face paint and balloon animals

my scary dinosaur!

she was thrilled to have lipstick on!

kinsey wanted to be just like her big sister:)

We went to a local event that was a bit smaller than we expected. We were thinking of bounce houses, free lunch, horse rides, face painting, and balloon animals. There WAS free Fat Daddy's lunch that everyone chomped down. They didn't have physical things for the kiddos to do but they got balloon animals and BEAUTIFUL face paint.

Cousin Time!

From Thursday to Sunday I had two extra kids join our family! I watched my niece and nephew while my brother and sister in law were out of town. Nicky and Abby are 3 and 2 so we had an almost 1 year old, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7 year olds! It was definitely interesting at times (especially in the car) but it worked out well and the kids did great. We did lots of crafts (i didn't get pics of everything), went on a lot of walks, played outside, baked, played games, went to the Y, went out to eat, went to a park for a photo shoot, read a lot of truck books, ate lots of 'kid' food, and loved on two extra kids. We love you, Nicky and Abby!

nicky LOVED the wheelbarrow!

we did crafts every day. i forgot that two year olds
like to dot themselves more than paper.

shaving cream! again...i don't know WHAT i was
thinking but at least they had fun.

cailey and kinsey got in a 'shaving cream fight' and ended
up covered in it. abby thought that looked like fun and joined
in. awesome. nicky was a great sport and tried it but decided after
a few minutes it was too messy. much to my surprise braden stayed for a
long time!

cailey was a VERY great helper while they were
here and just loved on her cousins the whole
time. she took the 'big' cousin role very serious
and helped with their shoes, etc.

going on a walk...something we did
every evening before daddy came home:)

nicky did a great job of holding someone's
hand every time we went somewhere.

my boy in the willow

i had no idea at the time that they were lined up by age...

it's just the way they sat down!

this reminds me of the Servant Song or a foot washing. i love to see them serve others even in the simple tasks.

free paint

cailey put on some really cute
puppet shows for them!

'make your own pizza' night!

they all LOVED eating the pizza's they made!

BENIGN!!!!

Today I got the best call since our travel call to pick up Ephram. It was Kinsey's dermatologist calling to say that her mole was benign and they wouldn't need to see her for further treatment of it. YAY!! I must say that after hearing from the second doctor I really haven't been worrying about it. There's even been days I haven't thought of it at all. I AM a worrier normally, but I just had peace about it.

Kinsey's been fine and her wound is healing well. It's so tiny that we just have a band aid on it. She's so cute and STILL thinks all that happened was that she got a shot. She's VERY active and I can't imagine that stitches would have stayed in even if she got them.

I'm SO thankful. SO THANKFUL that she's ok. Praise God!

Transportation Museum

Checking out all the outdoor trains!

these were at the turntable

taking a ride on the turntable...SO cool! the kids were able to see
how they moved the trains from track to track

they had different kinds of trains from all different eras..
passenger lines, cabooses, refrigerator trains, WWII hospital
train car, amtraks, and lots of different engines.

little red caboose, chug, chug, chug...

the kiddos loved making the model trains go!

the wright brothers plane-
this was in the wagons, wheels, and wings
building. they had a HUGE covered wagon that reminded
us of Little House on the Prairie.

we loved looking at the old cars too!

they had police cars from the 40's and 70's...
and cars from all eras.

flight simulation

we've been workin' on the railroad...

we had a great couple of hours at the museum and could have stayed
much longer. we'll be going back when ephram's a little older so he
can be surprised and excited like Braden was!

Braden's Words:

Mommy and Daddy surprised me by taking me to the North Carolina Transportation Museum. When we got there I saw some trains! I was excited and happy to be there. It was cool seeing and getting to climb on lots of trains. I had a great time.

First, I played on the outside trains. Then I went on the turntable ride. It was fun! Then I went to see more trains and explore them. I went into a red caboose that had a stove, bathroom, and seats in it. Next, I went to see the airplane and learn all about planes and the railroads. It was very hard work to build the railroad. Sometimes they would sing songs while they were working. After that we went to see OLD cars from back then. Mama liked some of them. I liked them too. I liked the old police cars. There were lots of firetruck models from back then and today that were really cool and even a helicopter. Next we went to see the seats of planes. (The flight simulation). Then we went into a store that had all different transportation things. I tried on a train hat. We bought a license plate games to play on trips. We found 11 different states on the way home to Raleigh. Then we left and went to dinner. My favorite thing there was seeing the trains.

It made my heart SO happy to see Braden's face light up at the museum. All the kiddos had a great time and loved it! They also learned a lot about the railway being built...another great field trip! We've been wanting to go for a few years now and it worked out perfectly to go after the Lazy 5 Ranch.