Busboom Castle

Hey all! Joe and I spent a fun filled and relaxing weekend with Joe's brother Stephen and his wife, Catherine at Busboom Castle in Dewey, Illinois.. (it's just 6 miles from my house!)

We enjoyed it immensely! We invited Joe's parents and my kids (kids stayed with them this weekend), over for dinner on Saturday night but for the most part, it was just us four. It was so nice to get to sleep in, watch movies on the big projection screen and the guys had fun sword fighting with Mashoonga sticks.
If you ever need to get away for the weekend and don't wanna go too far from home, this is the place!
www.busboomcastle.com

Bruce built the castle pretty much by himself with a few friends helping here and there. And the working drawbridge complete with fanfare trumpets while it's lowering, amazing!

Evie came over with me the first day to check things out.. here she is pictured with the pirate ship out back, hanging in the hammock and standing by the playhouse.





And Joe with Stephen



Dad and Stephen playing a game of Chess
Catherine doing some cooking

Joe and I..
The game room with the air hockey table

Projection screen, it's hard to tell by the picture, but we were watching "Anchorman" (That's Champ on the screen" LOL

Dining room

EDITED APRIL 8TH:

FYI.. if you decide to rent the castle, be sure that you touch and move nothing... put everything (especially the salt and pepper shakers) back where you found it.. or he'll let you know how disappointed you made him... (after I cleaned his whole castle before leaving)... it "breaks his heart" to have to rent it out... just so you know.

Evie's first tournament!

Evie participated in her very first martial arts tournament today!
She did a fantastic job!

Here she is with her friend, Chloe and Miss Melanie




I took 4 videos of her being judged and receiving her enormous trophy for "Best Intensity"..








We are so proud of you, Evie! Keep up the good work!

CAMO BELT!

She did it again! Another belt promotion! At this rate, we'll have ourselves a black belt in no time!

She has really grasped the concept of how important learning the techniques are to her. Her jumping front kicks tonight were phenomenal!

Here's the video of Evie receiving her camo belt.. you can hear Mr. Master's booming voice when he yells Evie's name and then you can see Miss Melanie not wanting Evie to have her camo belt.. (means she's going on to a new class and Mel doesn't want to let go of her leaders).



And here she is with her new belt and Mama tightening it. Camo looks good on her!

Pee Pee in the Potty!

YAY! THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED: SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE!

We have been putting Evan on the baby potty daily and he has peed in it once.. but today we decided that we were going to put Evan on the big potty once every half an hour or so, or after eating or drinking.. and WOW! He sat right down and peed right away! I could hear him tinkling and I made a suprised face.. he started cheering and trying to high five me.. so he knew that what he did was a big deal! Evie and I celebrated loudly for him and when he got off he flushed by himslef and ran out of the room bare assed and smiling!

Here are some quick pics while it was happeneing.. and he was being super silly!

YAY EVAN!





EDITED LATER THE SAME DAY:

So after Evan did his big pee we went to the park and then to dinner... when we got home I was about to put the kids in the bath and I took Evan's diaper off and noticed that he was dry. So I sat him on the potty, he sat still for a few seconds, concentrated off to the distance and started peeing! Once he started to pee he looked up and smiled! What a big boy! So that's 2 times today!
YAY EVAN!

Dance With Elmo!

The kids got Elmo Live for Valentine's Day.

This thing couldn't be more real LOL
They love it! The amount of things that he says and does seem endless!

Here they are playing with him.

Happy Birthday to Me!

I forgot to blog about my birthday!

It was February 20th and we went to Indianapolis to the Children's Museum..
Here are some pics from the day.

Wacky Wednesday!

Yesterday it was "Wacky Wednesday" at Evie's school.
It's Dr. Suess inspired so they each brought a favorite book to share and read to the class. They had to dress wacky (the wackier the better, says Queen Myers.. that's her teacher's name for the day), and also bring a favorite stuffed animal.

So Evie and I havd a great time picking out wacky clothes to wear and I did 4 ponytails all around the top and back of her head. It was pretty cute! Here she is holding her favorite Dr. Suess book, "In a People House". (Which by the way, she can read perfectly by herself!)