Topsy Turvy- Alice in Wonderland Cake

This is my first and last topsy turvy cake.  What a pain in the butt!  Never again!  Never!  S loved it, so all the stress and time was worth it.

Ankle update

This is Ben's leg four days after breaking his ankle.  Bruised and swollen.  He is doing okay for the most part, but the Lortab makes him tired at work and then it is hard to concentrate.  It should be nice this weekend when he can nap and do nothing.  I on the other hand will be busy keeping everything going.  He usually does a lot around the house and having him out of commission is difficult.

Cup drawer

This is the drawer Sophie has always been able to play in because it has all the plastic kid cups in it.  The other day she decided to get in it.  She loves to climb on and in everything!

Sophia also figured out how to open any door in our house.  Yesterday was very hard because she kept opening the pantry to get snacks and whenever you say the word no she cries and throws a huge fit.  Today we have a lock on it.

Peek-a-boo!

Sophia's new favorite game is peek-a-boo.  It's funny because she pushes her fingers into her face so hard and you never know how hard she will hold them there.  I love it!

Father's Day

Ben is very hard to shop for and doesn't want or need much, so this year for Father's Day we got him some M&M's with a note that said M&M (many and many) thanks for being such a great dad!

He is so nice that he shared his candy with everyone!  Since he just broke his ankle the day before we didn't do anything special, so this week we are going out to dinner and a movie.

 Here are some pictures from the past.  Ben has always been good with kids and lets them do whatever he is doing in their own way.  He makes up the best games to gets the kids laughing, and late night snacks with dad are the best!

I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband and amazing daddy to our kids.  He keeps life fun and always gets us to where we need to be with his awesome sense of direction.  I would literally be lost without him!  Happy Father's Day honey, I love you!

Camping at Ririe Dam

We went camping with a bunch of our friends that Ben works with at Melaleuca.  It's still kind of cold here, so we made sure to bring warm clothes, coats and hot chocolate.  The kids had lots of fun making smores and roasting starburst, but it was hard not to let Sophia have any of our treats because they were too hot.  She was eventually satisfied with a graham cracker and some chocolate.

One of Ben's friends brought his power kite and Ben had fun trying it out.  The bad thing is we don't usually have steady winds here, just big gusts.

A different friend brought his dad's boat up for the weekend.  This was one of the first sunny days of the year, so the water was FREEZING cold!  The kids still wanted to go tubing, so as soon as the boat was ready Ben took Sara and Brandon out on the water.

Brandon and Sara both loved being in the tube, but Brandon wanted to go fast and Sara was scared so they went very slow for her.  While the first half of the day was warm and sunny a storm blew in, so we didn't want to be out in the boat if it started raining and the wind picked up.
With nothing to do the boys got out the power kite again.  It was pretty windy and they were having fun until the wind totally died down.  They were about to put the kite away when the wind picked up again. There was a big gust when Ben was flying the kite and when he jumped the wind dragged him about 15 feet across the field.

This is Ben in massive pain in the back of the truck.  We knew we had to get him to the Urgent Care, so I ran around packing up all our camping stuff and shoving it in the van and the back of the truck.  Brandon stayed with some friends and Ben, Sara, Sophia and I drove back to town.  Luckily we were close so it only took about 30 minutes.  I dropped Sara and Sophia off at a friends house in town and got Ben to Urgent Care as fast as I could.

After they took x-rays we found out that he broke his ankle.  His fibula is shattered into five pieces with six different breaks.  Since it's the weekend they sent us home with his ankle in a big black boot and a prescription for loritab.  Ben goes in for surgery tomorrow and then starts on the long road to recovery.  What a fun filled weekend!

Pitching machine

Brandon is playing pitching machine this year and loves it!  All the games are in June, so they are done pretty quick, but he has a game every  Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  He gets five pitches and usually gets a hit every time he bats.

He likes playing a base, but it's hard for him not to chase after the ball if it comes close to him.

At his last game he got to play catcher.  I don't know if he liked it or not- he said he got hit with the ball a lot.  I like having the games in June because it's not too hot, but sometimes we get rained on :(

Dirt and a snow cone

It was actually warm and sunny, so I had no excuse for weeds in my flowerbeds.  As soon as I put Sophia down for her nap I went outside and started pulling weeds.  When she woke up I took her out with me and she had so much fun playing with (and eating) the dirt.

Brandon came over and tried teaching her how to use the shovel, but she wanted to do it her way. She would get dirt out onto the sidewalk with her hands, then put it on the shovel and dump it off all over herself.  I love summer, but it's a lot of work bathing the kids every night because they are dirty and smelly!

Brandon is playing pitching machine this year and sometimes while we are watching the games Sara will bring some of her money and get a snow cone.  Sophie loves it of course and we have a hard time keeping the cup away from her.

Christmas in June?

Brandon got this cool thing for Christmas and this is the first time he has gotten to use it.  It's a tube with a string attached that you load about 7 mentos into and when you pull the string all the mentos fall into the 2 liter bottle of diet soda............

EXPLOSION!!

He loved it and now he wants me to buy more soda and mentos every week when I go to the store.  Good thing they're not too expensive.

Las Vegas

It seemed like everyone I knew was going on some kind of vacation.  Ben and I had nothing planned since we are saving all our extra money to pay off the truck.  I told him we needed to get away if only for a few days.  Since we didn't want to spend a lot of money we knew we were going to drive and the hotel and activities had to be inexpensive too.  Las Vegas came to mind and I found a room at Circus Circus for $27 a night.  They have a small amusement park in the hotel, so I knew it would be perfect for the kids.

It was a long drive and we gave Sophia anything we could find for her to play with.  We barely made it there with our sanity!  After checking in we spent the next few hours wandering around the hotel before crashing for the night.  For some reason Brandon chose that night to throw up- at least he made it to the bathroom.

The next day we bought all-day passes for the adventure dome.  We weren't sure if there would be any rides Sara would go on (besides the carousel), but in the end she said she would do five rides- the carousel, bumper cars, airplanes, laser tag and the Spongebob 4-D show.  We told her that we were buying all day passes, so we would be here all day going on rides.  She did those five things all day long until the place closed at 11pm and loved it!

We knew Brandon would go on just about anything and he did!  I think this was his favorite ride and surprisingly he didn't get too wet (just slightly damp).  He loved playing laser tag with Sara and went on the rides over and over again.  The only time we left the adventure dome was to eat at the buffet.

Sophia wanted to walk around while the kids were going on rides and since it was a Monday it wasn't too crowded.  She loved "playing" or "riding" on the games and had so much fun.  I got to take her up to our room for a nap and got an hour or so to relax and read my book while she was sleeping.

I made sure the hotel had a pool and since it was so hot we had to try it out.  The kids loved it and didn't want to leave.  A group of kids there thought Sophia looked like Charlie from the new Disney show "Good luck Charlie".  We told them it wasn't her, but they were already yelling at their parents and then everyone was looking.  We assured everyone that it was not Charlie and continued to have a fun time in the cool water.

Tuesday we drove to the other end of the strip and went to the aquarium inside the Mandalay Bay hotel. Brandon loved listening to all the information and Sara really liked looking at all the fish and sharks.  It was Sophia's nap time, so she slept in the baby wrap while we walked around.  When we were done at the aquarium we headed over to M&M world, then got lunch and did some shopping.  We were going to go look at some of the other hotels, but it was around 108 degrees, so we went back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we had nothing to do, so we decided to let the kids play some of the carnival games.  They each won 4-5 stuffed animals and had lots of fun!  We watched a magic show then went up to our room for baths, movie and bed.  I told Ben to go have some fun gambling while I got the kids in the bath and then into bed.  I was shocked when he came to the room a little later and said he didn't really play anything.  He used to love playing blackjack, but he said he was really tired and just wanted to go to bed.  Since Sophia had kept everyone awake the night before crying for an hour we were all tired and turned in early.
Sophia woke up again tonight throwing up, so no one got much sleep and we had to drive all the way home tomorrow!  It was LONG and hard, but Ben drove the whole way and we got home around 1am.  It was a fun trip, but with very little sleep and the long drive we were all tired and slept in late on Thursday.   Unfortunately Ben had to get up early to work, but he went to bed early that night and felt a lot better Friday morning.

M&M's and Princess couch

Sophia was eating some M&M's then Brandon asked her for one, so she put it in his mouth for him.  She would only give them to Brandon no matter how nicely Sara begged asked.  Then all of a sudden she would only give them to Sara and it made her so happy!

We cleaned out Sara's room this past week and got rid of two garbage bags full of toys and garbage.  She decided she was done with this couch, so we brought it out in the front room and gave it to Sophia.  She totally loves it and usually sits on the back to tip it over.

She also really likes laying on it and leaving it open so she can trip on it when she walks by.  Just another thing Sophia loves that gets to stay in the front room and create more clutter.