Sea World and Easter!

 What a fun last week we have had!  We took a quick trip over to Sea World since everyone was off of school and work for Good Friday...we were planning to do this over Spring Break, but Brian couldn't get away from work.  We started off the 3 hour drive to San Antonio, with the kids asking "are we there yet" from about 10 minutes into the trip all the way there, asking every 10 minutes or so!  It was Gwyn and Annie's first time in a hotel, but Jacob had stayed in one for the trip to Maine when he was 14 months old...he acted like he was big stuff because he had done it before, but really it was his first time too since of course he couldn't remember it.  This might have been the highlight of the trip, they just couldn't believe that our room had two beds that we got to sleep in, two phones, and free pads of paper and pens (which all got used, they drew pictures and wrote notes to each other).  Here they are after we gave them a bath.  Brian drew the short straw and got to sleep with Annie, who turns around like a helicopter all night kicking you in the face:

 Jacob wrote this note to us, such a sweet boy:

 After a not so rested nights sleep...everyone was up due to Annie before 5 am, they were all using their electric toothbrushes that I brought them for the trip by 5:10 am...Brian and I were just laying there trying to act like we were asleep so they would go back to sleep, and we hear this rrrrrrrrrrrrr sound of their electric tooth brushes, nice!  The kids loved Sea World, especially the rides for the little kids:

 Sweet little sisters rode together!

 Jacob feeding some ducks:

 Gwyn and Annie checking the ducks out:

 Gwyn posing:

 Annie enjoying some dip n dots...one of the best inventions ever!!

 Amazing how still she will sit when she wants a butterfly painted on her face:

 My cute little butterfly:

 Of course Jacob picked a full-face Loch Ness monster design:

 Annie, who has dropped her nap over the last two weeks decided that she needed a nap while walking around with Brian...so sweet!

 Another pic of Jacob:

 Sweet little Gwyn:

 A motley crew...this was before the water ride:

 All the kids loved the Shamu show...Jacob wanted me to take pictures every time any of the whales jumped or came up for a picture...these are a few of the MANY I have:

 Here is a video, and evidence of why you do not pay $15/face painting BEFORE you go on a water ride:



Gwyn really wanted to go on the ride, until the top, and then she screamed in sheer terror, poor thing, and they were on the front row!





Easter was nice, we went to church, to brunch, and then hunted eggs with our neighbors...I couldn't get a picture of all three of them.  Here Jacob was trying to get them to look at me, Gwyn was smiling as usual for the camera, and Annie as usual was displaying some attitude:

 Before the egg hunt:

 LOVED this picture of Annie...we color coded the eggs, so they would each get the same amount...although a squirrel got into some of them that we had to throw out.

 Jacob with his eggs:

 Gwyn hunting for eggs:

 Gwyn also had an Easter party up at her school.  Annie got to go with me, and I do believe she is ready for school because she wanted nothing to do with the snack (and for her to turn down a juice box is really unheard of), and all she wanted to do is play with things in Gwyn's classroom:

 Little "teacher assistant" Gwyn, helped the other kids count out their eggs.  They were limited to 12, so she told one friend to go pick up two more, one to put two back, and one to go get three more.  Little bossy pants is in her element at school!!

 I took the girls to lunch at the Brookwood community center, they loved it, although Gwyn apparently got a mosquito bite right when I took this picture, which was tremendous DRAMA right after I took this:

 Gwyn got a feather (on a clip) at Brookwood, she loves it.  I think she sees older girls wearing them and thinks she is pretty cool stuff:

 Little ornery Annie...she refuses to nap, she stays upstairs for awhile and gets into stuff and then comes down and exclaims, "I didn't close my eyes!"  This week she has gotten into some blue paint, tried to paint her own fingernails, pulled out an entire thing of floss, loaded a toilet with toilet paper and flushable wipes, gotten into some gum, eaten Easter candy that she wasn't supposed to, eaten Gwyn's chapstick, squirted out Gwyn's lip gloss all over herself, among other things.  She is giving me grey hair!!  I had to take a picture of her after I found her finally asleep after a week of not napping, of course she fell asleep about 10 minutes  before I had to leave to go pick up Gwyn!

 Best errand to run ever...the Apple Store, everyone had their own ipad!!

Funny things the kids said:
Annie (while watching Brian build a Lego tower):  You do a good job Daddy, high five!
Jacob to Gwyn (I love their conversations):  You don't like eyeballs?  They are very important!
Me to Annie:  You're such a big girl now, no more pacis at bedtime.
Annie:  I just sleep with my mouth.
Jacob:  This is the best day in my whole life!
Annie (after I told her how cute her little baby legs were):  I not have baby legs, I have big legs!

1st Swim of the Year!

We like to claim that we use our pool from March - October...so this year we had our first swim on March 31st!  It was a chilly 81 F, but the kids didn't mind at all and neither did Brian after working outside for awhile...I on the other hand took about 30 minutes to slowly emerge myself:)  The kids loved it and are now thinking that we will be swimming everyday...probably just on the weekends the next couple of weeks.  I was happy to see that Gwyn wasn't afraid and I think will pretty much pick up where she left off, she just learned to swim across the pool at the end of the summer, and our swim lessons won't start at the house until probably the end of May.

It is surprising Annie is as healthy as she is...considering this week I found her in her hiding spot (between the couch and one of our living room chairs) with Jacob's packs of gum and 11 empty wrappers!!!  That and she has eaten about 3 of Gwyn's tubes of Hello Kitty chap stick...a travesty!  I really do feed her, I think she just likes getting into things of Jacob's and Gwyn's that she knows she isn't supposed to have:)

Jacob got to bring Tah Tah home for a couple of days, each kid in his class gets to take him home, take pictures of him doing stuff with them and then write it in the journal and bring it back to class. Jacob was so excited that his name got drawn on the day he had a baseball game that night, so we (Me!) brought Tah Tah to the game and took some pictures.  Jacob got to take the book back to class and got to read what he did with him, he thought it was great!

 Tah Tah watching Jacob get a hit:

 Tah Tah eating chips and queso after the game at Los Tios with some friends:

 Tah Tah likes to play Star Wars:

 Jacob's finished part of the book:

Poor little Annie looked like a little wet dog, we sat in the rain for almost 2 hours for Jacob's baseball game until I moved to the car...

Gwyn loves to practice writing and drawing while Jacob does his homework...a little lefty (and Annie is left handed too!):

 These kids are getting predictable..Gwyn brought home Fancy Nancy from the library and Jacob brought home Gila Monsters and Spiders Spin Silk.  What is so funny that Annie is intensely interested in the books that Jacob brings home, she is enthralled and doesn't take her eyes off those type of books:

I was surprised to see how well Jacob could hula hoop, and I love his style!  Gwyn needs some practice!

I was so upset about this video!  We went to eat dinner and the kids run around and play in this big courtyard area afterwards, and I thought I got about 1.5 minutes of all the kids running around and dancing and then I ended up with just this snippet!


One funny thing is that Snow White shirt that Annie is wearing in the video above used to be Gwyn's FAVORITE shirt last year.  Well, when I cleaned out Gwyn's clothes a couple of weeks ago I moved all of Gwyn's old 3T clothes directly into Annie's closest (Hooray for being able to just move things that Gwyn grows out of so that Annie can immediately start wearing  them instead of keeping them in a separate closet until Annie grows into them!), anyway, as soon as Gwyn saw Annie wearing that she said, "Where did you get that shirt?!?!"  She was pretty upset about it, but I told her it was really a baby shirt now that she used to wear and that Annie wears:)  I can just imagine them sharing clothes as they get older, please help us, ha!!

Here are a few samples of Jacob's school work...I can't believe he's almost done with Kindergarten!

 Jacob has come home with several of these book reports...I asked him why he didn't like the story and he just looked at me and said, "it was about a butterfly mom, that's so girly!"  At least he's honest!

 Jacob likes to keep score when they play Memory, well, I should say he likes to go back and keep score after he's on the winning team:

1st Baseball Game

Jacob had his first baseball game this past week, it was so much fun to watch.  Brings back lots of memories of being at the ball field, and I can only imagine what our lives will be like when all three kids are in sports and activities at the same time.  This week we've got two practices and two games, just for Jacob!  We are fortunate to be on a team with some great families, and all the younger siblings run around and play together.  It is hard to be able to watch the game and watch the girls, but this week Rick and Sue were in town, so that was nice...I got to watch at least one of Jacob's at bats...he got two hits!

I almost didn't get this picture above, the ball is in the air and he hit the first pitch!  My camera zoom worked pretty well to get a couple of him on base and in the field:

Precious little Gwyn's favorite game right now is memory, and she is crazy good at it.  She beats me, Brian, and Jacob all the time, but she's so sweet and will give us some matches so that we will win some games too.  At times I think she isn't paying attention, but she is, and she amazingly remembers where the cards are!  We are playing with Jacob's superhero game, so I think for Easter I'll get her a "girly" memory game.  She always says, "good game" to whoever she is playing, whether she wins or loses...so sweet!

Love my baby Annie, who gets to stay the baby so much longer than Jacob or Gwyn did.  Annie isn't quite 2 1/2, and when Jacob and Gwyn were both that age they had a 1 year old sibling!

Gwyn's school took pictures of the kids during Rodeo day, she's the cutest little cowgirl around...she will tell you that that is a REAL rope!

Perfect weather outside for us this weekend, Brian worked all day Saturday (a rare day that we didn't have something going on) on the cabinets for the bathroom which are coming along great, I just can't wait!  The kids played outside for most of the day, and they had a picnic lunch in the shade.  Jacob got to go with Brian bowling with some of the other Kindergarten dads and their boys.  He had a great time, and loves hanging out with his Dad!

The kids discovered they can climb our little tree on the side of the yard...poor tree!

The pool looks awesome, crystal clear and warming up by the day...Brian said he and Jacob are getting in on Saturday...I'm going to have to wait until it is a little warmer, and I'm guessing the girls will as well:)

We've been walking up to school to get Jacob once / week until it gets too hot, and Rick and Sue got to go with us this week.  Gwyn usually rides with Annie in the double stroller and we bring Jacob's scooter along, but this time, Gwyn rode her scooter up as well.

It was nice to be back to normal this week from Spring Break.  Jacob did go to the dentist, and has a small cavity.  He's loved the dentist so far, but I'm just not sure how he is going to feel about it once he has to get numbed next week...those Bernstein Bears books about going to the dentist I think have scared him more than helped him!!

Funny things the kids said this week:
Brian to Annie:  Come here, I'll change your diaper.
Annie:  There's some poop in there.
Brian:  I can smell it, but thanks for the warning.
Annie (about 20 times/day):  Watch me Mommy!
Me to Jacob:  Get off that, I don't want you falling and hurting yourself.
Jacob:  I have excellent balance, Mommy.
Gwyn:  Mommy, when Jacob says, "good game" after we play memory, he says it really quiet. (that's because he's so competitive and hates losing, especially to his little sister!)