the island is now underwater.  :-)

Building an island

Andy put up the trampoline so they spent a lot of time on that early in the week.  As you can tell, it is exhausting.

Grandma took them to Monkey Joe's one day when it was cold and rainy.  

Grandma took the kids to swim lessons.  Ryan got himself dressed without anyone paying attention so she didn't realize until they got there and he took off his sweatpants that he picked swim trunks that were way too big and had no tie.  Luckily, she found this pair in the lost and found.  

We celebrated Grandma's birthday.  Ryan asked her how old she was.  She told him 66.  He looked confused and asked again, "No, how old are you?"  She told him again she was 66.  His face was priceless!  

We took them to Fun City on Friday afternoon.  They showed Grandma all of their favorite things to do there - go karts, bowling, arcade, pool, ballocity, laser tag, etc.  They don't seem to be tiring of that place and I'm not surprised - its a kid's dream place.

Quick photo break

Kayley and Ryan love the junior karts

Ryan in the arcade

Not pleased to be in the Cubs kart (Andy
has definitely had an impact on them)

Getting ready to race Drew

Drew magically grew overnight and was able to
drive the big go karts on Saturday before we left

Ryan getting ready to school me in air hockey

Kayley won this round.  She is really good
and takes it easy on nobody.

Ryan in his favorite place - ballocity

Enjoying the lazy river for the second time

St. Louis Trip

We made a last minute decision last weekend to take the kids to St. Louis to visit the City Museum and the Magic House children's museum.  The City Museum was huge and I was a little concerned about losing the kids in all the tunnels and caves, but it was a great time!

The kids really enjoyed the Magic House the next day too.  I think Ryan and Kayley may have liked Magic House better than City Museum.  They played on a climber, did a crime investigation, saw the three branches of government, played on a huge slide, took care of animals at the vet, went grocery shopping, played in a huge water table, played in a construction area, Kayley and I made our hair stand up, and a lot more.

Tornado Weather

It's March and that means tornado weather.  We started the beginning of the month off with some wild weather.  The tornado sirens started going off so I did what you shouldn't do and got out my camera.  It wasn't that bad at our house though.  Drew and Kayley did insist we go to the basement so I took a very short video.  :-)  For the record, if it had actually been bad at our house, we would have gone straight to the basement.

We are usually busy with Drew's sports, but we are early in the baseball season so he just has practice right now.  Ryan has been keeping us busy with birthday parties though.  He has been enjoying himself very much at each one.  Here are a few pictures from the most recent one.