Visitors

We had some fun visitors this Thursday. Papa and Mimi came to town and stopped by for a while. Carly and Aunt Karen came too for a bit, but I didn't get any pictures of them. This is what they spent a good portion of the visit doing. They were taking pictures of the cute kids.

Papa and Jack

You'll notice Lightning McQueen in Jack's hand. He's been carrying that car around ever since he opened it from Papa and Mimi.

  

Mimi and Jack. And yep, there's Lightning McQueen again. We had such a nice visit and ate some yummy food at Applebee's. We are always so happy to have family and friends come visit.

Letter

Today I got a letter in the mail from my mom. It said,

"Dear Mary,
It's 'name that tune' time and here are the clues.
The money is for the candy and we both love them.
The first few lines are pertinent to you right now.
Love you tons,
Mom"

The envelope also contained a $5 bill and three yellow balloons.

Curious....have any of you out there guessed the song yet?

Here's a little bit of how my thoughts finally came to the correct answer: First off, I simply just googled the line "The money is for the candy and we both love them." Yeah, it wasn't that easy. No song there.

So, I started thinking. A candy that both my mom and I love? And it has to have some sort of jingle attached to it. What candy has a jingle? Kit Kat! "Give me a break. Give me a break. Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!" Does it fit? Well, the first few lines are definitely pertinent to me right now...but my mom wouldn't write that we both love them. On to a different idea....

oh, Almond Joys! My mom and I both love Almond Joys and they have a jingle too! "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't." Yep, those two lines are pertinent to me right now :) Ok, so I thought that I was getting somewhere. But then something didn't click. Why did Mom put yellow balloons in the envelope?

And the yellow balloons turned out to be the clue that gave the song away. The only song I know that has yellow balloons in it goes like this,

When I grow up I want to be a mother and have a family

one little, two little, three little children of my own.

And I will love them all day long

And give them candy and yellow balloons.

Fits all the criteria! I named the tune! What a sweet letter from my mom. I sure do love her!

Play Date Activities

Every week I do an exchange with my friend, Nicole. I watch her kids for a couple hours one day, and she watches my kids for a couple hours a different day. Maren is about 6 months older than Jack and Lauren is a week or two older than Daisy. This week I felt extra energized and organized, so instead of free play and a movie (bad habit I blame on the morning sickness) I had some fun activities planned for the kiddos.

Maren brought Play-Doh to share, so we played with that first.

She looks kind of sad here, but really they had a good time.

Before Maren and Lauren arrived, I traced Jack's hands and feet (and my hand) and made these cutouts from some felt that had a sticky back. We chose where to put our hands and feet and stuck them to the floor.

We stomped on them.

And found different colors.

We played our version of Spin the Bottle with this cup. Whoever the cup pointed to got to pull out a piece of paper and we followed the instructions it gave. We played Ring Around the Rosie, flew like airplanes, gave each other hugs, and spun around among other things.

Then we cut holes in these cereal boxes and wore them like shoes.

It took a lot of skill.

They each took turns falling down.

After that we made the holes bigger and picked out some stuffed animals for our "cars".

This was probably the most fun they had. They raced and crashed all over the house.

They slid really fast on the kitchen floor.

And both were declared winners!

Jack found my camera while I was occupied elsewhere. This is one of the many pictures I got from his trigger happy fingers.

Daisy played cute as could be.

And Lauren was even convinced to let me put her down for a good 15 minutes to play.

It was a fun day and I'm already looking forward to planning some more activities for next week.

Beauty and the Beast

Jack and Daisy playing on the couch together (don't mind the jeans on the back of the couch...just doing some drying that the dryer seemed to miss.)

Oh, what's that? Beauty and the Beast on tv?

Let's take a break.

"New" Coffee Table

We got a "new" coffee table donated to us from some lovely people in our ward. We really like having it. I was too slow with the camera for this picture. Daisy was eating Cheerios off the coffee table and somehow got three stuck on her face. Before I could get my camera and take a picture she got the one off of her nose. It was pretty funny looking.

Here you can see one of the many bruises this coffee table has dealt. Daisy LOVES pulling herself up to pretty much anything, but in this instance the table won and Daisy ended up hitting her chubby cheek on its edge. Poor girl. I know Jack and I have both received some good bruises from the table too.

Here's the coffee table in all its glory! We got these foam corners to reduce the damage dealt. However, the kids immediately started chewing on them (yeah...it's like they're puppies) and then pulling them off (the stickiness was not nearly strong enough). So, if you look closely you can see that each corner is now strapped on with packing tape...not the prettiest decor, but much safer for the kiddos and for some reason it deters them from chewing on the foam too!

The Beach

During the last week of Michael's break, we went to the beach with our friend, Ryan, who is going to med school close by. Jack got buried in the sand, threw mud, ran away from the waves, and had just plain had fun. Daisy ate some dirt, crawled around in the sand, and enjoyed the day too. It was pretty windy and the water was really cold, but it was a fun and relaxing day.

 

Knott's Berry Farm

Michael had two weeks off from school between trimesters. We had a lot of fun as a family. We set out to visit Disneyland, but last minute changed our plans and went to Knott's Berry Farm. It was really fun and Jack was able to ride quite a few rides as they are geared more towards younger children in Camp Snoopy.

Jack's favorite ride was the airplane one. It was a cool weekday (thus the sweatshirts/jackets) so the park wasn't very busy. Shorter lines = happiness. 

There was a random cage full of birds, which Jack simply loved.

Not the best picture, but Jack is driving the truck

This bus just went around like a ferris wheel...not Jack's favorite. I think it kind of freaked him out.

And this ride had no line...for a reason. It was really boring, can you tell?

Michael shot some hoops and won a little teddy bear for Daisy.

She held on to it almost constantly after that. LOVED it!

We played in the arcade some.

Jack shot some hoops.

Jack and his first real cotton candy.

Yum!

This man was really cool. We had him make a sign for our family. It holds a lot of meaning for us. Hummel means bumblebee in German. We had him write the symbols for "bumblebee" and "hive or nest" meaning "the Hummel Home". It's now hanging on our wall. I'll have to take a picture of the finished product and post it on here too....a later post.

The kids met Peppermint Patty.

Jack even got a hug.

Jack and I rode the Kellogg's car.

It went fast around the corner. All in all a fun day. We were all pooped by the end and both kids slept on the drive home, even though it's only 15 minutes away. We had such a fun time, we went back a second time that week (but I forgot my camera).