Big Girl Bike

Annie is thrilled to have training wheels on the bike our neighbor recently handed down to her. Both girls had on helmets in anxious anticipation the entire time Greg was putting the training wheels on. It was chilly outside, and past time to get ready for bed, so they didn't get to ride long -- but Ellie loved sitting on the bike and being pushed the length of the driveway, and Annie took it up around our circle once before she had to come in for the night -- it was a BIG hit. :-)

Summer Days

Despite the blistering heat (which I was just not made for) and the ginormous water bills, August can still be a pretty fun month. And the two highlights of the month for us are both courtesy of Greg's work . . . there's the totally awesome Kennecott Employee Appreciation Night (that's just what I call it, I don't remember if it has an 'official' name or not) held at the Real Soccer Stadium. There's face painting, playing on the soccer field, tons of food, balloon animals, snow cones, and our favorite, the movie. You throw out some blankets, grab some popcorn, and they play "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" on the big screen. So much fun.

Then, as if throwing parties and writing Greg's paycheck weren't enough, Kennecott goes all out with one more giant step towards winning all my love and affection. In fact, at this point Kennecott could pretty much talk me into getting an "I Love Kennecott!" tattoo on my forearm. (Don't waste your time though Kennecott, Greg totally wouldn't allow me to do it.) Every summer they mail us Family Passes to several local family fun venues, each to be used at some point during the month of August. We've already been to the Dinosaur museum, and yesterday Greg took the girls to the Thanksgiving Point Farm, and today we met up with my sister Talina (who took a LONG lunch) and went to This is the Place Heritage Park. And we still have half a dozen other places we still need to get in this month!

Here's some pictures from the last couple days . . .

Greg got some pictures of the girls at the Farm.

Ellie LOVED riding the horses (and in the last two days has had about 6 or 7 opportunities to do so! Thanks again, Kennecott! Love you!)

Annie on a horse.

Annie with her hip cocked all sassily in front of the chicken coop.

Another horse ride.

Ellie's so proud of herself.

Annie & Ellie came home just gushing to me about all the fake cows you can sit on at Thanksgiving Point. It's the simple things in life . . .

This is unrelated to all the Kennecott-financed goodness, but one of our sweet neighbors gave us some hand me downs. Some for Annie, some for Ellie and a ton for Isaac. It was like Christmas. Here is Ellie in her favorite dress . . .

Here's Greg and Ellie holding Isaac. I'd just asked Greg to take the baby, when Ellie came running up, arms outstretched, crying out, "La la take! La la take!" (La la being her name for herself . . . she wanted me to hand her the baby, as she was just standing there with arms outstretched . . . we compromised, and she got to hold her brother on Daddy's lap.)

Isaac was less thrilled by the situation.

Close up of Daddy and Isaac's face squished up together.

Ellie wanted to get in on this, so Greg told her, "Come squish in with Daddy and Isaac . . ."
Which is why she has her hand pressing her face into Greg's . . . she was 'squishing' the best she could. :-)

Isaac chilling on Greg's arm. We find this position, him slung over an arm, keeps him the happiest most of the time.

Back to our summer of fun provided by Kennecott . . .
Here's Isaac in the sling at This is the Place Heritage Park.

Our little cowgirl again. Aunt Talina asked her what a horse says and Ellie enthusiastically shouted out, "Yee Haw!"

Annie atop her mighty steed . . .

Ellie loved chasing around after the animals and petting them. She kept getting right down on their level talking to them.

Annie hanging out inside some replica ship.

Annie and Aunt Talina hanging out on the ship's deck.

Greg, Ellie and Annie riding the little train. We rode the little and big trains a lot. It beat trying to get two kids to walk all day in the heat.

Isaac and Mommy cuddling in the shade. In his second outfit for the day -- after blowing out a diaper of epic proportions, decimating not only his clothes, but also the sling I'd been carrying him in. I'd packed a change of clothes, but with only one sling, I had to just carry him the rest of the time. Surprising how much 10-12 lbs. feels like after a couple hours.

Aunt Talina with Annie & Ellie on the little train again.

Annie sporting a 'coonskin cap and a wooden horse.

Isaac's first time in a coonskin cap . . . slept right through it.
Greg and I have found that taking pictures of our babies in gift shops wearing memorable hats beats actually paying for them. A picture lasts longer than touristy crap. :-)
(We have pictures of a sleeping Annie -- at about the same age -- in a Hogle Zoo hat).

Ellie takes fake-horseback riding as seriously as real horseback riding.

Playing in the village of miniature houses.

Isaac sleeping in his favorite position . . .

Ellie driving the wood train. She loved this wheel. She ended up spending a couple minutes in time out because she refused to share said wheel with other children. Always fun to have the non-sharing, then angry-crying-in-time-out child in public. But hey, as long as we're parents who notice our child isn't sharing and react by going and removing her from the situation and put her in time out, I'm happy.

It was so much fun. We were there for hours, but barely saw a fraction of the place. We've been there twice now, and I swear we've barely scratched the surface. Partly 'cause our kids are so young, and we spend a lot of time riding the train and all, but I think you could spend two days there without repeating anything . . .

Lagoon & the Fair

So, in the last couple weeks, my kids will have had a lot of fun riding various rides. We went to Lagoon and to a local community fair in the past few weeks (but I'd brought my older, smaller camera, and I totally forgot to download pictures until last night). The girls are surprisingly daring . . . they wanted to ride every ride they were big enough for, and sad to not be able to ride some they were too short for.

Ellie's favorite ride at Lagoon -- Moonraker. This is the ride when she came running to me afterward giggling, the lady standing by me, thoroughly impressed, said, "Oh my, she's so brave for her age!" "Thanks," I smiled, "she does seem to be having fun today!" "What is she, like 15 months old?" "Oh, no, she's two years old . . . "
I'm guessing two years old is less impressive :-)

Annie loved the swings -- even though she had to ride them by herself. She had to ride a lot of rides by herself, since Ellie was too small and I was too pregnant. She'd sit by complete strangers and smile and laugh the whole time. Ellie and Annie definitely loved running through the water fountains. I loved it, 'cause after several hours of being at Lagoon, soaking wet children meant it was time to go home. :-)

Then last week, we went to our local fair, where Grandma Karine spoiled the girls and bought handfuls of ride and game tickets.

This swing was a little more intense than the Lagoon one, and Annie LOVED it! Ellie was quite angry she didn't get to ride it, and pouted and refused to go on almost every other ride until she begrudgingly agreed to go ride the train again while Annie was on the swings.

Ellie getting her face painted/stamped. She seems unsure.

But she did think it was cool enough once it was done.

Mmmmm, free Otter Pops.

And yes, I'm still pregnant. And overdue. Let's not talk about it. :-)

Outside

Spring seems to have an undeniable pull on my children -- all they want to do is go outside. Days like yesterday: no problem! The rest of the time, when it's raining, snowing or hailing: it's more of an issue. Here's just a few pictures from the last couple days outside . . .

After being the 'bad guy' all day, and not letting them play outside, I finally acquiesced Monday afternoon, and told them to get dressed warm to go out for a few minutes in the light rain. By the time they were ready, it was raining hard. Then hailing. They decided they needed an umbrella.

Here's Annie running down the street in the pouring rain.

It was right as Greg was getting home, and he agreed to go fetch a runaway Ellie for me . . .

Ellie, while soaked, was not happy about being forced to come inside. (Annie wasn't too pleased either).

Then yesterday was beautiful and we spent hours outdoors. Mainly in the afternoon/evening, when we went to get pictures taken of the girls at Wheeler Farm (I'll post the professional pictures once I get them on CD -- I'm so excited!! Annie was being such a cute model, what with all the big smiles and cheesy poses. Ellie on the other hand just kept pointing out birds and ducks, and was angry we wouldn't let her run wild). After we were done with the photo shoot, we had Greg's parents, and sister Andrea, meet us at the Farm, and run around and look at the animals with us. The girls had such a great time being outside for hours on end . . . top that off by being treated to Frosty's at Wendy's afterwards, and not going to bed until 9PM, and they're convinced it was the greatest evening ever.

Here's Annie running around.

The girls both running free . . .

Here's Ellie playing tag with Grandpa KC -- she was having the time of her life.

The girls racing Grandpa to the cows . . .

Ellie wanted to just keep jumping off the hay bales . . .

Daddy, Annie, Ellie and Aunt Andrea got to pet the baby goat.

Here's the girls petting the baby lambs.

OK Mother Nature -- we're headed for the zoo right now -- keep up this weather, and you just might find yourself back on my good side!