A Trip to Zoomars

Amanda, Chrissy and I took our boys to Zoomars a couple of weeks ago for a fun afternoon of animals, train rides and good friends!

It's hard to see here, but each boy is in his own car, Cody up front, then Tyler, then Wes. Such men...can't ride together!


The overfed bunnies weren't interested in our food, but the llama and donkey couldn't get enough.


Crusin'

Three little cowpokes

We gave the crazy goats the rest of our food, then the boys ran up and down this bridge over and over and over. I cringe at the amount of mud (and I'm saying mud, but you really know it was goat poop) on Wes' pants, shoes, etc. After thoroughly washing our hands and reminding myself that boys love to be dirty, we headed to Del Taco for lunch!

Before heading out I snapped a pic of this sign. Since it cracked me up, I sent it to my friend Nadine who is raising a couple of kids and a couple of chickens. I think she desperately needs one for her yard!

Wesley Says:

Wes is becoming quite the motormouth these days! It felt like kind of a slow start, but like everyone told me, one day all those words he's been thinking about saying will just spill out. That day has certainly arrived! Three word sentences are becoming a norm and he's copying everything I say, especially if it's a new word he hasn't heard before, which is keeping me on my toes. Since kids say such funny things, I'm going to try to write down the ones I laugh out loud about.

Here's his most recent:

Wes: "Burrrrp" (I guess after he took a drink of water, though I didn't see it)

Mama: "Woa! Where did that burp come from?"

Wes: "Mouth"

I definitely laughed out loud at that one! I guess it's too much to expect my almost 2 year old to understand the finer nuances of the English language. Though I am proud to say "scuse me" is now in his vocabulary also.

My Gym Via Groupon

I am definitely a bargain shopper, but I'm not much of an impulse buyer, so once I decided to sign up for Groupon (after deciding it wasn't a scam, I'm also a sceptic) I was a little leary of having to decide if a deal was worth it in 24 hours! But this one was a no brainer. I'd been wanting to sign Wes up for a gym class of some kind and when a great deal for My Gym came along I grabbed it. The funny thing about group classes is that you learn a lot abour your kid in them. I always thought Wes was the "go-get-em", joiner kind of kid. Turns out he is like that, only not when someone's telling him to be! The instructors for this class are awesome and each class they do different stations which practice certain skills, like balancing, or jumping, etc. Wes has no interest in being told what activity he needs to participate in at a certain time! He'll try everything, just on his own schedule. Though thankfully he's doing really well with the "circle time", which is really helping him learn to sit and pay attention and follow directions. We had such a great time during our Groupon classes, that we signed up for 8 more!

Swing Time

The gym is set up differently every class, so each time the kids find new ways to climb, crawl, jump and balance.

Nearly dissapearing in the ball pit.

Practicing his dismount?

Wes loves to jump and is getting pretty good at it now!

The Santa Ana Zoo

A couple of Friday's ago, on a simply gorgeous day, we headed to the Santa Ana Zoo with our good friends Lisa, Jessie and Leah. This was our first time to the zoo, which is practically right down the street from us. The smaller scale of this zoo was perfect for these two. We saw some animals, played a little and got to spend a fun day with our friends!

Wes and Jessie are six months apart and have always played so well together.

After the animals, we had a nice picnic lunch...

...then spent a little time on the playground before heading home for much needed naps!

Happy Birthday Mama!

My birthday was last Tuesday and my wonderful husband offered to make me a lovely breakfast at home of all my favorite breakfast things (it is my favorite meal and I could eat a full hot breakfast every morning!) But I asked for a raincheck and requested my guys take me to Knowlwood's instead for the world's best waffle!

Michael had never had their waffle so I don't think he believed me when I said it was the best around. So he ordered his typical Spanish omelette but when the food came, he was severely disappointed in his choice!

While we waited for our food, the boys played race cars. I want to believe Wes is saying "slow down Daddy, be safe."

And here's the famous waffle, or what's left of it (don't worry, I finished it!) I can't speak for all the Knowlwood's, but if you're looking for the most delicious belgian waffle, go to the Knowlwood's in Irvine off Sand Canyon. I know Michael is itching to go back so he can order the right thing this time!

"Wesley Alan"

Kids saying their own name is such a crack up and when it's your own kid it's the cutest thing in the world! We ask Wes what his name is so often that he's got to be thinking "...come on people, if you don't know who I am by now then we've got a problem!"

Happy Birthday Luke!

A couple of weeks ago, we helped Luke celebrate his 3rd birthday at Pump It Up in Irvine.

Wes was right in there with the big kids, he loves to jump!

Wes and Slayder "playing" video games.

Pizza time. Wes just looks like such a big boy here, sitting at the table eating his lunch!

And here's Luke with his Krispy Kreme donut cake!

Wes got the perfect sized little chocolate glazed donut. Mama on the other had a big glazed donut with rainbow sprinkles...possible the best donut I've ever had too. Super fun party, Happy Birthday Luke!

Jackpot!

This is what happens when you tell and almost two year old that "mommy's going to use the bathroom and you need to stay out." I partly blame myself because a) I left my purse right there on the floor and know better and b) I should have gotten a clue he was up to no good when he stopped pounding on the door and jiggling the handle. (And I promise I wasn't even in there for that long!)

When I saw the mess and asked him what he was thinking he just kept saying "noney, noney, noney!" Poor kid thought he was rich! Oh well, I've been meaning to reorganize my wallet anyways.

Sail Away

On Thursday March 31, we had a random beautiful day with 80 degree weather! We took full advantage and headed out for a whale watching cruise with Uncle Kevin, Auntie Chrissy, Cody and Eva.

What a blessing to have friends with a boat :)

I'm envisioning the day when these guys are driving the boat and the parents are relaxing in the deck chairs!

We saw lots of jumping dolphins and Uncle Kevin even found us a whale! He has a rapport with one of the whale watching boats who actually did the work finding the whale and we got to enjoy it! I know it's hard to see in the picture, but that darker area of the water is where the whale is.

Thanks again Rausch family!

Boo Boo

No, he's not crying because of the giant popped blister on his foot. He's crying because I put a band-aid on it! And a cool Cars band-aid with Mater and Lightning on it no less. I actually think he was upset because he couldn't see his boo boo any more, he seemed quite proud of it! At least I won't be spending a small fortune on Band-Aid's for every little scrape.

Happy March 18th!

Wow, I'm behind! Anyway, since we were traveling home from Florida on St. Patrick's Day, we decided to have our corned beef and cabbage the next night.

Wes liked everything of course! Especially the carrots and the fact that he could dip his corned beef in mustard. He loves to dunk!

Here he is giving the cabbage a try...

...and here he is spitting the cabbage out. At least he tried it!

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day!

Epcot - Our Last Park!

On our last vacation day in Florida we went to Epcot, which is an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Our tour book said it was Walt Disney's dream for a planned city, but after his death it became a theme park. That's some serious irony! This park is huge, 300 acres, and since it was our 4th park in 5 days, we were all pretty pooped! But I haven't been to Epcot since I was a kid, so I really enjoyed it. My brother obviously hadn't been there since he was a kid either, and it was fun remembering the things we thought were so wonderful here when we were kids. We both had fond memories of the Viking Maelstrom ride in the Norway section of the World Showcase. It wasn't quite as wonderful as we remembered, but I think it's just amazing how an experience can make such an impression on you when you're a child and stick in your mind for 20+ years. The only thing I have to say though, is that those vague but fond memories I have of Epcot when I was a child have mostly been replaced by the memories of our current trip. Which, obviously, we had a great time but it's just different. Oh the curse of being so sentimental!! :) Anyway, on with our day:

At the World Showcase Lagoon with Epcot's iconic geosphere, Spaceship Earth, in the background

We played for a little while inside the Innoventions East and West building.

Next we headed to the ride Journey into Your Imagination, which was really cute. The ride lets you out into the "What If" labs where there are lots of fun interactive stations for exercising your imagination. We loved these musical squares! When you jumped on them, they lit up and played a different type of musical instrument. It was really tough getting Wes out of there!

This is in the Imagination pavilion where these "water snakes" arc into the air, they would even jump over pathways! It was fun to follow them around the pavilion, that is until I wasn't paying attention and one of the snakes soaked my head!

Wes and Grandma hanging out while the rest of us went to see Captain EO. It's back at our Disneyland too, but I couldn't pass that one up!

Wes taking a little rest while we wait for everyone else to ride the Test Track roller coaster.

This is a great ride where you're in a car on a mini highway going through several "tests" in the GM proving grounds. The cars zoom by at 65 miles per hour right where we were waiting, which obviously made Wes very excited!

We did wander through the World Showcase, where you can visit 11 miniaturized nations and we had tacos for lunch in Mexico, which was a nice change from the regular Disney fare. Auntie Monica and Uncle Chris rode the spinning ride Mission: Space and on our way out we posed with the floral version of Mickey, Minnie and Pluto.

The next day, our flight home was uneventful and this time Wes slept for an hour and a half on the plane, which definitely helped! Though it seemed to take a lot longer to get home :)

We had such a fun vacation! Thanks so much to Grandma and Grandpa for taking all of us! We'll always remember it! Wes is still talking about "Mi-ee"'s house!