Jungle Jims

 There is a place called Jungle Jims near us that I had been hearing about for a while.  Then I heard that they did a day called two dollar Tuesdays. Score!  So I decided to take the little ones while the older ones were at school.  It was a ton of fun.  And so worth the 2 dollars to get in.  Riley was so brave and rode all of the rides...even the fast roller coaster that went super fast.  Emery was not brave enough for that one. 

 

 Riley and her friend Maggie shared a rocket ship.  

 Emery and Kassie on the merry go round.  

 Here they are on the rocket ride.  That one was their favorite.

 She's just so cute.

Seriously...Riley was so brave.  She rode the rides all by herself.  And had a blast.  It was hard when it was time to go home...I think we stayed for over 2 hours.  (which is long for us). 

Now we need to go back when the older kids can come.  They felt a little bit left out.  I don't blame them. 

Dog owners for a week

 While Crys and Alan went on a trip to Japan, we got to watch their dog Ponyo.  The kids were really excited about it and loved having her here.  The first night she was with us, she was pretty nervous and whined a lot looking for Crys and Alan out the window.  The next day, she started following me everywhere I went.  It was pretty funny.  But I was glad that she seemed a little more calm. 

We had beautiful weather while she was with us so we took her for walks and played with her a lot outside in the backyard.  She is really a great dog.  We miss having her here.  The kids were sad when we had to give her back.  Ha ha.  Riley even said to me the other day that she wished we could keep her.  Fortunately, we can still visit her.  :) 

 Riley was always keeping Ponyo company on the carpet.

 But Ponyo didn't like anyone messing with her while she was chewing on her bone.  It was pretty funny.  I had to keep reminding Riley not to bug her while she had her bone.  

 Cuties.

 I thought this was cute.  She was all cuddled up with her little squeaking toy.

 

 These pictures we took before church crack me up.  The kids are "dabbing" which is all the rage these days apparently.

 Ponyo was great about always getting in the picture when I asked her to.  ha ha.

 Selfie time.

 There was this one spot in our backyard that she would smell and then roll around in for like 5 minutes.  Every time we went outside.  It was funny.

 Riley just couldn't get enough of her.  I'm pretty sure Ponyo was ready to go home to some peace and quiet when Crys and Alan got home.

Riley Also loved sitting in Ponyo's bed.  :)

St. Patricks Day

We did a couple fun activities around St. Patrick's day this year.  One day we invited a friend over and made some green slime.  WE added glitter, but it just kept coming off on our hands.  Oh well.  The girls had a fun time playing with it. 

It kept them busy for a good long time.  :)

Emery's favorite thing to do with slime is put it in a cup and make noises with it. I love her giggle.  

WE left some in a cup unattended for a while and when I saw it later, it looked like some crazy science experiment.

We ate some rainbow jello.  I guess that's not really St. Patrick's day related...maybe it is.  I don't know.  Rainbows and leprechauns.  The kids liked it anyway.  Zac was not wanting to be in a picture...so I kicked him out and took a picture of the happy girls.  

Yummy.

I wish I could have found purple and blue jello, but oh well.  Next year i guess.

Then we made these fun leprechaun faces.  I think they turned out so cute!

Cute kids.

Then that evening I had a little rainbow pinata that I found at Target for like 50 cents.  We haven't ever done a pinata so the kids thought it was great.  I think Zac broke it opened first.

Everyone got a lot of good swings at it before it broke though.  Here is Zac looking at Rob because he kept pulling it up before he hit it.  ha ha ha.

It was a fun evening.  I thought I did a good job keeping the holiday really simple. We spread out our activities over the whole week.  My kids seemed to think something big was supposed to happen.  I have a hard time when every single holiday is so hyped up.  I told my kids that on St. Patrick's day when I was a kid...we wore green.  That's it.  And sometimes maybe we had green pancakes or something.  It's getting crazy the way little holidays are being turned into these big huge celebrations.  Maybe I'm just a grump. I don't know.  Happy St. Patrick's day!

A Day in LA

 My mom and I got together for a day in LA to do some fabric shopping at the fashion district.  We did this before when Emery was a baby so this time we were a little more free to go wherever we wanted.  It was a great day and we found some awesome stuff for CHEAP.  I got some cute swimming suit fabric and we got 4 colors of the sequin fabric that changes color when you run your hand over it.  The kids have already been playing with it.  I love it.  Anyway, here are some pictures of our adventure.
 

 I get pretty nervous flying on airplanes, especially when I'm alone.  So I decided to keep myself busy taking pictures to show the kids when I got back.  My flight left at 8 am.  We had to do a quick de-icing of the plane which I had never seen done before.  They have these cool vehicles that can lift themselves really high and then they spray the plane with a solution.  It was fun to watch.  ANd the picture above on the left is of a tiny circle rainbow that I saw while we were in the air.  See if you can spot it.

 I landed in LA and found my mom!  We got our bags (that were empty...by the end of the day they were full.) and got our rental car and off we went.

You can't really see it but the mountain in the background has the Hollywood sign on it.  It was pretty cool to see it in the distance.

This was one of the stores I was most excited about...well, actually the one across the street called the Loft was.  That is where I bought most of my fabric.

This is the Loft.  It has boxes and boxes filled to the brim with fabric pieces.  You can dig through them and cut off as much as you want and then you pay by the pound.  I bought 70 pounds of fabric here.  I should have gotten more, but I was worried I needed to stop because it was the second store we stopped at.  Now we know for next time.  Just go crazy at the Loft.  

This was our lunch.  Hot dog wrapped in bacon, topped with mayo and ketchup, peppers and onions and yummy salsa with avocado.  Pretty funny to watch us try to eat these with a fork, but it was delicious.

When we had bought all the fabric we thought we wanted, we wandered over to a place called Santee Alley.  It just has all sorts of clothes, toys, and odds and ends for sale.  We got a few things for cheap.  

Then we headed back to the airport and got some food.  We got a panini sandwich and this yummy pizza.  The pizza was definitely the better of the two.  

Then when I got home, the next day I got to watch Riley's cute friend Marie.  They "helped" me unpack.  :)

Thanks mom for the great day in LA!