Hair cuts and school program

My friend Monique has been walking this "bad hair" journey with Brooklyn and I since it all began last year. She has been slowly trimming Brooklyn's hair as the curly stuff comes in. This time we were able to go to the new salon she is working at on a day it was closed. We had the place to ourselves and it was "oo la la" fancy! We finally cut most of the straight stuff off and boy is it curly now! One of these days I'll have to post some before and after pics of the last year and a half of this girl's hair. 

The week before Easter we got to go to the kid's school and visit their classrooms as well as watch the K-3 music program. Since they were so fancy I wanted a picture of Ethan and Morgan. As you can imagine a certain 7 year-old didn't really want to cooperate at first. Especially when sister tried to kiss him:)

That's better!

Touring a classroom with a daughter was so different than with a son. She was very eager to show us everything! I am amazed at how much she has learned this year and loved having her show everything off. She had a great year with her new friends and her amazing teacher. 

Here is Morgan with her self portrait now and her self portrait when she is a grandma. It is always interesting to me when she picks blond hair for herself since she is definitely my brunette.

Annika and Audrey walked around with us to see Ethan and Morgan's classrooms. You can imagine the double takes people did when they saw us walking around with SIX kids that all look alike:)

Here is the only picture I could get Ethan to pose for. He was actually a good sport this year and showed us everything he has been working on. He too has had a great year and was blessed to have an amazing teacher. We will miss second grade!

Hopefully we will get to the Easter post sometime this week:)

San Francisco Trip

We were blessed to get a one nights stay at a hotel in San Francisco as a gift. While we've gone on plenty of get-aways and vacations, our kids have never stayed in a hotel before. We were really excited for this trip and looking forward to trying something like this now that our kids are older. Of course as our luck would have it the stomach flu hit our house a week before we were scheduled to leave. Long story short, 4 of the 6 of us got sick, Kevin being the last one. He was a trooper and sucked it up so we could still go but he really wasn't feeling well most of Wednesday.

We started out our trip with a stop at the Children's Discovery Museum in Sausalito. We had been there before with the older two and knew everyone would enjoy it this time. I also discovered a great website that allows us to get free tickets to several local museums with our library cards. So, we were all able to go to the museum for FREE!! So great because with kids and a sick husband, we just didn't know how long we would last.

The art center--the girls were in heaven.

Gotta love the view!

Click on the link above to see the last time she was in this log.

Hudson could have stayed here all day and really wanted to take the worker hat  home.

Driving a smart car. Ethan was probably a smidge too old for the museum this time, but he found a few things he could enjoy.

Our hotel was on Fisherman's Wharf, so after a swim in the heated outdoor pool, we headed over to Pier 39 for dinner. Hudson and Morgan both wanted to ride the carousel.

The next day everyone was feeling great so we headed out to the wharf. After a minor head injury, a search for butterfly band aids, an urgent trip to the bathroom and lots of debate we settled on a ferry ride around Alcatraz and under the Golden Gate bridge as our main activity.

As you can see everyone is super excited!

The cruise was an hour long and had a guided audio tour during the whole ride. Ethan totally ate this part of the trip up. He loved learning all the facts about the things we were seeing. Here you can also see the repair job with the head injury. Hudson ran in to a metal gate because "I was watching a bird mama". Thankfully it didn't bleed too badly and is healing just fine.

Hudson confused his audio player with a walkie talkie.....

The girls, especially Morgan loved the freedom to go sit where she wanted as the boat was pretty empty.

Under the bridge! This was a pretty amazing site. I have never ridden under the bridge, it is a very remarkable structure. 

Ethan was really jazzed to get up close and personal with Alcatraz. I think it will be a few years before we take that tour, but he is itching to go!

The city....you never tire of that view!

All in all we had a great two days in the city. It is so fun that our kids are getting old enough to handle a trip like that. We really had a good time and I look forward to a lot more trips in our future!

Catch up!

Once again time has gotten away from me. Life continues to get busier and busier and keeps passing us by. I want to continue to document our memories though. I have completely slacked on any "real" photo albums....I still have Hudson and Brooklyn's baby books to finish! Therefore, this is as good ad it gets for now:)

Hudson and Brooklyn were invited to a Valentine's party on the same day Ethan and Morgan would be coming home with their Valentine's loot from school so it worked out perfect and no one felt left out. One of our police officers stopped by the party so all the kids could check out his bike and get a sticker. One of the fun things about living in a small town!

We had a couple days off of school for President's weekend so we took the kids out "hiking" at a nearby park. Pay no attention to the sewer pond on the other side of the fence....until our kids get better at car rides and longer legs we will be sticking to our little local hikes:)

Our town had their annual festival a couple weeks ago. My mom and I took the 6 older kids to the carnival. It was fun, but a little stressful with only two of us and 6 little ones. Kevin will not be getting out of the carnival next year! Hudson LOVED the rides, Brooklyn got strapped in to her first one and SCREAMED and never got back on a ride the rest of the evening. I don't think Audrey really enjoyed the rides either, although she got on a couple. The older three loved them of course.

Our gift to Annika for her fifth birthday was a trip to Build a Bear with Morgan. Both girls were super excited about it and loved every minute.

Our family tradition is to run in the race during the festival. The kids were all signed up for the one mile. Unfortunately before the gun went off Brooklyn had to go potty so she missed the race...I think she was ok with it though because she was quick to say, "It's ok mommy, I'll just watch with you" after I suggested we try to catch up:)

Hudson loved it and ran the whole way holding Kevin's hand.

Morgan and Annika really got in to it this year and did great.

Ethan did awesome and ended up getting the second place medal for his age group!

Even Audrey finished! I will brag for Kara...She got FIRST place for the women in the 8K this year! Way to go sis!