Crazy sister!

I have to share today about our baby girl, she has come up with some fun things lately.  One thing, I’m sure all kids love and that is rocking.  Even Luke loves to rock…he just can’t do it the same as his sissy.  She’s gotten really good, and of course…like her brother Luke she finds this really funny.

The other day Faith was making me laugh.  Every school day we have the same routine.  We had just finished breakfast and I did the usual by pulling out her chair from the table so I could get her shoes on, going to get her shoes and them coming back.  Only when I was on my way back (which only took a couple seconds) I noticed she had her foot up in the air and had a hold of her milk cup.  This in itself is not abnormal, but she then took her cup and tipped it so that her big toe was at the receiving end of the cup.  It was like she was trying to give her big toe a nice big swig of milk!  Oh..my silly girl….where does she get this from?

Let there be light!

Once again Luke’s humor comes to the surface.  It may not be an “awe” moment like when God said “Let there be light” and the sun appeared…but Luke loves to turn the lights on and off.  He used to do this when we sat him on top of a dresser by the wall in his bedroom while praying before bed.  Now Luke is tall enough to reach the light switch….only he rarely gets the chance to play with it since he has be standing to reach the switch.

Well the other day when Luke came home from school, I let Luke walk into the house with his walker.  He took off down the hall and before I knew what was happening I heard Luke and our baby girl laugh.  I just had to investigate!

I look in the hallway and Luke is standing at the end of the hall turning the lights on and off and laughing like it was the funniest thing ever!  Great OT skills!

Easy Entertainment

On our way home from Baltimore at the beginning of the month, we entertained the kids with food, peek-a-boo and lots of Veggie Tale movies.  But, Luke being…Luke came up with his own entertainment.  It always amazes me what he finds so funny.

I can blame Luke’s cousins on this one though.  It wasn’t his original idea.  On our Wisconsin vacation this year, his cousins decided to teach Luke and our baby girl how to blow on each other’s tummies.  Which both kids found really funny.

Well…since Luke was in the car and he couldn’t attack his sister’s tummy…he decided to blow on his arm…and laugh….blow on his arm..and laugh.  This all lasted a good 20 minutes.  At least he was happy and he wasn’t throwing anything!

So funny and so Cute!

So I mentioned last week about going to the zoo.  Well our first “zoo experience” on our trip actually was scrapped since it was raining.  So we looked into doing a Children’s Museum…which was closed and then we looked at going to the Aquarium….which was WAY too expensive to take really young kids to.  So what do we do?  Find a mall?  Stay at the hotel?  Turned out that there was a Bass Pro Shop that was attached to a mall!!  A good combo.

So off we went to the Bass Pro shop, where we saw animals…they were just stuffed.  We also had to stop and try on a few hats!  

We also had to try out a nice chair!

After walking all over the Bass Pro Shop we went in to the mall area and ate lunch at the food court.  After lunch we started walking back towards the Bass Pro Shop to get to our car, and on the way one of the funniest things happened.

Our baby girl has been known to “help” her brother from time to time, to back up his walker or get around something.  Well, for some reason she decided we weren’t walking fast enough so she grabbed a hold of the back of Luke’s walker and pushed him all the way across the mall and through Bass Pro Shop to get to the parking lot.  Not only was she steering and pushing Luke, she kept saying “Beeee..Beeee” for “Beep Beep”.

So funny!  Even people who walked by and saw this laughed!

Animals and More Animals!

While we were on our “vacation adventure” out to Baltimore, MD…we took a couple extra days to visit some zoos.  The day we were planning to visit the Baltimore zoo it rained…so we did the next best thing and went to the Bass Pro Shop!  At least we got to see some animals…only they were stuffed.  There were a few LARGE moose and several kinds of bears, including a Grizzly.  They also had a large aquarium with types of local fish.  So there were some live animals!

The second zoo we went to was in Columbus, OH on our way home.  That one we were actually able to go to, and if anyone is thinking of going there I highly recommend it.  It was very large, you could spend your whole day there.  We only spent 2 ½ hours, but we did cover a lot of ground.

When we go places like the zoo we use our Step 2 wagon, we can no longer use the double stroller since Luke is way too tall and since he doesn’t control his legs well, they usually hang over and get caught in the front wheels.  So for Christmas last year the grandparents got the kids this wagon so it would make going to the zoo and other places like it much easier…which it has.

No matter where we go we always have to visit the zoo, not for the kid’s sake but for my husband’s….he is a zoo fanatic.  He wants pictures of all the animals…even if you can’t tell what it is when you look later on.  I’m not sure Luke and our baby girl cared for a whole lot.  Although our baby girl really liked the penguins and Luke really liked the gorillas and monkeys.  He got really excited when he saw them.

Luke also liked the Polar Bears who were playing a lot in the water with the blue barrel and our baby girl showed her dislike of the roaring lion after about 20 seconds of listening to him roar.  I’m not sure he was her favorite.

Traveling Frenzy

Am I the only mom out there who can’t seem to understand why we go on vacation?  It seems so stressful.  Before we leave we wash laundry, wash the car, vacuum the car, vacuum the house, pack the kids clothes, pack our own clothes, pack the medicines, pack the emergency medicines, pack some toys, pack the DVD’s, and don’t forget the DVD player!  That’s only part of my list….I could go on and on.  I haven't mentioned the two pack and plays...or even the wagon that seats two!  I’ve gotten to where I keep an Excel sheet with all the things we need…and I have four “worksheet” in my “workbook”.  If your familiar with Excel you know what I mean, if not there are tabs at the bottom that allow you to have as many sheets as you want in one file.  In our “travel sheet”, I have one for our Wisconsin vacation, one for short trips (2 or 3 days) , and one for our Baltimore trips.

We just got back from Baltimore.  It was a 14 hour drive, that we split into two days.  But we were gone for over a week…first we spent a few days in St. Louis with the grandparents and went to the zoo…then we came home for about 36 hours and then left again for Baltimore…left on a Monday…came back on a Sunday.  Anyway…there was so much “stress” on what to remember to pack…and packing what we could ahead so that when the kids got up the following day we could leave as fast as possible. 

I spent so much time just getting ready to pack by doing laundry…not once…but twice.  Then I spent 3 hours cleaning our van from top to bottom.  Booking hotels…and confirming them….getting books from the library so I have something to read in the car…it seemed to never end.  There was a sigh of relief when we were all packed and on our way finally.

Then we make it through the week and we finally make it HOME!  Aaahhh…home sweet home!  Only…when you get home you can’t just walk in and collapse on the couch…no you have to unload the car, sort through all the stuff and put things away….do laundry….and more laundry….and yet more laundry.  Then….you have to clean the car or in our case our van once again…although this time I didn’t spend 3 hours…just an hour or so vacuuming it out well.  Since the drive was so long we fed the kids on trays attached to their seats and we drove down the road…the result was lots of crackers, teddy grahams…and some chicken and even some hotdog and ketchup (the result of our baby girl deciding to throw her ketchup covered corn dog all over the place).

So when it is all said and done, I sit back and wonder…is a vacation really a vacation?  It feels like so much work…at least with young kids.  I can only hope it gets better as they are older…and for us as Luke becomes stronger and more independent.

Can you see how full our van was?  We even had two coolers...one between the middle seats and one between the driver and passenger seat!  Good thing we had the "stow-and-go" option on our van...or else I'm not sure we would be able to see out the back!

A new NASCAR track

My husband absolutely loves NASCAR, I don’t get why.  After all the cars just go in circles.  I’ve been to a couple races with him, and I have to say it is better in person.  I still can’t sit and watch it on TV…..but being in person you have the loud sound of the engines, combined with the smell, and you can actually see how fact the cars are really going when you can see the whole track at once. 

Well the other night we took the kids outside to play after supper.  Luke was playing with the club house and opening and shutting the doors, when my husband starts walking around the clubhouse and our baby girl starts to follow.  Before I knew it my husband was walking circles around the clubhouse with our baby girl and Luke following him.  They made several laps.  My husband then says “we made our own NASCAR track”.  I just had to laugh.

Then our baby girl fell down and my husband says, “oops…baby girl spun out!”.  I just laughed some more.  I tried to get this on video so you can see for yourselves.

1-800...GRANDMA

A few months ago I went with some girl friends to Amish country. While there I saw a magnet that said “I’ve had it! I’m calling 1.800.GRANDMA”. It was one of those things I had to buy, I thought it was so funny and yet so true! I’m not sure what it is about grandparents but them to make Luke and our baby girl do things that we can’t.


Just one example of this happened this past weekend. We piled the kids along with the grandparents into the car and drove to St. Louis. The plan was for my husband, grandpa and I to go to the Carndinals game while grandma baby sat and then go to the zoo on the following day. It was a good weekend overall, although very HOT.

The room we got at our hotel for the night was a suite with two separate rooms. We try to do this whenever possible since neither of our children will go to sleep if they can see us and know they are missing something….especially Luke. When we got to the hotel it was nap time, so we set up the pack-n-plays and laid down the kids for their naps. Our baby girl cried for 5 minutes and went to sleep….but Luke was another story.

We had to put Luke’s “crib” in a corner of the kitchen area. There was a narrow spot where the “crib” would be “sealed in” on three sides. On the back side was the wall, one side was right next to the refrigerator and the other had cabinets. The crib also fit in such a way that the end stuck out a little by a kitchen table.

It didn’t take more than a few minutes for Luke to figure out he could peek around the wall by the refrigerator to see into the big room. My husband and I were sitting on the couch, but once we saw he was just peeking out at us we went to the other end of the room where Luke could not see. My husband took the chair in the corner while I sat on the floor.

Then about 10 minutes passed and I thought Luke might have gone to sleep…instead I hear BANG…BANG!! Sure enough Luke figured out that there was a cabinet DOOR and he could open and sut it with a BANG! He loved that! Only….he wasn’t going to sleep. After he played a while Luke was quiet and I thought he might have gone to sleep…but when I checked around the wall I saw Luke’s head above his “crib” and quickly saw that he was leaning out as far as possible to try and look around the wall.

The silly little man never did take a nap….his daddy got fed up with Luke playing with the cabinet door and got him out of his “crib” after he had been in there for about an hour. So much for a nap!

Then that night when the three of us went to the game and we left the kids with grandma….I was worried he would play around and not go to sleep for her either. I should have known better, the kids are always better for the grandparents.

We came back from the game and found out that Luke not only went to sleep….but when he fell asleep he was sitting up with his back up on the side of the “crib”. I couldn’t believe it! The kid that never falls asleep in the car no matter how long the trip or in any sitting up position, actually fell asleep sitting up!!