Our First Family Trip to Sea World

On Monday, we went on our first family trip to Sea World! It was SUPER fun! We were able to go with my entire family so the kiddos got to go with Aunts and Uncles and Nana and Papa and their cousins. What a memorable experience! We left early and took a girl car and a boy car up to Sea World. By the time we got our passes and got into the park, it was about11. We went to a Beluga Whale/Dolphin show called "Azul". The kids (especially Dallin) LOVED it. They had a really funny guy come out and entertain before the show and during the show there was all kinds of acrobatics and diving in addition to the whales and dolphins. We all had "all day food passes" which were AWESOME because we could stop whenever we wanted and get as much food as we wanted at one of the restaurants. This made it easy to keep everyone satisfied and hydrated.Here is Kate eating her turkey leg that was bigger than she was. LOL She got the attention of a lot of passers-by with this sucker! She wanted it soooo bad!
While we were there, we were also able to visit the new Sesame Street Kids land Kate was a little scared of the characters even though she LOVED watching them! and ride some of the big roller coasters. The lines in the kiddie land were really bad and it was hard to wait, so it was good that they had a sprinkler park area and a huge netted playground (which I crawled all around following Kate until I thought I was going to pass out!) Dallin was tall enough for one of the big roller coasters the "Steel Eel". It kind of scared him a little (which was a new thing for him), but he recovered quickly and is already talking about going on it again.
We were also able to catch the Shamu show....always a classic. They had a baby Orca that was 1 year old and was so cute...swimming around and copying mommy. It was especially funny when it tried to "splash" the audience....it almost got some water out of the tank. LOL Dallin insisted on sitting in the splash zone and I think both kids were shocked when they were hit with TONS of ice cold salt water. They almost started crying, but since Christopher was laughing...they laughed too.
Before we left, we saw flamingos and sea lions and were also able to see some bottle nosed dolphins. Last, we stopped and saw the sharks. I think this was Dallin's favorite. He had been talking about it for days. He just sat there and watched and kept saying "Whoa!!! Look at that! Wow!" It was really neat to see the sharks, but totally awesome to watch Dallin watching the sharks.
All in all, it was a super fun day. We had so much fun being with the family and getting to do so many things. There is still so much I want to do. I am excited that we have a pass to go back again :) Yay Seaworld!

We Love the Library!

Our city has a fabulous children's library. It is one of my favorite things about living here. Their children's programs and so well organized and awesome for the kiddos (not to mention the amazing staff). They have storytime for pre-k groups as well as toddlers and even babies have their own. Not to mention the puppet shows, movies, and special events they host on a regular basis. We go to storytime every single week. My children know "their" librarian by name "Miss Jane" and have been known to chase down people who look like her in public yelling "Miss Jane! It's me!!" I think it is good for them to learn to love the library at an early age, and I am grateful to be someplace that is making that sooo very easy. Here we are getting our name tags at the beginning of storytime. Yes....Dallin is glaring at me. Every week the librarian has the children line up and tell her their name for a nametag (that goes along with the theme for the week) Older children can spell their name for her. Dallin enjoys speelling his name (and everyone else's who is with us). It is pretty impressive....until he starts to correct the librarian "You know...ONLY the first letter of the name should be capitalized...the rest are lower case so that is wrong." (Good job son...now if you could be that diligent with your own school work!) Check out our totally rockin hats on hat day storytime! Except Kate. She refused to wear a hat...not even a tiara, but she was completely willing to wear her Belle dress out in public. The children's section of the library is the ENTIRE bottom floor. They have murals, kid computer stations, some fun lil toys and the crowd favorite "giant red bathtub!" Last week, they had a community leader storytime. It was AMAZING (also totally packed...daycares and preschools have discovered our awesome library and have started coming out). They had a police officer address the kids as well as fire fighters who gave a fun presentation (with singing and a smoke limbo) and even a postal worker. It was really great!
The kiddos even got to check out the fire truck!

We LOVE our library and our awesome storytime librarians! HOORAY!

Our Son....the Pretty Pretty Princess

We'd like to take this opportunity to announce that after months of agonizing effort...trying and failing AGAIN and AGAIN through tears and tantrums.......

HE FINALLY DID IT!!!!
Ladies and Gentlemen....our son, Dallin Kellogg is
THE PRETTY PRETTY PRINCESS!!
Words simply can not describe how honored and proud he felt at this accomplishment. Kate got this game for Christmas and Dallin has played it over and over and over with her. He has REALLY wanted to be the Pretty Pretty Princess....and he loses every time. He FINALLY did it! After 3 months and countless bouts with that cursed black ring! You have never seen a child sooo happy. I think he was waaay more excited to win than Kate ever was. He was just beaming. :) So adorable. His first words upon winning "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! I WON! I'M THE PRETTY PRETTY PRINCESS! My Daddy is going to be so impressed with me" (And yes, yes....he was. LOL) We love you Dallin! You will always be our pretty pretty princess.