A Menchies Celebration!

The big news this past week was that Wyatt finished his Get Ready for the Code book!!  Folks, I thought this day would never come.  And the crazy part is that he FLEW through it.  It makes me wonder if something just clicked or if he finally decided he wants to learn to read.  I'm really excited cause I know he will fly through the next two books and be good and ready for kinder come August.  Yay!!  He requested that he be treated just the same as Noah and get to do something special when he finishes his "splode" the code books.  After we said no to Itz he decided on a trip to Menchies, and of course we took a few pics!

He even brought Orangey along for some yogurt!

Little momma loves her some yogurt and made quite a mess of herself!

And Noah J had fun taking pics of his daddy with his favorite Menchies character - the marshmallow man!

While we were waiting on Wyatt to finish his mountain of ice cream Josh took a ton of pics of us.  I just love these shots of Noah J's gorgeous little face.

He's giving you the smolder in that last shot... can you tell?!  :) 

I attempted the smolder as well but was rather unsuccessful! 

Trouble maker!!

 So Josh and I were in our bedroom and when he came around the corner this is what he saw out of the window.  For real!  The boy is HUGE and our wobbly patio cover was rocking back and forth.  And that swing is 7 years old and quite brittle.  I'm quite shocked it all held him!  Of course Josh got mad, but it was also so funny he took a few pics.  Evidently this is the sort of stuff they come up with when we aren't looking!

Great moment!

It is moments like this that make me remember why we chose to homeschool!  We downloaded Annie a new app that makes animal sounds and the boys immediately ran off with the kindle to show it to her.  They got all the couch pillows and made a little bed in the middle of the living room and laid down for some fun.  I was so tickled by them and it just touched my heart.  I cannot even imagine sending off one/some of them to school each day!  I just know we have to soak up every minute together that we possibly can.   So many reasons to homeschool, but the friendships they are forming is one of the most important in my book.  So thankful!

A Frog!

 So last night we were outside kinda late and we saw a frog in the yard.  Wyatt was so excited he desperately wanted to put it in his new bug house he got for his birthday.  Just for a few minutes to look at it and then to let it go.  We agreed but sadly couldn't catch him.  He was sneaky!  But tonight was not his lucky night - we found him in the garage!  The boys were so adorably excited and Noah insisted that they get out their Nature Journals and draw him.  So they did!

 

I was really tickled by how excited they were.  I mean, it was just a normal frog.  I thought it was so cute that Noah wanted to put it in his journal.  You know, that journal I bought them with these grand ideas of Charlotte Mason inspired nature walks we would be taking.  We've had them for a year. And this was the second entry.  ;) Noah even went and got his Amphibians Field Guide to try and figure out which kind he was.  He found that book at an antique shop for $1 and he adores it - so glad finally got to officially use it!

Of course we immediately took him outside to let him go.  We do not like to keep wild animals captive in our house!  I wish I wasn't too lazy to scan in Wyatt's drawing.  It is hysterical - he drew this big house and then a tiny red frog about the size of a fly.  Guess I need to better explain that we are supposed to try and use accurate colors in our journals!  And don't you love Wyatt's too small jammies?  I should get rid of them but they are just so funny.  :)

Great Wolf Lodge!

After our whirlwind San Antonio visit we drove up to Grapevine to visit the boys most favorite place on earth...  Great Wolf Lodge!  At this point you must sing the Great Wolf Lodge song in your head.  You know the one.  It plays over the speakers as you enter the building.  I routinely sing this song when I can't sleep at night.  :)  And strangely we really don't have that many pictures!  We swam for 2 days until we could swim no more!  Annie was intrigued with the water at first, but then didn't want much to do with it.  Check her out showing off her swimsuit and sandals.  I have no idea what Noah is doing.

And then the water came, which was cool for a bit.

But the rest of the day was pretty much spent like this.  :)

The boys of course had tons of fun.  Wyatt was super excited that he was brave enough to go down the slides under the big bucket this year.  Noah said maybe next year he would be brave enough to do the super big slides with Daddy.  Here they are goofing around....

And of course we had to end the evening with some time playing games!  There is a chance that Wyatt likes this part more than the swimming.  It's at least a close tie!  This time they had Annie to deal with.  She was thrilled to pull all the tickets out of the machines!

And we still weren't done!  We went and had dinner and then played some Magiquest.  A super long day!!  And you know what we did the next day.  More of the same!

Paesanos!

So we pretty much STILL didn't know where to eat the second night.   But we knew we weren't going to leave the River Walk this time!   You know Noah loves noodles more than anything so we decided to go with Italian and walked down the river to Paesanos.  We were NOT disappointed.  It was beyond delicious.  Of course we were in a crazy carb eating frenzy after two months of no carbs, so maybe we would have thought anything was good.  We got to eat outside and captured some pictures of the kids I love... just goofing off and having fun.  It was really a gorgeous evening to be eating outside on the water.

 

 

 

We let the boys get up and move around a bit by the water.  But they were freaking me out getting too close to the edge.  They were desperate to wave at the tour boats as they drove by.

And check out the food.  Yes, we photographed it.  :)  This was two months into eating paleo so it was our first bread and we were excited!!!  My dad is so silly he had to smell it!

Annie absolutely loved her dinner.  And I understand why.  She made a total mess of herself, but she was so cute we had to just let her do it.

We walked back to the hotel in the dark, which the kids thought was awesome.  And that wrapped up our trip to San Antonio.  In the morning we packed up and headed to Grapevine!