Christmas Videos

Ballet Videos

The Zoo!

The zoo had member's night. They open the zoo up at night to members only and all the rides are free. There are music stations and a few other fun things, but we chose to focus on the rides. First we went on the train. This was Parker's highlight. He would have been content to ride it all night long. Spent the whole time with a huge grin on his face.

Look at the delight on his face!

Then we went on the carousel. Isabelle, the big girl, got to ride all by herself!

Parker got to ride with mommy, but I don't think he minded.

Then the kids got to ride the boats. The true joy was ringing the bell. Each boat had two bells. I felt so badly for the girl who was running this ride. Can't imagine how long it takes her to get that ringing out of her ears.
Finally, we rode the spinning ride. This was the "craziest" ride and we weren't exactly sure how the kids were gonna do with it, but they had a great time!

Catchin' Up

So, it has been a while since I have posted so I will do a pic post. As you can see, we have done a lot of water play. Pics are in descending chronological order because I am too lazy to reorder them. Enjoy!

kids playing

Easter Morning

So, I completely forgot to take a "completed" picture of the kids in their Easter best, but I thought the bare chest pics more than made up for it. Besides, these pictures are much closer to real life. :)

Parker not sure if he is still dreaming or that loot really is for him.

Philip convincing him it really is okay to dig in.

Isabelle making sure that Parker is finding everything all right. (Really, making sure he didn't get anything she wants)

Christmas!

We had a great, quiet Christmas here in Marion. It was just the four of us, but so relaxing and great family time. Philip was off the whole weekend, and we had lots of time to play with our new toys.

This was our tree, biggest one yet and the kids loved it, Isabelle learned very quickly how to turn it on/off and that was what she did as soon as she woke up every morning.
The kids love Philip's Christmas train and that was their joy every night, playing engineer with Daddy. Didn't take them long to figure out how to make it go.

The excitement of seeing the presents Christmas morning. We didn't put the presents out before them because I wasn't sure I could trust the kids to leave them alone. But it was fun to see their surprised faces when they saw their loot.

Breaking open the stockings...

The crash after all the morning excitement. Parker is striking the same pose in his crib.

Our last minute Christmas present. Truly the best dog ever. The kids love her.
We got a membership to the Memphis zoo from my parents. The kids love it, but this is how we explored the first two times, hence the wagon in the present picture.

Thanksgiving with the Illmans

We hosted Thanksgiving with the Illman side of the family this year, in Marion. It was a bit crazy to get the house all orgainzed before everyone arrived, but thank goodness they are all flexible and things went really well, we had a great time. Here is a sampling of the good times. (So fun to have so many Bama fams all together for the Iron Bowl!)

All the cousins in the tub......

We spent a lot of time outside. So great to have a yard this time when the family got together. Outside time always turned into tackle time.....

While we were all together, we let the cousins exchange early Christmas gift...

We took the kids to the park to feed the ducks. The boys were eager to chase the ducks while the girls were a bit more nurturing. I tried to keep my distance and did use a child or two as a shield. Hopefully my kids will be a bit more fond of our flying friends than their mother...