Great Wolf Lodge

Back in the beginning of March we decided to take a trip to the Great Wolf Lodge, the coolest ever family water park, which is located about 30 minutes from where we live. We got a Groupon for it, so it was actually a good deal, and we had just such a wonderful time there!

Katherine really likes water and was super excited to run around and splash. She was a bit clingy when the big water jets were going off the giant bucket was dumping water down but she kept encouraging it anyway haha "Dump it out! Dump it out!"

We checked in in the afternoon after her nap, played till about 7:30, then had a pizza dinner in the main lobby while kids' story time was going on (Katherine LOVED all the animals and characters that were moving). The munchkin did great sleeping in the same room with us, which is big because she is a great, but very light sleeper and needs her peace and quiet. Luckily our room had a small living area which was separated from the main bedroom by a half wall and that gave her enough quiet to help her sleep...

The next morning we had a nice breakfast at Starbucks and headed to the water park again. Daddy was in charge of Katherine pretty much all the time so I was able to ride down all the crazy slides and they would meet me at the end. It was soooo much fun!

We checked out around lunch time and headed back home. It was a great experience. Can't wait to try it again when Katherine is a little bigger.

Ready to hit the pool...

 LOVING all the bears!

 In awe of all the animals...

 Hugs for all bears.

Aquarium and mall outing

While Daddy was in China, Katherine and I met up with Katherine's godmother AJ and cousin Jayson for an afternoon play date at Concord Mills to see the new Aquarium. We had all kinds of fun. The kids had a blast running around, looking at the fish, hiding in clever hidey places and being rambunctious.

After we said bye bye to Jayson and crew, we decided to explore the mall a bit. It was around 5:30 so I knew better than to to to fight traffic back to the house. 

We saw this little choo choo train going around, so we followed it till we found the pick up spot and we hopped on for a quick ride around. 

After that it was time to have dinner, so we headed to the food court and got some pizza slices.

We sat down right next to where the merry-go-round was and of course the entire time we ate Katherine was begging to go on it. After we finished dinner we headed to the ticket counter. It was only $2 and I could go free so total score.Katherine picked to go on the zebra and had a really good time.

She did better than expected. Normally she gets freaked out by any of those cars and things where you put money in and they bounce. I mean, she loves them and always begs to sit in them but when the music and motion start, she gets scared and wants off immediately. Well this time, maybe because she was strapped in and we had no choice but to stay, she actually made it the whole time. She did say 'I be all done' a couple of times but stayed on to the end. 

It was a super fun, action filled afternoon and she was ready to get home and to bed afterwards. Must do it again soon!

Tiny driver.

Our munchkin is sure to grow up to be a accomplished driver. She's been riding her trike since she was  about 19 months old (actually pedaling).

She's now quite good at it.

She lover driving a little tractor at a fair we went to last fall...

And recently she tried her friend's battery operated atv and LOVED it! 

She had so much fun with it that I decided to dig around craigslist and was able to find a used one for a really good price! It was super clean, I guess the people only used inside the house, so we jumped on it and now Katherine has a set of wheels of her own. 

Can't wait for her and Leila to ride together up and down our street. 

Katherine gets a fish tank!

CJ's parents gave Katherine the cutest birthday gift - a fish tank! Well technically they gave her money for the fish tank and then we made it a big family outing to got buy it and the fishy, which totally was a gift that kept giving... we had a blast...
Our munchkin absolutely adores animals and so this was the perfect thing for her. We're not quite ready yet to have a bigger animal like a dog, so a fishy is a perfect start. We made a whole day out of the tank and fish buying trip. We decided that a Betta was in a 1 gallon tank was the right choice, and here is out new friend: Dorothy! Thank you Nana and Grampy!!

First we had to visit kitty cats at Petco...

Opening birthday presents

After the Christmas experience - when we seemed to rush and overwhelm Katherine with opening so many presents all at the same time - we decided to pace it this time and it turned out so perfect! Highly recommend this technique to all parents, if you can make your kid wait a few days to open all the gifts. We let her open one or two presents per day, which really gave her the chance to take it all in and enjoy each item at a slower pace.

For some of them I took little videos or pictures of her opening and playing with the things. It was the cutest thing. After a few days she got the idea and would ask me 'open another birthday present please'. So cute!

I feel so grateful to all our friends for the wonderful gifts! She loves every single item and we were finally able to rotate out some of the infant toys I still had out for her, mainly just because I didn't know what kind of big girl toys to get her... You know how you can get in a rut and forget that your baby is now a big kid and not a baby anymore...

 

Katherine's 2nd birthday party

We celebrated Katherine's birthday the Sunday before her actual birthday with all her neighborhood friends. It was really like one massive block party for our neighborhood. I mentioned before that we have a family with a small kid (mostly girls) in pretty much every house on our street, and us, moms, have started a play date group and we meet up at the park at the end of our street every Saturday morning if the weather is nice. This has also graduated to a recent string of 'moms' night out' events - we did a wine night at a wine bar and a crafting night of making door wreaths - and we now call ourselves the Real Housewives of Sandowne Lane haha...

Anywho, since we knew we wanted to invite so many families and so many rambunctious toddlers, we decided to host the party at our neighborhood clubhouse. It is attached to the pool (obviously not going to use it now), a playground and sand volleyball court (in case the weather turned out super warm this would have been a cool option for the kids). And the place itself is just gorgeously decorated and super spacious. Our house could have never fit so many guests comfortably.

Here are pics of the space (some of which I took through the glass door because the property manager was out as always).

The week leading up to the party I made up most of the decorations (tissue pom poms), and cooked all the yummy food, and baked cupcakes. We also did a trial run with the Giant Cupcake which was going to be Katherine's official cake and spot for the candle.

We had a crock pot of meatballs in Pioneer Woman sauce, another one with cocktail weenies, a big bowl of Pioneer Woman layered salad, another one of fruit salad, and also some smaller snacks for the kids. Everything turned out really yummy.

For cupcakes for guests, I went with half vanilla and half chocolate, and all pink frosting. I made the cupcake toppers myself - cut out, glued and put on sticks every single one of them. All that scissor work gave me a pretty good cramp. I might invest in a pair of circle cutters for next year. 

We set up the food and sitting stations in the main room of the clubhouse, which has several couches and tables with chairs. And the large, empty room next to it was the perfect play area for the kids. We borrowed a bunch of play equipment from friends and brought a bunch from our house too. It was perfect. Shockingly there were no fights or meltdowns, which considering that we had over 10 kids, 2-3 years old, was pretty incredible.

The party was a great success and I think everyone had a good time.