Space Center Houston

December 31, 2012

Hurray! This is the last of the December posts! After this, these posts are going to be coming at you a whole month at a time! We've got to be EFFICIENT!

Jeff's brother Steven flew his girlfriend, Karoline (wife 4 months later!), out to Houston for a few days after Christmas, so we all got to meet her and hit some of the hot spots of Houston to show her a good time during her stay. On Monday, we visited the Space Center Houston, but not before Renita sneaked in a quick family photo shoot ...

Jeff's youngest brother, Kyle

Jeff's older brother, Ben and his adorable family

Steven and Karoline

Greg and Renita, the proud parents of all these great boys!

And our little fam. I was feeling preeetty nauseous in all of these pictures. It turns out, double the baby = double the hormones = double the nausea. Fortunately, with Luke my morning sickness was very mild, so even with twins, it was bearable. No fun, of course, but I was at least mostly functional!

Love, love, LOVE these sweet boys! How did I get so lucky??

The girls instantly fell in love with Karoline!

Luke was SO excited when he laid eyes on THIS monstrous slide in the kids' play area! He and the girls went down it over and over and over!

Waiting in line for the tram tour. Luke was a fan of Karoline too.

Jeff and I took almost this exact same picture 3 years earlier when I was just a couple weeks farther along in my pregnancy with Luke than I am in this picture with the twins!

See!

Exploring with Grandpa

Luke was really interested in anything anyone would tell him about all of these awesome pictures and space shuttles! I LOVE how much this kid loves to learn! And he remembers what you tell him! He really listens and absorbs it! He is always asking questions about everything and is so eager to hear the response. It's so fun being a mom and seeing learning in progress!

Getting a closer look after the snake show we watched during lunch.

 Dippin' Dots!! I was verrrry excited if you can't tell.

Luke chased these lights all over the floor like a crazy person laughing uncontrollably the entire time!

Building blocks

Luke the astronaut

Luke came to me for protection when the tickle monster (a.k.a. Daddy) attacked!

Back at the house, we banished Greg and Renita to their room while we put our Christmas gift to them into action. Jeff and I had once again collected all of the clothes and props and once again, we were grateful to have some very helpful and willing participants. And these Fisher boys were all business! I got about two "blooper" pictures because they kept straight faces and held their poses almost the entire time!

 We caught some serious breaks recreating this picture! Greg and Renita haven't changed the room it was taken in since it was taken 17 years ago! That exact same couch is in there! AND Jeff still has the ties he and Ben were wearing hanging in our closet!

I had to include this zoomed out picture so you could see what a workout Kyle was getting! Poor guy!

Pose #2 This one was really tricky since Kyle is in the front, but he is now the tallest! Poor guy had the hardest job again, crouching down at just the right angle!

This is probably the only time these guys broke and they still only barely did!

And this was my FAVORITE picture we recreated! It was also the biggest pain to recreate, but it was so worth it! Steven's shirt was the hardest to find. I searched all over the internet thinking it would be easy, but it WASN'T! I finally found a shirt without the blue stripes and cuffs. Jeff drew them on with a fabric pen, while I used fabric pens to remake Kyle's shirt from a plain white shirt we bought at Hobby Lobby. Kyle's pants are actually girls' sweat pants that we found at Ross. He wore them backwards because they have a big 21 and a heart on them. Bonus: They are comfy and I got to keep them after we took the picture! Jeff's turtle neck is from the women's section at Walmart. (Haha I really am lucky all these guys were nice enough to participate!) And Luke had the stuffed alligator Kyle is holding among his stuffed animals (handed down from Jeff, whose parents had held onto it with some of his other things). Also, to make up for the height differences, Steven had to kneel and Ben had to stand on a stool and hold his foot out so that it looked like it was flat on the floor!

A rare blooper picture.

When we finally finished up and let Greg and Renita come out, we all went outside to shoot off a few fireworks for New Years. It wasn't midnight yet, but most of us were going home soon and we weren't going to make it that late anyway!