Story Time With Dakota

The other day Dakota was reading himself a story before bed. Fairly loudly. I asked him, "Dakota, buddy, can you read that story quietly inside your head?" To which he responded, "NO! Then I can't HEAR it!"

Well, my many friends, here is your opportunity to join in and hear it too. I present to you,

"Story Time With Dakota!"

I have to apologize for the video quality. My camera seems to be going out... guess I'll be buying a new camera soon. And of course I had to have the goofy radio on in the background. That's what quality you get, I guess, when you're trying to surreptitiously get video of your kid singing a story. I did try having him go back and do it again for me with a different camera but it just wasn't at all the same when he knew I was videoing. So you get the original straight-from-the-heart story telling version, terrible video quality and all.

Babysitting

One more "catch-up" post tonight. Last weekend we watched the girls for Aaron & Dani while they went to Raeden's preschool's auction fundraiser. Isn't that big Four-Year-Old a cutiepie? And here's that precious Reecey with her new fancy hairdo.
Dakota and Rae made the biggest train track ever, filling up the better part of the living room and going under the chairs and the couch too!

Yummy! That Auntie Carol sure knows how to make a baby happy!

Mmmmmmm.... mashed 'nanners.

OK, nothing that exciting but I couldn't resist posting these adorable pictures of the kids.

Just a Thought

Uh oh, here comes the garrulousness.

I wonder why they always title blog entries by the date you write the blog. I guess the idea is that you are supposed to blog every day and put up the stuff you did that day. But who has time to keep up with that? So on my blog I apologize but you're going to find that the date shown on the title, the day I finally got around to writing things, is seldom going to match up with the date things actually happened. Maybe some day I'll get into some sort of a routine and blog each night at a certain time or something. But for now I'm lucky to just get the kids fed and into bed at a halfway respectable time each day with all of their homework done. I've thought about doing my blogging at lunchtime while I'm at work but then of course I don't have my pictures accessible. So that would be boring. If I just blabbed like I'm doing right now with no pictures or IMPORTANT stuff it would be, well, way too garrulous. But I guess I am given to garrulousness. Oh well.

Chuck E Cheese

On Friday the 17th we had dinner at Chuck E Cheese. When we were making our Spring Break plans the one thing Dakota wanted to do was go to Chuck E Cheese. We ran out of time during Spring Break so we celebrated our first week back to school & work with a trip to Chuck E Cheese on Friday.

One of Marina's BFF's, Sydney, joined us and Aaron & Dani brought the girls too.

I love Reecey's new hairdo! Dani put baby oil in there & it didn't all wash out. So she spiked her hair straight up!

Watch me, dad! Dakota tried out the pinball.But Skee-Ball is still his favorite.

The girls played air-hockey several times and messed around in the photo booth.

Dakota hit the JACKPOT at Skee-Ball. He had a whole huge armload of prize tickets!

Rae on the slide.

Dakota turns in his armloads of tickets. He ended up with 500 tickets... enough to get a really cool stringy-stretchy-ball for a prize. He was feeling pretty good! Guess it was worth the wait.

Raeden's 4th Birthday - Farm Party

We picked up Carol from the airport Saturday morning, April 11th and then went right to Raeden's birthday party. She had a Farm Birthday and it was held right in Grammy & Pops' barn! All of the kids got to go for horsey rides, hay rides pulled by the four-wheeler and did tons of activities around the barn and in the hay. Dani did such a great job of putting it all together!

Brad drove the four-wheeler and took the kids on hay rides all around the farm.
My turn! My turn! My turn!

Aaron and Tyler took the little kids for horsey rides up and down the driveway. Here goes the Birthday Girl Raeden... she gets the first ride!

Dakota didn't admit that he was scared to get on the horse, but the death-grip on the saddle horn gave him away.

No throwing hay!

Clippity-clop, clippity clop... here he comes again!

OK, the horse was maybe a little out of Dakota's league. Here he is back in his comfort zone... shooting cans with a pop gun with Grandpa.

Apparently I somehow didn't get a picture of Marina on the horse. But here she is getting warmed up. Marina loves riding horses. Giddy'up, girl!

Cow bowling. The bowling ball looked like a cow. And it even "moo-ed"!

More hay rides. The kids couldn't get enough of it!

Reecey woke up with a bit of a frowney face. That lip can really stick out!

Enjoying BBQ fare in the barn. True to the theme and spirit of the day the dog climbed up on the table and ate one of the kids' hotdogs.

Reece feeling a little better. Took a Grandma's touch I guess.

Here's the hay pile where Dani had hidden lots of little plastic farm animals for the kids to search for. Rae had just finished opening all of her presents (you've never seen so much loot!!) and here comes farm mama Dani with the Birthday Cake! Mmmmmmm.... cake!

Pin the Tail on the Piggy.

Reece is feeling happier now, riding on the haybale horsey.

And the big finale... Raeden got her PINK FOUR-WHEELER that she had wanted SO badly! She had been riding Dakota's four-wheeler up and down her driveway for weeks and she was absolutely certain that the ONE thing she really wanted for her birthday was a pink four-wheeler. Happy Birthday, Rae!

Friday: Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

It was Raeden's 4th Birthday! Happy Birthday, Rae! We spent the day with Aaron, Dani, Rae and Reece at the zoo. It had been several years since I'd been to the PDZA and it was really fun!

It wasn't the warmest day in the world. Reece stayed nice and warm though, all bundled up in her stroller.Is that Horton I see? Marina was trying to catch up with the peacock so dad could get a picture of the two beautiful birds.

One of the coolest animals we saw was the polar bears. This big guy was swimming all around in the water. He would swim right by the window and give the kids a good stare. Hungry, Mr. Polar Bear? Marina & Rae both have just a little bit of growing to do before they are as tall as a polar bear. Keep eating those Wheaties! Snack time!Reece just wanted to walk and walk and walk!

And walk!

Grandma and Reece. When she was taking a little break from walking.

The Marine Discovery Center was open and they had lots of critters in the touch-tank. All of the kids enjoyed touching seastars, sea cucumbers, urchins and anemones.

We spent quite a while in the aquarium watching the fish. One of the zookeepers was feeding the reef fish and talked to us for a while about the different fish in the tank. Reece loved watching all the fish swim by!

After the zoo we went to Aaron & Dani's place for dinner (I need to get Dani's white bean turkey chili recipe... delicious after a cool damp day outdoors!) and Rae opened her birthday presents. She was excited about the Princess sleeping bag we got her. She is all ready for camping this summer now!

I can't believe you are already four years old, Rae.

Happy Birthday to you! (Cha-Cha-Cha!)