Movie Magic

Here are the videos that we promised to show some people. Maybe one of those persons was you.

This is Wesley's second birthday. After he blew out the candle he wanted "candle again." That was the most exciting part. Perhaps we should have let him blow it out again and try to fit two candles on the fish cupcake, but oh well.

We took a park trip one night and we found a special visitor. He/She was so cute. However, when we started to leave the baby raccoon started crying because it was hoping we would be his mommy. That part was a little sad.

Here we are in the Children's Museum with a dance party.


This one is a robotic dinosaur that Wesley really enjoyed at the Discovery Museum. We could control it and Wesley and CR moved multiple joysticks to get this to work.


Here is mommy pretending to sneeze to get a laugh. It reminds me of "Bong" and "Bing" from that one Utube video. Anyway I was surprised to get this since every other time I have pulled out the camera it has been spotted and the chatter has stopped instantly.


If we start playing this one Wesley says "again." This was a weird music maker at the Discovery Museum. In order to make the music you put on the blocks, move them, rotate them etc to get different sounds. It was pretty snazzy.

JoJo the Bumping Car!

Tah Dah here are the videos!!

Lots of Birthdays and Things

What's happening everybody?! Katelyn and Kairi are here to say enjoy this update! I've been wanting to update the blog for a very very long time now and boy howdy it gets hard to get around to stuff like that these days. Well here it is folks! (p.s. we have some videos coming your way too.)

As an anniversary gift I got a new camera, one that has sound to the video! My other one was a little old fashioned, but Wesley still likes to play with it. Here is Wesley looking through the hole of a tunnel as I played around with my new camera.

I was trying to get a shot were Wesley's feet were popping out at the screen but you could still see his face. Oh well. This was my closest attempt.

We went on a walk to see Lake Mendota. Amy took some pictures of ducks, I got some of us. Here is one where Wesley is throwing rocks into the water. Don't worry Von the world now knows you were there too.

Here is Wesley sitting in front of the lake and making a face.

This picture I was very excited about and got sad when it got lost sometime when Wesley pounded on the keyboard. The kids and I were just sitting around the apartment like we do from time to time and it started raining. Then it started hailing! I had to show off my penny sized hail.

But wait, it got even bigger! Wesley had fun collecting the "ice" off the balcony and watching it melt inside. He kept asking to find more of it the next two days after that, and I had to tell him that it wasn't raining or hailing so no ice would appear. We all thought it was pretty cool.

Another cool thing is us starting our very first garden! We got a plot of land behind Epic this year and are growing peas, carrots and garden beans. It's been quite the challenge to find time to get out and water the place at least once a week, so I hope things will grow and not die in this heat.

Wesley had the most fun trying to push the wheelbarrow. He liked the hose too as long as it wasn't getting him wet. :)

Hey keep those heads up! Here we have Kairi and Katelyn entertaining each other while doing some exercise. They're personalities are really starting to come through these days. Kairi wants to stand and walk already and get into everything and see everyone. Katelyn would much rather learn to sit up on her own and observe all the commotion. They both LOVE to smile and chat away.

The first birthday we had over here was Amy's. She is now somewhere between the ages of 18 and 25. I got her this umbrella and the rose.

Next we had my birthday! Who ever said I could turn older? I love this shot Amy got because it shows how typical a day is. We'll have Wesley into stuff while the twins take turns sitting and standing and then whining. Those kiddos know how to keep you busy.

As part of my birthday presents Chris got me a box of hair dye. We had talked about it a little before, but then I forgot and once I had the box, well there was no turning back. I must admit that we are novices at dying hair and so redid this three times before we actually figured it out correctly. I still think we missed a few spots, but oh well. Lucky for me Chris did not decide that I should become a green head. Just a red head. It took a little while to get used to it, but now I like it, and the color is still close to my original color so there was nothing for me to freak out about.

See I told you that the kids can't sit still. This little one wanted out of the activity center to get a closer look at...my new shirt! It's a delorean and a tardis crashing into each other. Really it just came out of nowhere!

Here is a view of my birthday dinner that I requested. I wanted sub sandwiches, and chips and also received jello and strawberry lemonade. I had other presents too that I got and I like them all. Thanks people!

Some recent Saturday we took a trip to the splash pad and also ended up going to Mendota, but the other side of it. Wesley was being a goof and not wanting to get wet.

We tried to encourage him with peer pressure. Just kidding. We were just letting his sisters get their feet wet. They didn't like it either.

Wesley found some fun making his first sand castle. We had to recreate it for this shot, because he also had fun squishing it.

Next up we had Wesley's birthday. The big boy has turned 2! As part of this we decided to get him a toddler bed. Now we can steal, um use, his crib for his sisters who are starting to roll and kick each other at night. They haven't woken each other up with this just yet, but they will any night now.

The first night in Wesley's new bed he did really really well. He just went onto the bed and went to sleep. In the morning he did fall out of bed when he woke up. He has only fallen out of bed once more since then, but he was able to go back to sleep when I told him it was still night time.

As part of Wesley's birthday we went to Milwaukee. First we went to a Discovery Museum and then to the children's museum. This picture is from the latter where Kate enjoyed playing with a three headed dragon puppet. The sign was saying how play acting was good for kids and that you should try telling some jokes. I came up with this one: What did one dragon head say to the other? You're drag-on me down! At least Kate liked it.

This was one of Wesley's favorite parts from the Discovery Museum. We got to learn how Milwaukee got it's water for it's public water fountains and other drinking water things. As you can tell playing in the water is a big hit with kids.

Here is Chris as he rides in a hamster machine where he was trying to turn on the lights above his head. That thing was stiffer than you would think. We both only just got a small glow.

Wesley had fun looking at himself in the mirrors on the wall.

He also likes cars, trains, trucks, things that move. This steering wheel of a life size model ship was quite the attraction for him.

This is a random thing where you lay down and they raise pokey nails up from under you. They left some prick marks on Chris for a little while. I chickened out from trying it.

Here is a picture of the aquarium inside the museum. I liked that you also got to walk above the fish so you could look down on them.

Oh look, some proof that make use of our twin stroller.

Jellyfish! I love jellyfish ever since I saw a ton of them at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium in CA.

We got a ghost in the picture isn't it awesome! Well the fish tunnel was awesome. They swam under and over and beside us at the same time!

At the Children's Museum we told Wesley that he would see a train. As soon as he spotted it before we had even paid he shouted, "There it is! I see it! A green train!" Oh yes, he speaks in sentences now.

Here he got to push a small wheelbarrow just his size.

We got to play in a pre-walking area. Kairi loved the spot for her.

The green thing is a twisty ramp that Wesley had fun putting balls down.

He had a fish theme birthday so we had fish cup cakes. They turned out very well.

We even decided to borrow a good idea. :)

Here are some random pictures that we took. This one if from a park that we just happened to discover on a walk close to the Zoo.

Oh and Wesley is so talented that he can walk on the ceiling.

This shows some personalities. Yup. Kairi wants to be in front to see what the camera is. Kate just smiles at her mostly, and Wesley well he drinks from this sippy cup!

Whew, almost done. Here is family photo for all of you to enjoy. Our next update we are hoping to put up the videos that we took. It's hard to do so when our internet is way slow at night, but they are coming, and there are some good ones!

As Wesley now says at parting with a wave, "later!"

Our 3rd Year Anniversary

Just thought I would put up a few pictures and leave you all clueless as to what we did for our third Anniversary! Okay maybe I can spare a few words for you....

It seems that the time went by really fast. Honestly the last three years in high school went by way slower than these past three years, and who'd have thought I would have three kids in 3 years! Lucky for us Amy (my sister) volunteered to watch Wesley and the Twins (Kairi and Katelyn) so that Chris and I could escape for one night. It was way nice-Thanks Amy!

Heads up for everyone, there is no particular order the following pictures because I was not going to spend the time to get them all in order. he he


For our anniversary we went to The House on the Rock. For all of those who never knew this, I didn't at first after all, it was not built by Frank Lloyd Wright, and he thought the place was rubbish. It was made by Alex Jordan who "climbed the rock and had an extraordinary vision. What began as a lofty retreat with an awe inspiring view grew through the years to become a spectacular complex of dreams made real, designed to delight and amaze visitors with hundreds of displays of the exotic, the unusual and the unique."

We saw all three tours.
The first section included: the Gate house, original house, infinity room, Japanese garden, Asian garden, and Alex Jordan center
The second section: Mill house, streets of yesterday, heritage of the sea, tribute to nostalgia, music of yesterday, spirit of aviation, and the carousel.
The third tour had: carousel, organ room, inspiration point, doll house room, circus room, galleries and doll carousel building.


If you plowed through all of that don't worry. Basically the building had a lot of stuff. Cool stuff and old stuff, and stuff that I wouldn't want in my own home and stuff that I wouldn't mind having in my house. After all who would not want their own carousel?

This is one of the gardens. So pretty.

These screens were one of my favorite parts. They were hand crafted by a guy in India and were everywhere. I thought they were pretty crafty!

This is a typical statue thing that you could see lining the road and front entrance of the place.

Here is Chris eating left over Olive Garden in our hotel room.

Here is the cool fish water slide submarine attraction at The House on the Rock inn that we stayed at. It was a fun place. Behind it is a swimming pool.

Here is a thing.

Here is Chris looking though a distance viewer.

Here is Amanda outside.

Here is a stained glass window that I liked. There were tons of them.

Here is Amanda in the infinity room. Actually the room is just a long enclosed catwalk that tapers to a point at the end to create the illusion.

Another window, as you probably guessed.

This is a three story whale statue that was chomping a boat. On the first floor you could see that the whale in turn was being eaten by a giant squid. Surrounding the statue you spiraled up to see a bunch of model boats, and old war things.

Here is a shot from the Streets of Yesterday. That place was pretty cool. Who would have thought to put a street with two story buildings and stuff in the middle of their house?

Here is one example of a Japanese chest. It was hard to get some good pictures because the places were all inside and dark. Sorry, but I really liked the lacquer work on here.

This was a wall of glass inside the girls bathroom. While I was there another tourist commented that this may be the most photographed bathroom.

This is a sled that I thought was adorable. Wouldn't you want to ride in it?

This was one of our Dr. Who shots. Lets see lets pull the cooper lever.

This is our second Dr. Who shot from the same room. We had to go through all these weird twists and turns and stuff.

Here is a closeup of the worlds largest carousel. Because it is worth a bunch of money they didn't let us ride on it. That was disappointing. The thing does not use a single horse head.

Here is the carousel from a little father away.

As part of the random stuff that we saw, there a bunch of old crowns and jewels, and of course a security guard.

This is a picture of a creation made out of ivory. It was behind glass as you can tell, but really neat. I wouldn't want to take that long to make something like this.

Here is part of the circus miniature characters room. I don't know how they came up with so many different circus scenes, but the room was full of them.

Here is a doll house.

Oh and that was the last of the pictures that I put up here. The tour took us three hours to do. Our whole trip was pretty amazing except for the part when we discovered that I had packed Chris' shorts not his swim trunks. We made a stop at Walmart for some new swim gear and popcorn.

Bye!