Mandatory Fun

This past weekend we got to go on a retreat to Williamsburg, VA with Mike's fellow interns.
For the most part we all did our own thing, but each day of the retreat the inters were required to do at least one thing together. We all drove up Friday and that evening we all got together for dinner. Well, not all of us. Steph flew out to go on this trip with us and was nice enough to babysit for us so Mike and I could go out and have a kid free evening. We went to a fun restaurant that I forget the name of, but we had some pretty cool live entertainment.

I tried to get a picture of the whole group of people playing, but Terry decided he wanted in the picture and all the light from the flash ended up reflecting off his head, thus making it impossible to see behind him. But it made for a funny picture anyways. :)


Had to get a picture of us.

Minus the red eyes, this is the only NORMAL picture of me on this trip. (There is another picture of me featured later on in this post that you are sure to enjoy, so keep reading.)

Day 2 of the trip we went to Busch Gardens. We had a lot of fun. Here are some highlights.



Jacobs favorite parts...


Playing in the water. Of course. This kid LOVES playing in water.



Lizzie preferred to just watch.

Jacob's first roller coaster ride. He and Mike are in the second to last car.


Can't see them?? Here's a close up. You can't really tell from this picture but he LOVED it and asked to go again. He inherited his dads love for roller coasters. According to Mike it went pretty fast for a kids roller coaster too.
Lulu's favorites...

Oscar's Whirly Worms. I was going to go with the kids on this one, until I saw that it went in circles. (I know, the "whirly" part should have been a dead give away. What can I say? I'm slow.) Since anything that goes in circles makes me want to hurl, I ended up volunteering Steph to go on this one. Lizzie loved it and smiled and giggled the whole time. I wish I could have gotten a better picture, but I'm not real good with moving objects.

Of COURSE Elmo was her VERY favorite. She was soooooooo excited to see him. She held out her arms and yelled, "Elmo, ELMO!!", over and over again...until we got up close. Then all the sudden all she could do is stare at him. She wouldn't let him give her a hug but she did give him high five. I wish the photographer would have gotten a picture of that. Unfortunately, the stupid lady refused to snap a picture unless she was looking at the camera. Lizzie is stubborn though and this is all we got.

Both kids loved this part (even though, once again, you would never guess from the look on Jacob's face). A few times a day they turn off the water and the whole Sesame Street gang comes out and does a little song and dance show. Jacob and Lizzie were pretty excited to see life sized Sesame Street characters singing and dancing.
Although we spent the majority of the time in the kids portion of the park, we did get to go on a couple real roller coasters. Actually, Steph and I each went on one and Mike went on both. And here my friends, is the moment you've all been waiting for. Behold...Michelle meets Nessie.

As you can see from my face, it was truly terrifying, and I am pretty sure I really was praying not to die and leave my children motherless. Mike liked this picture so much he paid 20 bucks for it and got 2 key chains of it. (Jerk!) I am glad I didn't go on the other one with him. Steph went with him instead. It looked a hundred times scarier and I am sure I would have lost control of my bodily functions had I attempted it. I think I may have peed a little just watching it. Okay, not really. But, (as my friend Brittany would say) sweet merciful crap! SCARY!!

Lizzie was pretty tired and ended up taking a nap while we went on our roller coaster rides.

Here is Jacob posing with the large Elmo we bought for Lizzie. The only Elmo that they had that was smaller than this was almost microscopic. So we forked out 40 bucks for this one. Jacob found a smaller cookie monster and we only paid $10 for it. Why they didn't have the same size for Elmo I have no idea. Totally annoying though. (Yes that is a black eye, and no we don't really beat our children. He had a run in with the sleeper sofa he was on in the middle of the night...long story.)

After all that fun we headed over to Leigh-Anne's Parent's home for a nice bbq. Unfortunately, we ended up having to eat and run because by that point our kids (okay mainly Jacob) were tired and cranky and being impossible, so we had to take them back to the hotel and get them to bed. Later that evening Steph was, once again, our hero and volunteered to stay at the hotel with the kids while we went shopping at the outlet mall. Retail therapy...what a great way to end the day.

I couldn't resist snapping some pictures from the hotel we stayed at. Whoever designed this place had a very interesting style. Some parts were kind of creepy, like the carpet in the elevators that looked like blood splatter and the creepy hands coming out of the wall.

As weird as this was, it made for a very cool picture.

I think Mike will forever get flak for choosing this hotel.

The next day we hit the road after breakfast. We stopped long enough to go to church then we headed home. It was such a fun weekend. I LOVE mandatory fun. :)

A Day in the Life of a 4 Year Old

I know, I know. This is my second post of the day, but I just had to share so all you people who thought you were busy could see how good you have it compared to Jacob.


What a busy life my 4 year old has. Here is a sample of his schedule today:

10am, flood kitchen floor using a cup and fridge water dispenser.

10:15am, find little notebook in bedroom while in time out and shred it to bits and then spread it all over the room...that's what they get for leaving me in there so long.

1pm, take all pots and pans out of cupboards, get banned from kitchen.

3:30pm, sneak back in kitchen get box of bandaids off counter, open them all and stick them to couch.

3:45pm, clean up bandaids.

4:20pm, climb on table and swing from chandelier.

4:23pm, spend more time reflecting on my life in my bedroom...or at least that is what mom thinks. Really I try to figure out a way to open the window and make my escape, give up after a few minutes and go back to shredding paper.

4:45pm, Wonder if Mom will ever let me out.

5:30pm, Shatter mom's nice glass bread pan. Watch mom totally lose it.


Phew...I hope he goes to bed early. He needs to rest up for another busy day tomorrow I'm SURE!

Just Funder

The other night we had a pretty good thunder storm. Jacob thought it was pretty cool and he and Mike hung out by the window watching for lightening. I looked over at Lizzie who was standing near the kitchen entry way and noticed a look of panic and confusion on her face. I asked her if she wanted to come sit on my lap and she shook her head and started backing up into the kitchen. (I assume because the chair I was sitting in was next to a window where she could see the bright flashes of lightening.) She backed herself into the corner of cupboards in the kitchen and refused to leave that spot. She just stood there (eventually sat) with a scared look on her face until Mike and Jacob went and joined her in an attempt to make her feel better. She was pretty happy when they came and sat by her. After a while they started singing fun songs until Lizzie started falling asleep. It wasn't until she started dozing off that she let Mike pick her up and move her onto the couch where she zonked out. This video was right after they sat down by her. It was so cute to watch Jacob try to reassure her that it was okay. "It's just funder", he says. So cute.

All Smiles

I got nothin'.

I hate coming up with titles for my posts. Particularly ones like this where I just want to post pictures of my adorable children. There's just too many different things going on to come up with one clever title. So, I refuse to even try. :)

Anyhoo...onto the pictures of my adorable children. I love pictures like this. He just loves "his baby" so much. He loves to hold him and feed him and try to pick him up...which leads to me having a heart attack every time.

Lizzie has started asking to hold him lately too. She was so excited when I gave her the boppy and let her hold "Dzimmy" all by herself.

Lizzie's favorite spot to sit is on the leg rest of the recliner. She is light enough that it holds her and my legs. She often falls asleep there. I am grateful she was there when Mike snapped this picture or you would all be in for a shock. Not really. You can all rest assured that I would never post pictures of my exposed unmentionables. I don't want anyone going and gouging their eyes out. :)

This was kind of a lucky shot. It is really difficult to capture his smiles. Not that he doesn't smile that often, it's just that they only last for a split second at a time. Although, I got lucky again and got a pretty good video of him smiling, which I will also post.
He is such a little rolly polly butterball.


Child slave labor??? No, just making her clean up a mess she made. She wasn't very happy about it but she did a pretty good job. I may have her vacuum more often. I'd make Jacob, but he is still terrified of vacuums.

We got a bike for Jacob, but he struggles to ride it. He prefers his trike. Lulu tries to ride it but she can't reach the peddles...or the ground, so she can't push herself along either. But she figured out a way to hitch a ride. In this picture she decided to lay her head down and take a nap. She kept saying, "I tired, I tired." I finally broke down and got her her own trike that was Lulu size.

Again with the awesome fashion sense. He totally matched this time though. :) I don't know what's up with the one mitten Michael Jackson look though.

Dad's church socks and Mom's church shoes with her "momaid jamas". Awesome! In case you're wondering, she's not doing a ballerina dance, she's actually posing for the camera and saying "cheese".

You know how in church talks people feel like they have to start out with something clever to get people's attention? I always feel like I have to end my picture posts with something clever so as not to leave people hanging. Like, "huh...that's it???" But again...I got nothin'. So, on that note...LATER!!

What's The Story

Every Sunday on my way to church, I pass a house guarded by angels. No really, there are at least 50 life sized angel statues in this front yard. For a while we thought it was a smallish cemetery. But then we noticed the house...waaaay back behind all these statues. So we are pretty sure it's not a cemetery...unless this dude buried 50 family members in his front yard which is just creepy. Which leads me to the point of this post. Every Sunday on our drive to and from church I find myself coming up with scenarios for the story behind the statues. Most people driving by probably just think to themselves, "Wow, look at all those beautiful statues". Not me. No, I'm thinking, is this some serial killers way of keeping track of his victims? Or maybe it's a paranoid skitzofrenic and thinks all the angels will keep the voices away. Or maybe he's superstitious and just thinks they are lucky, I don't know. So, let's play a game. It's called, "what's the story?" 1-2-3 GO!

Sometimes I just have to let the pictures speak for themselves. :)