Learning "yes"

This summer the local gas station had all their fountain drinks on sale for $0.50 for the month of August.  I had a fantastic idea to surprise the kids with root beer floats on the last day of the sale, right before school started.

Well, it was a great idea until I started picking up kids from summer camp and daycare only to discover they were being ungrateful and disrespectful to their mommy.  They were coming up with excuses for not doing as asked when they should have just been saying "yes" and moving on.  I was really upset and beside myself with the behavior...and so sad about the choices they were all making in words and actions.

I think Jason was gone for part of the evening and by the time he returned home, I had given up on any hope of giving them root beer floats as a treat.  I told them about my surprise plans and how disappointed I was in their behavior that afternoon and evening.  No floats for them that night.

You better believe though that as soon as they went to bed, I pulled out the tub of ice cream and made myself one to enjoy while I complained to Daddy about how awful of parenting we must be doing for them to act that way.

The kids are lucky though and I didn't drink all the pop or eat it with ice cream.  I saved some for the next night and because they seemed to truly feel bad (or maybe just want ice cream enough) and acted better, they got to enjoy the root beer floats the next night with semi-flat pop and ice cream.  Lesley brought home the above note from summer camp and we talked extensively about how sometimes you just have to say "yes" and do as you are told.  That's the way it works when Mommy and Daddy are in charge.

I think some good lessons!  And, I sure hope the gas station has their $0.50 drinks next summer too.  Love root beer floats!

Love/Hate Relationship

Leah and Levi sort of have a love/hate relationship these days.  Or maybe it's just a Sister/Brother relationship....

They were working so well together getting Levi's clothes bin organized for the week.  One outfit, one pair of socks, and one diaper in each compartment so it's easy peasy for him to get ready in the morning.  And, actually this is more for Daddy so we make sure to mostly wear clothes that match and go together each day.

But, then the next day they are fighting like siblings do I suppose.  He's such a boy and such a brute.  She has not chance against him mostly because she plays nicely while he uses force to win.  These next few years are going to be fun trying to keep in line and defend her as needed.  I'm a big fan of letting the kids work things out amongst themselves, which the girls do pretty well....but not sure we can rely on that approach with Levi right now or in the near future.

Family Zoo Trip

We made a family trip to the zoo back in August.  It was Daddy's first time there and it was a good morning to walk around and just take our time.  The new playground was open so we spent a LOT of time there, but then also went out to the farm area for the first time.

It's not a big zoo, but it's close to home so a few hours seems sufficient each time we visit.  There are still sections we have not yet visited so it will be fun to continue exploring in future years.  Thankful for places so close to home to visit!

Biker girls

Bad to the bone! Na, na, nuh, na!

If you are driving (or walking) in our neighborhood, keep your head on a swivel because the girls have been cruising their turf!

Ok, ok, we don't let them cruise the streets without our supervision but they still like to get out as often as we can go with them.  Leah just started to ride without training wheels earlier in the year, but she has been doing a great job.  We started her on a short bike so she can quickly recover by herself if she starts to fall.  The plan was to move her to a slightly larger bike once she was more comfortable on the small bike, but she doesn't like the larger bike.  So we will wait until next spring/summer before introducing the bigger bike.  It's pretty funny to watch her legs peddle super fast on the short little bike.

Jason only had to work with Leah for a couple of evening and she had the hang of riding on her own.

Watch out for these biker chicks!  The are all over the place!

Open Wide Kiddos - Trip to the dentist

The kids had a dentist check up in late August before school started.  Daddy stuck around just long enough to help with Levi and then they headed off to daycare.  Both Levi and Leah did fantastic with no issues noted.  Of course we got the friendly "you need to floss their teeth more" reminder, but still I thought it was a good visit.

Lesley is old (and brave) enough to go off to her own room so no photos but I think she does pretty well too.  She unfortunately had the start of some cavities so we had to make a return trip back to get them taken care of.  Overall, we aren't that pleased with this dentist office and kind of feel like their communication is poor and the doctor is not very direct, i.e. requesting things not necessary.  We are switching health and dental insurance in 2016 and the pediatric dentists we really wanted to go to are on the new plans so we will be scheduling appointments there going forward.

Wyoming and trip home

Pictures from our week in Wyoming....from my phone...

Levi and Papa enjoyed sitting at the counter reading magazines and playing with Levi's tractors.  The magazines had lots of tractors and farm equipment in them too!

Breakfast on the back deck with Grandma.  We would alternate where we ate since the sun was too bright in the front of the house in the mornings and the same was true for the back of the deck in the evenings.  Both had great places to hang out and eat though!

We went on several hikes near the house and spotted lots of animals.  "Levi, I think the binoculars are upside down."  :)

We went into town to watch the rodeo one day.  It was really fun, though not easy to entertain all the kids for the full show.  We ended up splitting up and some of us would take the kids for a walk while others watched the events.

Obviously we rode a lot of four wheelers this week.

Levi was ALWAYS on top the four wheelers and would get really upset if he couldn't be in charge.

Aimee is pretty amazing for taking all three of her girls on a ride.

And of course Grandma took the kids for a spin or two!

There was a small little lake not too far from the house.  We could ride the four wheelers up there.  We ALWAYS saw antelope on our way there and it was fun for the kids to throw rocks in the water and check things out.

Another family selfie!  Lesley's missing teeth just crack me up!

Buster fell asleep on one adventure.  When we stopped for a snack and water break, Daddy just laid him on a blanket and kept sleeping.  Power nap at it's finest!

Sleeping arrangements were not ideal, but they actually worked pretty well.  Each family got their own bedroom and Grandma and Papa slept in the loft area which was pretty secluded (except noise).  The girls slept on the floor and Levi in a pack n play next to the bed, but he pretty much always ended up in the bed.  Our goal was for everyone to get as much sleep as they could and it was pretty successful...except for the night Lesley woke up vomiting a few times.  It was random and no one else got sick.  Thank goodness!

One night Aimee, Mike, Jason and I went into town for a little date night.  It was needed and so fun!  We hit up the local brewery first and tried their selection, which included tasty root beer for this pregnant mama.  Next we went to eat at an Italian restaurant that was so good.  It was a nice break form the grilling and comfort type foods we had been eating.  Then, we did a little window shopping and back to the brewery for another "round".  This mama was the designated driver home!

After the fun week, we headed home hoping to make it all the way in just one day.  We left pretty early Saturday morning, made a breakfast stop a few hours into the drive, and then made our way across Wyoming to South Dakota.  We saw LOTS and LOTS of motorcycles again, and Levi was sure to point every single one out to us.  Traveling through Rapid City and Sturgis during the motorcycle rally week is quite interesting!

As we headed back east, Jason and I decided to make a little side trip through the Badlands.  We figured it's not every day or year that we will be in the are and even if it adds some extra time onto our travels, oh well.  It was already going to be a 12 hour drive and then would at least guarantee a few extra bathroom and stretch breaks.

We entered the park the bad way, i.e. via gravel/dirt roads.  Our GPS wasn't working all that great and of course we had no paper maps.  But, after a few "are you sure you are going the right way?" comments from the girls, we found the what I would call random Badlands.

We spotted more wildlife, went to the visitors museum, and helped the girls learn a little about the area.  I actually told them at one point the Badlands is a place where parents can leave bad children.  Lesley took me very seriously and started crying, I think she was concerned.

The drive across South Dakota wasn't all that fun, but we survived and pulled into home at some point after midnight I think.  The kids are good travelers, but it was a long day!  Snacks, a few movies, and many, many car games helped.

A fun week!

Trip west {Family vacation 2015}

We had a fantastic summer vacation in Wyoming!  One glich - about 30 minutes outside of town, I realized that I had forgotten to pack the camera.  Ugh!  So disappointed, but also not willing to turn around and go back to get it.  We were on a tight schedule to get to our hotel before the sun came up.  Ha, but really we were being aggressive with how far we could make it the first day.

And, now after the fact, I will say it actually was sort of a relief not to have the camera.  I wasn't constantly trying to get pictures of everything, I was still able to capture some memories with my phone, and I would just ask my sister, brother or mom to snap some for us from time to time.  Now I just need to sort through all their images and find those that document our family.

Headed out!  Happy faces for the first part of the drive.....to be honest, these didn't last the entire trip.  It was afterall about a 12 hour drive to our final destination.

The girls were able to watch a few videos in the way back of the vehicle and I'm so thankful that I packed our ancient DVD player for Levi to use.  Unfortunately we hadn't packed very many DVD's so he was forced to watch My Little Pony, which he didn't really seem to care.  He was still rear facing at this point so keeping him busy was a little bit of a challenge.

Daddy wanted to stop in Mitchell, South Dakota to see the famous Corn Palace.  It was closed, but we still got out to stretch our legs, snap a few photos, and grab a snack from the cooler.

Our first Vacation 2015 selfie!  Levi wasn't giving up the yogurt, he was a hungry boy.

Lesley has been begging and begging to go to Mount Rushmore and we knew that it completely made sense given we would be driving through.  We wanted to take at least a half day in the area, starting in the morning before things got busy, so that is why we pushed our travel the night before to get to Rapid City, South Dakota for the night.  We knew ahead of time that this week would have a lot of motorcyclists because of the annual Sturgis rally, but the kids were still in shock at how many we saw.  The word of the week for Levi was "motorcycle" and he made sure to point out every. single. bike. he saw.  It was awesome!  :/

Early that next morning, we headed out from the (overpriced) hotel to make Lesley's wish come true.  She truly just loved exploring the site, learning about the president's, and earning her Junior Park Ranger badge.  What a fun morning for her!

We headed out on the short hiking trail and snapped some pics along the way.

Lesley filled out her park ranger card throughout the course of our adventure and we all enjoyed the outdoors hiking and facts.

Levi didn't last too long in the carrier, but Mommy was fine with that.  Baby Tiny wasn't thrilled that I was even trying to carry Levi and this trip was the end of Levi's carrier days.

Lesley said that one of the Presidents looked sad so the task where she was to draw a President included one with a pouty face.  I think it was Roosevelt she was referring to. 

I've never understood why this National Monument gets so much attention, but I will admit I enjoyed learning the history and how South Dakota politicians tried to make South Dakota a vacation destination for Americans.

The both completed their booklets and were "sworn" in as junior park rangers!  I LOVED this program for the kids!  Hopefully we can get more badges in the years to come.

After our morning at Mount Rushmore, we headed west and found a park to enjoy lunch not far away.  It was till too much for Buster to handle and he feel asleep on the way there.  He enjoyed a nap on the picnic table while we enjoyed sandwiches, fresh fruit and vegetables...and some treats too.  :)

After lunch the girls went for a quick hike to explore the Black Hills a bit.

My little hikers!  Sporting KC Royals shirts of course.

  

After our lunch, we headed over to Jewell Cave to check things out.  We got our tickets, the junior ranger pamphlets and then Jason and the kids checked out the "test" you must pass to go on one of the spelunking adventures.  Needless to say, we did NOT do that trip and stuck with the basic option of just going into the cave and back out, via elevator.  :)

The kids could have gone!

It was dark inside the cave of course so the photos were pretty awful, but we still wanted to document our adventures.

We hadn't thought about the fact that it would be so cold down there.  I guess next time we do a cave adventure we'll have to bring jackets!

They finished the junior ranger challenge and were officially sworn in as junior rangers.  So awesome!  The girls now proudly display their badges and are excited to do more on future vacations.

Then, off to Wyoming!

A nice couple who also had stopped to take pictures took a few for us as well.

We even caught the South Dakota sign on the other side of the road.  Out of order of how we actually visited these states, but it was a good snapshot!

More to come....