First Piano Recital

Bumpkin had her first piano recital in May. She did so well! She was the youngest by three school years but still didn't show any nerves. As you can see in the video during one of her songs she did lose her place but wasn't discouraged.  I was so proud of her! 

Week before birth

The summer weeks before DeeDee's birth were packed with summer camps, lessons, and softball games. And eventually grandma joined us so she could be here to help when the new baby arrived. 

Here are some of our pictures from hanging out at home and in the neighborhood. 

The older girls went to a memorial camp with some friends for two weeks and loved it. It is an artsy camp that had a performance at the end. I will upload those videos to a separate post. 

Daddy helped keep the girls entertained in the afternoon after their camps. He took them to the lake to go hiking, bowling, and the museums. Mommy and Mimi were also missing our Little Man so we picked him up and went to the children's museum one day while the older girls were at camp. Mommy was brave and let Mimi paint on the windows. So far she hasn't tried it at home. :) 

And finally, Mommas birthday dinner. Daddy and the kids took mommy out for her birthday which was just a few days before the new baby arrived. 

Great Wolf Lodge

We surprised the girls with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge last week. I was so excited to surprise them! They had heard of it before but didn't really understand what it was. So it was exciting to surprise them. We walked into the place which they knew was our hotel. They had giant windows showing the water park area and the girls mouths just dropped! It was so funny to see. They loved watching the 1,000 gallon bucket fill up and then dump on the park. 

After we checked in we went to our room  where there was another surprise for the girls. We had gotten one of the log cabin rooms. The girls thought it was so cool to have their own place to sleep. That is actually the only picture I got while at the lodge. Neither one of us carried our phones around for pictures for obvious kids vs. water vs. phone reasons. So instead of pictures I have funny stories. 

Bumpkin- 

Bumpkin was drama this trip. Not that it is anything different then normal but everything had a production. Some of it pretty funny, like her reaction when we walked in and saw the waterpark, some of it not so much. She is currently 49 inches tall. The younger water slides say they are for 48 inches and shorter. Luckily nobody measured he or called her out on it because she loves those and wouldn't try the bigger ones. And I mean wouldn't try. She would walk clear up to the top of the tube stairs with daddy and Troublemaker (I was in the hotel room for naptime) but wouldn't go down the slide. She was scared of how high it was (even though she was up there) and then she was scared of the slide being enclosed. Etc.  So then they tried to get her to go on the body slides because they weren't enclosed or as high but she was scared of those for some reason as well. 

Troublemaker- 

Troublemaker on the other hand went on every slide she was big enough to ride. She even got to the point where she was going up the line and down the stairs by herself. (I'm not sure if I am more impressed with her being comfortable doing that or with daddy for letting her go by herself. Ha). 

Mimi- 

Mimi provided a variety of entertainment on the trip. She liked parts of the water park but really wasn't comfortable with a lot of it yet. She loved just walking around the little pool or the pool edges. 

However, she was hilarious outside the pool. First, we were in our room setting some ground rules for leaving the room, the pool, etc. we had just gotten done telling the girls they couldn't open the door without an adult right there. We were packing our swim bag when we heard the door open and looked up to see Mimi leaving. We asked who opened the door and when neither one of the big girls confessed we swore we wouldn't leave until one of them did. We even demonstrated that Mimi couldn't open the door herself. Daddy asked her multiple times to open the door and she tried but didn't. So since nobody confessed we sat down to wait. That was when Mimi got bored and opened the door herself and left! We were all rolling with laughter. 

That night we has put the kids to bed and Mimi was having trouble. We brought the pack n play just in case and had put it on the open floor in the cabin area. The other two were passed out but we knew Mimi was still awake. Then all of a sudden the lights in their room started going on and off. Somehow Mimi had gotten out of her pack n play (which she had never done before) and was playing around in the room. So I ended up moving the pack n play out of the cabin so she would go to bed. 

Daddy- 

I'm surprised daddy didn't have a heart attack while we were in the pool area. Anyone who knows daddy will understand this but his overprotective safety issues were in full gear! He even said to me "this is the perfect place to come in three more years". Ha. 

We really didn't do much of the extras this time. With naptime and needing to adhere to some sort of bedtime we didn't think we had much extra time. We looked into the Magic Quest but were told it took 4 ish hours. We saved that got when we can stay up later and/or stay longer. We did have fun in the arcade though. 

We had a great time and he girls keep asking to go back. We bought a groupon so it was well worth the money for us. We look forward to doing it again in the future!  

American Girls and Science City

Bumpkin and Troublemaker have been asking for American Girl dolls for awhile now. Probably a year actually since they first started asking but I really thought they would move on. However, their fakes started to get pretty messy hair dos and the asking got louder. So we decided to give them a lesson about money, savings, choices, etc.

We have been collecting money in our piggy banks for years but they girls have never understood actually how much they had. We would go to the bank and they would ask if they had enough money for something at the dollar tree. So their money has been accumulating for awhile. After talking it over with them we found we were pretty close to the needed amount for each of them to get a doll. They were so excited!

Bumpkin knew what doll she wanted. She got Saige the doll of the year. I tried to convince her to consider Molly as they have a lot in common but she wouldn't even think about it. Troublemaker went in with no idea what doll she wanted. I think she might have been leaning towards Kit but she changed her mind frequently. By the time we left she had happily settled on Marie-Grace. Mimi had also settled on her very own bitty twins. She didn't really care which ones, she just played with them all. :)

Finally, after we had selected our dolls and had lunch we took daddy to Science City. I wish we lived closer to it. I don't think my kids would get tired of it. We can spend four hours there and not get to half the stuff. It is a great day trip. Especially because on this day it was Sid the Science Kid day. They had different science projects every hour. My girls like the marshmallow experiments.

Professional Pictures

We went in around Easter and had pictures taken of the girls. Here is the one I paid to have the rights to post.

Bumpkins frog

I have to say my kids can draw better then me already. I have only ever mastered drawing a house. Here is Bumpkins frog she drew last week, without tracing or looking at pictures...

Circus

Earlier this year we went to the circus. We went with some friends and had a great time. Mimi was so impressed she was overwhelmed and really just sat there in awe. I am honestly surprised she didn't have more reactions but she was probably just on overload. The older girls also road an elephant during intermission.

Digging Holes

So as promised here is the what happened on our last day of spring break. We had to get our plumbing fixed! How fun! We had a belly in the line from our house to the street. It had backed up into our basement for the second time in six months. Not really something I wanted to deal with again. So we had to pay someone to dig a giant hole in our yard with nothing to show for it but a yard made of mud not grass. But we were able to get something nice out of it and the plumbers dug a hole on the other side of the house for an egress window. Nice!

It was obviously a whole day project though and we couldn't use the bathroom. Not very possible with six kids running around the house. So I begged Aunt Heather to come down to visit and we took the kids to a new place I had heard of in KC, Science City. It was pretty awesome and well worth the trip. Plus, I took the plunge and forked over the rest of the money and bought a year pass so we can go back. S glad I did that as we spent four hours there and barely saw half.

Some of our highlights were playing in the sewer system. We thought it was ironic that daddy was at home playing in our sewer and we could slide down the one at Science City. We also love the wave/boat pool thing. I am not sure exactly what it is called but there was a slow current and blockers so you could change the path the water went. Plus boats and balls to use in the current. No joke, Mimi was drenched when we finally drug the kids away from the water.

Snow Day Fun

February brought the snow we had been lacking for awhile. And it brought a lot. School was cancelled three days in a weeks time. Bumpkin and Troublemaker are finally at the age where they love the snow. Get them all bumbled up and they will stay out there forever. Mimi on the other hand was overwhelmed by the amount of snow and only stayed out for a few minutes.

Before the snow stopped though we decided to bring the fun inside. We got out cookie cutters, food color tinted spray bottles, and various craft supplies. Mimi was really only interested in eating the snow but the others loved making colorful mountains.

Once the snow slowed and he wind died down they spent the rest of the time outside.

Finally, a few days later we went outside and mommy taught the girls the art of making snowman. They made a girl but then she needed a husband. :). They lost interest before they tried to complete the rest of the family.

Halloween

I just realized I never posted Halloween pictures. Our neighborhood is awesome for trick-or-treating. We have tons of kids and everyone gets into it. So we had some friends over and went as a large group. Bumpkin was Pinkie Pie. Troublemaker was Rainbow Dash. And Mimi was a circus monkey. We had a blast!

Mimi wasn't sure about everything at first but a block or two in she realized she was getting candy and was fine after that. Go figure!

Troublemaker, Mimi, and I also went trick-or-treating at a nursing home with our MOPS group.