Trip to the Waterpark!

As part of our week "staycation" we thought it would be fun to take the kids for a couple nights to a waterpark hotel. We've been wanting to take them to one for a while, and thought this would be a perfect opportunity. So the Zehnders hotel waterpark in Frankenmuth it was! It was a perfect little getaway. It was only a little over an hour away, only a little bit of packing and a BLAST for everyone! The hotel was really, really cute - the whole thing was decorated in a elf/fairy theme - which the girls thought was adorable. There were lots of mushrooms, flowers, frogs and little fairy houses - too cute!

Alexa loved the waterpark from the moment we stepped foot in it! There was plenty to do and she pretty much loved all of it. She was a little timid to try out the waterslides, but once she did she was hooked. There was one slide that you could go down on your bummy and she tried that one out first. She worked herself up to the blue slide that you needed an inner tube to ride down - which was really dark in parts and pretty fast, but she decided she liked it despite that! It took the most coercing to get her go down the green slide called the "perilous plunge" but Kenny convinced her and once she went down it we couldn't get her off of it! The picture above is hard to see, but it is of the two of them coming out of it and the end - their faces were too funny!

Soooo...Elyse talked a big game when we saw the waterpark through the windows, but it took her a little while to warm up once we got in there. She was all concerned about the loud noise, getting sprayed and really the whole thing in general! Gotta love her :) Luckily, by the next time we went back in she had decided it wasn't so bad, and soon enough she was really enjoying herself! Elyse's favorite part was the little swings in the toddler area. We eventually convinced her to try out the little slide for the smaller kiddos, and she was also hooked once she realized how much fun it was. Her excited little face coming down it never got old!

One of the coolest parts of the waterpark was this big huge bucket that dumped water out every so often. The bucket was at the very top of the waterpark and it slowly filled up. When it was getting close to filled, a bell would start ringing - which warned you to either get out of the way (or get in the way if you were feeling brave!!!). After much anticipation, it spilled over and drenched the whole area below it. Me and Lex thought it was pretty fun to stand under it every once in a while and get drenched - which you can see happening in this picture!

In addition to the waterpark, we fit in a little time for a trip to Bronner's where the kids picked out a Christmas ornament, some fun in the arcade, and of course, ice cream! Seeing as it was a Miller family rule when Kenny was growing up that ice cream be eaten every day on vacation, it only seemed right that we also adopt the rule! It really was a wonderful trip for us. The kids had a great time and we had a wonderful time watching them have so much fun! The kids already want to know when we will do it again, and hopefully it won't be too long before we do :)

A Lost Tooth!

Lexi has been SO concerned about her teeth falling out since her friends teeth started falling out a year ago. We kept reassuring her that it was one thing she did NOT need to worry about! Everyone's teeth fall out eventually, she just had to be patient! She was pretty excited when she could tell they were starting to get loose a couple of months ago. When an adult tooth started growing in behind her loosest tooth we knew it wasn't going to be long. Well tonight it was incredibly loose but she didn't want to pull on it so I told her if she went upstairs to brush them it would probably fall out, and sure enough it did. She was SO excited :)

She said she wanted to write the tooth fairy a note, so I let her go back downstairs to write one. When I came down, I found her writing this note, which I thought was so incredibly sweet. She was working so hard to make it legible with her poor little hand in her cast. I couldn't help but smile! What a sweetheart.

Kenny's mom made these little pillows for the kids and their friends when they were little, and she held on to a few. Not long ago when we were visiting them, she passed this one on to Lexi to put her tooth in for the tooth fairy. Lexi was thrilled to be able to get it out and tuck her tooth in the little heart pocket.

Lex put the little tooth pillow in between her pillows on the edge, so the tooth fairy wouldn't have to work TOO hard! Sure enough the tooth fairy visited and was nice enough to let Lexi keep her tooth as requested. She also left $1...what a nice tooth fairy! The girls were pretty excited this morning that a real fairy had visited their house :)What a fun milestone for all of us!!!

Fourth of July

We had a great Fourth of July weekend. Kenny had Friday off and we were home until Saturday after nap when we headed down to Kenny's parents house in Ohio for a nice cookout and fireworks. The kids were excited to wear their new Fourth of July shirts - handpicked by Mom with a little activist flair to them - a little Peace and Love for the Fourth of July :)

We are normally pretty strict about bedtime but figured we shouldn't ruin all the kids' fun so we let them stay up! The only reason I felt a little bad was because they normally are a little crabby the day after they stay up late and we were leaving them the next day at Grandma's for a couple of days - real nice to get the kids crabby and ditch them!!! But Grandma said she didn't mind so it was decided!

We went one town over where there were fireworks being held outside a High School football stadium. There was a big huge open field, and plenty of room. We weren't quite brave enough to head into the crowds in Toledo, so we were happy to see some good fireworks without all the congestion. We actually had a lot of fun waiting for the fireworks to start. Poppa was in a troublemaker mood and kept picking on people (which of course Lexi thought was a ton of fun as you can see from the picture!). There were races and snuggles and some good family time! Both kids really liked the fireworks, although Elyse needed her ears covered the WHOLE time they were going on. The highlight of the fireworks for both of them was the one that went off in the shape of a smiley face! Overall it was a great Fourth of July and it made me happy that the kiddos had a good day! :)