A Day at Weeki Wachee!

A few weeks ago, my husband had an entire day off so we decided to tackle a new adventure!  Well, new to everyone except me.  Weeki Wachee is Florida's only spring fed water park and I have wonderful memories of going to see the live mermaid show with my Memaw.  It was quite nostalgic to walk around the park now, as the parent.  It's a quaint little place about an hour and half from our home with a tour boat on the springs, a short reptile show, a live underwater mermaid show and a newer mini-water park area called Buccaneer Bay with flume rides, lazy river and cute little splash area for toddlers.  It was incredibly hot the day we went which turned out to be GREAT because the spring water was very cold, but felt refreshing in the heat.  We especially loved it because we were allowed to bring coolers of food and drinks.  Do you know how much that saves a large family!?  I really enjoy places like Weeki Wachee and Dino World that have a more small town feel because they require you, as a parent, to stay involved and educate your children since there's no fancy technology.  Below are some photos!

We were welcomed by a big beautiful peacock!

Being silly!

Waiting for the reptile show to start!

Nabbed seats for the mermaid show!

Sooooo cool!  The viewing area is built right into the side of the springs.

Mermaids!

"Argh!!!"  We have arrived at Buccaneer Bay!  Just 100 feet away.  lol

They had single, double or triple tubes to rent...we got the biggin'!

Making our way down to the edge of the springs.

Taking a minute to adjust to the cold water.

Annnnd, we're off!

Minh was the engine ;)

Nam having a great time in the little kid splash area!

Dad taking his turn in the water.  In the backgrouns you can see one of the flumes and part of the springs.

Weeeeee!!!

A family of Peacocks escorted us out  :o)

Father's Day Gifts {via Pinterest!}

A few months ago, after I had such great success with Teacher Appreciation Week gifts via Pinterest, I created a board on my Pinterest account for Father's Day.  There was one idea that really stood out, and after looking through many of my friends recent photos, it appears it stood out to EVERYONE!  I have seen tons of photos based on this!  The idea was simple...take pictures of the kids holding different letters that spell out daddy and put them in a picture frame...simple?  Yeah right!

1.  I went to Michaels Craft Store and it turned out they were having a large frame sale, so I revamped my plan.  I decided to make frames for my husband, my father and my father-in-law.  I bought large frames that had 6 vertical openings, and each of them ended up costing $25.00 each!  yay!

2.  Many of the photos I saw were of folks creating large individual letters from poster board.  At first that's what I was going to attempt, but after shopping at Michael's I wussed out and decided to purchase the premade wooden letters (and thank God I did!).

3.  Came home and created a cheat sheet with the letters and who would hold what.  I wanted the letters to be held by the kids in birth order...and when you have 5 children, there's a lot of logistics involved with such a "simple" idea.

4.  Primped the kids and headed outside with 5 kiddos, camera in hand, cheat sheet and letters.

***In hindsight, I wish I had the following 3 hours recorded to show just how much effort I put into these gifts!***

The following 3 hours went something like this...

Hieu, please stand over in front of the hedge.
"Mooooom, I think there's a SNAKE in there!!!" 
tears.
moved to a different location.

Hieu, please stand here and hold letter A.
"But I don't want letter A!  That's not MY letter, mom!  MY name doesn't start with A!"
tears.  redirect.  calmed down.  baby begins to cry.

Tao, please stand here, smile...no, your happy smile.  great job!
"uuuuuugh!  MOM!  It's getting too HOT!  I am sweating.  I need a drink."
3 out of 5 kids march off to get water.  baby is screaming at this point.  after 30 minutes I think I got 2 decent photos.  sigh.

this went on, and on, and on.  we took a break for snack, reprimped, and attempted again.

Hieu, please stand here and hold the letter and smile.  she smiles.  then the wind begins to blow and the sky darkens.
"MOOOOOM!!!!  Look at the sky!  There's a hurricane coming!!!  We need to get inside NOW!"
tears.  2 year old begins to cry.  8 year old begins to meltdown.  mom begins to meltdown.


5.  Finish taking photos and get a much needed glass of wine while photos upload.

6.  Print photos in black and white at CVS.

7.  The next day..load kids, pick up photos, realize they made a mistake on dads photos...his gift then becomes a week late :/

8.  Finish my father and my father-in-laws gifts and stand there with a victorious smile on my face.  Viola!  I DID IT!!!

My father-in-laws frame.  It reads "OngNoi"  (grandpa in Vietnamese).

This is my fathers frame.  It reads "Pupaw" with a 6th photo of all 5 kids laying down (yeah, that was a fun one to shoot.)

They came out great!!!  I was SOOOOO excited.  and exhausted.  and bit insane.  ;)

My father-in-law loved it!  Success!

Finally was able to get the correct photos for my husbands frame.  It came out equally as awesome!

Whew!  What effort yet such success!  Have you made anything via pinterest??

A Few Weeks of Specialists {Try New Adventures Thursday!}

Events always seem to get clustered together in our life.  Appointments, registrations, parties...and now, specialists.  On top of our regular well child visits and routine appointments, the past 2 weeks were jam packed with seeing specialists. 

Our oldest child consumes the majority of our time with doctors and balancing medications.  However, when it comes to mental health disorders, I don't believe that openly blogging about it is appropriate (at least for the time being).  So with that being said, lets just leave it at- it's been a very challenging season for Minh and as a family, we have had to adjust on many, many levels.  Fortunately, we are an incredibly strong family unit, proactive about positive parenting and he has an amazing professional team.  Minh also has braces and was supposed to get them off last week.  However, one of the lower brackets broke off and his teeth shifted, so he has to wait a month or so longer.  :/  Poor kiddo, he (and we-do you KNOW how hard it is to maintain an 8 year olds braces!?!) were sooo looking forward to getting them off!




Nam has recently thrown us some curveballs that has required setting up appointments with specialists.  Nothing really major, but it certainly has turned into an unexpected adventure!  About four months ago, he started having nosebleeds.  At first, we thought maybe he had just hit is nose or he was diggin' around up there (after all, he just turned 2 last month!), but after 7 or 8 nosebleeds and 2 Pediatrician appointments, it became clear it was something more.  Sooooo, we were referred to an ENT, and after a super fun nose examination *mmm hmmmm* it turned out he had 3 extremely large blood vessels in his nose that were so large, that just by rubbing his nose or sneezing caused them to bleed.  The best part? this very normal and it doesn't hurt him.  The not so great part? they don't want to cauterize them until he is 3 and half, unless he has them daily in which we would need to put him under mild anesthesia.  Soooo, we're not at that level yet, but he just had his 20th nosebleed 2 nights ago...so they are becoming more frequent.  Below is a photo I snapped before we went to the Pediatrician to show we were talking about more than just a nik in the nose.  I have a few seconds of mommy panic everytime he gets one...as well as Zombie movie flashbacks ;)


Poor Nam seemed to be falling apart.  On top of the nosebleeds, his hand and legs started to develop large white blotches, which after 3 months, covered about 80% of both legs and arms.  We again took him to the Pediatrician and were referred out to a Dermatologist.  When we went to her office, it turned out to be a friend of mine from high school who treated him!  How cool is that!?  After examining him, he was diagnosed with Eczema, which looked pretty severe on him because of his dark skin.  I also didn't know Eczema could be white rather than red.  Soooo, even though there is no cure for it, we have a lotion that we smother him in 3x a day called CeraVe, a bathing version of CeraVe when he takes his showers, and a prescription Locoid (basically a steroid) used on areas that are irritated and look like lesions are forming.  Hopefully the skin on his face won't turn white, but that's really out of our control at this point and she said it can spread to his entire trunk as well, or may just stay on his limbs.  I attempted to get a few pictures below, but they don't really do it justice.  It is quite jarring when he is trotting around the house in his diaper.

Thao also had an appointment at All Childrens Hospital after he failed his hearing test (3 times!) at the Pediatrician for his 4 year old well child visit.  He did GREAT and was cracking all the techs up!  He is one chatty little boy!  He passed with flying colors.  whew!  Below is a photo I snapped ;)  hee hee



Sooooo, seeing specialists this month certainly has been QUITE the adventure!

An's Newborn Photo Shoot!

A week after An was born, we had a newborn photo shoot for him.  This was especially exciting since we NEVER had newborn photos taken of any of our children, and since he could be our last, we decided to go all out and not live with any "coulda-woulda-shoulda's" in regards to photos.  We had Kenzie, my sweet friend, amazing mama and AWSOME photographer take them at our home.  I was sweaty, exhausted, and in my pajamas...but major props to her, I certainly don't look it in the photos!  She also took our Family Photos/Maternity back in January which were faaabulous.  I am thrilled with how they turned out and so happy we were able to capture this precious, fleeting time of An's babyhood.  Check them out below and I also suggest visiting Kenzie's site if you are interested in having photos taken :)

This is my absolute FAVORITE!!!

A little smile <3

Newborn feeties

Baby #5!

 As one of the Valentine's Day babies born, the hospital gave him a special red hat.

 I love this one!  So natural and pure.

Kenzie had lots of adorable hatsto choose from. We called this the "Dr. Suess hat"

 Just look at those lips.

 Love!

 :)

 Isn't this just the cutest hat!?  I loved it!!!

 Cuddled up and fast asleep.

Oh how we love you, sweet An!

What do you think?  Didn't they turn out so lovely!  Four boys and one princess...I am truly blessed <3