Happy Valentine's Day

I hope you all had a very happy Valentine's Day. The kids and I had a great time all day long. The only thing that would have made it better was if Kevin was at home with us. Being in the restaraunt business most definitely has its drawbacks, especially on days like this.
We spent the first part of the day at Mom's as did Nicole & Ella. The kids rode their tricycles (well, my kids are trying to really learn how to ride a tricycle but Ella tried to teach them. We live on a hill so riding a tricycle in our driveway would be incredibly not safe.)
Anyway, we had lunch and the kids played until it was time to head home for a nap. They fell asleep pretty quickly which meant they were up by 3:30 which meant we had time to head to the park before it got dark. We had over an hour to run and play outside and it was wonderful. Overall, a very happy Valentine's Day.

On our way to Mom's

Here we go......

One happy little boy

Ok, we discovered that Isabel loved her helmet because she refused to take it off. And the cute apron was made by my Mom's cousin Becky. (She also made Jackson an apron with trains.) She is crazy talented when it comes to sewing. She made play food out of felt (a cake, a pizza, ice cream.) I tried to take a close up of the cake but it just doesn't do it justice. Thank you Becky!

This is the beautiful "play cake" Becky made

My attempted close up (she MADE each little indiviual strawberry, truffle, all of it). They are even seperated into pieces held together with velcro. Tooooooo cute.

Looking at the pool

Break out the Valentine goody bags!

M&M's are the all time favorite

Incline Railway (aka "Mountain Train")

Ok, on with Chattanooga....

Next we went to the Incline Railroad at Lookout Mountain. Jackson was very excited because he has a train book with pictures of a Mountain Train and I told him that he was going to get to ride one. Very happy child. So happy in fact, that he tried to board the train without me OR my Mom or even Isabel. We thought we had lost Jackson for about 5 seconds until we found him waiting in a line by himself to get on this freakin' train that was going to take him an entire mile UP a mountain without me!!!! Let me back up a second......

When we arrived at the bottom of the Mtn. we had to buy tickets to take the train. It wasn't a person in a window selling tickets, it was an automated computer that reminded me of an ATM. Well, Isabel had fallen asleep on the way to the Mtn. Train so I'm carrying "sleeping beauty" while my Mom tries to buy tickets. (I do not believe my Mom had ever used an ATM so it was a little frustrating for her - I love you Mom). So, Mom is fighting with the machine, I'm carrying Isabel, trying to help Mom and at some point Jackson decides he's tired of waiting for us to buy the tickets. He was seriously in line about to get on a train without us. By the time my heart had stopped and panic was setting in someone yelled that they found him. Crisis over. Holy crap. I lost my child. Lesson learned. It was horrible. He wasn't even scared. I don't think he had any idea why we were freaking out. And he's only 2 1/2. I've got a long ways to go.

View from the train
On top of Lookout Mountain
Me and my babies!

Mom & Isabel (she woke up)

Chattanooga Choo Choo

After the aquarium we headed to see the Chattanooga Choo Choo. It was well past time for my sweet little boy to see some trains! He looked all through the Aquarium for a train to no avail. ;)

The Choo Choo itself hasn't run in years so we just got to look at it and lots of other trains but they did have an old trolley car running. The trolley ran on the hour and when we got there it was just pulling away so we had to kill some time. Jackson was not leaving until we rode a train (the trolley was close enough to a train for him). We hit the gift shop and they picked out some hats. Next we decided to eat lunch in the place next door so the kids could look at the trains while they ate. They were happy and ate a decent lunch. It was finally time to ride!
The trolley didn't go far and was actually pretty lame but the kids loved it. The driver even let them pull the rope to ring the bell.

Hat shopping @ the Choo Choo

You can't tell from the frown on her sweet little face but she had a great time!
The view from lunch

Yes, she's under that hat somewhere

Just checking out the trains

That's the little yellow trolley we rode on the left side of this picture

Our trolley (looks like she's hailing a cab, doesn't it?)

My baby boy :)

Mom and the kiddos

Ringing the bell