Our trip to Kansas City

Over a weekend we decided to take a mini vacation to Kansas City. 

We went to Sea Life Aquarium. It was wonderful, the boys really love aquariums probably due to the fact that we have so many around the house. It was fun to see Sharks and Sea Turtles, the boys were excited that the saw some fish there that we have at home too. Last week Shawn came up to me and said "We are the luckiest kids in the world! We get to live in an aquarium house".

We went to dinner at a T-Rex restaurant. It was pretty cool there were dinosaurs all over the place, and they moved! The boys thought it was awesome and the lady at the table next to ours freaked out when one almost touched her on the head. haha

The next day we went to Lego Land. They had all sorts of awesome things made out of Legos.

Patrick was excited about The Wizard of Oz

We all had a great time, Lego Land was probably my favourite. With a 4D movie theatre, two rides and Lego pits (that were like big sand boxes with Legos), there was a lot to do. 

Gabriel

Gabriel is 5 yrs old, I don't even know what to say. It snuck up on me.

The little man is 41 lbs and 3ft 4in tall.

He is starting Kindergarten this year which is just totally crazy! We have been working on math.

Counting, addition (he uses his fingers), subtraction (more fun with M&M's), and even counting by 5's.

We are also working on his letters. He knows the alphabet but has trouble recognizing some of the letters. Hopefully we get there soon. He knows all the letters in his name really well its those pesky ones that aren't that we have trouble with.

I am also trying to get him to eat faster too. He is just about the slowest eater you will ever meet, but I have a feeling that the school isn't going to let that slide.

Now for my worries, he has so many food allergies that I am concerned about him eating next to other kids that could be eating peanut butter. I also am afraid of someone trying to switch lunches or something. Oh the horror. It's not like he is just allergic to one food, it's like eleven! I just need to put on my brave mommy face and pack his epi pen and make sure everyone knows about it and how to use it but ahhhhhhhhh. I will give him credit though if you tell him "this has wheat in it" or "this has eggs in it" the first thing he says is "I can't have that". He just needs someone to know what is in it.

The thing is, I am sure he will be fine, it's just the over protective, nervous, mommy that cant handle it.

We did just take him to the allergist and knocked out a few of his allergies off the list so we are working in the right direction. I am so excited and he's been trying new foods!

Mommy loves you baby boy!

New Car

This was a really big step for Patrick and I it was the first actually NEW car for both of us!

Volkswagen Passat TDI SE

It's wonderful I love it! It's pretty and it has tons of room in the backseat for our kids.

I got a manual ahh. It's my first so I have to do the whole learning to drive thing again. It's not so bad I am getting there. Once you get going it's easy, I just have to get really good at the starting thing. I do pretty well on flat ground, but man hills suck. Patrick says it has hill assist but if that is the case why do I roll down the hill backwards?

It's hard learning something new. Once you're a mom aren't you supposed to know how to do everything? Or are grown-ups just supposed to be really good at deceiving children? hmmm

Christmas Clothes

So I am a girly girl I love my clothes and I love getting clothes as presents :)
I don't feel the need to dress like anyone else I just wear what I like. I wear minimal make up you will never see it caked on to my face. I am all about natural beauty. Anyway back to the clothes. I just couldn't resist showing off the new additions to my wardrobe. I got kinda excited.

I got these two shirts for Christmas they are wonderful I love them. My mother in Law couldn't have done a more perfect job of picking them out :)

Boots! they are so cute I needed a pair of brown boots. 

With all the snow we have had around here this was a necessary plus it matches everything  

Ok so I LOVE green. 

This pic is about the PJ pants lol not my fingernails. 

Well that's most of it :) woo hoo!

Fish tank

So we have this salt water fish tank it's only a 20 gallon. 

We have been wanting to get our 55 gallon set up for some time now and I think it is really going to happen.

We went to Home Depot and bought the lumber we were going to need and went home and got to work.

We got it all built and put the tank on top

Added rocks Patrick got his sump all hooked up and we started to fill her up.

It was a little cloudy but thats typical. we ran tests and the water was perfect we just had to let it cycle for a week or so.

look at how clear it is :) 

We drip acclimated the fish to the new tanks water and put the babies in their new home.

We got a new clown fish or Nemo has the boys call them. I think we are going to have to call one of them Marlin.

Papa

This is my Papa, he is 89. Recently he was walking with his walker and his arm popped they took him in and sure enough he broke it. After taking a closer look they said he had cancer. We'll first things first they put a rod in his arm so it would heal and did a biopsy while they were In there and found it is Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. They found it in his colon, arm, abdomen, but it is probably all over. They gave us a few treatment option but they would all be hard on him and most likely wouldn't make his life longer so we opted not to treat it. He had to be in a wheelchair for a while after surgery, but he is getting stronger and we think he will be back to using his walker soon. Which is great news! They are giving him months don't know how many. It's not good but it could always be worse.

Love you, Papa

Christmas Decorating

I am normally am very ready for Christmas and all of the decorating but last year the radio stations started playing Christmas music right after Halloween and it really messed with my brain. I wasn't ready for it to start and it made me kind of Scrooge like. We'll this year with thanksgiving being so late and the radio stations backing off until the week of thanksgiving, it helped give me the time I needed. We had thanksgiving and the long weekend so we set up the tree it was really nice. Gabe was excited to help and I think that really got me in the mood, kids can be really good spirit lifters.

The last few years we have had blue, green and purple ornaments so when I found, all of this for $10 I was really excited.