A weekend at Nana and Papa's

Jake wanted to make this Father's Day a special one for his own Dad, so having talked about, we decided to have him fly up north to surprise him at his parents beach house for the holiday.  We were sad not to spend the whole holiday weekend with Jake, but we both knew how special it was going to be for Jake's Dad.  With Jake gone the kids and I decided to go up Riverside to spend the holiday weekend at my parents house.  

The kids love going to Nana and Papa's house.  When I told them we were going they pulled out their suitcases to pack up.  Madden put in every book off the bookshelf and took out all the diapers and clothes I pack and Skylar packed in several her hair bows, notepads and pens.  They know whenever they go to Papa's house it means lots of special treats.  They face time Nana and Papa earlier in the week requesting that pudding and popsicles be at the house.  My mom always has to "Madden proof" the house before we show up because he loves moving and playing with her knick knacks.  Skylar looks forward to sitting in Papa's office while he works so she can color and draw with all his highlighters and pens. 

We took them up to the town center to let them play in the miniature spray ground.  

The miniature spray ground was fun, but nothing is better than Nana and Papa's pool.  We arrived Friday morning and the kids were in the pool most of the weekend.  Last month when we visited Skylar conquered her fear of water slides by going down Nana and Papa's water slides over and over again, so she was really excited for the pool this time.  This time she decided she didn't want help from anyone and would slide down and swim to the side of the pool all by herself.  We have a little fish on our hands now.  Madden wanted nothing to do to with the pool last trip, but this time was a different story.  I grab him up and made him go down the slide with me and he was immediately hooked.  He went up and down that slides by himself too many times to count.  He would grab onto his noodles after he hit the water and kick himself to the edge of the pool and to it all over again.  It was so fun watching him going up and down the slide the whole weekend.

Breakfast of Champions!  I took the kids up to the donut shop for breakfast one morning.  Madden ate less than half and wanted to feed the rest to the birds.  Skylar ate her donut like she does her cupcake, by just eating the frosted part and left the rest.

My Dad came up with the idea to take the kids over to Tom's Farms.  I had never been, but have heard it had some great activities to entertain the kids.  I asked the kids if they wanted to ride a train and a horse and they were all in.  We got there right when it opened and the place was pretty much empty.  Papa got the kids a ton of tickets and we were set.  Madden kept telling us he wanted to ride the train by saying "Choo Choo!"  

"Choo...Choo"

I tried to get Madden to ride one of the horses on the carousel but he refused and made him and I ride the bench while Skylar rode the carousel horse.

Excavator and tractor ride.

Nothing is better than a pony ride when you are a kid, right!  Madden was a lot of talk before we made it over to the pony rides.  All morning he was telling us "Neigh....Me, Neigh....Me." He rode one just a couple weeks ago which I didn't get to see so I was excited to see him ride this time.  When it was his turn to get on the horse he starting shouting "Neigh....Me.....No, Neigh....Me.....No" refusing to ride or even get near the horse.  Lucky for Skylar since we had paid for Mr. Big Talker already she got to ride Mr. Ed double time.

 Cousin Carmen met up with us after a while.  The kids wanted to make sure Carmen was able to do everything they did so we did all the rides again. We got kettle corn and than were able to get front row sits to the magic show.  This was the kids first magic show and they loved it.  Skylar even got to go up and participate in one of the acts.  The magician asked Skylar to come up on stage and pet the bunny to make sure the bunny was "real," and then he made the bunny disappear.  The kids loved ever moment of the show and when we left we had to get all three of them magic wands.  Tom's Farm was a blast and I definitely will take the kids back when we are looking for something to do in the 909.

During the weekend the kids and I got to visit with a lot of family.  Grandma, Grandma went to Tom's Farm with us and spent the day at my parents house.  Papa, Papa came over for a pancake breakfast one of the mornings.  And cousin Jeremy came over to watch the kids swim.  The kids were great all weekend long and had the best time.  My parents were a big help to me when it came to caring for the kids.  Papa swam with the kids a ton and Nana made an emergency run to the supermarket when we were down to one Lunchable and the kids were both having a meltdown over who would get it.  I'm sure now with summer here we will be making more trips up to Nana and Papa's