A Swimming Thanksgiving

This year's Thanksgiving was a little different for us, we spent it swimming!
Grandma and Grandpa got all the grandkids a great Christmas present, a night/day at a hotel with a fun waterpark, and we did it on Thanksgiving day. It was lots of fun, the water park was really well laid out and fun for all the kids!
I took lots of video, but here are some of the pictures from that day.

Xander under the mushroom waterfall thing.


All the water in the whole park was no more than 3 feet deep, so all of the kids really could go all over the place swimming and walking.

They had a big huge waterslide that was a big hit. My kids weren't sure if they wanted to try it, we talked about it before hand they were pretty sure they wouldn't want to slide on the big slide. The started off sliding with me and Papa. Even that was scary the first time, I think Sophia and Isabella both made trips up and came back down the stairs once. But once they got up the nerve to do it they loved it and we did it over and over (I had the sore legs to prove it the next day, according to Faron each trip to the slide was 60 steps up)
By the end of the day the big girls got brave enough to do it by themselves! Once they were doing it alone the went over and over and over. Here's Sophia standing in line.



Ari was trying out her awesome new swim suit. It has a built in life jacket which worked super well. She was able to swim alone the whole time, totally afloat, no help needed. Which worked out pretty well for her since she is miss independent.
We took a short swimming break and then went to eat, then back into the water of course.




There is also a very fun area of smaller water slides, and the water is only one foot deep, so Kole could swim around over there. He wasn't a big fan of the slides but he went down a couple times.









Kole also got to open some birthday presents, which is always fun.




Thanks for a great present Grandma and Grandpa!

Kole turned 2!!

Koley had his birthday Saturday, we had a fun low key day, eating out and of course a trip to the mall to ride the carousel. And since the St. Joe mall has stepped it up we got to go there instead of Oak Park, which means Grammy and Pop joined us.


We started off the day with a lovely doughnut breakfast.



and some present opening of course




Nikolas loves to stack stuff, he's always bringing me things that were not intended to be stacked and asking me to stack it up cause he's already tried and it keeps falling. So I got him some stacking cups to stack with, so far he only thinks they should have water poured into them...


Nikolas loves a good car, anything with wheels!



He took his car to bed with him that night :)The big girls picked this teady bear for Kole, he really likes it, he slept with that too.


Playing at the play are in the mall, thanks for stepping it up St Joe!











Kole laughed the whole time he was riding, it was so cute!

Now he's 2!!!!

Me and Ari

A Fall Walk

Today was a beautiful day, so after church and lunch Faron told everyone to get ready for a "hike". We all went out and walked around our property, parts of it are pretty overgrown, so it did feel like hiking a little.

Kole had a little walking stick, for about 30 seconds.








Technically this one is a family portrait, as my shadow appears in the bottom right hand corner :)


A pile of kids on the hammock!




Xander found a sword like stick which he used to fight down many evil overgrown weeds.
He also found a discarded headband beside the trampoline, which he put around his waist, to hold his sword.


Ari, being a little beauty in the wilderness. Once when she was walking in front of me she fell into a pile of grass and laid there for a minute, so I snapped a picture. She turned around and asked what I took a picture of, and when I said it was of her she stood up and kept walking, only to fall about every 3rd step to give me ample opportunity to photograph her.


It's hard to walk through waist high grass, when your a little bitty thing.



Xander and Sophia were being Bambi, bounding through the grass.



I don't know what these things are, but they made a pretty good wall for Faron to bulldoze a path through.
Watching papa bulldoze inspired Xander to undertake the same task, he did pretty well, and felt pretty good about it too. See his tuff guy face.





After all that hard work he had to strip down a bit, and show off his muscles.


Once we got to the top of the big hill Papa decided we should lay down and look at the sky for a while, it was quite beautiful.

Explaining "looking at the sky" to a nearly 2 year old leads to a funny conversation.
"Kole, we're looking at the sky"
Where? I don't see it?

"Right there, up there, that's the sky, right there"
Nope, he's convinced there's nothing there to look at.





Then some running up and down the hill.




And, ending our time out side with burning bush lips!