First Fridays

On the first Friday of every month, our local Children's museum is free from 4 to 7pm. We went this past Friday. Enough said.

 We just LOVE this place!

On a Mission

I've been on a bit of a mission lately. A sort of obsession, you might say. You see, I've decided that this summer is going to be the most jam-packed and yet also the cheapest summer we've had. I'm determined to find every free event (or very cheap event) in town to take the kiddos to. And I've been doing pretty good so far. Here's the breakdown for the last month of activities (since May 9th):

• The 5 trips to the park: FREE
• The 4 trips to the arboretum: FREE
• The 3 birthday parties we've gone to (1 house party & 2 Pump It Up parties): $30 on presents for all 3 kiddos
• The visits to the Whitehursts' house to bounce in their bouncy house and play on their water slide: FREE
• The strawberry-picking adventure: $8
• The car show: $3 spent on rainbow kettle corn
• The picnic we recently went to with balloon animals, a bouncy house, tons of food, and a train ride: FREE
• The local visit to our community pool: $3
• The carnival on JMU's campus: FREE
• The Children's Museum visit: FREE (the first Friday of every month is free)
• Today (Sat) we're going to a festival in Woodstock, VA: FREE
• We're also planning to go to a planetarium show for kids this afternoon: FREE

I'd say we've done a lot in the last month. And it only cost us about $44 (well, only $14 if you don't count the money spent on birthday presents). Here's to the next month of fun and savings (two things I'm mildly obsessed with)!

Campus Carnival

On Wednesday, JMU had a free carnival on campus to celebrate the end of the first session of summer school. We went with one of my colleagues, Sharlene. It was awesome!

There were airbrush tattoos! Vivi got a pink and purple butterfly and Gavin got a green and blue Batman symbol.

The twins each got their own cotton candy and snow cone, too!

We ate hotdogs, chips, and a cookie in the shade before going to play some games.

The inflatable skeeball was really hard!

PLINKO was fun!

And then there was a wind tunnel where you had to grab as many pieces of paper as possible to win candy. Vivi did not want to do it, but Gavin did!

We got some of the sugar out of their systems on our walk home. And both twins fell asleep before I was done reading the first book at bedtime. A fun, FREE day, indeed!

Giggling

The Whitehursts

If you follow us on Instagram, then you've probably seen that we've been spending a lot of time with a certain Harrisonburg family: the Whitehursts (Olivia's family). We went Easter egg hunting, over to their house for some bouncy house fun, strawberry picking, to their house for some water slide fun (the pics in this post), and to a local community picnic with them recently. We've known the Whitehursts since we moved here (Olivia has moved from daycare to daycare with our twins since they were all about 15 months old- all three of them) and they went to each other's birthday parties last year (see Olivia's party HERE and the twins' party HERE) and this year (we're going to Olivia's in a couple of weeks), but we've only recently started spending a lot of time together (1-2 times a week, in fact). It's been a lot of fun and we've really enjoyed getting to know them over the past few months. 

Here are some pics from one of our recent gatherings. The kids played on Olivia's waterslide and bounced in her bouncy house for a while before heading inside to Olivia's playroom. We enjoyed dinner and great conversation on their deck that evening. By the time we got home (we only live about 10 minutes from their house), all three kids almost fell asleep in the car (they were so tired!). Well, Pax did fall asleep and Gav and Viv were hanging on by a thread.

Vivi putting pretend makeup on Olivia.

We're looking forward to a summer full of these little get-togethers!

Picnicking

On Sunday, we took the kids to a local community picnic. It was REALLY fun! There was a kid making balloon animals for everyone, tons of food, a bouncy house, a little train for kids to ride, and a playground. Did I mention that it was FREE? It was. And it was glorious. We went with our friends, the Whitehursts (Olivia's family).

Olivia and her mom, Diane.

Olivia and her dad, David.

All three kids were mildly obsessed with the riding this little train. 

The balloon animals came in a close second.   

Pax just ate a ton of watermelon.

Parker's 5th Birthday Party

On Saturday, we took the kiddos to Parker's birthday party at Pump It Up. The twins are in love with this place. They had a lot of fun! And, there was a magician!!

I was actually kind of shocked by how
amazed by the magician they were.

Of course, our twins volunteered to be assistants.
In fact, when Vivian figured out what was going on (by seeing
Parker be picked to go up first), she yelled out "ME!!!" at the top
of her lungs while raising her hand before the magician
even had time to ask, "Who wants to be my next..."
Then Gavin joined her when the magician found out they were twins.

Happy Birthday, Parker!

We Might Need Another One

Last Friday, Vivian got her baby doll, Avelina, a stroller. She is IN LOVE with it, taking it everywhere with us the last few days. Avelina has been strapped in her new stroller in the car, at the store, and in the house. We knew that Vivian would love it, but we had no idea how much our littlest would adore it. In fact, we might have to get another one.

We Heart the Arboretum

We must go to JMU's Arboretum a few times each week. We just love it. We walk around, "hike" on the trails, play in the water, feed the ducks, and generally just have a good time together.

Here, the twins are "gathering firewood" for... who knows what.

Paxton's One Year Check Up

Even though he fell asleep on the way to his 12 month doctor's appointment and I thought he would be a hot mess of tiredness and crankiness when we got inside, Paxton was great. He curious, willing to do anything the doctor needed, and happy. Except when he got 4 shots at the end. Then he was a HOT MESS.

Here are his stats:

Weight- 24lbs. 4oz. (75th percentile)

Height- 31 inches (90th percentile)

Head Circumference- 19.25 inches (98th percentile)