My life as a Mommy of 4 little boys

Monday, May 28, 2012

Another great giveaway from Mom Spotted!!!!

Go check out the awesome giveaway going on at Mom Spotted!!!  She's giving away a Britax Frontier 85 SICT!!!!!!!!!  Which is a value of $340!  It's an awesome car seat!!!  Good luck to everyone!

Look how awesome it is :)

One thing I love about this seat is it's a forward facing only seat and it's limits state that the child has to be 2yrs old AND 25lbs to use it, finally a manufacturer that doesn't say they can use their seats FF at only 1yrs old!!!!

Summer Bucket List 2012

Well summer is officially here!!!!  Landon has finished 3rd grade, Casen has finished 1st grade and Hayden has finished his first year of preschool!!!!!!  So now I"m busy planning our summer, and having tons of fun doing it!!!  

I have decided we will do a Summer Bucket List, I made an I'm bored jar (that has activities that need no help from me, just ideas that they can do on their own when they are bored), we are going to make a summer scrapbook of all the things we do (including lots of pics taken by the boys), participate in the library reading program and I"m having them keep journals all summer to keep up on writing and spelling.  I have finished the "I'm bored jar" aside from decorating it, when I finish it I'll post a pic.  Then today I'm going to get the stuff to make our Summer bucket List and when that's done I'll post a pic but here are my ideas for it :)

All Day activities: (these will be color coded)
  • Pirate's Cove
  • Hawaiian Falls
  • Eat Backwards Day (dinner, lunch, breakfast)
  • Go to the Lego store, each get one small kit/toy
  • Spend the day watching movies
  • Make your own rock candy (which is actually a couple day process)
  • Have a pj day
  • Have a no electronics day
Half Day Activities:
  • Make and eat homemade ice cream
  • Make Tie dye shirts
  • Make homemade finger paints and allow them to body paint with them
  • Make pillow and blanket forts
  • Go to the park and feed the ducks
  • Go to the Museum
  • Go to the Aquarium
  • Go to Chuck E Cheese
  • Have an ice cream sundae bar
  • Watch a movie and eat popcorn
  • Make hot car crayons
  • Make and play with soda bottle sprinklers
  • Make and use popsicle paint
  • Go to a "new to you" park
  • Go to splashground
  • Wash the car
  • Go to drive in
  • Go visit Aunt Dessa at work
  • Make and take treats to the fire station
2hrs or less:
  • Make shark tooth necklaces
  • Make a dessert together and eat first, then eat dinner
  • Make playdough
  • Go for snow cones
  • Go out for ice cream
  • Go out for frozen yogurt
  • Make silly putty
  • Make lobster hand and foot prints
  • Play in sprinkler
  • Have Christmas in July
  • Go swimming
  • Go to the park
  • Go to the bookstore and each get a new book
  • Make homemade pizzas for lunch
  • Blow bubbles
  • Make fresh fruit popsicles
  • Have a picnic
  • Turn the music up loud and sing and dance
  • Make rootbeer floats
  • Make bubble bath paint
  • Make bouncy balls
  • Make lemonade with real lemons
  • Make fizzy sidewalk painting
  • Make cookies
  • Eat watermelon outside and don't care about the mess
  • Play a few games of uno
  • Make ice cream in a bag
  • Play hopscotch
  • Go ride bikes
  • Get a new coloring book and color
  • Make magical playdough mix
  • Make marshmallow shooters
  • Make a bubble snake maker
  • Make a "really big bubble maker"
  • Make glow in the dark drinks
  • Make sponge balls
  • Make gak
  • Make a hair gel writing bag
  • Marble painting
  • Shaving cream painting
  • Make glow in the dark slime
  • Go to the $ store and each pick something
  • Write a letter and mail it
  • Put on a play
  • Make homeade finger paints and paint a pic
  • Make galaxy play dough
  • Build with marshmallows
  • Have a watermelon eating contest
  • Make glow stick lanterns

Then we have some ongoing things:
  • Make a summer scrapbook
  • Library reading program
  • Date night with each kid on their own at least once, if not twice
  • Make an art gallery for each kid
  • Create a calm down space for each
  • Find a good book and read a chapter outloud each day
  • Write in journals daily
  • Make chalk board message boards for each kid
  • Go on lots of playdates!!!!!
  • Go swimming at least a few times a week
  • Swim lessons
  • 2 different Vacation Bible Schools
  • Baseball camp for Landon and Casen
It's going to be a great summer!!!!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Zoo trip!!!

Today I took Hayden and Preston to a playdate at the zoo!  It was Preston's first time ever going to the zoo and Hayden's first time in a long time.  So long, in fact, that he swore he had never been before, he didn't remember it lol. He has been asking to go for awhile and was so excited about it.  


So we got there and I started unloading and saw one of the other moms from our playgroup, Shari, parked a couple spots over.  We walked in together and as I was walking in I started thinking what a bad idea this was.  Just from the car to the gates I was already in quite a bit of pain, and I had taken some medicine already to help.  But we get in there and went to the Children's Zoo section and met up with the other moms.  In there they have a river type thing for the kids to play in, get wet and cool off.  Hayden loved that and ended up soaked!

They also had huge eggs that the kids could climb in

Also a big nest.  Hayden climbed in and started saying "tweet tweet" lol

There were also some chickens that were hanging out with us, eating food other people have dropped...and I might have dropped 1-2 crackers for them....


After playing for awhile we decided to go look at some animals and Hayden REALLY wanted to see the crocodiles so we headed in that direction.  We stopped and saw some other things on the way.  Hayden seriously was loving every bit of it, he was so excited to see each animal.  

It was pretty hot so he kept cool with his spray fan

Then we started heading towards the monorail.  Hayden was SO excited about this, couldn't stop talking about it, didn't want to stop and look at anything else on the way, just wanted to make it to the "train".  So we get up there and he sees how it's open on one side and pretty high up and he freaked out  lol.  He decided he did NOT want to go on it and that he was scared.  But after some convincing he went and got on and absolutely loved it.


On the monorail we saw some zebras

Pelicans

Went under a waterfall

Then we saw Hayden's favorite, again, the crocodile!!!!!

After the monorail ride a couple of the moms were ready to go so me and Dawn headed with our kids over to the carousel so they could ride

Dawn left after that and I took Hayden over to the gift shop to find some crocodile stuff.  We ended up getting him a stuffed croc and a gummy croc


Then we made our way back to the car.  By this point I was in so much pain I honestly didn't think I'd make it to the car but somehow I did.  Hayden was also hurting because when his pants got wet at the very beginning they never dried and they rubbed the insides of his legs the entire time he was walking and now it's really red and sore :(  But we really had a great time.  I wish Mark had been there with us (the older boys too).  Hayden seriously enjoyed every second, I'm not sure I've seen him quite that happy before.  It was awesome <3 

Preston really didn't do much, he just hung out in his stroller, took a nap and did seem to enjoy the monorail ride.  But he didn't pay any attention to any animals or anything yet.  So hopefully mark will get to experience his real first visit to the zoo, when he actually participates.  I did get him a cute little zebra though :)