Swimming and a Day out with Thomas

My sister and I like to do a kid-swap every so often and watch each others kids and give each other a break. Last weekend was one of those swaps. I took her kids on Friday, and gave her the "day off", and Jer took off work early and we took the kids to our neighborhood pool. The kids had a blast - we ended up staying there for like 5 hours. Tons 'o fun! :-) I seriously think those kids could live in the pool.....throw em a hot dog or a slice of pizza every now and then, and their good to go! :-) (never mind their bathroom issues....eeek!)

Anywho, here's Jer with the 4 kids....

And little Miss Gena.....her first outing at our public pool. She snoozed thru the whole thing :-)

And on Saturday, we wake up to cloudy skies. (and if you are from this area, you know it has been cloudy and rainy here like, nearly everyday it seems like. You'd think this was April again!!! However, it was NOT raining when we woke up.....

So we racked our brains of something to do. Well my sister in law had told us about this "Day Out with Thomas" that was coming to an area close to us. And best of all - it was free admission - which was a MUST when we were bringing along 2 extra kiddos! So we loaded up our 3 in our van, along with my 2 nephews and went to check out "A Day out with Thomas".

Only about 10 minutes after we left our house, the heavens let loose and it started raining.....like torrential downpour kind of rain. Needless to say, we continued on our trek, in hopes that where we were going it would not be raining or it would quit soon. We stopped at a Taco Bell for lunch about 5 minutes from the park, where the Thomas stuff was at, and it was still raining, extremely hard!

So my husband, the always-thinking genius, decided to stop at a gas station, and buy a thing of trash bags (you know, the small box for like $7....?), and cut holes in them to use as ponchos. We had driven an hour thru the rain, packed everything and was ready, we were gonna do this - rain or .....flood!

Unfortunately, the whole Thomas thing was outdoors, which would be great if the weather cooperated. However, most stuff was under tents in the grass.....which made a HUGE muddy mess, EVERYWHERE! It was awful. We got there in the rain, with trash bags over us, tromping thru the mud in the tents, and the kids were all obsessing over their messy shoes and feet, none of them could of cared a lick about any of the train tables set up in the tent. We all just stood there looking at each other - it was quite humerous now, looking back at it.

Matthew eventually started playing with some of the trains on the train tables set up. None of the other kids ever did. They weren't too impressed....

We finally made our way over to another tent, where a magician was putting on a magic show. So that got the kids' attention.....

Finally.....the rain stopped and the sun came out - much to all of ours relief. So we ditched the trash bag ponchos, and went on our way.......

The kids ended up seeing a magic show 3 different times, they liked it so much, here they are, laughing at the hilarious magician...

Before we left, we got their picture with Sir Topham Hat....

And of course, we can't leave without a pic of Thomas! (we skipped out however on the train ride - too expensive!)

And the wonderful camera picture-man was kind enough to hold out his hand with a card just as Jer took this photo.....

And here they are leaving....

In the end, the kids had a good day, once it quit raining and the sun came out! :-)

Monday Stuff

Like most weekends around here, this one was a busy one, and it went by way too quickly! We are back to Monday again......but that's okay.....because that means we are only 3 days away from Jeremy coming back home! :) That is some Monday news that I can handle!

On Saturday, we went to the Ethnic Festival that was going on here in Kansas City. Mostly for the Japan booth (of course), in which my dad was working in. The festival consisted of 60+ countries around the world, and there were booths for each "country" where you could sample that countries food, or shop for goodies. Our first stop was the Japan tent.

Here is my dad. He was working the booth, just about all weekend, with a few breaks here and there when we were visiting.





Just outside the Japan booth, there were kimono lad ladies and sumo wrestler men. So here is my "lady" and my "man" posing. :)

We saw the Mexico tent and thought of daddy :(

In other exciting news...........

today was Lillys first day of school!!!! Yes, mommy and Lilly were both equally excited! :)

She LOVES riding the bus......it's the highlight of her day

Once the bus arrived, she did not want to stop and turn around so I could take a picture.

Last year she had to ride in the built in car seats on the bus. This year, since she is over 40 pounds (46 to be exact), she got to ride in the back in a "big seat" :)

After getting Lilly got on the bus, Isaiah and I got ready and had to take Lilly's epi-pen up to her school. (we were not allowed to send it in her back pack, we had to walk it to the nurses station)

Here is Lilly playing with her school friends. She knows I'm there and taking pictures and pretending to not see me. Little stinker.

Lilly is the line leader to go to recess.

Lilly's first day of school seemed to be a success. This is her last year of preschool. Next year.......ALL DAY kindergarten!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =)

Week-end Wrap-up

We had a great weekend over here. It was filled with a trip to Worlds of Fun, shopping, eating out, lunch with mom, a birthday party, church, mothers day lunch with Jer's family, and minimal amount of rest. :)

Friday, my dad and Jeremy took Matthew (my nephew), Lilly and Isaiah to Worlds of Fun. And no, I did not go. And no, it is not one of my top places to go.....much less dragging 3 kids through it. I'm just not a big theme-park fan, what can I say? However, the kids all loved it. (Dad and Jer, I'm not so sure about however) :) Isaiah informed me when they returned that he wanted to go there again- that was fun! Well......right now, my track record is going to WOF about every 2 years or so, so we'll see when he gets to go again. ;)

Lilly did not like seeing Snoopy or Lucy. She's not a big fan of people dressed up in character costumes. (remember the Easter bunny, anyone?) So she stood back by dad while he took the picture.

Lilly and Matthew were both soooooo excited to go to Worlds of Fun. It's all Matthew talked about all week I think. And he was so excited his cousins were going with him. At first, Jonathan did not want to go........he would say 'I don't like worlds of fun'! (maybe he gets it from me?). But later, he had changed his mind, and said he liked it and wanted to go to. Maybe just because he found out his cousins were going, and he didn't want to get left out?! By that time though, it was too late to get another ticket. Maybe next time, Jonathan. :)

We had a great Mothers Day service on Sunday. And it was an honor to have my mom in church with us. :) I think they enjoyed the service. At the end of service, there was a quartet of 5 guys (my hubby included) to sing a Boyz II Men song, 'Letter for Mama'. They did a phenomenal job, if I do say so myself. I was so proud. :) (Jer is the one on far right) Nothin' like a little Boyz II Men to end our church service...... :)

After service, we took a few photos in our new foyer area. Here's me, my sister and our mom.

Here is us again and our mom, with all 4 of her grand-children.

And a photo of me and my 2 little ones.....

That's wraps up our weekend in a nutshell. How was yours?