They walked in the door and the kids demanded books. A good start to any trip!
And we got in a mini photo session with a friend of mine as a Christmas gift to my parents. I'm so relieved that their picture turned out, the kids were all still very hyped up from their grandparents' mere presence and getting them to settle down for pictures took a masterful combination of lectures/threats and cuddles/bribes.
The boys were the least cooperative. Notice the props the kids held in every picture? You'd think we'd have them trained up on these things by now.
This delightful child was quite pleased to have her photo taken. How is she this cute?
This child only wanted his mother's love and was uninterested in any photos that did not take place in the comfort of my embrace. So we put him to work decorating.
And Bradley who has the best smile in the world only would give us fake smiles. Le sigh. He's still pretty cute though.
Fortunately for Bradley I find fake smile photos rather adorable.
Then we embarked on a series of activities that I thought was rather reasonable but apparently was enough to cause great exhaustion for small children. Monday morning started with Patrick and Eleanor's normal gymnastics classes.
Patrick really liked having a grandparent audience to cheer him on.
Then we went to Legoland!
The kids were only slightly excited to be there. We took Bradley out of school for the day for the grand occasion.
We had a pretty amazing time, we really like that it's a Discovery Center Legoland instead of the full theme park, we had a great two hours there riding rides, watching a short lego movie, and of course building lots of lego creations!
Patrick modeling his 3D movie glasses.
Bradley was very excited about the race car building area and came up with a pretty sweet design that was quite speedy and got a number of compliments from other parents. He's both smart and adorable!
Fun story: Patrick found an place in the play area where you got to play train conductor and there were lots of buttons and monitors - basically it was Patrick heaven. Other children tried to enter upon occasion and some foolishly attempted to push a button or two. I would like to attest to the sweetness and kindness of children that come to a Lego Discovery Center for a good time because Patrick pushed a very sweet 8 year old boy out of the train area (two hands on the kids' chest, head down, pushing as hard as he could to get him OUT of there) as the nice child looked slightly bemused by the situation and left without complaint. Another child came up and checked out the train area as I was giving Patrick a lecture to share and the kid said they didn't mind Patrick pushing all the buttons, they just wanted a look. Patrick is so bossy and big kids are so nice.
Eleanor liked the pizza area.
And was very cute in the revolving play area.
We even got in some time in the outdoor Crown Center Plaza area! Patrick ultimately had to be carried out of here. It was too much fun and there were tears upon departure.
We're so cuuuuute!
Patrick was unconscious roughly five minutes into our drive home. Bradley soon followed his example.
That afternoon I made everyone go on a park outing, except Eleanor acted like she was tired (so strange after a morning of gymnastics and Legoland) and she insisted on staying home with Daddy. We were lucky that the boys agreed to leave the house, grandparents had gotten them all new legos to play with and all the children were very excited about this. Bradley loves his lego dinosaur and has been carrying it with him all over the house.
But off to the park we went!
The boys quickly made it their mission at the park to show off and frighten their grandparents with all their tricks.
Here Patrick is helping us out by yelling "Oh noooo! Too scary!" when Bradley did a trick because that's what the grownups had been saying on repeat for most of the playground time.
Do you see these smiles? Next time we have family pictures I'm going to make Bradley do dangerous or "forbidden" things. Gets the best smiles every time.
We had the grandparents join in this picture to show how terrified they were by Bradley's tricks. Bradley was so so happy.
I didn't make everyone run around the entire time we had company. There were plenty of reading breaks.
Bradley was supposed to have two days of school before he went on Thanksgiving break but he lost a day to Legoland and then only went for a half day the next day. Grandparents were supposed to join him for lunch at school and then we figure, oh well, they can take him out to lunch and then bring him home for the rest of the day. He was supportive of this decision and happily introduced his grandparents to his class before leaving for what I have been informed was a very healthy lunch at Chick-fil-A.
Here he is drinking his soda and milkshake simultaneously.
Grandma then spent the afternoon baking healthy things with Eleanor. Looks like Eleanor is eating straight sugar in this picture.
Grandpa pushing the kids on our platform swing was a popular move. I love this picture.
And do you see how Patrick is holding onto his wand while reading with Grandma? We were all packed for Great Wolf Lodge in the morning and the kid was not going to let go with his wand until we got there. He slept with it, it was quite sweet.
Great Wolf Lodge! Have I mentioned how much we love our trips here?
A picture without grandchildren in it?? How did this happen?
And Aunt Tina had arrived the night before and was ready to go for a water park with small children!
We soon put our magic wands to good use and played Magiquest in the hallways.
We thought Bradley may actually be old enough to complete a quest but he wasn't too interested just yet. He also wouldn't let anyone else hold the instruction booklet which made it considerably more difficult for adults to assist him in completing said quest.
But it was a lot of fun. The joy over magic wands lives on.
We rather enjoyed that they had already put up some Christmas tree decorations!
We hit up the arcades before going to the pool.
Bradley insisted on some photo booth pictures with me. I think we could be in an ad for Great Wolf Lodge fun.
And then they made balloon animals in the lobby! Patrick had ditched his shirt at the end of lunch (and had tried to lose the pants as well) because he knew we were swimming soon and wanted to be ready.
My children soon traded the balloon animals for balloon swords.
So calm.
Then it was pool time! Finally!!!
Kudos to my mom for all the wonderful pictures. Kudos on also being the only person to stay completely dry the entire time we were at the water park. Worth it for the great pictures!
Bradley was big enough to be able to make it through the obstacle course largely unassisted!
Eleanor required a bit more help but did very well. Patrick is on the side with me in this picture, I don't think he ever actually tried the obstacle course but he did like to run over to the obstacle course area while a somewhat panicked adult chased after him in order to keep him out of the forbidden area. The first time he did it wasn't on purpose, but after he knew he wasn't allowed in that area he started to run for it and look back at us with an impish gleam in his eyes.
Bradley gave Eleanor congratulatory hugs after she completed the course.
Grandpa and Bradley stood under the big bucket of water that dumps periodically and survived to tell the tale.
Patrick and Eleanor did coordinated slides in the kiddie area for a while which was so sweet.
We told Eleanor to pose in preparation for the big bucket of water dumping in the background. If there was ever a person who was ready to pose fancy for pictures, it's Eleanor.
Both Nathan and Patrick got in trouble with the lifeguard after the picture was taken. It's cool, I told Bradley to slide headfirst down one of the baby slides and it turns out that was forbidden as well.
Poor little Patrick had no problem taking a nap break back in our room.
And then he was back to the action in no time!
My children started a group hug while in line for the obstacle course and a man asked me if that was a once in a lifetime experience. I said no, the Scott children group hug on the regular. They're an adorably cuddly crew!
Once Patrick figured out that you could shoot hoops from the side of the pool he did it nonstop for about 15 minutes straight, making a rather impressive number of shots for a two year old!
Big slide rides were so fun.
Dinner in our hotel room.
And then back downstairs for story time at the big clock!
At one point while waiting, Bradley started to practice his wolf howl and soon had a lobby full of children following his lead.
Eleanor was not cool with the big bear so Bradley and Patrick were the ones to run over to have a picture taken with him after the story.
The kids crashed so hard that night, although someone missed his special lady and kept calling her.
We had a rather joyful morning spent watching cartoons together in the top bunk. It was so cool it was a little difficult to talk them into leaving cozy bed and cartoons for pool time.
But eventually pool won out - pictures in front of Christmas trees on our way to the water park area!
How precious are these boys together?
Patrick is smooching Nathan's head in this photo.
And Bradley became a little upset with Grandpa when they were playing a super fun game together involving Bradley standing on Grandpa while Grandpa lay on the bottom of the pool and foolish Grandpa insisting on getting breathing breaks and not drowning.
So, in proof that I sometimes take mercy on this crew, even before going down to the pool on the second day I had decided to cut our time at Great Wolf Lodge a little short. But after Patrick and Eleanor had crying battles over who got to cuddle Mommy while in the lazy river I decided that we would leave at checkout time instead of going with the late checkout that we had originally planned on. I decided this at approximately 10:52 when we got back to our room and checkout was at 11:00. Many thanks to Nathan who had to pack things up rather speedily in order to keep up with the ever changing plans.
Last family picture before leaving. Patrick was done with his wet swim suit at this point.
I got to carry both of the small children back up to our third floor room. When you're this tired you just need Mommy. For the record, these children are quite heavy.
Leaving the lodge in reasonably good spirits.
One child wasn't too tired when we got home. Aunt Tina scored big points for agreeing to a sword fight with the boy when I had been forbidding him from doing this with anyone.
And shocker! I dragged us out to the park again and Eleanor pretended like she was tired after swimming all morning. Fortunately for her, there were grandparents there who were willing to give her lots and lots of cuddles.
Grandparents got to witness the beauty that is Patrick climbing up the top of the tunnel slide.
Patrick had been told to leave the sticky hedge apples alone so he was rather delighted when I "forbade" him from throwing them into the creek. If a kid doesn't get to get a little dirty when they go to the park what is even the point?
We love Aunt Tina. Lately Patrick has been really into cutting pieces of paper into tiny pieces (it's a disaster whenever he cuts up one of Bradley's many pieces of art - there is a fair amount of big brother angst when this occurs) so it's helpful to have him well supervised when he cuts things.
Most nights ended like this - all three kids gathered around Grandma playing with her.
Our park outing the next morning after a full night's rest went much better for Eleanor. It's amazing what a night of good sleep can do for you. And we went to the park so much because the weather kept being so warm and nice and I couldn't believe it! We just had to be outside.
And tired people (and kitties) could still get quality naps in afterward.
Bradley really likes to make books right now and also likes the Tractor Mac books so he and Grandpa worked together on making Bradley Mac Saves Christmas (loosely based on Tractor Mac Saves Christmas).
Meanwhile, the ladies made pie!
Eleanor could not believe how funny Grandma was when cracking eggs.
And we had late Thanksgiving dinner on Friday instead of Thursday. Bradley's favorite bit to eat is the "meat stick."
That evening we went to the Luminary Walk at the Arboretum. We started the walk with smooches.
It was ridiculously warm out, I think it was in the mid sixties for most of the time we did our walk.
Cute Grandparent photo by the trains.
We loved this little trail.
But the absolute best part of the arboretum Luminary Walk is the Santa there. There was no wait so Patrick walked straight up to him and started chatting with him. He had a lot of questions about the reindeer.
It was the most unrushed, easy Santa time ever.
The kids had nice time to chat about how good they had been and what they wanted for Christmas. Eleanor wanted princesses, Bradley wanted dinosaurs and dragons, and Patrick just wanted reindeer information.
After we had our Santa time we went back and did the coloring station for those in line.
And then more pictures!
At only one point of the luminary walk did our children do any damage to the displays, when Patrick managed to trip over a cord while running around with Bradley and Eleanor. A hillside's worth of lights went out and we were all quite relieved with Nathan found the spot that needed to be plugged back in to fix the problem.
Cute family picture!
Now it turns out that we may have overdone the photos according to some members of the Scott family. We got to a family photo area and when we announced to the kids that we were going to stop for another picture a certain little girl started shouting "No! No!" and making rather crabby faces.
People told her to smile and she covered her face. Hilarious. Poor little girl, looking back we HAD been a little heavy on the photos and if you're one of the cute little kids you have to be in every shot! Fortunately for her, this was about the end of the trip for grandparents and Aunt Tina so the non stop pictures were coming to an end.
We had cozy reading time at home before had to say goodbye to Tina, who had an early flight out the next day.
And we brought out the new jammies for the boys. Bradley in particular was rather delighted with his new jammies and was fully onboard with playing his Santa role. Everyone got to sit on his lap and he'd threaten them to be good so they would get presents.
For our last morning with grandparents we had so many nice cozy things to do around the house.
We put up the tree and the kids got to read Christmas stories with Grandpa as they sat by it.
Decorating for Christmas certainly eased the pain of having to say goodbye, although Bradley did sadly remark after grandparents left that he really should have packed himself away in one of their bags.
Nathan was studly and put up Christmas lights out in front of the house this year.
Luckily for him he had great help.
And now we're back to normal. Nathan went on a field trip with Bradley to SeaLife Aquarium, this actually took place before all the Thanksgiving festivities.
Bradley's kindergarten class in front of the building. If this location looks familiar it's because this is also where Legoland is located!
Bradley is so lucky to have a wonderful Daddy who is willing to catch up on work in the evening in order to accompany his son's kindergarten class on a field trip.
Nathan also went nuts playing with magformers with the kids the other night. They were so proud of their creations we had to take pictures.
And Patrick still demands nap time and bedtime stories but he provides a lot more help now in content for the stories.
The kids have all started making their own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. I decided Bradley was more than ready to have the responsibility of making his own sandwich for lunch every day and Eleanor and Patrick were not to be left behind. You really have to watch Patrick when he makes his sandwich, he tends to lick peanut butter off the knife and then stick it back in the jar to get another dollop. And repeat.
