A Visit to the Downtown Aquarium

The week went by as usual- Spencer working A TON, the kids going to school, and Avery had Activity Days. But with Emily's B-day on Monday, and Spencer at work, we had a little party Monday night and Tuesday night. We wanted to do something as a family and decided to go to the Downtown Aquarium. They'd been there before and were excited to have some fun! They remembered the Long Beach Aquarium my dad took them to when we visited Cali and talked about the whale hanging from the ceiling. They loved it so much!

Anyways, we let Josh take his nap so he would be enjoyable and left after lunch. Good thing we waited, that's when the rain stopped.

The Allred trio super excited for the rides and fish!

I'm trying to take more pictures- can you see the excitement on their faces? Woohoo another picture.

Another picture? I think I confused Emily.....Or maybe she was getting wet from the water splashing behind her. She's a silly girl.

Jake wanted to take a picture by the shark while Spencer bought the cute blue bracelets that let us go on all the rides. That was funny- the bracelets were stickers and it was a bit confusing for sleep deprived parents: "How does this work?" We couldn't stick them on the kids arms- they cry enough with a small band aid being taken off! I laughed when I looked at the back of the other bracelets and it said in large capital letters: DO NOT PEEL OFF!! Ohhhh, I get it! Only peel off the small part on the end that says: start peel here. with arrows clearly pointing the direction to pull off the backing.

We hit the carousel first. The kids loved it. Round and round we go.....

Emily wanted to ride on the sea horse....

Josh rode a tiger shark. He had so much fun! The whole time around he would say, "Wooo..." I love this age, they are so fascinated with the simple things.

The next ride I passed on. I'm not sure what it's called but it shoots you up in the air and drops you down. It does that a few times. No, thank you! Have fun! I'll watch the girls go on the carousel again.

Ugh...I loved seeing Jake's legs fly out in front of him when it would fall. He always had a smile on his face so he must have enjoyed himself!

The next ride was the train that takes you through a shark tunnel. It also says that one of the Great White Sharks escaped from the tank and was loose, that we need to keep our eyes out for it. As this is being said we are riding past a large pool of water and up explodes this Great White Shark head right next to our seats! Emily and Avery screamed and Jake jumped right along with them. Emily covered her eyes for the next minute while Spencer and I laughed for the next few minutes. It was really funny!

So what is the best thing to do while you are waiting for your turn to ride the train and you are four years old? Swing of course! Swing on the railings. I think we were in line for 10 minutes. It made me think of all the times I went to Disneyland with my Dad and all the lines that would be at least an hour long. Wow! I remember doing the same exact thing waiting for the rides at Disneyland. It was hard to be patient and a little girl.

The train has finally arrived. Look how patiently they are waiting. What good kids.....

Yup! I was really that tired! I'd had about 5.5 hours of interrupted sleep that night. So please excuse the terrible picture of myself. I am holding a cute blondie though! ; )

I love this picture of Jake and Avery! I really hope that Emily and Josh will as close as these two are. They are best friends even if they fight and tease.

I love luv love these pictures of Josh. He makes us all smile and laugh! He's growing up so fast. He's such a happy boy and is so much fun. He learns a new word every few days. On the drive home he said, "Baby" He kept saying, "Momma" and I'd answer, "Yes, Baby." So he'd repeat me, "Baby." So fun!

I took a picture of my train seat companions in the shark tank. Can you see all the scary sharks? The coolest was the Sawfish! Do you see them above their heads? Of course not, my sleepy self used the flash. I really should take a photography class and learn how to take really great pictures. Photoshop wasn't around when I took my photography class in high school. Yup I just dated myself! Or maybe it was and I just wasn't interested enough in it.

Our next stop was the indoor exhibit. I had to convince Jake to take another picture by the turtles. There was an old looking shack with ragged windows and lots of noise coming from it. Jake was very concerned about what was going on in there. I told him we were "goin' down the bayou!"

Another picture that needed persuasion! "Come on let's take a picture next to the treasure chest! Jake try to pick some up!" As Emily trys to take off her monkey backpack, or her leash as we sometimes call it.

Spencer felt bad keeping Josh in the stroller most of the time so we put the monkey on him. He loved walking!

Before touching the sting rays and sand sharks she had to look out from this divers suit.

I was surprised Avery was brave enough to touch the rays and sharks. She's my more timid and reserved child but I'm proud to say she did. I know she did because she described how they felt to me. The rays were, "smooshy and smooth" and the sharks were "rough." Surprisingly Emily didn't like touching them. It must be the age because Emily loves to touch everything.

Josh thought it was fun to put his hands in the water. I think he actually got to feel a squishy sting ray. He loved watching all the fish swim around.

Finally we made it to the white tigers. When we approached this statue they were all a bit nervous about getting near it thinking it was real! Really?!

Apparently Jake was ready for a fight and Emily was scared- you can see it all over her face.

Ok maybe Emily wasn't scared. She just had a headache from all the pictures! I can just hear the heavy sigh, "Ahhh.....another picture?" Jake's still ready to fight. I think he's been watching me do my Kenpo X.

The white tigers were asleep in the back. Spencer told the kids to do jumping jacks to get their attention and wake them up. So Avery's mid jump here.

Emily got some height with her jumping jacks. Jake's ready to fight again. Nice stance there buddy!

Back outside for one last ride before heading out to get dinner and drop Dad off at work. He worked at telemetry that night. ALL night!

Jake and Emily took one last ride on the carousel before leaving. Jake won a prize by knocking down three clown fish throwing baseballs. Round we go.....

Emily rode a sea horse again! She also won a prize playing a giant fishing game.

Happy Birthday Emily! I hope you had a great week! Love you tons Baby Girl!

Emily Turns 4

So my little baby girl Emily turned 4 two days ago and we were able to have two little parties for her. I can't believe she's already four! It makes me so sad that my baby girl is getting older. On May 10th we had pizza and she wanted brownies instead of cake so.....she blew out four candles on her brownies.

I took this picture while we were all supposed to be singing Happy Birthday to the birthday girl. It was sweet because Avery would always refer to Emily as the "Birthday Girl."
I think Avery was super excited to eat some brownies- Look at those eyes!

She blew out the candles and was super excited to dig into her brownies; yes 1/2 of the pan is mint.

I don't know what to say about this face. I told her to smile pretty. She is pretty cute. I'm not sure what Avery's doing.... it must be one of those in between expressions caught on camera- I hate those!
I love my beautiful Darling Daughters!

Josh loves to drink water or milk. I think he may be part camel ; ) He loved the few bites of brownie that I shared with him. And yes, he had a run in with Emily that morning. They were listening to The Lion King and Emily got a bit carried away and pushed Josh. Of course he fell unfortunately it was onto a small dollhouse- the same one that Jake fell on and had to get stitches from. That toy is gone now! But you can see the blue mark on his cheek which has moved up along the inside of his eye; yes my 16 month old has a black eye! And I feel terrible about it!

Jake was enjoying himself doing his homework. He was able to bring home Carter for the night. Carter is a bear from his Kinder teacher that "travels" with each child. That night Carter was able to celebrate Emily's 4th birthday with us and Jake was drawing a picture and writing a few sentences about it.

Emily opened up one of her presents and we saved the rest for the following night with Grandma and Grandpa Allred and Dad, he was at the fire station for her actual birthday.

This girls loves Ariel from Little Mermaid! So she got a Ariel swimsuit and she was very eager to put it on!

Jake wanted to take a picture of Emily ready to go swimming in her new suit.

He actually suggested to take a picture like this: "Lets take a picture hugging!" he said. So sweet!

So this was the next night with Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa. She got sang to again and blew out the candles too.

I love this picture. While we were singing to Emmy again Josh was dancing. You can see him in the back with his arms up and a smile on his face. Thanks to Grandma for holding back those curls!

Spencer conveniently ducked out of this picture. Josh is still dancing in his seat at the table. Silly boy!

Still holding back those curls, Emily was able to blow out her candles, again. Looks like Jake is trying to help out from the other side of the table.

My little girl and all that curl.... opening up her present from Grandma and Grandpa.

Remember I said that bruise moved up toward the corner of his eye.... so sad.

Did I mention that Emily really likes The Little Mermaid? She was so excited to sleep in her new Ariel jammies! Good thing I bought it big so it would last a bit longer.....

She loves these Look and Find books! I love them too- they keep her occupied for a while. : )

This was the prized gift, the hot pink bean bag chair. Jake and Avery both want one now! The first thing they do when they get home from school is sit in it and Emily kicks them out- sometimes literally!

We really need to work on the Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Growing up Josh

So we are still waiting to hear WHEN we can close on our new house and move in................ we have two and a half weeks until we have to move out of this house and WE really don't want to have to move all our furniture twice!

So in the mean time we are still moving forward with life and our daily and weekly schedule.


Josh is a great helper and loves to put things away like trash in the garbage, dirty clothes in the hamper, and he loves to help with the laundry. I have a previous post of him helping take clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer. Well here he's cleaning the floor- not really because there's nothing on the Swiffer but he likes to push it around the floor.

I caught him coloring one day. He had gotten into the kids scratch paper and the crayon box and plopped himself on the rug to color on the paper.

Josh with the Swiffer and coloring. You can see the drawer in the background still open...

Saturday is the day we clean the house. Josh wanted to help too so he and Avery are cleaning the front of the stove together.

This is one of my favorite pictures. We were getting ready for bed and Jake brought Josh onto the couch and started to read this dinosaur book to him. So cute! The start of a wonderful brotherly relationship!

This picture brings back lots of memories! Emily used to put her food like cheerios, cut up banana, cheese on top of her sippy cup and then she'd eat her food from her sippy cup. It was really funny to watch her habit of eating off her sippy cup. Well the first time I saw Josh do it my jaw dropped and I started laughing. I couldn't believe it. I thought it was so funny so I took a picture.

I absolutly love this picture of him sleeping. I remember it was really late in the morning and I had to check on him to make sure he was ok he was sleeping so late. He was fine- just a really full diaper! Poor baby! Soggy's not fun!

So adorable! Sleeping Beauty! He was out!

This is classic Josh with his pouty lips. He sticks them out and makes a whiny face and two seconds later he's smiling. Silly boy!

There's those lips again!

This is one of his newest tricks- climbing onto the chair. He already knows how to climb onto Emily's bed and he's good at climbing down safely so now to teach the little man to climb down safely.

Step by step climbing onto the kitchen chair for the first time. Stinker.....

So happy and proud he made it up......

with a toy and everything on the first try. Success!!

Caught!

Ready to go!

Ok so we just closed on our house and I am so totally anxious to close on our new house so we can move in. I have to drive by a few times a week to make me feel better. This foreclosure thing is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. I was hoping to celebrate Emily's birthday there but that's May 10th and I don't think that will happen. We have to be out of our house May 28th so we have a few more weeks but I'll tell you what I'm so tired of not having ALL of my junk out. I know the kids want their toys back too. I packed SO much of the house back in January so we could put the house on the market in February and there have been countless times when we need something but "it's been packed." So frustrating!

So when we do finally close on the new house we do have to make a few changes. The stains upstairs were literally smelled out and as it turns out it's cat urine. SO with that said the carpet and pad will be replaced upstairs!! We also love the hardwood downstairs so we decided to get that small area in the kitchen fixed and then we'll have it sanded, stained a shade darker, and sealed. Spencer wants to also repaint the living room and master bathroom doors and cabinets. So I'm looking forward to appliance shopping and just getting started to live our lives in a new home.

That's the update for now. I'll have to take a few more memorable pictures of the house. I had a really good laugh about the missing shower heads and bath faucets. I can't imagine having the kids take a bath without them- it'd be like power washing the kids in the tub. Really funny if you think about it!