Time Out For Women -- Cincinnati, OH

This past weekend was incredible!  Full of laughs, tears and spirtual upliftment.  I'm still recuperating from the late night girl-talk and the rollercoaster of emotions!  I went to Time Out for Women with these cute girls in my ward (R-L: Shanna Olmsted, Katie Kirkham, Laura Pettersen, Lisa Ybarra, Lindsay Weston).  Thanks to Laura I have all these great pics of our time there.

 

We were uplifted with amazing music.  Here we are with the girls of Mercy River.  I wanted a picture with Michael Mclean but i was too shy. :)

And outstanding speakers.  This is cute Mariama.  We all loved her and her heart wrentching stories.

But best of all I loved bonding with my fellow sisters.  We got to know each other so well and I truly grew to love these girls more and more with each passing hour.  It was such a great weekend!

I also wanted to post some pictures of our little sara with her new teeth.  they are finally big enough to capture in a photo so here you go.

scott wanted in on the picture action as well. 

When I came downstairs this morning from putting sara down for a nap I found these boys cooking together in the kitchen.

James has a slower rotation this week so he's been home a lot more. It has been so nice to have him around now that his board exams are over.  Now his residency interviews begin!  He has the first one this Friday and another fifteen (plus) over the next three months!

Scott's favorite part of cooking...

And another random pic of sara because I love this hat and i love her so much.  she's such a cuddly little bear.

Cedar Point!!!

this past weekend the palmer familiy finally made it to cedar point.  we have had a goal to go there since we found out we would be doing two years of rotations in cleveland and we finally made it!  for those who don't know, cedar point is a very large and very nice amusement park in sandusky, ohio (about an hour from us).  and since we are enjoying 75 degree weather in october we decided to go (and so did the rest of the people living in ohio.)

yes, it was very...very crowded but we still had lots of fun.  the park has a parent swap program where one parent can wait in line while the other one hangs with the kids.  then the other parent can go through the exit and get right on the ride once the first parent is done.  it was sad to not be with james while he waited in line but the kids and i found lots of ways to entertain ourselves.  here we are waiting for james to ride the "dragster".

and here is james waiting to go on the "dragster".  he was in line for almost two hours after the ride broke down half way through his wait!  the break-down only added to the thrill of the ride.

i tried to capture this craziness of this ride.  see that huge peek in the distance?  the rollercoaster shoots ExTrEmEly fast up and over that peak.  it is seriously freaky deeky.  i was still shaking ten minutes after riding it. i'm not joking.

my favorite thing about cedar point is that you can leave the park for a while and walk along the boardwalk and go out to the beach.  not many people were out here and it was so peaceful and beautiful and relieving to get away from the crowds for a while.

and this is just how sara was for 80 percent of the day.  she constantly amazes me by how chill she can be in potentially stressful situations.

we finally got to the point where we decided that splitting up and waiting in long lines wasn't worth being away from each other so we spent most of the evening together going on "family rides". 

the kids were so happy to have daddy back.

the whole reason we went to cedar point in the first place was to see our friends ryan callahan and b.j. jones.  ryan came and hung out with us in the evening and it was so good to catch up with him.  it was weird that he hadn't even met our little sara considering the fact that he was like a member of our family when we lived in iowa.

we kept saying that we'd leave the park when the kids got cranky but they never did!  they were so good and so we stayed into the night letting scott run around from ride to ride having the time of his life.  it was such a great day.

other things we've been up to...
scott had his first japanese "hibachi" experience.  he loved the big fire in the middle of the table.  we went there with some of our new ohio friends (katie and mark mcvey). 

sara just keeps getting older and older.  she is very much posed here and not at all big enough to actually sit at scott's table by herself but she is getting old enough for these two to entertain each other.  scott is so good at playing with her (especially when i bribe him with treats) and scott is now willing to play in his room by himself as long as sara is there with him.  i absolutely love hearing them play and laugh together.  they're such cute little gigglers.

we had our new friend, tyler weston, over the other day.  tyler and scott are such good buddies and here are some photos of them working with their jello jigglers. 

and this is my new favorite picture... maybe ever. (scott found this bike helmet in the closet and was convinced that it was a baseball helmet.)

james is in philadelphia TONIGHT getting ready to take the second portion of his board exams tomorrow.  these roses are what he brought home to me after the first section was over (last thursday).  i can't wait to see what he brings me when he gets home tomorrow! :)

and lastly, i just wanted to thank everyone who signed my petition to move victoria secret from the play place in the mall.  (this is a photo that i took to include in the letter that i wrote the mall management).  and here is some positive news... i heard back from the mall and they said they have received a lot of complaints about this very issue and they are moving the play place!!!  it will be in its new location by january of 2012! i'm so excited and so grateful to the many people who have opened their mouths so that this change could take place.  thanks again!

batman, preschooler and other secret identities...

it's hard to believe that james and i are the parents of TWO super heroes...

but when they have spider-man as a mom its not all that surprising.

scott started preschool this month.  here he is still sporting his batman "fierce" face.

and here's his really good, no hitting, no pushing, "no pooping in pants while at pre-school" angel face.

and...this just melts my heart.

sara hates it when scott goes to preschool.  she just sleeps her sorrows away in the backseat of the car while mommy reads/writes in the parking lot.

love those pigtails!

as a sunday family activity a couple weeks ago we made Auntie Anne's soft pretzels.  I'd like to say i slaved all day to make them from scratch but thankfully all the ingredients came pre-made in one compact box.  they were delicious!  and so fun to make.

over labor day the palmer family drove an hour and a half south to Amish Country.  they have a bunch of towns for tourists and this is scott in front of the cheese factory.  the first couple of times we saw the amish riding around in their buggies it was really exciting and everyone in the palmer car was bouncing up in down with delight.  but by the end of the day it became common-place and a bit of a nuisance having to drive around them.  those Amish people are seriously patient.

Later that week we met up with the Bryan and Annie Palmer clan at a Dutch Restaurant in Mansfield.  It's always good to see them and fill ourselves up with an endless buffet of food.

it's crazy how fast these kids are growing.  i'm so glad we have this time in ohio with the other palmers so scott can bond with julia and audrey.

Just more fun pics of the kids...

Scott at the beach... it was a cold, overcast day so i didn't think scott would even touch the water.  i was so, very wrong.  the kid tore off his clothes the second he touched the sand and was running all over the place in his pull-up.  he's such a little boy.

scott taking his blood pressure at the drug store... not looking too happy.

i had to take a picture of sara in this sweater because i wore it when i was a baby.  she looked so angelic.  it's hard to capture it on the camera.

A week ago we got together with Nick and Sarah Jones and fam at the Rocky River Reservation to make S'mores.  They were delicious and the boys loved roasting those marshmallows.

me with sarah and sara.

scott and mitchell did NOT want their pictures taken so i had to sneak a shot when they weren't looking.  they are too cute together.

i absolutely love this picture of the kids at chik-filet because this is such a typical moment for me as a mom of these cutie-pie kids.  scott is always pulling some sort of super-hero/ monster/ "don't-take-my-picture-mom" face and sara is constantly beaming from ear to ear.  i love hanging out with these two all day every day.

sara on the slide (smiling as always)

scott on the slide (fighting crime as always)

scott HATES the swings. he always has and i'm afraid he always will.  but sara loves them which i appreciate because they were always my favorite as a kid (okay, they're still my favorite now).  even though scott hates the swings, i have to say he's mastered the rest of the playground.  over the past few weeks james has been working with him on sliding down the poles and now he even slides down the big-kid poles.  (i felt like i had to brag about him after dissing his dislike for swings.)

this is kind of a funny video of scott throwing a tantrum (he's in that phase lately) that is if you can handle my annoying "tickle toes" voice.  good luck.