A Week in the Country

The kids spent this past week in the country with my parents. One day they went to the Fort Chiswell Animal Park.

The kids fed this camel when he stuck his nose through the windows of the bus.

 

They saw a water buffalo and lots of other animals.

And fed the goats.

Even Josiah fed the goats.

I really can't believe this picture.  My mom is not an animal person so I'm surprised she fed a goat. 

The kids went to a nice playground.

They also did the slip-n-side.

One highlights of the trip for Wesley was seeing this snake out at Mabry Mill. 

Tonight at dinner, Wesley asked if they could stay two weeks next year. It sounds like they had a great time.

A Big Accomplishment

This summer has gone by so quickly. One of the big goals for the summer was potty training Josiah.  He turned two at the end of July and we feel blessed that he was potty trained by then.

Josiah basically stayed home for two weeks to work on it.  One of those weeks, Wesley and Lydia were in a Vacation Bible School.  I had so many errands I wanted to run, but I stayed home and played with Josiah.

He loves play-doh so we played with a lot of play-doh.  I always play with him a lot (I think more than I did with the other two children at this age) but during these two weeks, I felt like I couldn't do anything else.  I felt like I had to stay right with him.  Thankfully, I had a babysitter who followed through with everything.

He loves using the scissors.  He has to use two hands but he can cut the play-doh.

We tried letting him watch videos while on the potty.  This was during the first couple of days when we were putting him on there just hoping something would happen.  He enjoyed watching videos of songs, like the Elemo potty song.

One day, Josiah and I spent two hours in the master bathroom playing with trains.  This was why we brought out the trains - so, we could play with them while we worked on potting training. 

 

In addition to playing with play-doh and trains, he colored pictures.

I found it interesting that he kept his diaper dry when we had to go pick up his siblings, at nap time, and even all through the night but he was going a lot on the floor.  After numerous accidents on the floor, he suddenly got it.  And once he got, he got it.  Thank you God!

Our Little Buzz Lightyear

Wesley and Lydia love dressing up in costumes. Josiah is just starting to want to put on parts of costumes. He likes wearing Buzz Lightyear's wings. One afternoon, I thought it would be fun to put him in the entire costume (minus the cap which I couldn't find but I'm sure it is here some place).

This was Wesley's Halloween Costume when he was four.  The goggles were always too small for him, but they fit Josiah perfectly right now.  The rest of the costume is a little big for Josiah.

He looked so cute!

Lydia and Wesley also wanted their picture taken.

Josiah wore the costume for a little while then wanted it off.  He was soaked in sweat.  Later, he wanted it back on it.  This little cycle continued the rest of the evening and through the next morning.

Favorite Night in the Neighborhood

Last night was my favorite night in our neighborhood-National Night Out.

Josiah loved the fire truck.

Lydia liked it too.

A group of neighborhood kids in the ambulance.

Wesley was only interested in this awesome moonbounce.

He spent most the of night climbing this little rock wall.

The kids did go inside the clubhouse to eat.  We told them no ice cream unless they ate a hamburger or a hot dog.  They also had some chips and fruit.

The National Night Out mascot.

McGruff the Crime Dog.

When Josiah finished his ice cream, he immediately asked for more.

The kids had so much fun on this moonbounce.

Look how sweaty Wesley is.  He had been playing for over two hours.  He only stopped to eat.

After he took a shower he said, "I feel much better now."  

The kids had so much fun. I loved getting to catch up with so many neighbors.

Ropes Challenge and Other Challenges

On Saturday we went to Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC.

As we walked into the zoo on Saturday, I realized that Lydia was wearing a Superman cape that was cut from one of my old shirts.    

Since we got into the zoo free with our museum membership, we spent money on activities like the carousel.

Josiah loved the carousel.

Lydia got to climb her first rock wall.  The two places where Wesley has done rock climbing require kids to be six years old.  At the zoo, you just have to weigh 40 pounds.

Josiah got to climb on the playground.

The koalas were taking a nap.  The little baby was so cute.

Wesley fed the goats.

Lydia also fed the goats.

Josiah loved feeding the goats so much that he threw a little fit when it was over.

Wesley, Lydia, and Chris did the Sky High Safari Ropes Challenge Course.

At one point Chris yelled down to me, "You wouldn't like this."  I know I would not like it.

Josiah got to feed the giraffes with Grandma.

Lydia wore her cape on the ropes course.

There goes Wesley.

There he is up on the big steps.

This part was hard for Lydia and she didn't go any higher.

There's Wesley still going higher.

Lydia and Chris.

Wesley up on two high beams.

There he is at the top.  He loved the ropes course and went all over it.

A cute meerkat.

Josiah looking at a gorilla.

We do a lot of fun things with the kids and most of the time we all have a blast but some days don't go as well as other days.  We drove to SC on Friday and everyone went to bed really late.  Of course, they still got up at 7:00 and everyone was tired.  That's not an excuse but somewhat of an explanation.

I hesitate to share about their poor behavior but in the interest of "keeping it real", I'll share.

 Wesley and Lydia did an unusual amount of complaining on Saturday.  Wesley is normally so happy-go-lucky but he complained a lot about the heat.  He loved the ropes course but he didn't love walking around the zoo.  Lydia complained about various things and had to have a timeout after a bad reaction to not getting a souvenir penny.  Here you can see her bad attitude.

Those are kangaroos right behind the kids.

It was fun to watch the grizzle bear playing in the water.

Thankfully, Lydia perked up a little later but no one got a special zoo treat, like an Icee or ice cream.

Later both kids were talking about how much they liked the zoo and naming all the cool things that saw and did.  If only they had acted like it all day.

I didn't get any pictures of our fun night.  Chris' oldest brother hosted the Olympics for the kids.  They played Wii games and got gold medals for winning.  It was a blast.  The cousins always love playing together.