Let's Play Catch Up!

So I knew it had been a long time since I updated the blog. I didn't realize how long it really had been until I looked at my last post.... By Golly! And the post before that was when the twins turned 5 and they just turned 6 two weeks ago. I'm only like 6-12 months behind ya'll. Enjoy the pictures of the random things we do. :)

July of 2016

 We go to Little Amerrika for the 4th of July and ride the rides. Here you can make out Wesley in the blue shirt sitting beside Kate. Chris and Kairi are in front of them. 

We camped outside in the backyard. The kids had mom (Amanda) in there with them so it was a little crowded. 

 Kate took swim lessons and managed to not be as scared of the water now, although she still does not put her face in it. She is the second child from the left in this picture.

 We had Chris's annual work picnic called Epicnic. Kate and Wesley are jumping in this picture.

 The Henry Vilas Zoo finished their new polar bear exhibit and my kids got stuck there.

We watched a bubble show at the library. It was pretty cool and bubbly.

Since I am writing this from February of 2017, the lack of snow looks pleasant. We had a large rainstorm last year in July.

August 2016

 I took the kids to a "new" for us beach. Kate is doing a cartwheel, Kairi is blocking Wesley, bu he is standing behind her.

 The fledgling baby birds that lived in our deck got fed and then learned how to fly.

 I found this, so I think I liked my hair in August 2016.

 We visited the Milwaukee natural history museum and went through the butterfly room.

 At that same place we watched a 3D movie.

 Chris got his Vive virtual reality headset that some of my amazing readers have already seen.

Allen and Michelle's house had bees in their garden hose.

September 2016

 We babysat the neighbors fish that they were babysitting for someone else and it died.

 We got to see Epic's new addition to their castle building that included moving pictures on the walls. 

 Kate started Kindergarten. In Mrs. Nolan's class.

 Wesley started 2nd grade in Ms. Blakeman's class.

 Kairi started Kindergarten in Ms. Joswiak's class.

 The across-the-street-from-us neighbors kid crashed his parents car into our fence by rolling it down their driveway. I think it took 3-4 months to fix it because I had to keep bugging the dudes who installed the fence to come put in a new post. The style they had previously used was discontinued, but I talked them into cutting something to size to fix it.

Chris had a birthday with a castle cake.

Chris and Kate played basketball. They did make this shot.

October 2016

 We got our picture taken at the kids school.

 I went on a tour of the capital building with Michelle and Gemma.

 Kate attended a Chuck-E-Cheese birthday.

 I crocheted an elephant for Wesley perhaps.

 We took a picture at Epic's cool wizard statue that was made in 2016. The ball glows in his hand at night.

 I went on a field trip with Wesley's class to a nature center.

 On the field trip we caught a few bugs.

 Wesley with his class.

 I went on a field trip with Kate and Kairi to a farm. We learned how they process their apples into apple cider. The girl in the gray coat is Kate.

 Everyone here is pointing at the bee hives that you can't see in the picture.

 Chris and I took the kids to a Lego event. We have Wesley, Kairi, Lego dude, and Kate.

 Kate and Kairi with Lego bear and Lego friend Stephanie.

 Wesley made a crown.

 Kate and Wesley made castles.

 You've got to pose with Wild Style!

 This is my niece Cathryn. She is my sister Amy's baby and is one month old here. She was born in September.

 We grew a watermelon in our backyard! We had about 4-6 more but all the other ones rotted.

We went to a pumpkin patch. Here is Kate, Kairi, Chris and Wesley.

 I even got a picture of myself at the pumpkin patch! Pictures of me are scarce.

 I babysat my niece Gemma so we had to play on the trampoline.

 We had Halloween.

 We have Gemma the (ahem horse/cow). Chris and I are steampunk people, Kate and Kairi are princesses and Wesley is a Lego Nexo Knight.

 We ate a pumpkin Pizza!

And our house looks cool with our Halloween lights.

November 2016

I made a new Thanksgiving Decoration.

Chris thought I was too cool to be contained so he stole a video.

 We had visitors come to town for Thanksgiving. 

You can just make out the orange stripe of Wesley's coat, Uncle GR, Amanda, Allen, Gemma, Michelle, and Marisa. Kate was the one who took the picture for us.

 Uncle GR and Kairi at the staircase that cuts off halfway inside Epic. Just think "Harry Potter."

 Lounging at Epic with Michelle, Wesley, Marisa and Kate.

 More lounging after lots of walking with GR, Kairi, Kate, Marisa, Gemma, and Allen.

 Guess what? It snowed in December.

Kairi (left) and Kate went sledding.

 Kairi, Wesley and Kate visited with Santa.

 The elf on the shelf tried to find new places to be. His name is Apple Cinnamon. 

 We build a snow fort with help from Uncle Allen, Aunt Michelle and Gemma.

 Ta dah! I lasted the weekend before it rained and knocked the roof in. Then it became half a snow ice fort.

 We reenacted the Nativity Story with Michelle, Allen and Gemma.

 Christmas came!

Kate is modeling a super hero suit.

 We checked out the new upstairs of the "climbing place."

Kate and Kairi

 Chris vs. Wesley at Hello Kitty air hockey.

 Wesley scores!

January 2017

 Amanda and Kate are hood buddies.

 Kairi and Kate had a birthday and turned 6 years old. They chose a jungle theme. Here is one of the things we did, a bean bag toss game.

 We had a separate birthday dinner for Kairi and Kate on their actual birthday. They opened a few presents then from Allen, Michelle, Gemma and us.

 Kate, Kairi, and Wesley.

 The girls had a lion birthday cake that looked like this.

 Here they are waiting for the birthday party to start. I didn't get pictures of the actual event since I was in charge of the whole thing. So we played bean bag toss, hunted for plastic toy animals inside a box filled with balloons, fed a green "crocodile" by playing golf into his mouth, decorated paper bag puppets, went on an egg hunt where they found gems inside the eggs, colored on balloons to turn them into animal faces, pinned the nose on the lion. The girls had three friends from school come.

Here is the lion nose game.

 Wisconsin Dells currently has an ice castle that is made from dudes who came here from Utah. Aren't they nice? Kairi had to wear her Elsa dress to visit the ice palace.

 Kairi, Kate, and Chris at the entrance to the ice castle.

 There were about 2-3 tunnels the kids could climb through.

 We got there at 5pm so we could see the place during the day and during the night. At night the ice gets lit up with cool color changing lights. You can see a Wisconsin Dells roller coaster in the background.

 The kids went through a small ice slide. We all went down a larger one later, but only Chris got a picture of that. My fingers were freezing at that point and I was done with taking pictures.

 A nice person took our picture. Amanda, Kate, Wesley, Kairi, and Chris.

 This was a big glowing hole. I called it a cauldron. Chris said there was water and coins in the bottom. I was a little too short to see that.

 Here you can see the same location with the lights changing inside.

 This was a water fountain that changed colors and made me wonder how they kept the water from freezing.

 After an hour or so Kate and Kairi decided to stay there forever.

Here is a picture of what the photos look like on my phone. For some reason I get about sixteen of these every time the girls play games on my phone.

Hey guess what? I caught up on the blog! Go me.

 

Amanda goes to Hawaii Thursday Night and Friday.

In the year 2016 Amanda took her mom (Grandma Morse) to Hawaii. Grandma Morse had always wanted to go to Hawaii her whole life. It was a dream come true, and she now wants to live there....Sounds expensive!

We started out slow meeting up in the Honolulu airport. When I first set up the tickets we would have gotten in two minutes apart from each other. That was the ideal time. The times were changed to an hour apart, but then I had a delayed plane so in reality we arrived three hours apart from each other. We spent our entire 6 days on the island of Oahu.

My mom got this great shot of the island from the plane.

 

Our first night we got our rental car. It was a red ford, with four doors and I didn't like it much at all. Not only did it have a really small gas tank, we filled it up once with only 7 gallons when it was a notch before empty, but it also took me two days to figure out how to adjust the seat back so it was easier to drive. Since there was a fee to add an additional driver, I did all the driving. Here I am!

 

Then we checked in to hotels and stowed our stuff and wandered the streets. We spent some time trying to locate a farmers market and found it as it was closing so people kept giving us discounts on food that we were not able to finish in our week long stay. We got eggplant, carrots, green beans, bread,  and a coconut that we drank the milk from. It was more watery than I had expected. We also took a short walk on the Waikiki beach front to catch our first view like this.

 

Our first full day was Friday the 17th in the year 2016. We routinely woke up at 5 am each day in Hawaii as there is a time difference between where we live. For me it was a 5 hour difference. It was the middle of the day for us when our family was going to bed.Our first stop was to hike Diamond Head volcano. From a plane view it looks like this:

From the secret free parking lot (a look out point) it looks like this:

We walked through a tunnel to reach the main parking and entry way then started our hike. I had read that the whole thing would take about 2-3 hours, but we were up and down in about 1 hour and we stopped to look at things along the way and take scenic pictures.

We saw things like this:

 

 
 

Since we made such good time, we had plenty of the day left. We decided to go visit the Dole Plantation.  That was a great experience. We rode on the train tour and went on a self-guided audio tour. We did not travel through the pineapple maze. But we learned that at one time the Dole plantation was responsible for shipping 90% of the US's pineapple. That is still their largest crop. They also have bananas and cocoa now, and their dirt is all red dirt since they have a high iron content from volcanic eruptions. Pineapples do not grow on trees. They grow on bushes.

 

 

 Here I am inside a pineapple. There is pineapple ice cream on top. We tried some of that stuff and it was tasty.

It rains a lot in the islands so we had lots of experience with drizzles and frizzy hair.

We saw lots of flowers and plants and a koi pond and then spent too much money on souvenirs.

When we left the Dole Plantation, we decided to play at Waikiki beach for the first time. The water was not as cold as I expected it to be and the waves were not as strong as I expected either.

We found this sand tower and added to it a little. Grandma Morse was shaping it to look like a mountain peak in the distance. I added some rocks of coral and sea shells that I found from stepping on them out in the ocean. This little girl had fun pulling them off.

After the sun went down we were greeted with a free fireworks show. The Hilton Hotel (I believe it is that one) puts on a firework show for free every Friday night. It is recommended to be on the beach to see it, but we were able to view it from our hotel window. As you can see from the photos, this area has become rather industrialized. I was hard pressed to have it feel like Hawaii my first night when I could see so many hotels right behind me. But it grows on you, and besides if you walk along the beach you can sneak peeks of Luau's and live bands playing for customers at the hotels and restaurants.

 

I am writing this while on my next vacation, a family reunion, and this internet connection is slow. So that's all for now folks. More updates with other days are to come.

Five! Nose. Denstist. Circus. Birthday.

Another blog post on another day. I know you wanted to see it hooray!

 T'was the 16th of January and all through the house every creature was stirring even the toy mouse. The girls were most excited for today was the day they would go to Build-A-Bear for their 5 year old birthday.

 The animals were stuffed by the attendant with care and given a heart with love so dear.

 Kairi picked an Elsa bear.

 Wesley the Darth Vador outfit. 

And Kate picked the cat.

 The animals were sent home in boxes of cardboard in hopes that they would soon have a happy fun home.

 Since we are part of the Toys R Us birthday club this year instead of just a 3.00 off certificate, we also got balloons and birthday crowns. 

 There were watermelon cupcakes for dessert.

 And toys! This one is a barbie doll camper from Michelle. 

Snow Day!

 We went ice skating behind Epic. It was fun!

 We pulled out hockey nets and shot ice chunks inside.

 I got to try out the ice skates I got for Christmas for the first time.

The ice skating went well. But the sledding afterward wasn't as good. The hill was icy and slippery and one time the sleds veered really far to the right. They avoided hitting another family of small kids, but Kairi ended up bonking her nose on a wooden picnic table. All the kids landed in the reeds. I was at the top of the hill and could hear them start to cry. From a mothers perspective Wesley, who was not crying really, was startled. Kate was doing a scared cry, and Kairi was crying like she was broken. I wanted to run down to her, but Chris reached her first and grabbed her to take her into an Epic building. I had no idea what she had hurt, and I had not seen her at all. I was left outside the building (no key card for me) with the other two who ran to me when Chris picked up Kairi. As you can imagine I was worried sick and frustrated that I couldn't be with Kairi, but I put the sleds the away and got the other two in the van and waited in case we needed to make a hospital trip. I was certain she had broken something.

And she had. She broke her nose. Chris got the bleeding to stop in about a half hour or so and she just wanted to go home and sleep. At the time, she had not swollen up yet. It looked like she just had a bloody nose and a bandaid across her nose from a small laceration. But that evening her face started to swell up, so I called the doctor/after hour nurse who ran me through a checklist and since she was not bleeding still and had no brain fluid coming out or anything, they figured she would be mostly fine and we set an appointment for Monday, which was still two days away. 

We had an x-ray taken since she was too swollen to really tell anything. At first the doctor said she was fine, then called me back to verify that she was broken. I was told to schedule her a specialist appointment, so I did, and then I was called back and told that the doctor had scheduled me an earlier appointment so I went and canceled the other one. Then I was called by the pharmacy department right after that phone call by a nurse verifying that Wesley was doing well on amoxicillin because he had an ear infection (halfway over) at this same time.

 Here is Kairi on the 25th of January. Two days after she broke her nose. She was mostly swollen at this stage, and refused ice packs. Her swelling extended over and above her eyes a few days later.

 Here she is on the 27th, the day after seeing the ENT (ears, nose, throat) specialist who seemed very unconcerned about her condition, and made me feel like she was going to be fine. I was told she would heal up in 6 weeks and she could do her normal activities. That was a relief. I spent four days feeling super stressed until I heard that verdict. Especially since Kairi had to go to that doctor appointment on an empty stomach in case any corrective surgery needed to be made. Luckily it was only a partial fracture.

Her face got progressively more purple, and she had a hematoma (blood clot) that extended around her eyes, here you can see the purple of it, that lasted a while (2 weeks?) before is started to fade away.

 Here is Kate at the dentist.

 And here is Kairi at the dentist 2 weeks later. As you can see, she looks mostly normal already. She still has a slight scar on the side of her nose even today. I am unsure if that will heal or remain, but this Saturday March 5th marked the 6 week mark so her bone is officially healed over now and her bleeding has gone away.

Dear Kairi, you broke your leg when you were two, and broke your nose when you were 5. Don't keep this up. :)

We went to the circus! The kids only made it through the first half. It was a 2 1/2 hour long show.

 And mostly the circus was dark in the stands and really hard to get a good picture except before and after the show. So here are some elephants.

 Kate and Chris.

 Kairi

 Wesley. He is wearing Chris's BYU hat.

 They all got light up toys.

 And Wesley got his first real light saber. He had been building fake ones out of Lego.

This Saturday we attended a friends birthday party at StoryTime Ballet. The kids are all just so cute!

 Kate and Kairi are the closest to the camera in the this picture. You can see the back of their butterfly wings. Kate has a flower dress, and Kairi the teal pants if that helps.

 They were moving around a lot "flying" so it was hard to get a good shot, and I was behind a glass window.

 Cupcakes!

 Kairi insisted on trying to see the frosting on her face.

 The girls got some flowers as a party favor so they had to put one in their hair. Kairi.

 Kate.

And....my grandma gave me an Amazon gift card out of the blue (for valentines day actually) so I now am the proud owner of an apple, peeler, corer! My apple pies this fall will be done in half the time!