Great Wolf with Great Friends

It's been our tradition for the past few years to have some great sleepovers with the South family. This way, all the kids could play for as long as they want, and the adults could also have time to play games, chat, and have fun!

We decided to have the biggest sleepover of them all as one last celebration before our move.  So, one Saturday morning, we popped all of us into the van and drove the 2 hours down to Great Wolf Lodge!

On the way down we stopped at Steak and Shake for a pre-lodge meal.  It's always so expensive to eat actually at Great Wolf and Steak and Shake is always so kid friendly.  The kids wore their hats, built their little paper cars, and dined on mac and cheese and shakes to hopefully give them enough energy to make it through the day at the waterpark.

Then, it was off to check in!  We got there about noon and our room wasn't ready yet, but we were allowed to head in to the waterpark.  The check-in desk gave all the kiddos their wolf ears, and after some obligatory photos we were off!

The kids had a great time playing.  The big boys were finally tall enough to go down some of the bigger slides and once they discovered the mat racers they wanted to do nothing else.  Benny was a bit less sure of the slides and wasn't tall enough for the big ones.  He loved playing in all the various pools and spraygrounds though.  Anna wasn't sure of it all, but toward the end she warmed up and she and Benny had some great playtime in the little kids' area.

The great thing about going with another set of grown ups is that you can have some times to ride some of the slides with just the adults.  Now, people had been talking up this Tornado ride to Kara before she came.  It is the only one there that the big boys weren't yet tall enough to ride, and it certainly has a big drop in it that will take your breath away.  Kara was petrified and had built it up in her head. So, after we had been there a little while I dragged her up to give it a try.  We got done with the ride and she looked at me and said-was that it?  She had it so built up that the real thing turned out to not be that big of a deal after all, but it was fun anyway.

After we'd had our fill in the waterpark we went to check out our hotel room.  The kids had their own room and the grown ups had theirs.  We also had a little back porch where the kiddos had a great time climbing the fences.  We all cleaned up and headed down for a buffet dinner at their restaurant where the kids got to chow down on as many rolls and as much mac and cheese as their wanted.  Again, they just loved being able to do it all with their buddies.

The night wrapped up with a trip to the arcade where the boys got to spend money to play games and get tickets which bought them the tiniest trinkets you could ever imagine.  That's ok because they had a great time and came home with some great bracelets and other plastic treasures.

Then, it was back to the room for bedtime.  Well, we put the kiddos in their room to jump around noisily for a while and we broke out the wine!  Since we all love playing games we tried one that Mark had brought this time and had a great time playing with stops every once and a while to tell the kids to settle down or get quiet.  Finally, after midnight, with Anna sleeping in our room with the light on, we all settled down and got some rest.

The next day brought more fun at the waterpark.  We checked out of our room and headed down for a little more play before we had to go home.  It was more of the same and more fun for everyone.  When we hopped in the car to go home everyone was happily tired.  The big boys managed to watch movies the whole way home, but the little ones passed out and got some much needed rest.

It was a great weekend, and boy do we miss these guys now!

(our pre-lodge meal)

(Love this picture of our little wolves!)

(Please Mom and Dad, can we go in?)

(Evan aims and fires!)

(a silly break with my big boy)

(Benny has a ball on the teeter totter.)

(Monkeys!)

Field Day

When I was little, I always loved field day in elementary school-the day when everyone got to play games outside for the whole day and usually have popsicles at some point.  So, I was really excited when I heard that Evan would be having a Kindergarten Field Day.  I knew I wanted to volunteer and see what it was all about.

I showed up on the morning of field day and a bunch of other class parents clearly had the same thought that I did.  So, we had plenty of parents to help and not a whole lot of work to be done. That's ok because we had a great time watching and playing with the kiddos.

Once we went out to field day, the PE teacher had set up stations for each of the Kindergarten classes to rotate through.  Keep in mind, there are 7 Kindergarten classes, so that was a LOT of stations! They rotated through the parachute-

 ball toss at the beanbags-

playground, sponge relay race-

frisbee toss-

rolling scooter toss-

and noodle tag-

 Evan liked them all, but I think he especially liked playing on the big kids' playground, tossing the sponges which of course soaked all the kiddos, and what kid doesn't like running around a field and tagging each other with pool noodles?  He did also like the frisbee toss where he could pair up with his good buddy Ursula.  For most of the stations they definitely emphasized teamwork and individual goals instead of picking a winner which was just Evan's style.

It was a great day and it was so much fun to watch him being so comfortable and having so much fun with his class!  Maybe next time I'll bring in some popsicles!

Five!

The next day after the big double boy birthday, it was actually Benny's official fifth birthday.  How is that possible?

So, as usual Ben got to choose what we were doing that day.  The only wrinkle was that it was also Mother's Day.  I was okay with letting him have the day, but my boys' did manage to treat me to a delicious fondue lunch.  It was the first time I'd ever had fondue french toast, but I think it was an inspired invention, yum!

But really, this day was for Benny.  We opened all of his presents, many of which were basketball themed.  He was especially excited about the basketball goal for his room, and a big one for our driveway.   He enjoyed opening his presents, but Benny wanted to do one thing more than anything else on his birthday and that was to go to Chuck E. Cheese.  So, for dinner we headed on over.  As usual, the boys ran around with their tokens like chickens with their heads cut off.  They couldn't really decide which game they wanted to play.  They found enough games to spend their tokens, spent a lot of time crawling around in the play gym over our heads, and polished off their pizza.  We finished off the day with some delicious Minecraft cupcakes.

I can't believe my little Benny B is five and starting Kindergarten soon!  He is happy, healthy, and we are so lucky to get to experience every moment with him.  Ben is Ian and I's little enigma.  We always say that we can trace his brother's personality traits back to either parent.  Benny is his own man.  He is a little extrovert.  He loves being the center of a crowd.  His preschool class and even Evan's Kindergarten class flock to him when he comes in the room and he thrives in it.  He loves to make jokes.  While he can be so bubbly and animated, when he is tired and something bothers him, he can dissolve into a little puddle, my poor little dramatic boy.

Ben loves to run, and he enjoys soccer, especially hanging in the back and waiting for a strategic kick when the ball comes near.  His swimming is really coming along since his last swim lessons and he loves to explore the water.  He's recently developed a love for basketball and loves to shoot hoops or at least dribble the ball around.  Ben's reading skills have recently exploded and he is reading anything you put in front to him.  He knows how to read words that I certainly never taught him.  He's going to blow those Kindergarten teachers away.  Benny also has the most amazing spatial skills.  If you're lost, he can figure out how to get home.  While he's not that in to writing or drawing right now, I'm sure that will come with time.

At his five year old check up, Ben was the picture of health.  His eyes, ears, and all of his parts were healthy.  He was on target with all of his developmental milestones.  He is still a little peanut, but surprisingly his weight was a higher percentage than his height which I never would have expected from my little string bean.  Because of a change in the NC policy, he had to have another shot at this appointment.  He wasn't expecting this, and unlike last year when he was completely stoic and tough about his shots, this year he let out the most blood curdling scream-my poor Benny B!

Here are his numbers from the appointment:
*Height: 40 inches (2-3rd percentile)
*Weight:35 pounds (10th percentile)

We're looking forward to all sorts of new adventures with our big five year old this year!  We love you Benjamin James Davis!

(The birthday boy opens his presents.)

(my little monkey)

(How big does he look in his new Spurs shirt.)

(Yes, he really ate that many pieces of pizza-or at least parts of them!)