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.

Sara's 10th birthday cake

I am so excited about this cake!  It turned out so well and it was fun to make.  I made marshmallow fondant this time and LOVED it!  Usually when I work with fondant it cracks and looks really bad, but today it was my friend and worked beautifully with no cracking.  I did have a couple of tears, but that was only where it stuck to the countertop and tore when I picked it up.  Sara and I looked at pictures online and found a couple of cakes that she liked.  She picked the colors she wanted and it turned out so cute!

Of course she wanted it to sparkle, so I dusted it with edible sparkle dust.  As I was done and stepped back to look I thought it would look much cuter with the bottom stripes going the other way, but I still liked it and she did too.

Climbing and raspberry jam

Sophia figured out how to climb up on the kitchen chairs yesterday.  I got her down and pushed all the chairs in thinking the problem was solved.  I then see her tipping the chair back which pulls it away from the table enough for her to climb up on it again.  I am not happy about this new climbing phase!

Ben and I ran to the corner gas station to fill up the truck and the gas container.  Sara was in charge of watching Sophia and this is the face we came home to.  We were only gone 10 minutes, but Sara got on facebook and Sophia got in the garbage and found the empty raspberry jam jar.  Her face and hands were so sticky it was hard to get her clothes off!  Fun times every night around here!

Fish game

Since I'm such a mean mom and don't let the kids watch any t.v. on Sunday they get creative and come up with some fun games.  Sara drew 7 or 8 pictures of different things that live in the ocean and taped them to the walls.  She took Sophia around to each one and of course she loved it!  So cute to see them doing things together.

Cookies

Sara loves helping in the kitchen and this last week she wanted to bake chocolate chip cookies.  The hardest part for me is standing around and baking the entire batch.  Well, all I did was mix the batter and Sara did the rest.  She did amazing and didn't burn the cookies once!  Having older kids has benefits although I haven't decided if the benefits outweigh the negatives.............