Thursday, July 25, 2013

Savanna Smiles

I've encountered LOTS of different "smiles" while taking pictures these last few years- 
 The psycho smile
 The scrunchy nose smile
 

The blinking smile
The smash your face into a window smile

 
"The sun's in my eyes" smile
 The duck face smile
The "I'm playing with Mom's camera" smile
 
The sleepy smile
 
 The silly face smile
 
 The extra cheesy smile
 
The "Don't I look handsome?" smile
 The "I think this pose is cool, so I'm going to do it evey. single. time. my Mom takes my picture" smile
 

The "Pretend to be sleeping WHILE doing favorite pose" smile


The "I'm too old for this ride" smile
The "Seriously, I'm so dang handsome" smile 
also known as the "You just woke me up with your camera flash" smile
 
Savanna has recently developed the most interesting "smile" of them all -  
For some reason she's decided that in order to smile, your eyes must be at least partially closed (which is apparently not too easy for a 2 year old to do).
She's found that it sometimes helps to poke herself in the eye to ensure that they remain closed until the picture is taken-




She's obviously taking after this guy -
After much discussion, I have FINALLY helped her to understand that I DO NOT want her to close her eyes in every picture.  Now when I pull out the camera, she automatically starts to do her usual eyes-closed grimace, then stops and whispers to herself, "Oh yeah, no smile" and proceeds to smile in an adorable fashion.

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Keepin' Busy

There are lots of ways to stay busy in the summer!
Meleah colored these pictures with a red pen (not a marker).  It took a VERY long time, but she was pretty happy with the results. (Even though Savanna got a hold of her pen for a minute and added a few red splotches on the side.)
  
Legos!

 Games!
This is Savanna's new "smile" -
 Playing with Build-A-Bears!
(in an extremely messy toy room)
 Dressing-Up!

 Not to mention all the shopping and cooking that is required to feed this many children ALL DAY LONG!
They've also been loving Play Doh and Water Wow (basically a glorified paint with water).  Still not desperate enouh to pull out the Moon Sand, though.  I hate that stuff! ;)

Monday, July 8, 2013

Lagoon 2013

We look forward to Randall's work party at Lagoon ALL YEAR, which is why I was pretty bummed when I threw up the morning of the event.  (NO, I'm not pregnant.)  I felt fine after I threw up, and figured it must have been the crappy hot dogs I ate for dinner the night before.  All the kids were fine, so we just continued on with our plans and headed for Lagoon.  We had lots of fun, but after dinner Randall started feeling nauseous.  He decided to go home with his parents, and I stayed at Lagoon with Jackie and Casey and the older kids.  I rode a few rides, and started to feel a bit queesy, but we HAD TO do our usual Tilt-a-Whirl and Scrambler before we went home.  Unfortunately, we got the spinniest Tilt-a-Whirl seat EVER.  (Why couldn't I ever get that one when I was 12 and WANTED to spin really fast?!) It seriously would NOT STOP TWIRLING!  I was literally praying for it to end, and FINALLY it did.  I was SO SICK.  Jackie took the kids on the Scrambler and we headed for home.  I spent the entire drive home HOPING that I could make it there before tossing my cookies, and FORTUNATELY I did.  Barely.  Randall and I spent the entire night taking turns hurling in the bathroom.  The good news is, none of the kids ever threw up.  Cameron and Meleah were also sick, but managed to hold it down (thank goodness). 




My girls' last ride on the boats because they'll be too tall next year.  (How is that possible?!)  Good thing they got the pink one! 
 Emma was such a good little baby all day!

We planned to get bounce-back tickets with my family the following Monday, and I admit I was a little less excited about it than I would normally be.  I just kept thinking about how terrible I felt the week before at Lagoon. Fortunately, we were just fine all day, and we had a fantastic time. 



 It was SO hot (over 100 degrees) so we spent a lot of time on this ride getting soaked -
 Even Lydia went with us and she HATES to get wet!



I didn't think to take a picture, but Meleah got stuck on this ride for about 20 minutes -
It was actually kinda funny because she ran to the elephant with the pink collar (which Lydia also wanted) and then it ended up getting stuck at the highest point.  The guy ran it a couple of times trying to fix it, then had everyone else get off and called for help.  They finally got it to lower about a millimeter a minute (and apparently they couldn't take the child out until it was COMPLETELY lowered), so it took quite a while.  Funny little memory. 

Side Note:  What the heck is Cameron doing?!  I'm not used to having a kid that has to be told REPEATEDLY to keep their hands and legs inside, stay seated, etc.!  Oy.






 These crazy boys rode the Sky Coaster at the end of the night. My other pics are just a white dot in the black sky, so I'm not gonna bother posting them. 
Favorite Ride
Carter - "The Go Carts!"
Lydia - "The train."
Meleah - "Bombora! Can we go on that first next year?!  My second favorite was the TIDAL WAVE."
Cameron - "The Octopus one with the sharks and dolphins." (Odysea)
Savanna- She was pretty happy on all the rides we put her on, but I'm going to say the Merry-Go-Round and the boats.

We had tons of fun (despite the stomach flu, and that dang Tilt-a-Whirl), and can't wait to go back again next year!