My Birthday. Part 3 Kemah Boardwalk

We made it to Kemah Boardwalk, a place full of carnival-type games and rides, restaurants, shops, and of course a boardwalk along the ocean. We even saw a fire juggler. Pretty cool, right? Yep.

You know you're fully ingrained into motherhood when you have the most fun when you're kids are having fun. So I picked out rides that I knew the boys would love. We started with the ferris wheel.

And immediately it started squeaking. We hung out about 10 feet up for a couple minutes, then they brought us back down and had us get out. They said we were making the wheel unbalanced because they're only supposed to allow up to 4 adults in a car. Now, my three kids' weight only total half that of an average adult, but whatever.

So they made us wait forever while they got us two new cars. At least we got the family all together for a couple minutes before being split up.

Then we got in line for the next ride. Dash and Liam were so very very excited. What was the ride?

Airplanes! They got to do their very own flying.

Sean made sure to provide the appropriate airplane noise, apparently.

While I went to feed Grey, Sean and the boys went on a balloon ride.

It was tight quarters so Sean could only take very close photos. But they're cute photos!

I really liked the boardwalk part. I just love seeing and hearing the water. My parents have some friends who live on the east coast, literally. When we've stayed at their house, I just love opening my window and falling asleep to the water slapping against the rocks. Mm, I feel relaxed just thinking about it.

Now, let me tell you how great Grey was that day. His schedule was out the door, naps here and there and everywhere. He spent so much time in the Bjorn. Not mention he'd had shots that morning! Grey just really loves outings- he soaks in his surroundings and is happy as can be. What a great kid.

And Sean, what a stud, he carried Grey around practically all day without complaint. I know his shoulders must have ached. He made my day so special and fun, I'm so lucky. Not to mention I got to look at that face all day long!

Okay, back to the action. We had Dash and Liam play a little carnival game where they won these stuffed animals!

And by "won," I mean that we paid money, they picked out a rubber duck from a bathtub and the letter on the bottom told them which bucket of animals they could choose from. But they were so proud of their spoils. Money well spent.

And then we found the fountains...

 [water teasers2 from Katie Bradley on Vimeo.]

Did you notice Dash get sprayed directly in the face at the end. After that he froze in place with a panic-stricken face and I had to go save him.

The kids were drenched. I thought they'd stop after they got a little wet, since usually that bothers them, but they went full out dare-devil style.

I did have a spare couple of pants in my bag but no shirts. So we stuffed a couple burp rags between their chest and shirt and called it good.

There's also a little aquarium at Kemah. Who doesn't like to look at fish?

This guy actually has a really long "snout" but I thought he looked so funny straight on.

Catfish!

There was a fake monkey that simultaneously fascinated and unnerved Liam and Dash. Grey would stare at it for a few seconds and then start crying. So much for that.

This is a sting ray. Could you tell? There's a whole pool of them that we could pet. You can also feed them but we just watched others do that.

 [stingrays3 from Katie Bradley on Vimeo.]

Mr. Stingray was nice enough to make sure Grey got soaked, just like his brothers.

After the aquarium, we stopped for a pre-dinner treat.

The twinners enjoyed some chocolate-covered pretzels.

Grey missed out on the chocolate but happily watched daddy eat a big peanut butter cup.

The birthday girl had a sea salt truffle that was so very yummy.

We were all were getting a little sluggish, so we just walked around for a while. There was a little playground, at which Liam and Dash were giving each other the cutest, biggest hugs and kisses. But then that made them fall down, get hurt, and both start loudly crying. You win some, you lose some. We finally made it to a sushi/hibachi place and had a fantastic birthday meal. On the way home, the twinners fell asleep and didn't went right into bed once we got home. I won't mention how they woke up at 4am the next morning all set to play. No, let's just focus on the wonderful birthday I enjoyed. Thank you family for a great day!

My Birthday. Part 2 Rocket Park

The last time we went to NASA we discovered you can go to the Rocket Park portion for free. And since that was the best part of the place anyway (unless you're Sean and get an awesome backstage tour), we thought we'd go again.

Here's Sean introducing the boys to the Rocket Park while I stayed in the car to feed Grey.

[ rocket park from Katie Bradley on Vimeo.]

Heehee, the way Liam just took off running makes me giggle.

The Saturn V rocket is enormous. So much rocket power is needed to get a few people to the moon. I couldn't even get it in one shot with the lens I was using. So here I am at the back looking toward the front.

And now I'm at the front looking towards the back. Huge.

Can you imagine all the work it took to make a rocket like this work? Mind boggling.

So much fire. I think it's a three stage rocket.

Standing on the back end felt kind of like standing behind a horse- uhh, let me move aside.

What a lovely shade of marigold they've chosen.

In case they met any moon aliens, they'd know from which country the earthlings hailed.

Grey and I are being space walkers. Dash just really wants to hold my hand.

Dash is showing us a moon run. It looks surprisingly like his normal, earth-bound run.

Here's Liam being a... pensive astronaut? I don't know, I got nothin.

Look, there's more rockets!

Again, in case you forgot, we're American.

My kids made themselves at home in the rockets.

Here's astronaut Sean on his way to the capsule. (are Liam and Dash twins or what?)

And the twinners heading to the capsule, less serious-like.

And for souvenirs, Rocket Park rocks. We're going to sell them on ebay. We'll be millionaires!

Next stop, Kemah Boardwalk!

My Birthday. Part 1 The Doctor

Last week was my birthday and the family had fun together all day long. I had so much fun and took so many pictures that I filled up my camera's memory card. soooOOOO you get to see my birthday in installments.

We begin with Grey's 4 month doctors appointment. Yahoo! It was quite nice to have Sean there.

Because Liam and Dash inevitably do things like this and it's hard to manage while being given instruction on Grey's care.

They try to look so innocent.

They'd never hurt a fly!

No, Grey's the sweet innocent one. For now.

His stats:
15 lb 11 oz -- 67%ile (more than the twins weighed when they were six months old)
25.5 inches -- 73%ile

He took his shots like a champ, crying for maybe 15 seconds. Then he took a nice nap as we drove to our next destination... Rocket Park!

So what's Grey doing now?

So it went like this. We were on vacation in Colorado and the house is full of people. We didn't want to let Grey cry a ton at night and wake everyone up. At one point, he was super fussy so we tried having him sleep in the car seat. Totally worked. Then we kept turning to the car seat whenever he was hard to console, so much so that we would start him out in there. And thus he became dependent on the car seat. We let it continue for a week-ish after we got back, 'cause he aint havin none of that crib bidness. Finally I would start out in the crib and move him to the seat if necessary. Thankfully after a week, crib's the place for him!

His bedtime's now at a normal time, around 8pm. I really can't figure out how it happened, it just sort of worked out one night and it stuck.

Grey slept for 10 straight hours Saturday night. Didn't wake up once. I actually went in at 6am to make sure he was alive (he was). I'm so proud of my little guy. And now that I know he can last all night, it gives me a little motivation to not give in and feed him if he gets upset during the night.

Grey's on a loose 3-4 hour schedule. He's usually awake in two hour chunks. The morning nap is usually pretty good, 1.5-2 hours. The second and third nap take turns being acceptable and being short. No matter when the nap, he generally always wakes up 45ish minutes into it and needs help falling back asleep (if he does at all).

Grey rolled over back to front on Saturday! He'd been teasing us for weeks, his whole body just teetering but that one arm just gets in the way. He finally toppled all the way over and has done it a few times since. I thought that might help him sleep better, since he loves to cling to things and having the mattress to cozy into might be nice, but he did it during a nap and it totally freaked him out. Incidentally, when he's on his tummy, he's started to push up on his heads so he gets his chest up off the ground. Such a strong boy!

He's starting to grab at things. First he stares fiercely, then the batting begins, and finally the desire to get that object in his mouth is at full blast.

He's graduated from grabbing big fistfuls of my hair to little fistfuls of my hair. The pain factor has quadrupled.

Grey has the best smile. Oh man, when I first pick him up and his whole face becomes a smile, I become a big melty pile of happy.

Grey's a sympathetic crier. If he hears Liam or Dash crying nearby, he's sure to join.

He's slightly less spit-up-y than he used to be. Some days are relatively dry, others a downpour.

Do you think his head is a funny shape? I think it looks like a trapezoid.

First Bite

Two days ago we gave Grey solids for the first time! And by solids, I of course mean rice cereal which is no where near a solid. Whatevs. How'd he like it?

Ah, something's in my mouth. I like things in my mouth.

Huh? What's this? Is this what they call food?

I like it!

Except, a minute later...

No mooooooooooore!

See how he's straining away from me? This is all he did from the get-go when we tried again yesterday. I get it though, I don't think even Pogo would eat that rice cereal stuff. Bleh.  He'll come around when it's time for actual tasty stuff.