Fire!! 5/27/10

This morning Marc's kindergarten class went on a tour of a fire station. There were 40 kindergartners and about 20 parents. That's a lot of people!! Just as we were all arriving one of the trucks that we were slated to look at got called away on a medical emergency call. oops! I guess we got to see how a call really happens! (What's funny is on the way to school this morning Marc asked me what would happen if there was a fire and they had to leave. Is he psychic???).
After we got split up into two groups, we started our tour. Our group looked at the inside of the fire house first. We got to look in their kitchen. (They were having hamburgers for lunch today.)
Their kitchen table was made out of an old bowling alley lane. The logo on the table was really beautiful!
After we looked at their kitchen, we went on to the living room. This was just a room with about 4 couches, a tv, and a video game system. The kids loved sitting on their couches.
The kids were dying to see where the fire fighter slept! We went into a huge, open room and were told that this is where they slept. All the kids looked confused. Until the fire fighter pulled one of the murphy beds out of the wall. They were AMAZED!!
We continued our tour in the work-out gym. He told us that some of the weights weighed as much as they did. The kids found that unbelievable!
That concluded the tour of the inside of the fire house. I have never been inside the "house" part before. it was kinda fun to see how they spend their time when not out on a call. if you ask me, they deserve a bit more than they have since they risk their own lives to hep and save others!:-)

Our next stop was at the "Safe Kids Fire Safety House". This was really cool!!!!! They took a camper and built a floor in the middle making it a two floor "building". This camper was turned into a kid-sized house. They take this around to help to teach about fire safety and how to get out of your house if it on fire. The fire fighter (whose kids go to Chandler Woods as well) explained the purpose of this to the kids before we went in.
Us parent were told that we didn't get to go in because it was so small and there wasn't enough room. We could peek our heads in to take a picture, but that was it. The lower level of the camper/house was the living room.
and the upper level was the bedroom. On the outside of the slider was a deck.
On the edge of the deck was a "rope ladder" to climb down. Each child climbed down the ladder to show them how to get out of their house if their bedroom is on the second floor and their house is on fire.
Once they made it out of the "fire" safely, they had to go over and call 911 to report the fire.
This house was cool!!! I hope it drilled home the message to the kids as much as I think it would having it be their size. :-)
While the rest of the kids finished climbing down, the ones that finished ran off some energy. i was able to stop Marc and his friend Katerie for a quick pic.
Our next stop on our tour were the fire trucks. We first learned about the ladder truck and all the stuff it has on board in all the little nooks, cranies, and doors. (The "boring" stuff if you listen to the pumper truck guys)
After the ladder truck we learned about the pumper truck, or the "fun" stuff. (The relationship these fire fighters seemed to have was awesome!)
After we took a tour of the truck and all it's contents, each kids was allowed to help the fire fighter put out a "fire". The fire was actually just an orange caution cone. :-)
While the fireman was emptying out the excess water from the hose he turned it out mist. Guess who went flocking to him? You guess it, a lot of the kids. Kids love to get wet! :-)
Then the fireman put the kiddos to work at rolling up their hose to put back on the truck. The kids thought it was cool that they were helping to put something back on the fire truck.
We ended the field trip with a class picture on the fire truck. :-)
This was probably one of the most fun field trips have been on. I actually learned something this morning. ;) I have even more new found respect for the fire fighters that put their lives on the line to help and save others!! :-)

Getting Wet at the Gardens 5/23/10

We loved our family pictures so much that we hired the same photographer to do another photo shoot with the 4 of us with my Mom, my Grandma, and my Brother. We figured out that is has been 13 1/2 years since our last family picture, and that was at our wedding! So we decided since she was so inexpensive and good that it wouod be worth another $50 to do another shoot.
My brother Jeff was visiting from out of town for the weekend. So we headed out to the Meijer Gardens on Sunday afternoon for the shoot. That was one of the days that the weather was about 87* and REALLY sunny. It made for a long, hot afternoon, but hopefully it also made for some nice pictures (we haven't seen them yet).
Since the Gardens are so huge we asked Grandma to sit in a wheelchair to go from location to location. Samantha saw everyone else taking tirns pushing her and thought she needed a turn. ;-)After a little over an hours of picture taking and walking in the really hot sun, we were done getting pictures taken. Grandma had never been into the Children's Garden so we headed in there to give her a quick walk-through tour. We walked quickly through each part of the Gardens, except the water area. We stayed there for about 1/2 hour. We probably would have stayed longer, but it was closing time. Following is a LOT of pictures from that 1/2 hour. They were all so cute I couldn't chose just a couple)
There is a button that sprays a mist of water. When Daddy took the picture he captured a rainbow over Marc's shoulder.
There is also a "wall of water" that kids (and kids at heart) can put there arms, hands, head, etc in to "break" the wall.
Daddy was just helping Marc, but when I looked at this picture on the computer, it looks like Daddy's is trying to push him into the water. ;-)
We didn't know how Samantha would react to the water.....she LOVED it!
Her favorite toy to play with were the nets. She liked "catching" the water.
Marc's favorite thing to do is drive a boat all the way around all of the Great Lakes.
Both of my little boys have fun playing in the water area. ;-)
Both kids had fun showing Grandma what they were doing.
And Uncle Jeff.
My cute, wet little man. :-)
And my cute, wet little princess. :-)
Daddy found that they had squirters to play with. He was squirting Samantha and Marc. He decided it would be fun to teach Samantha how to use the squirter and squirt Uncle Jeff.
Since Great Grandma was in the wheel chair she was not able to go up and get wet so Samantha decided to go over with the water she "caught" in her net and sprinkled both Grandma and Great Grandma's feet to cool them off. ;-)
And then Marc tried to see if the squirter would reach all the way over to the Grandmas....it didn't quite make it.
The clothes that Samantha and I wore for picture were the same. Since we were twiners I asked Daddy to take our picture.
Daddy thought that this pose looked like we had really strong kids and they were lifting the rock.
On the way out of the children's area the kiddos went through the kids door. Marc actually made a comment to me that he was so tall that he had duck down or he would have hit his head. :-)
It was a very hot 1 1/2 hour getting pictures taken, but I think we will have a few really cute pictures. To end the afternoon it was a very fun, wet final 1/2 hour at the Gardens. :-) (I will post pics as soon as I get them. She said it will probably be next week sometime)

Misc. Fun-ness and Cute-ness

I have taken some misc. cute pictures but they have no common theme for a post so I am making a "My Kids Are Cute!" post with them all. :-)

Since we are headed to Disneyland this summer, we are trying to go for a walk every night, weather permitting, to help us get ready for all the walking we will do in the parks. One night we were getting ready to go for our walk around the block when Daddy said he was wanting a Hostess cherry pie. So we walked down to the gas station to buy him a pie. Samantha "walked" there in style. ;-)We noticed a few weeks ago that our flag was getting all worn out and torn up from all the weather elements so we bought a new one and Marc helped Daddy put the new one up. In the process he got a lesson about proper flag "etiquette".
Samantha got lots of really cute dresses for her birthday. The problem was that they were all sleeveless summer dresses and the weather was too cold for her to wear them around her birthday. Well, when the weather warmed up we started having her wear them. She looked so stinkin' cute in this dress tat I had to take her picture.
One afternoon Marc asked if Samantha could come down and play with him in his bedroom. I thought that was very sweet that he wanted to be down there with him. I told him that if she went down there he would have to keep an eye on her and report to me periodically to let me know how she was doing. He agreed and they played nicely down there together for 30-45 minutes! When she came upstairs she decided to bring a big stuff Pooh with her. I got the Pooh before Marc was even born and it was almost as big as she was. She didn't care, she had fun lovin' on Pooh!
I was playing with Samantha' s hair one afternoon. I decided that with summer looming in the future I wanted to see if her hair could be pulled back into a pony tail. I am hoping that by pulling her hair back it will keep her cooler during the hot weather. Daddy Marc thinks she looks older with her hair back in pony tail. The only problem with her hair being back in a pony tail is that I don't have any bows big enough! Gee, darn, I will just have to make some new bows! ;-)
As I stated in a previous post, we participate in the local P.A.T. program. One of the play groups they offer is "Read, Rhythm, and Rhyme". Part of the play group is listening to a book on CD using head phones. The teacher (the same one that does our home visits) told us that most kids her age don't like having the head phones on. Samantha LOVED it! She sat there and listened to the whole story. I think she might have been the only one that did! :-)
A couple of weeks ago my dad & Peg came to visit and celebrate Sam's birthday. One of the presents they got for her was her very own piggy bank. I have had a piggy bank on her birthday/Christmas list since she was born. I know from experience that when Grandmas and Grandpas come to visit, they give the kiddos money to put in their piggy bank. Poor Samantha has had a Ziploc piggy bag instead. :-( I was so excited when Samantha started opening the present and it turned out to be the cutest piggy bank ever! It is a pink pig wearing a princess crown and a tutu. It was even more perfect since I call Samantha my little Princess. G & G even brought a baggie with money for her to put in the piggy bank. :-)
Samantha has really gotten into playing dress-up and pretend. She got a lot of dress-up clothes for her birthday. She kinda ignored all of it for a few weeks. The last couple of weeks she has played with as least 3 times a day! The glasses she is wearing in the picture below are actually a pair of Marc's Nerf glasses but they have more fun using them as dress-up. the shoes she is wearing are a pair we got her for her birthday. The first week or so she could only walk with one shoe on at a time. The last 2 weeks it almost seems like she wears them all the time we are home. She cruisers around the house with her dress-up heels on like she isn't wearing shoes at all. :-) She LOVES putting shoes one (and taking them off). She takes her shoes off almost every time we are in the car. She also loves to wear other peoples shoes around the house. :-)
One nice evening we decided to head to the back yard and test to see is Samantha could swing on the regular swing of if we needed to look for a toddler swing to attach to our swing set. She did awesome!! She didn't even seem the least little bit nervous or scared. I guess I was enough for both of us. ;-)
We went to open swim and had family swim time one evening after dinner. I think both of my kids are part fish! Marc has always loved swimming and playing with water. It seems that Samantha is following in her big brother's foot steps. The day we went swimming I had her hair in pig tails. She normally doesn't get her head that wet so i left them in. She chose that time to decided she wanted to "jump in" the pool and go underwater. I figured she would freak out when we helped her go under water for a second. She wasn't! As soon as I wiped the water off her face she was asking for more! :-) She looked so cute with her wet pig tails!!
I hope you have enjoyed reading my "My Kids are Cute" post. I sure did! :-)