Birthday Fun

The Birthday Boy showing me his ice cream moustache and beard

Ashten thinks its fun to sit inside the ball catcher at the bottom of the basketball hoop and AJ just wants the ball back!

Ben and Sarah VanderHoeven

This morning Valerie and I tried to take the kids down to the Fife Community Center for some toddler/prechooler time but unfortunately (even though I have a child born on THE holiday, we forgot that it was a holiday, therefore they were closed. So the next best thing is McDonald's I guess. Too bad for us everyone in Federal Way/ NE Tacoma also thought this was a great idea. At first the 8 of us shared a table with someone the VanderHoeven's knew. After that lady left some of Valerie's family showed up making 14 people and we got to at least have two tables for a few minutes until we were eventually pushed back to sharing one table. I have never seen so many people at McDonald's before it was crazy. Anyways, the kids had fun playing together and enjoyed some ice cream before we headed over to DI. The kids love going there and when I asked Ayden what he wanted to do on his birthday that's where he wanted to go.

Aunt Kristin and Uncle Wes invited Ayden and Ashten to go see Madagascar II with them. So Uncle Wes came and picked them up. They seemed to like the movie and Kristin said they were good boys.

"Kid's Cones"

Ayden smile nice for the camera Ayden that wasn't nice that was scary...try again
Please Ayden just one good one!
Thank you!
Ashten wanted a cookie but "they were all out ;)"
Anderson loved his cone and finished the whole thing We had to make a trailer delivery tonight to Gig Harbor. While we waited for Armand to take care of business we went into the McDonald's play area. It was some sort of ball game where lights went on and you had 20 seconds or so to hit the ball and knock them all out. Well, the game was old and only two of the lights worked so we made up our own game. If they could make a certain basket they could get an ice cream cone. I had Armand go up and he asked for the smallest kid's cone they had. Luckily for us the guy gave us three free "kid's cone" aka courtesy cones. All three boys thought that was pretty fun because they were so little. I thought it was fun because it was free.

McD's and Marionettes

After making a two page list of all free summer events I could find for the kids I decided that I should choose one and go. I tried to get the boys ready to go to a children's concert in Tacoma but they were whining about it so I thought that I could definitely have them ready by 2pm for story time at the 320th library. We invited Valerie and Ben to come with us and they did along with Sarah and Josh. First, we hit the new McDonald's which was super entertaining! I won't say why: to save Sarah from embarrassment;)

Story time was actually done by a puppeteer performing Cinderella and the Bug Brigade with Marionettes. The older half of the kids sat still and watched the whole thing while Ashten, Ben, and AJ were not happy about it. Today our camera got lost so there will be little to no pictures. How sad!

Playgroup at the Mall

AJ's first experience at a mall toy...He's super excited!Ashten is asking, "How do you make this thing go?
Ayden is always trying to learn something
This is his tantrum face

(usually the lip is out more and almost in a square shape)
Ella, Isaac, and AJ waiting for the Mom's to order

Now that I have a car (YAY) I didn't want to have playgroup here this week, so we went down to the Supermall play area. We had a pretty good turn out considering I didn't send out the email until Tuesday. I think there were about 13 kids. Afterwards, we went over to McDonald's for lunch we took over a section and the kids ate well and seemed to have fun sitting with their friends. I enjoy getting to know the other girls in the ward. They are so fun to hang out with!

"You'll Shoot Your Eye Out Kid"

Today we had a car...YAY! But that always means we have lots of errands for one day...BOO! So we went to McDonald's for lunch, anytime we have a car that's where the kids want to go to play on the toy. So they played for a few minutes while we waited for our food and then they came and ate pretty quick so that they could go play some more, but of course instead of playing on the toy there the whole time all we did was make runs to the McToilet and play with this McToy:

Which by the way, after taking one of the kids to the bathroom for the McBillionth time I came back to my Dad asking me "Which kid would you like to be blind?" hmm let me think... I guess when I was gone they discovered that the little arrow that shoots out of the front trap door could take out an eye. Now yes I may have a blind son but it would make me:

$$$Mrs. Amie 'Mc'Nicolas$$$.

Doesn't it have a nice ring?
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