MPRA Conference

Every year I take some students to the Missouri Park and Recreation state conference.  It is a great opportunity to network, learn about current trends in the industry, and find potential internships and jobs.  This year the conference was at the Lake of the Ozarks.  I only had 5 students go but they all loved the conference.  I only wish I could get the other students to realize the benefit of going.  In addition to the education sessions, there were free socials every night and on the last night, some of my students challenged me to bowling.  I have not bowled in a couple years but all I have to say is it seems the students have not yet become the teacher:)

Snow Day

SNOW DAY!  We love our annual snow day in February.  This year, as with all the years we got a huge snow storm for the area.  Sadly though, the snow was an icy snow and would not cooperate with our idea of building family snowmen.  It just wouldn't stick together.  But we still didn't loose the opportunity to play in the snow.  We all got bundled up and headed out to roll in the snow, some more than others:)

 Celeste decided to show the kids how to make snow balls and continued to instruct them to practice throwing them at me.

 My revenge came shortly thereafter as indicated by the picture above.  I wonder why Celeste is covered in so much snow?  WHITE WASH:)

 We proceeded to the backyard and started to create snow angels.  Brindi thought this was a pretty cool idea.

 Following the leader, the leader, the leader.  Following the leader where ever she may go.

Front Room Camping

Brindi has been asking to sleep in the front room for the past few days and keeps trying to negotiate by saying she will go to bed early the next night, or she would give up songs at bedtimes for that night.  She we negotiated her kindness for a night in the front room.  To make is more interesting I decided we could all sleep in a tent.  We needed to pull it out anyway for its spring cleaning.  The girls loved the idea.

Mom decided to sleep in her own bed as she was on baby duty that night.  Brooke couldn't decide where she wanted to sleep and kept going back and forth between the tent and our bed.  She finally came to the tent to stay at about 9:45.  Bedtime is usually 7:30.

January Fun

 We had a couple days that we enjoyed each other and took a few good pictures.  This posts highlights a few of those fun moments starting off with our handsome little boy.

 We absolutely love when are girls get along.  They do play so well together at times and than they are at each others throats.  Today was a good day and they are so cute together.

 They love their little brother and often try to play with him.  They haven't tried to dress him up but he often has to sit on their lap or be pushed in the stroller.

 Brooke is such a character always doing funny things and seems to live a life of fun.

 One of the few times Levi seems to like the swing.  He obviously was having a good day.

 We love these pictures of him right out of the tub.  He hates taking baths, but loves to be naked, but loves to be wrapped up.  Can't quite figure him out but we love his dimples.

1st Attempt - Potty Training

Brooklyn became very interested in going to the bathroom on her own in the last few days so we figured we would give it a try.  Celeste went out and bought incentive treats, lots of cool aid, and cheese puffs (apparently the cheese puffs help you go more often, you knew).  She was doing pretty good with peeing and really good with pooping but he ended after about a week.  We will pick it back up in a few more weeks.  However, the best part about this experience was Brooklyn running around the house half the time with no pants on and the other half of the time she tried to put her underwear on but it would end up on her head or when it was around her waist, both legs were in the same hole.

 

 We are not quite sure what happened this time around but we guess when she put one pair on and notice it didn't cover her crotch she put on another one and another one and another one.  Seven pairs of underwear she had on, all with her legs through one leg whole and still exposing her underparts:)  It was pretty funny! 

Brooke's 2nd B-day

    Our little Brooke is TWO and she was lucky enough to get to spend it with family out in Utah this year.She had Grandma and Grandpa, the Kents (minus David because of wrestling...which is sad because she loves David!) and Robert, Kari, and Dax there. She is really into animals so we of course did a barn yard theme. She is starting to talk more which is good for all of our sanities. She loves to run and chase and to do whatever you are doing, especially workout with us. She has started to want to potty train which has been a train wreck at times and we have to call every pair Abby or she won't wear them, because the first pair she put on had Abby from Sesame Street on them and also because she can say Abi because of her cousin Abi. She had so much fun playing with all the girls.
      Brooke also really loves babies and likes to take them with us all the time. She hushes me when she has put them to sleep and then cries and comes and gets me because she can't get the door open to check on them.
      We took her passy away which has not been fun either! After a week we are finally doing better, but she does better if Brindi sleeps with her, which doesn't always work out well because she is such a tease and drives Brindi crazy. Most of the time they both end up sleeping on the floor and we have to move them to their beds. The sad thing is Levi sleeps way better than Brooke and doesn't take a passy.  We love our little Brooke. She brings a ton of joy to our lives!