Birthday's, Museums, Parks, Oh My !!!!

Well November here in Indy brings nice fall days at the park. I think Jenneth went down this slide at least 20 times.

Tristen only went on the slide once as he said "these slides are for babies!"

Tristen was so good to Jenneth. She wanted to go on this swing thing over and over again, but only if Tristen went on with her and held her.

These kids must get their thrill of spinny rides from their Dad. It made me sick just watching them spin around, around, and around. Granted we did laugh as they would walk sideways when they got off.

If you ask me, Brian had fun just seeing them spin as he always volunteer to spin them FAST !!!

Here's Nana and the kids. Nana is our official candy hander outer. Since Brian works, I take both kids around and Nana hands out the candy. We then treated her to dinner Logan's where she waited patiently 40 minutes for a table. I think she about died when she realized that we were just leaving the restaurant at 9:45pm!!!!

Don't we all looked thrilled???

Here is our fierce Storm Trooper. Can I tell you that I paid about just as much for the exact shooter that these storm troopers use???? Not just any shooter would do.

See that look??? Yup she had that expression all night long. Granted she did get used to the fact that when we went to each house she would get candy, but not without Mom going to every single door with her.

And of course our little baby girl turned 2 on November 1st. I love this picture. This is what happens when you have two 2 year olds and only one of them gets to open presents. We quickly had to move onto the next gift and find something to distract.

This would be after the wagon struggle. Jenneth wanted to show us that this was HER new movie.

Here's Jenneth, Brian, and Tristen with the Elmo Cake. Jenneth was not at all excited about everyone singing to her and making her the center of attention. She apparently does not take after her Mother who absolutely LOVES her Birthday.

We had some visitors from Denver who we were so excited to see. Here is Zander tackling Tristen. Tristen would lay on the floor and both Zander and Jacobi would just walk, crawl all over him. They all thought it was great. Tristen loved the babies and was so good with them.

Here's Jacobi taking her turn to jump on Tristen.

We took a day and went to the Children's Museum. For those of you in Indy know that when you take the kids to the Play Scape area it is all but impossible to get them out. You should have seen Jenneth fighting Brian to keep her smock on and play in the water. This picture was obviously prior to the fight.

Here is Brian, Jenneth, and Tristen at the Science area.

This was awesome. There were tunnels that you could climb through in this tree/mound. I had already gone through all the tunnels and convinced Brian to go through. This is him coming out laughing as it took him forever to turn around as you have crawl through on your knees and then get to your bottom to slide down. Needless to say, I am much shorter and did not think of that when I sent Brian through. He is such a good sport.

Here is Chase, Keola, Zander, and Tristen digging. Granted Zander was just trying to eat the mulch, but hey everyone needs a little fiber in their diet right????

This is not the greatest picture as you can't see the faces but here is the gang looking through a window at some fish.

Here is Tristen and Chase in the treehouse.

Jenneth and her Dinosaur that she was playing with at the Museum.

Here is Miss Jacobi herself walking around the Dinosaurs.

And then you have Chase and Tristen digging for fossils. I must say that it was a great day at the Museum. The parents were done way before the kids. At the end of the day, Keola was trying to convince the kids that there was a really cool exhibit that he wanted to show them......"The Parking Garage."

Brian's Birthday and Labor Day Weekend.

This is a picture that I forgot to share on the last post.  This was at Kings Island.  Tristen and I went on this ride...oh about 5 or more times.  So long story short is that we figured out where the camera was and made out best face !!!

Well for those that know me....God for bid I stay home on a long weekend. Brian had to work all weekend, so I decided to pack up the kids for Labor Day Weekend and head to Cincinnati with my Sister and her gang. We had a great time and below are some of our highlights.

Tristen and I at the end of our long day at the Cincinnati Zoo.  Hoisting Tristen up on the big Rhino was a task.  My sister thought for sure that he was going to go right off on the other side.  No problems whatsoever.

Now these two little stinkpots !!!!  We tried to get them to take a nap several, several, several times and they fought HARD not to fall asleep.  My sister and I finally decide that they win and we'll go.  As we are walking towards the gate to leave............yup, they both go outcold !!!! I am beginning to think they conspire against us, and the said thing is that they won.  God help us when they get older and smarter as close cousins.

Now this crazy one asks me to take his picture with his mouth in the Croc.  What you don't see is that his first attempt was facing the inside of the crocs throat and I couldn't see anything but the back of his head. 

Here are my two lovely children on the train and Tristen is saying through his teeth "Mom, can you please just take the picture !!!!"  Those of you how have children, know that they never look at you at the same time.

Here's the whole gang on the train at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Here's us in front of the elephant area.  They were waiting for breakfast and their morning bath, so that's as close as they would get.

So, let me just set the stage for this one.  We have this really nice suite where Tristen has his own Queen pull out sleeper sofa, with a tv, in his own little room.  Jenneth and I have this nice King size bed.  See that little space to the left of the kids............yup that is where I slept.  What kids sleep sideways???????? Apparently both of mine !

For those of you who travel with Jenneth at a hotel, unplug the phone.  This is Jenneth calling Nana (with two phones) to tell her about the swimming pool.  

Here is Tristen irritated with me for taking his picutre on the bridge that we walked.  This is the one that you can walk over and on one side is Kentucky and the other is Ohio.

Here is a great restaurant that Dave suggested.  It was the Brofhaus (spelling) A great German Restaurant where the kids could be as loud as they wanted to.  They encouraged dancing....which of course we were the only ones in the restaurant that did.  

The three of us at the German Restaurant....

I so wish I could have scanned this bigger, but hopefully you can see.  This is all of us at the Newport Aquarium.  The guy told us to pretend as if we were scared and only Tristen, Shannon, and I played along.  Party Poopers !!!  

Here's Jenneth and Molly on the counter by the Shark Tank.

Another shot of two fantastic looking girls as they were watching the penguins.

Tristen at the Shark Touch area.  Jenneth wanted absolutely nothing to do with it and Tristen wasn't the most excited, but he did touch one of the Sharks.

Just my handsome boy .....

This is the three of us in the tunnel under the shark tent.  Thank God for my sister by the way....she was so good at making sure that there were pictures of the three of us.

Happy Birthday Brian !!!! Brian's Mom came from Wyoming to help celebrate Brian's 35th Birthday.  He had a golf bag cake from his favorite bakery. We had a Luau themed party with a Pinata and all.

This is the after pinata action.  Do you like Tristen's little pile in front of him?  He's just a little bit quicker than the girls.

Here's Brian hitting the Pinata.  Is she a hottie or what???  

And here is Brian, Katie, and myself on his actual Birthday dinner.  We tried to go to Bongie's for dinner but they were completely full by 6:15pm.  Poor Brian and Katie, they had their bottles of wine and snacks and were all ready to tailgate.  Next time.  So are you ready for where we ended up???????  Oh yeah, Red Lobster in Anderson.  It was really good I have to say.

I was in Chicago for a few days on a work trip and was treated to a Chicago Sox game in a Suite and had a great time.

They gave us these great t-shirts so that we would look like locals....

Poor Dad got a bummer party....we totally forgot to sing Happy Birthday to him.  But the Jimmy Johns and Cake were good so all is good right????  Not to mention a few presents.

The only way that we could bribe the girls out of the pool for Grampa's Party was ICE CREAM !!  Nana has these little ice cream cups and I don't know if it was eaten or worn, but that is what the pool is for right???

Cake and Ice Cream are done, so now onto one of Nana's backyard toys.  This may look like a great time, but what you didn't get a chance to see (next time I will have the camera ready) is seeing Mom trying to get off of the see saw.....it was GREAT !!!!

Well, our Handsome Boy has started Kindergarten and he couldn't have been more excited.  He is gone all day and does well, ok so we are a little chatty, but I couldn't imagine which parent he gets that from????  This is his Thursday uniform for Mass days.  We tell him every week that he can take the tie off after Mass, but he insists that it is part of the uniform and has to wear it.  It's funny because all his friends do the same thing.  I am sure it won't take long for them to be bored with the ties.  Poor Jenneth is lost without Tristen during the day and when he gets home it's "Watch Tristen, Watch Tristen"  She wants all his attention.

This is the first day of school and we had to take a picture of the Star Wars backpack !!!!

Now do you love the socks or what????  I tried to get him to pull them down but he thought they looked like soccer socks and said that if he play soccer in P.E. than he is ready... God love him.  I did end up buying him black golf socks so we didn't have to worry about it.

So my friend Sandy asked if I wanted to take the kids to Kings Island for the day....Yup, just us Mom's and the kids.  Not sure what we were thinking.  Did you know that you can spend 10 hours in Nickelodeon at Kings Island????  You Can !!  We did get a few hours at the Water Park, but it was so crowded we couldn't get on anything.  Thanks God for Jackie as she volunteered to go on this flying thing with Tristen as I would have gotten sick.

Here's Tristen, Jackie, and Mackenzie on one of those crazy things that brings you up to the top then drops you, and then does it over and over again.  

Just another fun filled ride at Nickelodeon.

Here's Tristen with one of those characters from Fairly Odd Parents.  At least I think that's who that is.

Mackenzie and Tristen in the bumper cars.  They fall right in that height where they are about an inch too short for the bigger rides and they were almost too tall for these, but they had a great time that that's all that matters.

Tristen wasn't too happy with Dora as she took his hat from the U.S. Open that had autograph's.  I had to explain that she was just being silly and he would get his hat back.

Tristen had his kid party delayed a bit as the first time I scheduled it was Race Day.  It turned out to be a great party and a good time was had by all.  Especially for Grampa and Jenneth who went through the goody bag and ate all the candy while everyone else was bowling.

Miss Innocent herself.....I just couldn't resist this cute picture.

So I go put a load of laundry in, come back to my room and Jenneth has gotten her little pillow, BoBo, and tucked herself into my bed.  She thought she was the funniest thing ever.  It was really cute.

Connor came all the way from Alabama to visit his Cousins.  This was after all 4 of them were in the ducktub and we were getting ready for bed.  Now I am sure you have guessed with the 4 of them, bedtime was not anytime soon.  

During one of the family dinners on Race weekend the kids had yet another pool party in Moms backyard.  Poor Jenneth got abused by everyone.  

Not sure what was going on here as it doesn't look like Molly is going anywhere anytime soon.   Would love to understand some of the conversations that these two have.

Of course now they have gotten poor innocent Connor involved.  They were playing King of Hill, but it was really funny because they are too young to realize this is what they were playing.  As you can tell, there really weren't any winners.

Here was the kids table and Connor just wasn't too sure of all of this. He was loving that the fact that the kids got their own table. 

Yes, Tristen lived to see 6 years old.  He had a great party at Mom and Dad's house.  Cha Cha, Aunt Pam, J.P. and Amy were there as from Florida.  Thanks everyone for a great party.