Sea World Fun!

The next full day in Texas we loaded up in our van and trekked to San Antonio to take the boys to Sea World. I had shown them some videos of the shows on YouTube a while back and they were super excited to go. We were all a little worried that the weather wouldn't hold up because until the day before there was a 90% chance of thunderstorms all.day.long. But the weather was perfect...insanely hot...but I will take that over stressing about rain ruining a fun family day. We all had a blast! Somehow I made it through the park without dying of heat exhaustion or having a baby. And I surprisingly didn't hurt as bad that night or the next day like I thought I would!

Side note: the boys talk about Sea World all the time now, and cannot wait to return. Finn calls it "Seed World" emphasis on the D in Seed.

Right after we entered the park there was a lemur on a leash. It was super cute and the boys were able to get a glimpse of him before hurrying off to the next adventure. 

There was a little kiddie area with pint-sized roller coasters (or, in Finn-speak: roaster-coasters). Unfortunately my roller-coaster fun was nil because of baby-on-board, but I took advantage of the time to take lots and lots of pictures of my family enjoying them!

Oh! The smiles!!!!

This ride was like one of those elevator drop rides, except kid-appropriate so it just dropped a little at a time. Finn and Keagan's facial expressions and squeals or enjoyment were awesome!!

At the sea lion show. Finn was a little restless during the show, and kept asking for a "blue drink" and actually was getting mad that he hadn't yet received his promised "blue drink." This was early in the day and I was a tad concerned that this foul mood was going to permeate the rest of the day. We ended up finding him and Keagan a commemorative Sea World shamu-cup with free refills right after this show, and this was the best money we spent all day because the child was content! You pick your battles...   Keagan, on the other hand, LOVED the shows. He screamed with delight when the animals appeared and did their tricks. He was so engaged and excited. His reactions were priceless and I so wish I could bottle that and keep it forever and ever. Nothing like a child's reaction when seeing something exciting for the first time. 

The next show we bee-lined to was the killer whale (or as I like to call it, the Shamu show...though I think that may be my generation because I never heard the name Shamu the whole time I was in the park except when I said it!). This really was super awesome, and again...Keagan was all-about it!! Finn was still a little whiny, but nothing like during the sea lion show because he did have his awesome drink.

This is a momma and her two babies. One is a two years old, the other's age I cannot remember but it was older. The baby is on the far side and the momma in the middle. This really was so neat to see and Keagan loved it. 

See the baby trying to get up on the platform with her momma? It took a few tries but finally did get up there!

Another whale and her babies!!! (bwhahahaaa! get it?! it's ok...you can totally laugh!)

Unfortunately, Finn and Keagan were just not tall enough to ride the roller coasters. So the grown-ups (minus me) did the riding.

We finally stumbled upon a water ride that the boys could go on. Keagan was super apprehensive at first and chose to hang with me while the others went on, but at the last minute changed his mind. Finn wasn't scared at all and didn't question it.  They both had a great time and begged to ride it again...so Josh took them again later in the day. When I zoomed in on the pictures of Finn I cracked up because he looks absolutely petrified. But he LOVED it!  

Second time around:

Part of Sea World has an amphibian center. I really didn't care about the snakes and such, but was thankful for some air conditioning, or at least a minute to be away from the sun. Keagan was obsessed with the snakes (still talks about them) and really wanted to use my camera to take some pictures. He took the one below, and several others that I didn't care to ever see again, but then wanted his picture taken with the giant yellow snake. Don't ask me what it is. Big.

Another promised treat: Shamu ice creams. In theory this sounded great and refreshing. But there was one problem. The SECOND they were out of the freezer, they began to melt. And make a giant mess. And fall on the ground, causing me to pick up the expensive treat before a kid started crying and "clean" it to be consumable again. (you do what you gotta do. germs are everywhere. remember the whole "pick your battles" thing?? yep, they ate ice cream off the ground at an amusement park.) It was a dirty, sticky job but I guess that's why I am Mom. 

Flamingos!!  Who doesn't love a good flamboyance of flamingos?!

Dolphins!!! This part of the exhibit actually used to be where you could stick your hands in the pool and pet the dolphins. These guys came right up to us and so that's just what we did. Then Sea World staff flew all over us to not put our hands in the water and wouldn't let us place the boys up on the wall and yada-yada. They apparently changed the rules since the last time any of us had been. So that was kind of a bummer, but then they directed us to this underground viewing area and that was really cool. The only problem was we had told the kids that they were gonna get to pet the dolphins!! Luckily they were good sports and forgot all about that once we got down to the viewing area.

Keagan kept pretending to swim like a dolphin. Crazy kid. I think it kinda looks like he is trying to kiss that dolphin right next to him!

We let the boys pick out souvenirs before we headed home and they both picked killer whales. Finn named his "Salsa"  (I believe this was the name of one of the seals from the show..?) and Keagan named his something weird that I cannot remember. They love their whales, Finn especially does and can't sleep without him now!

TEXAS!!

The last week of May we drove to Texas to visit my family. The boys were beyond excited to go visit Grandma and Grandpa, swim in their pool, see their Aunt Hannah and Uncle Wesley, and build Legos with Grandpa. They basically had our entire visit planned out in their little heads and the only thing standing between them and their glorious plans was a 12-hour drive. I have blogged about our travels in the past, and how Keagan is an especially marvelous little traveler and Finn is...well...NOT. A whole lot hasn't changed since our last trip. We hardly heard from Keagan. He was perfect. We heard from Finley while on the on-ramp to get on the parkway (2 minutes from our house) and he asked "When are we gonna be there?" Josh and I exchanged side-ways glances and I am sure we both thought this was a joke and he would fall asleep or get engrossed in his iPad or colors or movie. Nope. When I say he asked e.v.e.r.y. 2-3 minutes "How much longer?", "When are we gonna be there?", or exclaimed that "It is gonna take fo-eva!", "It's taking fo-a-hundred years!", I am not even kidding. Every 2-3 minutes for the entire 12 hour trip except for a 30 minute nap. Yep, that's it. 30 minutes. And when we ignored him or didn't answer he would scream at us, cry, or incessantly repeat the question. And when we DID answer him, he would get so angry he would thrash around. It was downright miserable. It didn't matter how we would respond, we couldn't make him happy and we had a loooooong time in the car. By the time we got to my parents house Josh and I were slap-happy exhausted, wiping tears from our eyes from laughing at the sheer idiocy of the drive. We would have been screaming at each other if we didn't laugh. I look back and seriously cannot believe that we endured that. It was hands-down the worst drive ever. By the looks of the below picture you would never believe how bad it was. Trust me. We were scared to death to drive home. No lie.

When we finally got to Texas and relaxed a little bit, and could look at our youngest child again, we started building Legos. (the boys were mentally checking off their to-do list.) Grandpa helped Finn, I ended up helping Keagan so we could go to bed at a decent time...!

The next day we all went to The Thinkery, a children's science/hands-on museum, in downtown Austin. The boys absolutely loved it! Finn still talks about it and asks at least daily when we can go back to The Thinkery again!

I think these two were bored, or tired of thinking at The Thinkery...or maybe they were contemplating the physics of the rope jungle gym in front of them?

The water-play area was super fun for the boys. Finley especially LOVED it. What I noticed between the two boys during our time in The Thinkery was that Finn just wanted to play and touch and run around like a crazy beast making sure he at least touched every station. Keagan actually spent time at the stations he visited, participated in making the station "work" and you could almost see the wheels spinning in his little head.  At the water area, the water builds in a tower of buckets until the buckets are full and they all empty so water comes splashing down...Keagan was very interested in timing the whole process just right and then would run away quickly. Finn just wanted to get everyone and everything as wet as he possibly could, including a little boy who stood in the same spot and begged the other kids around him to not get him wet. Not sure why this child insisted on staying in there but, bless his heart, he was gonna get soaked if Finn had anything to do with it. I could have stepped in, but I didn't want to get wet...and after all it IS water play!!

Next stop at the Thinkery was a produce stand/kitchen and Finn went NUTS! He loves to play pretend and spent a lot of time "shopping" and "cooking" up random meals and serving them to us. Keagan spent most of his time gathering eggs from the pretend chicken coop but was running so fast I couldn't get his picture!

 

I love-love-love watching my children be children. I expect a lot of them on a daily basis, and for the most part they are very well-behaved little boys. As most kids do, they live in a hectic.grown-up world and don't have the opportunity to be children as often as they should. This museum was fantastic in that everything and every station was with little kids in mind. One of our last stations was an art area, and Finn quickly painted on the window then ran off to find something else fun to do. Keagan sat for a long time with Josh and made his Aunt Hannah a card. 

Get In My Belly (34 weeks) and Two Beautiful Big Brothers.

Today marks 34 weeks. On the nose! This baby has been moving like crazy lately. Well, I take that back, it has ALWAYS moved like crazy from early on and we've been seeing it since about 20 weeks. I decided to capture it on video because it is super bizarre and then I decided to share with you. Beware a video of a giant bare belly. I clipped it down, I believe there is movement through the entire video, with the most in the middle. How do people not believe in God and His miracles when they see/feel/experience this?! It is pretty incredible, and though the movement truly wakes and keeps me up at night, it blows me away and I enjoy knowing this baby is moving and grooving and growing.



I remember the boys making my tummy move, Finn much more than Keagan, but this baby takes the cake with it's activity level.

Speaking of my two sweet boys, I have been meaning to share their Spring school pictures with you. These big brothers are so handsome, and we are in love with these simple pictures! The individual ones are just pictures of the actual picture because I didn't get them on disk. However, the pictures of the boys together came on a disk so I could share and print on my own.

Now if I could figure out how to make the boys smile at the same time AND look at the camera for at least one picture I take...we have begged the boys to tell us the secret. They won't. :)