Kids Behind The Blog: Thanksgiving Edition

 Hi Foxy Friends! I saw my friend Danielle and Dara were hosting the Kids Behind the Blog series and had to join in on the fun! So let get started.

Baby Fox

Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Or a different fall holiday? Thanksgiving

What is your favorite Thanksgiving (or fall holiday) tradition? When we go to see our cousins (but not this year due to COVID)

Best food to eat? Cranberry sauce and the turkey and the yams with marshmallows on top and corn on the cob.

Do you watch football? No, it would be cool, but no.

Apple pie or pumpkin pie? Or something else? Pumpkin pie definitely!

Mini Fox

Do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Or a different fall holiday? We celebrate Thanksgiving.

What is your favorite Thanksgiving (or fall holiday) tradition? Going to our cousins house (but not this year *insert sad face*) 

Best food to eat? I think, the Turkey and the mashed potatoes and the corn...on the cob, with butter (funny we're never had that before for Thanksgiving).

Do you watch football? No, not really.

Apple pie or pumpkin pie? Or something else? Tough decision, oh wait, not a tough decision, totally pumpkin pie!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Although this year will be a bit different, we're still going to have a great day and be Thankful for everything that we have and each other.

They Are Listening and It's Okay To Be Human

So this blog title has nothing to do with each other, but I'm in a rambling mood, so just go with it =) The other day, I had to go the chiropractor and Baby Fox was complaining that he didn't want to go. Mini Fox piped up and said, Coco (what she calls him), Mama does everything for us, and takes us everywhere, the least we can do is go with her. This Mama heart almost exploded, they do listen (at least girl does).

As a mom sometimes we forget that we do have to take care of ourselves too. We do everything for everyone else, play chauffeur, driving the kids to karate, piano, gymnastics, soccer/baseball, you know the list goes on.

I remember last year when Mr. had to travel for work, I was in the car on the way to my favorite gym class. The kids were complaining that they didn't want to go to the gym, I mean complaining...I got frustrated and started yelling/crying hysterically. All this happened 2 minutes into our drive. They were stunned, speechless, not sure what was happening, they both started crying hysterically. I can only imagine what we looked like as we stopped at the light. I took a deep breath, calmed down enough to explain to them that I do everything for them, forgoing the gym multiple times a week so I can get them to where the need to go and all I ask of them is to go to the gym with me one day a week so I can go to my favorite gym class. All was good by the time we reached the gym 8 minutes later, hugs were had and all forgiven. (this all happened day 1 of 6 days Mr. was gone...not a good start to the week, but we recovered and had a good rest of the week).

I say this because we try to be so perfect to everyone around us. Sometimes we forget we are not robots and we have feelings that get hurt. It's okay to show our kids that we are human. That we cry when our feelings get hurt. We make mistakes and it's okay to ask for forgiveness. We all want our kids to have a perfect childhood, but remember you're human too. It's okay to have bad days, when our emotions are all over the place. Your kids will still love you and they won't remember that one day you go upset and started yelling, even when in your head you're thinking...stop yelling, you're being ridiculous, but can't stop...we're human. It's okay. You're kids know you love them and want the best for them. They'll only remember the good times.

So go out and be less than perfect.

Our Favorite Southern California Day Trips

 Hello Foxy Friends! I'm back with the Justine talking about our favorite day trips. Since we all live throughout California I'm excited to see what some of the other ladies have to say.

As most of you know I live in Southern California, so obviously ours revolve around that.

 Trip #1

Our favorite day trip would have to be to the beach. We have been going more recently, as in we didn't go at all last summer.  I'm not really sure why, but now the kids are old enough that they can entertain and dig in the sand and no one is taking naps, so there isn't a cranky time. It really is the best, sit on the beach, let the kids dig in front of us, help them get some water from the ocean every once in a while, although mostly Baby Fox has that part down and doesn't need my help any more. It's pretty darn awesome. Bring lunch, a bunch of snacks and we are happy the for 5-6 hours.

The last time we went to the beach, I taught the kids of digging tunnels, they loved it and it took them forever to do it, then they would step on it, and start over, it was great!

Trip #2

Second favorite day trip is going to Legoland. It is about an hour away, and the kids LOVE it. No matter how many times we go, they can never get enough.

They love the aquarium, and even though it's small they could spend hours in there. It never changes, yet, they always find something to look at and never want to leave.

I wrote a few post on Legoland:

Legoland Hotel Review
5 Things Must See Things at Legoland
5 Things To Skip at Legoland

Trip #3

The mountains, Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear are both within a couple hour drive from our house.  This particular picture is Lake Arrowhead, there is so much to do up there, hikes, beach, cute little town to walk around in.

Or you can head to Big Bear and get some snowboarding in. Also a 2ish hour drive from our house. So within 2.5 hours you can go from snowboarding to enjoying the sunset on the beach.



Those are three of many day trips available here. There are so many more that we just haven't done yet. We're hoping to go apple picking soon, which is 2.5 south of us. Hopefully it works out that we can go!

Now go check out where Justine from Little Dove's favorite day trips are, as she is located in Northern California and will be totally different than mine!

Happy 4th Of July!!

Happy 4th of July Foxy American Friends. Coming at you from my cousin's house where we have 7 kids sleeping in two rooms right now. Don't have much to post but height I would leave with one of our fun traditions. Decorating bikes and scooters in prep for the parade tomorrow.

Last year...

Same kids this year. Love that we have this tradition. And I love it even more that Mr. and I have a day date tomorrow.

I'll see you on the flip side, pretty sure the kids are going to wake up before the sun. Wish us luck. Stay safe!!

Favorite Places To Cool Off

Happy Monday Foxy Friends! Today we are off at Legoland, hopefully we won't need to cool off too much. Haha but if we did, a fun place to cool off at Legoland is the boat building station. They have base boats that you can decorate and then race down the "river", the kids get soaked and have a blast, but it's under the shade. Perfect for the kids to get a little wet and have a ton of fun.

Other things to do, find a splash pad, they are awesome and can provide hours of entertainment. We have a few near us, all of them are free, busy but free. Some of them you have to know someone in the community to get in, but usually it's not hard to find a friend.

This is by far the coolest one by us. It's open from Memorial Day to Labor Day, hours of fun for the kids!

Then there is always our gym pool, it's super fun, and Baby Fox is This Close to being tall enough to go down the slide. T here is also a small splash pad there too, but not nearly to the scale as the one above!

And it's always fun to go bowling, we took the kids for the first time this year and they LOVED it.

It's pretty cool, they have electric side bumpers now, so now more paying money for them to blow up the ones in the gutters, they just pop up if that person needs it. Plus they have a ramp for the kids to slide their balls down. So fun.

P.S. I may or may not own my own bowling ball and shoes.

Then you can't forget about the bazillion play places that have come around lately. Even if they are busy, it's air conditioned and the kids love it and run around and you can mostly talk to your friends.

I know ziplining, so fun right?!

Alright that's all I have for you. What do you have near you that you like to do to cool off. I didn't include our own pool, because I'm sure you'll all sick of seeing it. Thought I would share some new things!

Now go check out some of the other California Mama's and see how they like to cool off!

 Justine @ Little Dove

Sarah @ Foxy's Domestic Side 

Emily @ Emily Bogner Blog 

Jenny @ Princess Turned Mom

 

Linking up here

Keeping Kids Busy All Summer

Today I'm linking up with Shay and Erica for Workin' It Wednesday, today's topic is how to keep the kids entertained all Summer. I don't have to think of as many things because I work full time, so I really only have to take care of the weekends, like I do the rest of the year. That being said we have signed up Baby Fox for few classes.

When we were signing him up it didn't seem like that much, but putting it down on paper makes it seem like a lot. Oh well, he approved and picked all of the classes out, so I know he's going to love all of it, I hope.

First up is something called Build a Fort, we've basically watched them do this camp for the past 5 years, and this is the first year that Baby Fox is old enough to participate. He is so stinkin' excited. It's exactly what you think it is, you build forts in a park. Yep you read that right, they build forts, how cool is that? They teach the kids money management, and letting the kids chose if they want to build with new nails, old ones, new boards, old boards. They have to get their fort inspected by a real city inspector. I think it's going to be a blast. The spots fill up super fast, so you better believe I had Mr. down there the day of trying to sign him up, sign ups are only in person. He showed up 10 minutes early and there were already a few people in line. That was on a Tuesday, when I went to take Mini Fox to ballet on Friday there was a sign on the door saying it was already full.

Yep that's what they look like, you can see those two on the left are connected, it's crazy. And they are surprisingly sturdy, they used to keep the ladders out all the time, but last year they changed that and they put away the ladders. Of course I'm sure the 1st grade kids don't do this, so we'll see how much they do, I'll keep you posted.

Picture from here

We also signed him up for two other classes through the community college, one is a Chemistry Lab and the other is a Lego Robotics class. Yep I think we have a fellow nerd here. At first we were going to sign him up for the Chem lab the Monday after school got out, so I told him: Buddy the chem lab is going to start for two weeks the Monday after you get out of school. You sure that's okay, and he yells, yep! Sounds like fun! This kid takes after my heart and his love for learning.

We tried to find a VBS to send him to, but all of the ones around us happen to be at the same as one of those three classes takes place. So that might be it for Baby Fox.

Poor Mini Fox is still a little too little to go off on her own, so I guess she's not doing anything other than waiting for Baby Fox to get home.

We also plan on doing lots of this...

Now that Baby Fox learned how to rid his bike this weekend, yep that's right he is already standing and peddling, I can't even do that!  We're so proud of him, he learned so freakin fast. Then the second time we took him out he learned how to start by himself and turn in a matter of minutes. Apparently he was ready to ride a bike, that and he really wants Heelys, and we told him the only way he was going to get them was if he learned how to ride a bike. Motivation works wonders I'm telling ya.

Then of course lots of this. It's going to start getting hot here, and I'm sure we'll be in it everyday we're not at the gym after work. Plus hanging with friends, because what's summer without a lot of friend time?

I'm also going to buy Baby Fox a few workbooks to work through. So he doesn't forget everything he learned this past year. When I asked him about doing a workbook, his answer? Yeah! I love it. I'm thinking of getting this and then a few of the workbooks from the Star Wars Series:  Math, Writing, and Writing...what kid wouldn't want to do Star Wars workbooks?

That's all I got so far, what are you doing to keep your kids busy this summer?

 

Linking up here

 

April Showers Brings May Flowers

Happy Monday Foxy Friends! I hope everyone had a good weekend. After being a week away from the family, I was happy to get home and spend some time with them. If you're coming from The Blended Blog, welcome! Today's Spring Time Fun theme is: April Showers Brings May Flowers. Boy do we have a ton of flowers right now. With how much rain we got this year, we have flowers everywhere, and they are so pretty. Probably won't last too long, but I'm going to enjoy it while they do last. One thing that try to do each year is visit the Carlsbad Flower Fields. I know every Southern California blogger has probably hit this up, but what can I say, it's a great photo op.

This year we went with some friends and I told them I would take pictures of their kids. We got some great kid pictures with them, but not without a lot of fruit snacks...take two more photos and we'll give you some fruit snacks...bribery is everything in these types of situations. It's amazing how well it really works. Could you imagine your boss telling you, well if you write that report for me, I'll give you a milk shake...haha.

This is sort of at the beginning of the fields. You can't even imagine how big this place it...it's mind blowing.

If you ever have a chance to go to the Flower Fields you definitely should. It's so pretty, I wish we could have stayed a little longer, but our bribe also included going to LEGOLAND for the day, haha.

Now hop on over to Andrea to see what sort of Spring Time Fun she's doing.

An InLinkz Link-up

Linking up here