Great Wolf Lodge

Sydney, Wolfie, Jason & Howler

Since I suspect that I may have some people checking for pictures, I thought I should get these up. We spent Sunday/Monday at Great Wolf Lodge with the kids & although for the first hour I thought it was going to be a horrendous two days it turned out to be fantastic. The kids were not ready to leave, but Brad & I were exhausted.

The last month or so the kids started taking swimming lessons at the Y & the results are good. (so thankful that I switched from the city rec program). Jason is again warming to the water & enjoying himself, but he still hates splashing & getting his head wet. So when you walk into a water park where there is splashing everywhere & people spraying water at you as you walk around...what do you think Jason does??? Brad of course was off with Sydney having fun on the slides that she could go on while I was stuck with the boy who didn't even want to go near anything. I knew that if I could just find Brad & Sydney & that if she played with him he would get over the fear hump & start having fun. Once that happened it was all good!

We took advantage of most everything: meal plan, activities for kids (except the 8pm story time- figured we would have meltdowns the next day if we tried that, good call), kids got stuffed wolves...it was great! So thank you to my friends at TU for the gift card...I finally used it & I know that we will go back again.

I think one of their favourite parts was having a t.v. in their room.
Enjoy it on vacation, because it won't happen at home!

See, once he got over his fear he had a blast (& I did too!)
I don't have a good pic of Sydney on the water slide because she was going too fast!

Another of the kids favourite.
I think Brad wishes he had the video on when I was crossing the lily pads.

Sydney & I coloured a pillow case for her and

Jason & Brad (mainly Brad) coloured a bag for Jason.

Life size Connect 4 in Kid Club

The firetruck in the arcade moved without you putting tokens in!
Worked great when we only had one token left.

Egg hunt, egg hunt, egg hunt...

Easter for us was filled with many, many egg hunts which equals A LOT of candy. Since there are many sweet teeth in this house, it is amazing how quickly it disappears. We had Brad's family for brunch on Good Friday & the kids all participated this year in the egg hunt. It was pretty cute. Later that day we took the kids to see The Backyardigans & although I think they really liked it, the show was pretty lame. There was no "story", they just did some songs. I guess that is why the tickets were so cheap.

Sunday morning we of course had to find all the treats that the Easter Bunny hid around the house. Sydney was up before Jason & could hardly contain her excitement. She decided this year that she was going to dress up as a bunny, but when she made ears at school- they were all she wanted. We give the kids 'stuff' at Easter & it usually consists of different things that they may "need" at that time. One of the things I thought they needed were some more dress up clothes to match what they typically play- so Princess Sydney got a cape & Jason got a T-rex costume (which is really supposed to be a dragon costume- but you can't tell him that).

Sunday afternoon we headed to Uncle Ron & Aunt Lois's for more time with family & of course ANOTHER egg hunt. Thankfully our time there was as "sweet" as all the loot we brought back home.

Jason & Grace were putting in time waiting for the egg hunt to begin. These two are hilarious together (most of the time, the other time they can be trouble ;))




Remember Hayleigh's long hair from Family Day?
Some lucky person will be getting it now.
I love this cut on her, very chic.

North Carolina...part II

This is the reason we made the trek.

Look at how happy they are to be together!

Well it is almost a week since we got back from Wendy's so I thought I better get this posted before it is a distant memory. We had a great time. The drive although a little painful at times was much better than I thought it would be. I told Kate that I am going to hear Matthew say "I want Thomas HeeeRooo" in my sleep. The past couple of days I have heard Sydney and Jason ask each other a couple times, "do you want to play Matthew?" and then they start the Thomas chant. It is mildly amusing.

We didn't really do anything event-wise, the kids just played together. We could not get over how well the girls played together- it was amazing. I was worried about how well it would go with there being 3 of them & 3 can be a bad number, but they did great. We did not have daily meltdowns and they slept pretty good all being in the same room. The boys had fun too, but they did have more meltdowns than the girls...but they are 2-3 years younger too.

Kate & I would like to do the trek again, but we would like the next time to be just a girls vacation & we would make it a little shorter. I think Wendy & Jason did enjoy having us even though it meant that they had 6 kids in their house, but taking the boys just put too many extra house guests in the house. I have another year to convince my husband of this plan. If he doesn't agree, then he may need to get his passport so that we can go there as a family.

Before hitting the road on the 2nd day of driving, we enjoyed some time at the pool.

Portable DVD players...godsend.

First meal & the beginning of the knock, knock jokes.

Nothing like a little sidewalk chalk after dinner.
Kate was determined to make it warm. Nothing like wearing flip flops with a winter coat. ;)

Movie night

Bedtime

Welcome home Jason!

Buddies.

Buddies x 3

Lazy 5 Ranch- kind of like a miniaturized African Lion Safari that you take a horse & wagon through. And you get to feed the animals! The kids loved it.

Jason got a kiss from the giraffe too!
After this he got very brave & was feeding the animals without any help.

Our hosts

Sydney was leery, but she did finally agree to feed the goats.

We got one girls night. Unfortunately Wendy was a little under the weather during our visit, but we made it out the night before our departure. There is an area, Birkdale Village, where there are a lot of higher end stores & the aesthetic beauty of the area is stunning. Can't imagine that much care being put into a shopping area anywhere around here.

One more group shot before we load them in for home.

12.5 hours later- almost home.
Notice that Matthew is the only one awake? He napped for an hour around 7pm & that was it for the night. He was still awake when Kate dropped us off at home at 11:30 pm. Almost 14 hours after we left Huntersville, NC

Jason too was out!

North Carolina...part I

Currently I am at my friend Wendy's in North Carolina. Kate & I came down with our kids for a visit. A man saw us at a rest stop & asked me "what were you thinking?" I told him that "2 women & 4 kids is no problem". Kate & I were prepared for the journey to be a little painful with the 4 of them, but figured it would be worth it to see our friends. We were very pleasantly surprised with how well the kids did in the car. We drove for 8 hours on Thursday & stopped in West Virginia for the night & then only had 3.5 hours of driving for the next day. After a very poor sleep both Kate & I woke up thinking that on the way home we are going to try driving straight through. Yes, it will most likely be much more painful than the drive here- but worth it to just get home. Why spend $100 each to get no sleep?

Sydney & Emma are having the time of their life playing with Ellie & Katie. It is so great for them to be able to see where their friends live now. Sydney is having so much fun that I have on two occasions had to beg her to come see me for a bit. The boys are getting along pretty good, but being a bit younger they often present different challenges. I really hope Kate is not cursing me for convincing her to bring Matthew because with just the girls it would be an "easy-peasy" vacation, but Matthew is placing some demands on his Mommy.

We have a few more days to visit & then we are heading home. I will post pictures then since I did not bring my cable to upload my pictures now.

First (professional) haircut

Jason may be 3.5 years old, but last week he went for his first haircut. Last summer I buzzed his hair with the clippers, but it has not been cut since the fall & I finally took him to see if there was enough hair to "style". The back of his hair especially was starting to look a little mullet-like.

I felt so bad for him, he was terrified. He was trying very hard to be brave, but the tears came & it took a little pep talk to get him settled. The stylist Kate cheered him up with candy to distract him, so he spent time trying to chew a Tootsie Roll & forgot about what he was scared about. He soon realized there was nothing to be afraid of. She tried to style his hair in a mohawk & a little messy, but he informed her "me no like that". No big surprise there!

Very disappointed that this picture did not turn out clearer.
I still need to figure out the settings on my camera.

Fun with Family

Last Sunday we went to Christa & Brent's for a pot luck to pre-celebrate Family Day. The kids (and adults) had fun playing in the snow & Sydney LOVED riding on the snowmobile. She thinks it would be great if we had one too. However, since we live in town & rarely have enough snow I think she is going to be very disappointed if she really had her hopes set. Jason finally gave in & relaxed & realized that it is fun to ride on the toboggan.

Here are a few shots from the day.

It doesn't take a big hill to have fun.

Brent was the day's chauffeur

He finally goes down with a smile on his face!

Go Aunt Debbie!

Jaxon putting the moves on Sydney

Hayleigh is growing her hair for Locks for Cancer & is almost there. Some lucky person will benefit from her beautiful hair.
(Hayleigh hope you weren't too traumatized by Jason's commando step over you when you were lying on the floor)

Poke & prod the whole way

All smiles at the beginning of the hike

This morning we went for a walk on the Bruce Trail. Given the options this was Jason's choice, but honest to goodness after about 20 minutes it was a constant "when will we be back at the car?" Sydney was running ahead with Brad because she wanted to be the leader & find each of the markings, but Jason kept finding excuses to stop. We had to make snow angels, pick up leaves, pick up sticks & any other distraction that he could find to justify stopping. Each of these would have been fine if they were not coupled with the whining about getting back to the car. I finally told him that the only way to get back to the car was to keep putting one foot in front of the other...he got that, but he figured it would be much faster if I carried him. Fat chance!

I just caught up on Carrie's blog & her comment about Mallory's phrase "Oh my gosh!" reminded me of the note I made of some of Jason's sayings. However it seems to me that we seem to have already left Jason's phase of "Oh my goodness!" and "Holy Smokes!". Both phrases were made all the more funny since he said them in his deep voice.

Sydney likes snowball fights when she throws at you,
but don't you dare bump it back at her!

Brad's version of the Olympic torch

Follow the leader