Video Game Museum

Last year the National Video Game Museum was created in Frisco.

We have talked about checking it out (and even watched a documentary on it), but hadn't made it until now. 

Father's Day weekend seemed like the perfect time to go.

The kids knew Mario and a few other things, but mostly it was above their head.

But Michael (and I) grew up in the prime gaming time.  It came big during our youth, so there was a lot of nostalgia to it.

It was broken down in stages and told the story of how it all came to be.  There were also multiple places for you to play or participate, which was cool.

Olivia is trying to figure out how to use the joy stick on an Atari.

In the hand held section.

I was playing Tetris on the game boy!

This was an old school living room set up.

Hello?

Then they had a bedroom set up how it would have looked in the 80's/early 90's. There was another section with a desk with a TV and gaming system on it.  Some boys were playing Super Mario Brothers, so I cut that part out.  But Michael agreed that part looked familiar, and he had a similar set up.

At the end they have an arcade. They gave each person 4 tokens on the way in, but you could also purchase more if you wanted.  We just used the free ones, because the kids weren't really good at it.

Michael's family had Burger Time growing up, and it was a family favorite.  I've heard lots of stories about his mom playing it while they were at school. :)  It brought back lots of fond memories for him.  Of course he had to play it!

We ended up going to the Target near by for a few things, and they were having their grand re-opening.  If you haven't noticed, tons of Targets are getting remodeled. I guess their remodel had just finished, so it was a celebration.  They were handing out balloons, water, popcorn, gift bags, and more. Plus, you got an additional 5% off everything.  The Target dog was walking around, and the kids got a picture with him.

We just went for a few grocery items, but it turned into a fun adventure.

Vacation Bible School

Olivia went to Vacation Bible School last week.

She's gone to the one by our house for the last few years, but now that she's in elementary they do theirs at night.  I just figured a day time program would be better for us and our schedule, so we signed up for the one at the church where our MOPS was.  It's a little bit of a drive for us, but it's familiar to her (and me!).

Every day had different themes.  She enjoyed crazy sock day.  She didn't have any socks that weren't no show, so I bought a two pack.  She thought mix matching was fun.  And you can't tell, but the one with the unicorn had yarn hair hanging off.

Crazy hair day = 7 different braids sticking out randomly

The good thing about going to the place where we went to MOPS was that I had people looking out for Olivia and sharing information with me. ;)  My sweet friend Shaye sent me this picture of Olivia from their morning assembly.

I didn't get too many pictures in general. There were over 900 kids that attended.  I walked her in the first day, but after that I just did car drop off because the parking lot was crazy.  And for pick up it was mandatory that you did car pick up.  So I only went into the building on the first day, and the first day is always the craziest!!  It was nice to have others send me pictures!

Shaye also sent me this one of Olivia on the stage. She hadn't even told me about it, so I was able to ask her about it and her face lit up.  Later she told Michael, "It was always my dream to go on stage, and my dreams came true." Ha ha!  Only a little dramatic...

My friend Jessica was her teacher.  She sent me a message letting me know.  She said Olivia was super cute and smart, and that I was doing a good job as a mom.  That's always nice to hear, because lately I often feel like we're failing at some aspects of parenting.

Olivia had an awesome time.  Just as I knew she would.

Most of the days we just went home, but we did run a few errands on the first day.  We got to the mall before the stores were even open, so Logan had the play place to himself.

I'm not going to lie... I started dreaming about the day where I can just drop them both off and have a break.  Won't that be glorious? ;)

Food Fun

We've been making some other fun food things lately.

After making the yogurt covered blueberries, I knew the kids would enjoy another recipe that Aunt Jenny sent.  It had a granola bottom and then yogurt on top.  Freeze it and they are small little frozen yogurt bites.

Logan loves helping!

The recipe had mixed berries on top.  It was close to grocery shopping day, so all I had was blueberries.  Olivia put them on a few.  Logan didn't want them on his, and I knew they would probably like them better without.

I don't think they've ever had granola before, but they really liked it.  So it was a win.

We also made chocolate covered strawberries.  Of course they were THRILLED with this.  (you know... since I didn't share the ones my sister sent. ha!)

Then we had them for dessert on Friday night.  Yummy!

She might have her father's sweet tooth! ;)

Then I made these for them.  Bonus: I had all the ingredients on hand except for the $1.25 tub of frosting.  I think I pinned a picture of these last summer and never got around to making them.  Olivia's only complaint is that she wanted to make one herself.  Next time...

Making memories

Builders Camp

Last week Olivia had her camp.  I mentioned before, but this is at the church that is like 2 minutes from our house.  She's attended multiple VBS programs in the past there, and her old preschool teacher was the leader of the camp.

This is separate from their VBS.  It as a camp designed specifically for 3 to 6 year olds.  You did have to pay a fee, which kept it on the smaller side.  (Their VBS run in the hundreds and they break it into 2 sessions!)

It was a builders/lego theme and was all about building your life on God's foundation.

They were grouped by age.  Each group went through different rotations throughout the morning.  They had a Bible story, music time, craft, snack, movement, and games.

Logan wasn't quite tall enough for the cut out.  He told me on the first day that he wanted to stay.  I told him that I could have signed him up, had he been potty trained. But he's not.  Choices! ;)

Olivia loved it.  I had no doubt.

On the last day they had a little program where they sang some songs and recited the theme verse.

Then afterwards they had pizza and cake for everyone.

Camp for Olivia: Check!

Summer Fun

We waited until June 1st to officially call it summer.  We kicked it off with a visit to a new donut store.  Yummy!

Later in the day we did some resistance painting, which I called "secret messages".  I wrote on some white paper with white crayons.  Then they had to paint and find out what the message was.

Logan had pictures of summer--ice cream cone, the sun, and water.

Olivia's said "Yay for summer" and I think her rainbow painting made it looked perfect.

Then I did one for each of them with their name on it.

The little boy I use to nanny never really snacked.  Olivia has never really snacked. Logan, on the other hand, wants to eat ALL DAY LONG.  He's super picky.  So whereas Olivia eats her 3 meals a day and is usually good, he has only a handful of foods that he likes.  I can't figure out if he's going through a growth spurt, picked up this "I'm hungry" habit from someone, or if he truly is hungry.  He never likes my offers for bananas or apples, so I'm confident he's not starving. ;)  But I'm trying to come up with some fun ways to get him to eat healthy snacks.

So we skewered some blueberries... which they thought was fantastic!

Then we covered them with some strawberry yogurt and froze them.  I think they liked making them more than they liked eating them, but they did eat the whole bunch over a week's time.

We also spent a Sunday afternoon working on a 200 piece puzzle.  This was a first for us.  They were both really excited.  I knew Logan would be of little help, but Olivia baled on us after about the first 10 minutes.  Michael and I finished it.  We'll try again another time.  She can do 100 piece puzzles, so I was trying to challenge her, but she was in it for the fun and not the challenge.

Life Lately

We officially began our summer break and bucket list yesterday, June 1st.  And I'm mostly caught up on all of my blogging! Woo hoo!!!  Summer is here!  I thought I'd do one last photo dump of anything that didn't make it into the last few weeks.

We love the library!!  We reserve books and movies, go in and play, and try to find new gems.

He told me he was working on his pirate eye. Arg!

These 3 love to have "Boppa Beast" fights.  On this particular day, there were superheros involved.  The pictures are always blurry, because they are always on the move!

Olivia doesn't drink milk. Therefore, she has never really had a bowl of cereal with milk in it.  I think she's tried it once.  She eats her cereal dry every morning.  So of course Logan does the same.  But he decided he want to try to eat it "like Boppa".  This is his proud face, because he finished it! :)

I guess our couches needed some extra padding?!?! :)

Olivia finger painted a picture of Moana.  She's on her boat and holding the heart of Te Fiti.  Not bad!

My sister sent me Shari's Berries just because.  YUM!!!  Olivia was mad that I didn't share the chocolate covered strawberries, so we'll likely be making those soon. (I did share the cherries with her.) :)

Olivia with her library card.

Olivia said she wants to travel to every state and try new foods.  (She also wants to travel to Mexico with my friend, Paola, her babysitter and teach them English.  Girl has goals!)  One of the things she's been wanting to try was sushi.  I usually get one that is more on the spicy side.  We went to a Japanese place and I let her try one that was just basic.  She said she liked it.

She ate all her food and wanted more, so I got her a shrimp wrap.  That was her face when she realized she ate carrots.  She strongly dislikes carrots. Ha ha!  I know... she needs to be in drama class.  I'm told often.

Our last life group of the season was a fun family night.

The boys watching the dads play corn hole.

Some of the girls watching the fire.  We will see them for fun events once a month through the summer, and then start back up in the fall. We love our life group!

Learning how to make toast!

We met our friends Heather and Nadia at the splash pad last week.  We nearly had the place to ourselves!  Two days later I saw on Facebook that it was PACKED. 

It was a little cold, though.  So after an hour in the water we headed to the park section.  

It was a good day.

Michael has wanted to take the kids to a Japanese steakhouse for hibachi for a while now.  We finally went last week.  Olivia was not pleased.  She was pretty sure she was not going to like anything. Then she tried the soup and loved it.  She ate hers and Michael's!

Of course we got a great show, which they also really liked.

When the flames went up. Ha ha!

They ended up loving it.  You know Olivia and white rice!  She enjoyed her chicken, too.  She's already asking to go back!

We went to Ikea to buy Logan a mattress and left with bunkbeds and two mattresses.  What?!

Logan was sleeping on the same bed and mattress that we've had since Olivia's birth.  He would have been fine in the converted crib for a while, but the mattress was starting to fall apart.  It didn't make sense to buy another crib mattress, so we were just going to go with a twin.  These are shorter bunk beds, but they were a really good price.  So we went with it and the kids are in heaven!

Look at that smile!  And those dimple!  He put himself in the footrest and kept popping out.  Cutie!