Wonder Lab

We drove to Indiana on Wednesday the 18th to celebrate Grace's 4th birthday.  That may sound a little crazy but you have to remember that we have to factor in a day to travel (7hrs), another day to buy all the food for the party, another day to decorate and do any baking that I can ahead of the actual party day, a day for the actual party, and finally a day to travel back to Knoxville.  UGH!  I can.  not.  wait.  until we're done with ALL of the traveling, inconveniencing everyone, and can stop pawning off my girls so I can get things ready for the party!  I obviously don't have any type of strong feelings regarding this......uh hum!  Back to my original point.
Grandma, the girls, and I went to the Wonder Lab in Bloomington on Thursday.  This was the first time for Anna and I and Grace had only been once before so we were all excited!  The pictures pretty much sum up all that the Wonder Lab has to offer.  There is activity after activity for little ones to explore!  Anna's favorite activity was the "water discovery" area (I'm calling it) and she went back time and time again.  Grace bounced from station to station and loved climbing up the grape vine (where were the samples, Oliver Winery??), throwing balls into the water tornado (for lack of a better term), and the parachute area.  I'm glad we took a few hours out of the morning to take the girls because they loved it!  Thank you, Grandma!!!
We had to drag Grace out but a promise of "Old McDonald's" eased her pain a bit.  :)  Now on to planning a birthday party!!

Happy New Year!!

Wishing you all the best and MANY blessings in 2012!!

Happy New Year!!

Daddy/Daughter Day Out

Finally getting to ride the train!

Ice cream!

Pretty excited about her new toothbrush!

I just found the pictures from this particular day and it's a bit overdue.  In December, I had some kind of a "I'm a woman!  Hear me roar!" kind of day and decided it was a good idea to make dentist appointments for both me and Grace.  You might be thinking......that shouldn't be too big of a deal.  What's the problem, woman??  Well......I couldn't find a sitter for Anna and I think it's safe to say that she's not the type of child to sit still during almost anything let along a dentist appointment.  In my defense, I tried to cancel my appointment (and keep Grace's so I could "man" AK) but the lovely ladies I spoke with insisted they had "plenty of activities for children to do and they could help if need be."  What I heard inside my head went a little like this, "WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!  Alright!  I hope you're bringing out your big guns because AK is about to enter the building!!!"  When in reality I said, "Well, we can try it but my main concern is to get Grace's appointment taken care of."  This was where we ran into our problem.
Grace insisted that I go first and she, of course, got to see all the brushing, poking, scraping, etc. that goes along with a teeth cleaning.  When it was her turn, you can only guess what happened.  There was not a chance we were talking her into getting in that chair.  We (me and the dental hygienist) tried every possible approach (even down to her simply opening her mouth so she could just count her teeth) and she wouldn't budge.  UGH!  I had to reschedule her appointment and, as luck would have it, Matt would be off work and could take her.  SWEET!

Gym Bugs!

Matt promised Grace that if she sat in the chair and was a good patient, he would take her for ice cream and for a ride on the train at the mall.  She has been begging me to take her for a ride on that train for MONTHS!  Apparently, I should've promised the same thing because she did great!  She even got a new tooth brush and toothpaste which she was thrilled about!!  The two of them had a fun day filled with ice cream, train rides, and Christmas shopping!
While they were out and about, I took Anna to Gym Bugs and let her run wild!  We also had a fun morning jumping on trampolines, crawling through caterpillars, and running, running and running!!
It's so nice to be able to spend one-on-one time with the girls and I'd say that day was a big success!!

I'm not the only one who LOVES Pinterest!!

The girls are loving it too!!  There are an unlimited amount of activities for kids on that website and this particular day, we decided to make volcanos!  The blog I got the idea from had 3 different ways to make them.  I opted for this particular method since I knew Grace would want to do it again and again.  All you need is baking soda, vinegar, and food coloring......dun dun dun!  Call me crazy but just looking at the food coloring box makes my heart start beating in overtime given our little incident we had with Anna!!
Sprinkle the baking soda on whatever you want.  Mix food coloring with a cup of vinegar and turn 'em loose!  Grace loved it and, thankfully, I went with this method versus the one-time explosion since she did this for a solid 30 minutes!
Anna was teething and cranky that day (she's popped 6, yes 6 teeth in since Christmas!) and got a kick out of the first couple or so.  But after that, she just marched around with her box of Nilla Wafers and a big scowl on her face!  WAHAHA!!
Fun times for all when Pinterest is involved!!

I'm teething!  Leave me alone, woman!

First up was blue.

WHOA!!

Let's try a little red.

Am I NOT supposed to be up here??

Over the River and Through the Woods.......

Scavenger Hunt!

Found it!

We headed north on the 26th so we could have Christmas in Indiana!!  We stopped at Nana and Papa's for the first couple days.  The Henderson clan was there when we arrived and we got to spend some time with our cousins, aunts, Great Nana, and Don.  We don't get to see them very often and it was nice to spend some time together.  Great Nana loves a good scavenger hunt and sent the kids on one where they found a jeep waiting on them in the garage!  FUN!
We were SO excited when we woke up to it SNOWING outside the next morning!!!  YAY!!!!  Nana helped the kids make snow ice cream and then we got in a little outside playing time in the afternoon!  The snow drought that we're having this winter has us a bit frazzled and we were well overdue for a good one!  The snow didn't last long BUT we did get to play in it, make a snowman and snow angels, and have a snowball fight!
We were spoiled rotten and our car was already packed full BEFORE we even made it to Grandma's house!!
Next up was Grandma's for a couple days where the kids were, once again, bombarded with toys, toys, and MORE toys!!  The girls got their first IU cheerleading outfits and they are hysterical!!  Check out the two pictures of the kids in their IU outfits.  You may notice that Anna is only in one of them.  This might be because the girl doesn't stop moving for a second, and in all the other pictures we took, she was either absent or blurry because she moves at the speed of lightning!!
The next day we got to see the Townsend's new house (in one word......GORGEOUS!) where I'm quite sure the girls ran 27 miles in the few hours we were there!!  It warmed up and we even got in some playing time outside before the girls started to blow away.
We had a great time with family during those four days!!  The drive to and from Knoxville seems to get longer and LONGER, but getting to see all our family and spend time together makes it so worth it!!!

My new coffee cup was a BIG hit w/ AK!

The baby toys are always a hit!

LOVE her look here!

Reading the book Great Nana wrote!

Making snow ice cream!

Don't forget about me!!

Making snow angels

And a snow man.

Snowball fight!!

Take that, Papa!

And that!

AK waiting it out inside with Daddy.

Finished product!

Linus with her "me."

Opening stockings at Grandma's!

AK's favorite thing to do at Grandma's.

Say what??

YES!!!

And one for AK too!

WAHAHAHAHA!!!

Playing in Jack's new IU room!