One of our favorite things about summer are the concerts at Gully Park. They're every other Thursday night throughout the summer with a different band each week. We typically make a night of it with a picnic dinner and friends!!
just relaxin'...
such a silly girl...
play time for Ava Kate and Campbell....
Campbell...
Danielle and Ansley....
Lindsey and Campbell....
Our entertainment.....Charley and Owen! There's never a dull moment with these two around!
I have tired to persuade Owen to like art FOREVER, but he has never been interested until now! I would always get out a ton of coloring books, crayons, markers, paint, scissors, etc and he would act excited but his excitement and attention would fade about 5 minutes later. Ha!
So just when I had given up on our "fun" art projects, he decided that he might actually like coloring, painting, cutting, etc!
He use to come home from school with a blank sheet of paper with one crayon mark, but now he'll color the whole page and put his own creative twist on it!
Owen's version of Earth....
two crab....
Jellyfish....
Owen has also really been in to building towers. His favorite thing to do is build a zoo and then put all the animals in their appropriate places. Our living room floor has been a "zoo" quite a bit lately and Ava Kate has been the tornado!
Owen was really into the Olympics and loved watching most everything, but swimming and gymnastics were probably his favorite. The OT's at my work had printed a coloring sheet of the Olympic rings so I brought one home for Owen. We pulled a picture up on our phone for him to see the "real" Olympic rings and he colored his to match. I complemented him on his artwork and he told me "I did it for Emmie"! Ha!
In mid July, we spent a weekend at Beaver Lake with the Childers. Four adults and four kids under four made for a fun and busy weekend!
the girls in their yellow polka-dot bikinis....
Campbell (4.5 months) and Ava Kate (9.5 months)
catching a ride to the boat....
suited up and ready to go...
Drew and Charley....
Campbell doing a little sun bathing...
a little snack break....
mommy and Ava Kate....
A little fun in the water with daddy! Ava Kate absolutely loved the water but she HATED her life jacket!! Owen was a little unsure at first but was quite the little fish by then end of the weekend. He did, however, flip out at one point and started yelling that a fish bit his toe! Ha!
We went on a mini family vacation to Kansas City the second weekend in August. We headed out early Friday morning with a big agenda: Sea Life Aquarium, Crown Center, Lego Land, the water park, T-Rex Cafe, and little shopping at the Plaza.
the first stop.....lunch at the Crayola Cafe
my boys.... love this pic!!
We each had a coloring page and our own colors, so Owen had lots of coloring to do! Here's one of his masterpieces...
After lunch, we headed to the Sea Life Aquarium
Owen finally got up the nerve to touch the starfish, but only while daddy was holding him....
....but the sea urchin was a little too scary, so daddy opted to touch it instead
Owen was searching for Nemo the entire time and we finally found him in one of the last aquariums!
Ava Kate really enjoyed the aquarium (way more than we thought she would), but the sting ray were her favorite!
After the aquarium, we headed to the indoor water park at our hotel...
sleeping with his new turtle from the aquarium...
We started the next morning off with breakfast at Einstein Bagels and then headed to Lego Land. We didn't know much about Lego Land, but Owen was all about building towers/zoos ALL the time so we knew he would love it!
You enter Lego Land on the Kingdom Quest ride. As you can tell we were all VERY serious about shooting the targets! Ha!
diving into the "pool" of legos....
playing in the Lego Land play zone...
They had a "miniland" area where they had recreated local land marks out of legos. Here's the Chiefs field made out of Legos...
A little karaoke to Justin Beiber "Baby" per Owen's request!!
ready to race his car that he and daddy built...
Owen's favorite part of Lego Land...ramping their lego car! He probably did it 100 times!
We were starving after our morning at LegoLand, so we headed to T-rex Cafe for some lunch...
Josh and I took turns doing a little shopping around the plaza while the kids napped and then we hit the water park for some fun....
Owen absolutely LOVED the big slides and did them by himself about 1000 times! His favorite thing to do was race daddy....somehow Owen always won!
On our way out of town we stopped by the Crown Center to check out the Dinosaur Exhibit and do a little shopping....
It was a short little vacation, but it was nice to get away and just spend time together as a family!
We have been married since May 11th 2007, and had our first child, Owen, on March 26th 2009. We recently became a family of four with the addition of our daughter, Ava Kate, on September 27, 2011 This blog is a way for us to keep friends and family updated on the happenings of our lives.
