Worn Out

On Friday night, Lydia went to bed at 10:00 because we got home late from the basketball game. Wesley walked in the door and begged for dinner. I couldn't believe he was still hungry but since he wanted to eat again, I fed him. He went to bed at 10:30. Both kids were up by 7:30 which was good since they had swim lessons at 8:30. Right after the lessons we went with MOPS to one of my favorite kid places. I really like this family farm because for the reasonable price of $6 per person there are pony rides, a hay ride, a moonbounce, a couple of slides, and farm animals including goats and sheep to feed. It is fun to play outside and get dirty and worn out.

Here is Wesley on the horse.

Lydia couldn't wait for her turn.
Wesley found this Woody toy on the hay and really liked playing with it. The family who owns the farm has small children who leave their toys outside for other kids to enjoy.

Here is Lydia "driving" the tractor.

Here is a friend of mine and her little girl who Wesley just adores. Right after I took this picture one of the goats sneezed on Chris. The snot shot right from the goat to Chris who was a couple of feet away.

Wesley liked feeding these goats because the fence kept them a safe distance away.

At some point while the kids where in the moonbounce I noticed that is was 12:30. They did not get out until 1:00. I think they were in there at least 45 minutes.

Layton stayed in there just as long our kids did. His mom finally bribed him out with food. Here are Lydia and Sara Grace playing on a wagon.

I love this picture of Lydia.

Wesley and another friend playing on the "horses".

We left a little before 2:00. We fed the kids lunch in the car and even turned on a video (usually reserved for long car trips) in an attempt to keep them awake until we got home 30 minutes later. Lydia was so tired and sleepy that I turned around and started moving her arms and legs in an attempt to keep her awake. She barely stayed awake in the car. She fell sound asleep as I was getting her out of car seat and she slept through her diaper change. She slept for over two hours.

Wesley took a bath and then went to bed for his nap. I had to wake him up after two hours so he could eat dinner. (We had friends over for dinner and I will have to share you with the easy and delicious dinner we had in another post.) He told us repeatedly before dinner, "I want to go back to bed." When we reminded me that we had cake for dessert he said, "I am too tired for chocolate cake." Well, he rallied and ate his dinner and dessert before going back to bed.

Cotton Candy Ruined the Night

Tonight we took the kids to the Wizards game. The tickets were free to us and Chris suggested we take the kids. They were so excited despite the fact that they knew nothing about basketball. The seats were great. Thankfully basketball games are short (a little over two hours). The kids did get squirmy but there were a lot of things for them to watch. There is entertainment every time there is a big break in the game. The half time show was great – trampoline guys doing tricks.

I enjoyed the evening even though I didn’t get to watch as much of the game as I would have liked. It is a little distracting having kids climbing all over you.

The kids had a good time. They loved clapping and cheering along with the crowd.
We skipped dinner because we knew the kids would want food at the game. We had a pretzel, popcorn and nachos. At one point Chris got up to fill the kids’ cups with water and someone came by selling cotton candy. I thought, “Why not? It will keep them in their seats.” Wesley kept asking for more "cottoned ball."
When Chris got back he was not happy that the kids had cotton candy. He wasn’t concerned about the lack of nutritional value; he was worried about the kids touching him with their messy hands and ruining his clothes. This brings me to the second reason that Chris did not have a good time. He mentioned this morning that he might want me to bring him clothes to change into for the game (we met him at Pentagon City and took the Metro) but he didn't sound like it was certain. Since he didn’t mention it on the phone, I forgot all about it. He had on wool dress pants, a shirt, and a tie. He was very hot at the game and wished he was wearing shorts (it was in the 60s outside but warm in the arena). The fact that he was wearing his work clothes added to the fear of the kids ruining his clothes. Thankfully, they didn’t damage his clothes.

So, in the end the cotton candy didn't ruin the night but I inadvertently contributed to his lack of having a good evening. Hopefully for our next outing we will be more on the same page.

Election Day

After hearing how this year was going to be the largest turn out ever for elections, I realized I should get a sitter. I realized that if I waited over an hour with two little kids I would be thinking, "I would pay anything for sitter right now." Thankfully, our 16 year old next door neighbor was available Tuesday morning.

Chris went to our local elementary school and waited an hour at 6 AM. I went at 9 AM. I know I could have gone later and avoided the line but I wanted to go to the zoo with a friend. After waiting 15 minutes in a very long line that was moving slowly, a poll worker came and asked for people whose last night began with P through Z. We got to pass over one hundred people and move right up to where we showed our IDs. The people we passed said things like, "It's your lucky day. You should play the lottery." (I don't play.)

After skipping most of the line, I waited less than five minutes and filled in my paper ballot and then fed it through the machine.

Before I got married, I loved that my last name was near the beginning of the alphabet. For some reason this seemed to matter in school. But on election day I was thrilled to be near the end. It even saved me some money on the sitter.

After I finished voting, I went to get the kids and we headed to the zoo. It was overcast and rain was threatening thus almost no one was at the zoo which was awesome.

My kids and my friend's kids had fun playing in the drinking water fountain. That is how Wesley got so wet. I didn't mean to let him play in the water....
Here are all four kids. Michelle's oldest son had school on Tuesday. James is holding onto Wesley so that neither one of them would fall.

Isn't this cute. I love James' hair. I love James; he is a great kid.

Don't Joseph and Lydia look like twins?

Joseph is three months older and bigger than Lydia. She pulled on his jacket at one point to get him to come with her but he didn't want to go. She ended up pulling him over. She thought this was hysterical and she did it several more times. Ugghhh...

The sea lions were showing off and we enjoyed the show.

Lydia pointed to this large globe and said, "Epcot!"

We only saw the lower part of the zoo. It is amazing how little of the zoo you get to see in one visit with kids. But it is fun!

Swimming - Wordless Wednesday

Fall in the Neighborhood

I grew up in rural southwest Virginia. My parent's land backs to a very wooded area that always produces beautiful fall colors. One of my best friends from high school lived right beside of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Growing up, I knew that the area was very pretty and that many people drove the parkway just to see the leaves in the fall, but I didn't really appreciate the beauty. To me, the leaves were no big deal since they changed colors every year.

Now, I appreciate the beauty of God's creation more year around. I have always loved the warm spring weather and gorgeous flowers and I love the long, hot summer days but now I also enjoy the fall colors even if they signal shorter days and colder weather. I think I also like autumn more since having kids; there are so many fun fall activities.

Our neighborhood looks beautiful this week, especially the county park in the middle of it.
Just past the bridges you can see the start of the big hill that is such a great workout with the double stroller.

Lydia wanted to help Wesley take his bicycle down the hill from our house.Lydia rode the ride-on toy for a little while.

Wesley had a hard time steering around Lydia.

There is a small stream that looks beautiful now.

I tried to get some pictures of Wesley without his helmet.
Lydia is such a sweet girl most of the time.

Wesley did a great job riding his tricycle yesterday. I think we should get him a bike soon. Lydia wanted me to carry her and the ride-on toy most of the time. I did make her walk some but she got rather tired.

The kids took a little rest while I got lunch together.

Falling Back

Ah, the time changed and the days are getting shorter. This is not my favorite time of year but I do enjoy the colors of fall and the holiday preparations, shopping, and celebrations.

I hope everyone remembered to set their clocks back an hour on Saturday night.

I went to college an hour away from home and a half-hour away from my grandmother’s house. I sometimes took “Granny” to church on Sunday mornings. One Sunday during my freshman year I showed up at her house and she greeted me with, “Why are you so early?” I had no idea that I was an hour early. I had totally missed hearing that it was time to change the clocks. I guess I didn’t watch or listen to the news very much that first semester.

Of course now that I have kids I don’t really get that extra hour of sleep in the fall. They were wide awake at six on Sunday morning. After church we decided to go out to eat even though Lydia was exhausted from being in the nursery for two and a half hours. She usually begs, yes begs, for a nap as soon as we get home on Sundays. Yesterday, she was even more tired because her internal clock was still an hour ahead. She fell asleep on the way to the restaurant and continued to sleep when we got her out of the car. She slept for about 30 minutes before she woke up and ate her lunch.

First I tried holding her. It was nice to snuggle with her but that made it hard to eat the chips and salsa.

So, I laid her down in the booth.

Once she woke up, she quickly figured out we were eating lunch and she joined right in. She loves chips and salsa just like her mommy does.

We put Lydia in her crib when we got home but she never went back to sleep. She was a bit of a mess while I was cooking dinner. She was so tired, poor thing. She went to bed before Wesley got home from cubbies

A Fun Halloween

How was your Halloween? We had a great day. A friend's little girl turned two on Thursday and her party was on Friday. The theme for the party was Peter Pan. The birthday girl was Ticker Bell (in green below). One of her sisters was Peter Pan and the other was Wendy. Some of the little girls were in fairy or princess costumes, but my little girl was a pirate. We had a lot of fun at the party and I loved that the kids got to wear their costumes.

The father of the birthday girl (seen here reading Peter Pan) is our pastor. He is the Young Adult Pastor. Chris has passed the "young adult" age and I am at the upper limit but we love Danny's sermons and the Venture service.

Here is a photo of Wesley and some of the other kids playing with a stamp set. When I took a closer look I saw that Wesley was squeezing the stamp pad with his fingers. Urrghhh....
Peter Pan was kind enough to let Wesley play with her sword.

I loved trick or treating Friday, probably more than the kids did. We made the mistake of letting Wesley see the candy that Chris was going to hand out at our house. I didn't foresee that he would then ask for the next 30 or 45 minutes to go home. He kept saying, "I want to go home and get the candy at our house." He didn't understand that most of that candy would still be there when we got home.

I liked trick or treating so much because I liked chatting with our neighbors. We were out for almost two hours. It is not that we went to so many houses but we spent time talking to people. Lydia was exhausted when we got home despite the fact that I carried her a lot.

Several of our neighbors had elaborately carved pumpkins. The one of the right was eaten by a squirrel.

It was fun to see the adults who dressed up. Wesley now thinks skeletons are pirates.

A few houses in the neighborhood were really well decorated. Wesley wanted his picture taken with this spider.

This witch did scare the kids at first. Her eyes lit up and she cackled very loudly. The owner came out and talked with the kids and then they saw it as funny and started laughing along with her.

The same house had this scary woman in the front yard along with the buried skeleton.

One of my neighbors who claims to hate Halloween had this very pretty decoration on her front porch.

Now we have too much candy. I put it on top of the refrigerator. Out of sight out of mind, right?

So, how was your Halloween?