A Day Out With Thomas!

We took Carter to "A Day Out With Thomas" near Santa Cruz for the day. He has been looking forward to seeing "the REAL Thomas" for weeks! Finally the day arrived and he was so excited to be going! The REAL Thomas!

Carter and Thomas

We got there about an hour before our train was to depart. We thought we'd look around a bit and then ride the train. Carter was having none of it though. He wanted to ride Thomas, and he didn't care how long the wait. True to his word, the little guy stood very first in line for over half an hour!

Daddy tried to lure him away from the line with the arrival of the Steam Train...nope! Thomas it had to be!

Waiting for our ride. There was never a word of complaint. Only patience (Shocking!)

Finally on board! Carter and Mommy!

Here comes the conductor. "Is he going to say All Aboard Mom? Is he going to say All Aboard??"

(Yes, he did!)

Riding the rails. I think we lucked on on the time for the ride. We chose the Friday 1 pm train. We thought Friday would be quieter, but no...it was CRAZY. The parking lot was full! The train before ours was packed to the gills. But ours...almost empty! It was really nice!

Carter watching Thomas. (Personally, I felt a bit gypped on the ride. It's 20 minutes, but the first 10 minutes it goes backward. Carter just couldn't get over why the caboose was driving and not Thomas). After that Thomas pulls it back. Hard to explain that to a kid!

Watching the scenery out the train.

Wow...cool!

Next time we'll know to pick the very last car. Carter was mighty disappointed to not be sitting in the caboose. It's his favorite train :) Carter also got a certificate that said he is a real Jr Engineer!

Next we went to see Sir Topham Hat. Carter was sooooo excited to see him. He kept telling me in the line how he was going to ask him how Percy and James were. But...once we got to the front, and he saw that Topham Hat was not actually a real person he freaked a bit. He was waving and talking to him from afar, but wouldn't go for a photo. Mommy had to go too.

Bouncy Houses are the best! There were lots of other activities at the park!

This pedal car was for sale in the gift shop. I didn't even bother to see how much it was! LOL. Carter took a spin in it though. He was also a lucky boy and got a "Day Out With Thomas" shirt and the official 2009 Day our With Thomas train for his collection. Yes, those two things cost us over $30...but I think we were lucky to get out with just that. If you don't want to buy anything, avoid the store at all costs! :)

Carter getting his face painted for the very first time. He's had the opportunity before, but was never sure about it. He loved this, and was verrrry disappointed to see it had smudged on the way home and needed to get cleaned off.

He was quite sure beforehand he was going to get Thomas on his cheek, but he made a last minute change and asked for a FireTruck. So, that's what he got. He also insisted that she use every single paint in the pallet. What a kid.

Playing with the train tables. Sadly, there were few trains on the tables. (Like 5 trains for 8 tables) Really sad to see how many people let their kids steal the trains. What a lesson to teach your kids...

Carter sporting a "cheese" for a photo of his facepaint!

The Lego Table (trains also in short supply there...tsk tsk parents)

...and our little guy 10 minutes after we got in the car! A successful day indeed!

Blog Candy!

Veronica is giving away some verrry nice stamps on her blog! Check it out, and enter to win!

http://a-day-in-the-life-of-sweet-pea.blogspot.com/

First movie!

Yesterday I took Carter to his very firts movie in the theatre! I thought he was maybe a bit young for it. The theatres at Tanforan have been offering a $1 movie every Tuesday for kids though, so I figured for $1, why not give it a try!

"Everyone's Hero" was playing. I'd never heard of it, but it was a cute animated movie about a talking baseball and a little kid who wasn't very good at baseball. It was good!

We went with Brooke and Bernard, and I think all the mommies were pleasantly pleased (shocked?!) that all three kids sat happily through the movie and watched it. Here are Carter and Brooke in their seats.and here is Bernard, Carter, and Brooke outside the theatre after the show! I think we might go again next week - they are playing Alvin and the Chipmunks. :)

We Love Making Memories!

A little love for Making Memories - who have some fantastic giveaways on their blog this week. (Send me vibes to win...or better yet win a Slice...for some silly reason Steve doesn't seem to think I *NEED* one. What does he know anyways! :P)

And...speaking of MM... :) Here are two projects I just completed yesterday both showcasing MM products!

A Layout from last Christmas morning. Carter got totally spoiled!and...a clock featuring one of my all time favorite lines from MM Chloe's Closet. (got to take a better pic of this one when it's brighter out)

Check out the MM blog to win some cool stuff! http://makingmemories.typepad.com/makingmemories/

A cute Place to Live!

I made this cute chipboard house with the Basic Grey Lime Rickey line!

Crafts and Playtime!

During the summer months, Carter has been having a craft playgroup every Monday with some of his friends. We rotate locations, and the kids play, the mommies chat, and we do some sort of little art project. So far, we've made instruments, decorated cookies, had fun experimenting with water, made photo frames, and done some general artsy stuff. Today was Carter's turn to host. For our project we made everyone a poem to take home and added their handprints to it. After that we made little bird kites. The kids were more interested in flying the kites than really making them though. Here they are running around like houligans in the yard! Brooke, Carter and Joey trying to get some air on their kites!

Elijah joins in the fun!
Carter and Bernard were more interested in singing and dancing at this point!

Kamping at the KOA!

This weekend we planned a rather last minute trip to go camping with the San Bruno Mother's Club. We only decided to go late Thursday afternoon, and were off on the trip less than 24 hours later! There was a lot of whirlwind packing, but we are glad we went!

We went up to Petaluma and stayed at the KOA campgrounds there. Each family had their own cozy kabin (and yes...they were cozy...or, ahem...kozy!) Here is our kabin #78!Inside the Kabin - yup, that's it, that's all. It was better than tenting though!Our kabin faced the playground, which of course Carter LOVED. I'm sure we spent 50% of the weekend there. Carter loooooved the top bunk. He really wanted to sleep up there, but we weren't too sure since it was so high. He and Daddy enjoyed many snacks up there though!

Friday night we all gathered together and made S'mores. Carter had never had one, and wasn't too fond of the "sticky" as he called it. The chocolate and graham crackers were enjoyed however.

Munching on S'mores!

After snack, we broke out the Glowsticks. All the kids loved that!

Carter and Daddy sleeping (nah...they were only just pretending!)

Carter did very well going to sleep in his bottom bunk though. He slept right through the night until about 6:30 when Daddy woke up to make the long trek to the bathroom. He insisted on going along with Daddy. The only way he'd settle when he got back was to sleep up top with Daddy in the top bunk. And there they slept (well, Carter did) until almost 9:30am!

Carter really loved the little petting zoo they had. There were tons of baby goats!

Hanging out before the potluck dinner/BBQ on Saturday.

The whole group (well, actually not everyone...but everyone that was around for the photo). Carter and I are on the right side of the photo beside the rope - Steve took the photo!

All in all, a good weekend. All three of us are still coughing like you wouldn't believe though. Can't wait for that to go away...ugh!

The Wiggles Go Bananas!

Carter has developed a deep love for all things "Wiggles". We're not really sure why, since his only exposure to them has been a small handful of DVDs we've rented from Blockbuster. He really loves them though. So, when we heard they were coming to do a concert in San Jose we decided to take him for a special treat.

Here he is bursting with excitement outside the HP Pavilion in SJ.
Finally got him to calm down enough to take a photo of his Wiggle-fied outfit (thanks for the loaners Michelle - he loves them!)

In his seat ready for the show to start

This one just makes me laugh "Mommmm...stop taking my photo!!"

...and the follow-up. Yes, I'll smile for the camera. CHEESE.

Can you tell we were bored waiting for the show to start? I snapped this pic of Steve checking his work email and finding out some interesting news (more on that in a few weeks if it all pans out).

The set before the show!

It finally started! :)

The long anticipated BIG RED CAR! (I was singing this song allll last night...grrr)

WAKE UP JEFF!

Oooh...sparkly!

Carter dancing during the show!

Ooops...techincal mishap! :)

The big finale!

All in all it was a good day. We enjoyed the concert, and had dinner after at the Cheesecake Factory. YUM! I need someone to go back with me in August. They're debuting a new kind...Red Velvet Cheesecake. It's gotta be good!

Steve and Carter even indulged me in checking out the LSS there...actually two of them. Yay! I was especially pleased to find the brand new Cosmo Cricket releases just freshly put out at one of them. Pretty good considering CHA hasn't even happened yet!