Vegas Baby!

I am really slow in getting to this but in the middle of October we went on a vacation to Vegas with my parents. We were excited for the vacation but really sad when shorty before we left we found out that one of the restaurants, Nascar Cafe, that we saw on on Man vs Food was no longer open. The Lord must have felt our sincere sadness and had pity on us because though we couldn't try the B3 we did win a free McFlurry from McDonalds.

For this trip we stayed at the stratosphere Hotel; nice hotel but a bit far off the Strip for walking.  Seeing as they were one of the only hotels, however, that didn't charge for kids they won us over.  Almost everyday we started off by eating at Denny's (3 different Denny's in total). We then hiked to the monorail and started on the strip down by MGM.

We saw the Lions and this time we even splurged and took the family in the aquarium in Mandalay Bay. It was a bit expensive but really cool. We saw a Golden Crocodile, Komodo Dragon and one of the only predator shark takes in the world. My favorite was the Green Sawfish (it can reach up o 24ft and their snout has 24-28 blades on it).

Among one of my favorite parts of Vegas besides the lavish displays are all the great buffets! I figure if I am not eating healthy I won't make my kids either so yes that is a chocolate cupcakes Cami is eating for her dinner, it was one of the only things that silenced her yells.

As always the Billagio Gardens were was AMAZING!!! The giant ears of corn  re made up from 60 pieces of Indian corn. You proabably can't see but the pumpkin weighs 835lbs and there were several this size. Our kids LOVED he 20 ft tall talking tree. The apples at it's base were 3 ft tall and made up of 3,400+ roses EACH! There was even more wonderful stuff to see in the gardens, but too much to post all here.

The Bellagio was also home to Jean Philippe's Patisserie, which had several cool things one of which was the world's largest chocolate fountain. It took 2 years to build and stands 26ft 3in tall. It circulates 2 tons of chocolate at a rate of 120 quarts per min. Just as a fun treat we bought a cookie there, we only got 1 because they were $4 EACH so the kids all split it.

The patisserie also housed this which was hand made out of 60 lbs of chocolate and 30 lbs of fondant. It took 4 people from the patisserie 1 month to create it.

One of the coolest parts about going on vacation with my parents is that they took the kids for a might so we could have our "million dollar date." Okay so it wasn't actually a million dollars, but it was one of the most expensive things we have EVER done! (Thanks Mom and Dad for treating 1/2 of it). We started by having dinner at Fleur which is Hubert Keller's restaurant. I have to admit I had never heard of him, but my dad said he really loved watching him on the Food network. I was shocked when I found out that Hubert really was the chef there, he came out and greeted a couple tables, non of which was our to my dismay. The food was so fancy that it was near microscopic is size (the true measure of fine food) and that was for the LARGE platter which we ordered; literally Cory's dinner was served on a 6x12in rectangle platter & came with a 1/2 a small fennel, 1 baby carrot, 2 pieces spinach and a piece of duck smaller than the size of my cell phone. To make up for the puny per-portions of our dinner we ordered 2 deserts to share, DELI-SH!

After dinner we went and saw the Broadway version of the Lion King. The costumes in this were truly amazing! It deserved every award it has won.

I had mentioned before that every day we had to take the monorail to the strip well when I asked Phoebe what her favorite part of the trip was she answered pack the moving stairs and the train so I figured I should get some pictures of them for her then.

On our last full day we finally got to see M&M world and we even took time to go watch the 3-D movie they had, which some kids like and some not so much.

The morning we were leaving was the day before the twins birthday so we had a little early celebration at the hotel buffet with grandma & pa Potts. For a special treat our waitresses fashioned mini cakes for them, even though it was still breakfast, complete with candles to blow out and several other staff members singing. As you can see by te grin on Cami's face she loved it! Josh was eager to blow out his "hot" candle and took serveral blows at it, but in the end I had to help him a bit

Right after breakfast we had to run up to the tower on level 108 and view Las Veags from up on high.  As you can see the strip looks much less exciting during the day, but our pool did look better from that high up than when we actually went and swam in it.

As we were leaving town we had to take a picture of Las Vegas' largest Souvenirs Store with a sign so dumb I could't believe they actually have it up. Although its redeeming quality is its obvious stupidity does make me still laugh a bit.

As with all our trips with our 4 Ratbirds we left absolutely exhausted and eager to return home where they can run free, but thanks from all the added help from my parents we truly did have a pretty fun time down in Vegas.

Phoebe's Night Owl Party

Back in July we saw a party someone called  Night Owl Party. After seeing all the detail I knew that this was going to be perfect for Phoebe's 4h birthday Party, so I got to work. Not a minute too soon either because all these absolutely adorable owls take quite a bit of time to sew by hand!

Going with the night time and owl theme, we have the front door with an rod iron owl and glow in the dark stars. We also have cute owl cupcakes my neighbor made for me.

Cory drew a cute head and foot board, a faux window & some pillows to decorate the table with. I got some cute felt owls off etsy and then hot glued hair clips on the back.

 I decorated the chandler with stars and felt owls which I am now planning on decorating Phoebe's room with.

The Party started at 5:30 with everyone making their own mini pizzas.

While the pizzas were baking we went out back and did a craft project with glitter glue glitter star stickers and foam.

When the great pizzas were done we all came back and enjoyed!

After dinner I turned out the lights and told all the kids to find a glow-in-the-dark star on the wall, all the stars had numbers on them.  I then started with Phoebe and each person got to adopt the owl with that number on the back of the card.  All the owls were themes and came with their own theme poem and adoption card.  We had all the kids name their owls and most of the girls opted with famous princess names.

Following the owl adoption we opened gifts, Phoebe got a lot of really great stuff, thanks everyone!

We then headed back to the table to have the birthday cupcakes. By this time my kids had spilled all over the table cloth, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because as I was setting the cupcakes on the table for Phoebe to blow out I spilled them all over with the sparkler candles lit. This could have EASILY started the table cloth on fire, but luckily my kids pre-soaked it for me.

 After no one but Lily ate the cupcakes we put on glowing braceets and danced in the dark while watching Pixar's Short film collection. I have to say by this time we were really READY for this party to be done.  Having his many 3 & 4 yr olds at once is a BIT much!

We still had a ton of fun well those of us who didn't sleep all the way through the party that is.

Spooky Cruise

This year for a fun new adventure we went on a Halloween cruise, which was easier said than done. We should have known our trip ad a bad omen when we went to go find the location and found out that road construction closed the exit off the freeway we needed and then took about 1 hr to find back roads to get to the place in a town we don't know well at all. When we got to the place it was BUSY and we had to wait 30 minutes in a lone to get to the window then another 30 minutes for a boat. While we waited luckily we had LOTS of snacks.

To start the cruise all the kids 12 and under had to put on life jackets, Cami WAS NOT HAPPY about this and screamed non stop!!!  None of he other kids seemed to mind though. I wore Sophie's on my shoulder for her.

The boat we rode was large and sat 40 people and moved with man who stood in front pulling on ropes that were over our head.  There were 100s of carved pumpkins and fun Halloween lights over head. The whole thing was really pretty and would have been quite enjoyable if we hadn't had the stress of trying to quiet down Sophie & Cami's screaming the whole time.  Definitely sothing fun to do, but leave the kids 2 & under at home, you'll enjoy it so much more!

Phoebe's FOUR!

As of the 12th I no longer had 4 under four I now have 4 four & under. This was the first year that Phoebe really understood her birthday and was super excited for it. On her Birthday morning she woke up and groggily asked, "Is it my birthday yet?" Yes Phoebe it is!  She was so excited to put on her birthday crown and take pictures this year which is another first.  I know it looks like a tons of gifts, but know they are not all from me, not even 1/2 of them were.

Here werea few of Phoebe's favorite gifts. We had a princess themed gifts from everyone this year.

After breakfast Grandma Fergy came over to wish Phoebe a happy Birthday and she gave her a cute outfit and this Princess School workbook, which Phoebe broke out right then and there and started to work in.

Phoebe insited on wearing her birthday hat at every snack and meal. Then for Preschool that day she got to be a very important person which meant she brought a couple things for show and tell, along with pictures of the family, & treats for the day.  She also got to wear a crown and a VIP sticker which you can kinds see in the pics.

Phoebe really wanted an Arora cake for her birthday, but she settled for Cinderella luckily since that was all I could find at Wallys. We all enjoyed the cake which was more than Phoebe wanted to do, she had asked if she could just go to bed after her birthday hamburgers, her dinner choice. I was a mean mom however and insisted she stay up for birthday cake & in sptite of wanting to go to bed early Phoebe said she had a really good birthday at the end of the day.