Three on Thursday: Waterpark weekend

Hey there! It's Thursday, thank Goodness! Time for the weekend. It's my BDW (birthday week)! I've had cake and cupcakes so far, tomorrow my girlfriend is making me mint cheesecake and Saturday is girl's night out...can't wait! BDW should occur more then once a year! I think this post will make up for my no pictures last week!

Isn't he adorable? Yes, he is! I tried taking some 6 month pictures when the boys were gone a few weeks ago. It was kind of a failure since he wasn't real cooperative and he just wanted to eat my white sheet. 

But I got a few cute ones. Everyone seems to think he doesn't look like any of the other boys. I kind of agree. He's still skinny, can't wait to see what he weighs next week at the doctor. Let's all say a prayer that it's under 22 pounds. As obnoxious as the infant seat is to carry, I'm not ready to give it up for it's convenience of taking him anywhere in it, especially during nap time! I'm also not ready to have to carry him everywhere on my hip.

This shot was my favorite one! Such a cutie. 

And then this happened.

And I caught it on camera and our photo shoot was over.

Last weekend we surprised the boys with a trip to Omaha. We stayed at a hotel that has this HUGE waterpark. It was so, so, so much fun. The boys had a blast and were completely wore out.

 Carson was thrilled to go down the water slides on a tube...All. By. Himself. He even enjoyed the one that was pitch black but I'm not sure how because when I went down it I was slightly freaked out. That kid is a fish!

Bennett was delighted to splash around the toddler area. He couldn't get enough of the fountains!

 

It was also determined that he could sit or stand in water up to his chin forever. He's fearless and would rather you not try and hold on to him or steer him to shallower water when he is this deep. 

Maddox enjoyed a little bit of pool time as well.

Declan floated down the lazy river every chance he got. 

Snuggled in bed reading! What a fun weekend. Carson is already talking about when we'll go next!

Summer Vacation

This is what's called a photo bomb, a vacation photo bomb to be exact. About a month ago we took a short vacation to the Black Hills. It was quite the adventure....

First off was a stop for lunch at a park that had a real merry-g0-round. Looks like Carson has been blessed with my ability to not last long on one of these. Barf...

Continuing on our adventure we took a small detour through the Badlands. Very cool scenery. I don't think I've ever had such a death grip on the kids for fear they would slide right off the hills.

Some pouting may have occurred while we were there.

After the Badlands we stopped at Wall Drug.

And their transformation into cowboys began.

When we left Wall Drug we noticed the radar and weather reports were calling for quite the storm. We quickly made our way to Rapid City, scarfed down some dinner and tried to find our hotel as the dark clouds loomed.

No less then 45 seconds after we checked in, these starting falling from the sky.

And by the time it was done it looked like it had snowed, windows were broken, trees were down and our car had more then its fair share of dents. It was a wonderful way to start vacation.

The next morning we headed over to Dinosaur Park.

Which was on top of the hill and had some pretty cool views.

Lots of fun dinosaurs to climb on.

And it was free. I love free things. And so did the boys!

The we headed towards "the faces." That's what the boys call them.

They were very excited to finally see them in real life.

We did a little hike to get closer to them. The hike had 250 stairs or something. That was fun while pregnant. Not to mention it was hot but the boys were all over hiking. Last summer we couldn't get them to hike for anything. What a difference a year makes.



As we were leaving we asked a gentlemen to take our picture. We squeezed our way through all the people and made sure no one else would be in our picture. He took it. And then we realized he didn't get the faces in there with us. Darn. So we decided to use the magic of photoshop when we got home. So this picture.

Plus this picture.

Equals this picture. Not bad huh.

One last picture before we left of the boys in front of the big rock.

Here we are three years previous in front of the same rock, minus one kid. They look so little.

After our visit with the faces we headed to our campground. We stayed at the Hill City KOA and I can't say enough good things about this place. It was fantastic. we can't wait to go back. We swam.

Tie-dyed some shirts.

For only $5!

Jumped on the bounce pillow.

Over and over again.

Played Legos on the porch of our cabin while little brothers napped. Played corn hole, played on the playground, ate ice cream, watched the horses go by, tried to go down the waterslide but it was broken, played a human size checker board, watched a comedy show, ate at a pancake feed and that wasn't even all the things we could do. Fantastic place!

Oh, and it hailed AGAIN! This one wasn't as hard to watch as the first night. It probably helped that my car had already sustained $6000+ worth of damage the night before. We were just hoping it would nail the other side so the whole thing could get fixed. No such luck.

The rain forced us into our small two bedroom cabin where we played Uno on the bed.

It also forced us to have a picnic on our porch. Who needs a picnic table!

On the way home we made the boys' day by finally finding them some cowboy hats that wouldn't break our banks.

And they've been cowboys ever since.

It was a great vacation. We can't wait to do it again!

Stayed tuned for more pictures but not today as we have a 6 year old in the house who doesn't nap anymore and this photo bomb has taken all my free time. Duty calls!