The Park

This summer was hot and humid.  Last year we never had a day over 100, but this summer was much hotter and way more humid!  Last year we went for a walk almost every morning and went to the park all the time.  This year we walked a few times in June and played at the park a few times too, but after that it just got to hot and humid.  My kids are just like me, they love to be outside but only if the heat isn't unbearable or if it is, if they have a way to stay cool.  So we have spent most of our summer swimming, playing in the sprinkler and playing on the slip n slide.  We were outside everyday, but we always had water to play in to keep us cool! 
This last week has been awesome!  It hasn't gotten warmer than 75 to 80 and we have been taking advantage of it.  Every day since Sunday we have played at a different play area in town (parks and school playgrounds).  The kids and I have been loving it! 
Yesterday the kids asked to go to the park again, and wanted to have a picnic in the park.  So we got some McDonald's Happy Meals and hit the park.  We are usually so busy playing, that I don't even think to snap a picture very often, so I unfortunately don't have many pictures of our adventures. 

Kaden, Parker, Cooper and Brett
I love that they all wanted to sit on the same side of the table together!

Cooper, Parker, Brett and Kaden
They don't like to ride on the merry go round, but they love to push it. 

We are missing our "big kid" friends and cousins that came to play with us a lot over the summer, but we sure are happy to have this cooler weather! If only it could stay this way and we could have a short, warm winter!  I have lots of other pictures to share from our other recent adventures, so hopefully I can find time soon to post them!  

The Fair!

We took the kids to fair the other night.  Mostly just to eat and then to walk around.  Well, once they saw the rides, they wanted to ride.  I honestly didn't think they would, but I figured we would give it a try.  First we rode on the "horsies".  When we first got on, they were a little leary but as soon as it started, they loved it!  Brett wouldn't even get on the horse at first, but once it started moving, he pushed me away and said "I wanna do that!"

Parker and Papa

Brett and Nana

Cooper, Daddy and Kaden

 After we rode on the horsies, Brett said he wanted to ride on the cars.  So we decided to watch them a couple of times a see if they still wanted to.  They did, so we got more tickets and got in line. 

They all jumped right in and were excited to go.  Then Parker decided the cars weren't her cup of tea and wanted out.  The boys had a great time, and Kaden even cried when the ride was over.

They enjoyed it so much that we had to go again.  This is Kaden trying to figure out how to honk the horn.

Brett and Cooper

 After we pulled them away from the cars, we had to try out the boats.  Parker didn't want to ride, so her and Nana headed back to ride the horsies some more.  I think Parker rode the horsies 5 or 6 times.

Cooper in the middle row, Brett and Kaden in the back row. 

This is my favorite picture from the whole night!!!  Brett wanted to ride the boats one more time, but everyone else was done.  I walked him in, figuring he would decide he didn't want to go by himself but he had no problem with it.  When I asked him where he wanted to sit, he pointed to the seat next to this little girl.  I put him in, she helped him buckle up and he was ready to go.  I think she was a little embarrassed that I kept taking pictures, but Brett looked too cute! 

We all had a great time and can't wait to go again next year.  Or maybe we will even brave the 6 hour drive to Kansas City to try out Worlds of Fun!!!!  (Maybe)

The Circus

I was just looking through all the pictures I have recently uploaded to my computer and realized how much has happened in the last few weeks that I haven’t shared on here or on facebook.  Hopefully I can get caught up and take some time to blog about some of the stuff that we have been up to lately!  It feels like we go, go, go in the summer time, and blogging tends to take a back seat to all of the other stuff we do.

A few weeks ago I heard that the circus was going to be in Kearney.  I saw it advertised on tv and realized it was the next day.  It never fails that Lee has to work on the days that stuff like that is going on, so I started thinking of who I could call to go with us.  My mom had just had surgery for a detached retina, so her and my dad who always go to stuff like that with us, were out of the question.  I called several people, but since it was pretty short notice, everyone was busy.  I decided I was going to take the kids by myself.  I’m perfectly capable of taking my kids places by myself, it’s just easier to have a second set of hands. 

My mother in-law came to my rescue, called back and said that she could go with us.  Well, thank goodness she did since the kids freaked out before we even got inside the building!  We walked up to the door where 3 or 4 clowns were standing to take tickets.  Oh my goodness!  The kids completely freaked out!  I was holding two of them and Sue had two of them.  I’m not even really sure how I managed to get money out of my pocket since they had death grips on me.  Poor Cooper was squeezing my neck so hard I could hardly breath.  I don’t even want to think about how hard it would have been to get them inside by myself!  Thank God for Grandma Sue!

After we got inside, we found seats and they were still pretty nervous about the clowns.  Grandma came to the rescue and bought them all flashing butterfly lights.  I think Sue and I were both seeing spots by the time the circus was over, but it was totally worth it since they cheered up and started enjoying themselves after that. 

Parker showing me her butterfly.

Silly Kaden and his butterfly

Brett mesmerized by the flashing lights

Cooper

Kaden enjoying the show

Cooper and Brett

Cooper, Brett, Parker, Grandma, and Kaden

Such a big girl!

I don’t normally take pictures of the animals at the circus, but the kids wanted to show daddy what they saw.  This elephant was the best part of the show!  She danced and it was just plain awesome!  The kids kept saying, “It’s so big!  That elephant so big!”  They don’t remember seeing the elephants at the zoo last year and even though we look at pictures of elephants all the time, they didn’t realize just how big they are.

We had a great time at the circus!  Thank you so much, Grandma, for going with us!  Having you there made the clowns seem a little less scary and definitely made all those trips to the bathroom a lot easier! 

Happy Father’s Day!

Happy Father’s Day to the most wonderful Daddy ever!  You are such a good daddy to our four little people.  I can’t imagine traveling down this crazy road with anyone else but you.   I am so lucky to have you as my husband, my best friend and the father to my children.  Even though you will be at work, I hope you still have a fabulous day.  I love you and so do your babies!

Just a few of the reasons why we love our daddy so much…….

You give us horsy rides.

 

You snuggle with us and watch silly cartoons with us.

 

You show us how to use the slip n slide.  We know this was a big sacrifice for you. 

 

You help us learn how to slide on the slip n slide.

 

You keep us warm.

 

You give all of us rides at the same time so we don’t have to wait.

 

You keep watch over us so we don’t fall into the water while feeding the fish.

 

You laugh at us when we do naughty things like put butter in our hair.

 

You tell us how beautiful we are.

 

You give us lots of hugs.

 

You show us how to have a good time at a party.

 

You go down the big slide with us so we won’t be scared.

 

We love you so much Daddy and hope that you have a great Father’s Day!

 

 

 

A sweet story….

I am the first person to admit that I am a bit of a klutz.  I can seriously trip over air.  Yesterday I had one of my klutzy moments, and all of my sweet little people came to my rescue. 

It started when I sent Lee to Subway to get us some supper.  We had been outside swimming and Brett decided he wanted to go with Lee.  Since he was in just his underwear (yes, they swim in their underwear in the backyard) he ran inside, found some random clothes, and got dressed as fast as he could.  Lee had already left at this point, and the look on Brett’s face when I told him daddy was already gone broke my heart and brought tears to my eyes. 

He took off running for the back door with only one flip flop on yelling “Daddy! Daddy!  Wait for me!”.  Since Brett is just as much of a klutz as I am, I was afraid he would fall down the steps so I took off to catch him.  I saved him from falling, but in the process I snagged my toe on the door frame and thought I ripped my toenail off.

Brett’s tears immediately stopped when he realized I was hurt and he became very concerned about me.  I made it outside and sat on the steps trying not to cry (hey, it hurt really bad) and trying really hard not to say any bad words.  By this time, all four of my kids were crowded around me asking if I was ok.  I told them I was, but Parker kept saying, “You show Daddy you owie, Mommy?”  I assured her that we would show it to daddy as soon as he got back. 

I’ve always thought that my kids have some strange ESP thing with eachother.  Occasionally they will all look at each other and with out saying a word, they walk off together to do something like they just had a conversation about what they were going to do.  Well, they had another one of these moments where it was like they looked at each other and decided ok, Brett, you stay with Mommy and make sure she is ok.  The rest of us will get on our jungle gym and watch for Daddy to come home.  Brett stayed my my side and rubbed my back, patted my shoulder, and asked me repeatedly if I was ok.  The other three stood on their jungle gym and yelled, “Daddy!  Daddy?  Where are you? Mommy have owie!!!”  If anyone would have heard them, they probably would have thought I was seriously hurt!

They were so sweet to take such good care of me!  I love that they are so nurturing and always went to take care of me if I’m sick, tired or hurt.  Once again, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have these four beautiful little people in my life! 

 

 

 

Look at these sweet little faces!  Ignore the large pile of laundry on the dining room table, please! It’s never ending! 

What’s For Dinner?

My kids are obsessed with The Wiggles.  Totally obsessed!  We watch The Wiggles everyday, talk about The Wiggles constantly and we all have the dream of seeing The Wiggles Live someday. 

                              

Cooper is famous for relating EVERYTHING to The Wiggles.  It does matter what we are talking about or doing, Cooper thinks of a way that it is similar to The Wiggles, whether it’s a color, a song, a dance or just something that they say.  It’s really pretty impressive that he has that good of a memory.  They all love to dance and sing with The Wiggles and will occasionally just start singing and dancing even if The Wiggles aren’t on TV. 

Whenever I ask the kids what they want to eat for any given meal or snack, Cooper and Brett answer with “Wiggles!”  I’m not really sure what they mean when they say this, maybe they are wanting to eat with The Wiggles or watch them while they eat.  I don’t know for sure.  When I make pancakes I usually color them different colors and they always tell me which Wiggle color I have used.  I’ve been trying to think of a meal I could make that would include all four of the Wiggle colors, red, blue, yellow and purple.  I finally decided today to make cornbread into little mini muffins and make each of them a different color.  The colors didn’t turn out that great, but the kids were thrilled with their Wiggles cornbread!

Aren’t these pretty?

Kaden showing me his “Anthony” muffin.  It’s supposed to be blue, but looks green in the picture.

Cooper and his “Murray” cornbread which is supposed to be red, but came out more pink.  They didn’t seem to care!

Brett being goofy and eating his “Sam” cornbread.

These are the best pictures of Parker I could get.  She was too busy eating to smile.  She ate six mini muffins! 

Someday I hope to get to take them all to see The Wiggles for real.  They get so excited every time they come on TV, I can only imagine their reaction if they saw them in person!  They have a US tour this summer, but the closest they will be to here is in Chicago, about a 10 hour drive from here.  Unless I win the lottery sometime soon, I’m pretty sure we won’t be going! 

Vote for us!

Thank you so much for voting for us on the Circle of Mom’s Top 25 Parent’s of Multiples list!  I am absolutely blown away by how many votes we have gotten over the last couple of weeks.  You guys are awesome! 

Monday is the last day to vote, so make sure and keep voting over the next couple of days.  Just click here and click on the thumbs up to give us your vote!  You can vote every 24 hours.  Thank you so much! 

 

I hope you all have a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend! 

Our new favorite thing to do- sit on the front step and wave at cars going by!

Wordless Wednesday

All Dirty!

It has been raining like crazy here that last few days!  Every day the kids wake up, look out the living room window and give me a weather report.  If it's not raining, they immediately want to go outside.  The other day it wasn't raining, but everything was a wet sloppy mess.  I decided we could go out after lunch time, but they would have to wear their snow boots.  I didn't want to have to worry about washing tennis shoes, and snow boots can be sprayed off pretty easily, so snow boots it was!  They had a great time playing, and found that side walk chalk makes great paint when it's wet!  The colors are much more vibrant and it's really fun to rub it all over the ground, your self, mommy and cousin Grace. 

Cooper rockin the snow boots and shorts look

Brett wiping the water out of the wagon.  You gotta love Parker in the background with her hands on her hips!

Parker watching Grace draw a turtle

Kaden- Stylin' as always!

This is Parker's new thing to do when I tell her to smile so I can take her picture.  She closes her eyes and says, "You can't see me Mommy!"  Stinker!  Notice how she is holding her hands....she smeared purple chalk all over them and then didn't want to touch anything with them.

Cooper hanging out

She can totally pull off the snow boots with her shorts look!

Brett and Kaden decorating Grace with chalk.  Despite the look on her face, she was enjoying every minute of it!

Kaden showing me his messy hands and his purple lipstick!

Kaden doing the dishes

I wouldn't let them play in the sand because it was soooo wet. but Cooper went around the yard scooping up the little piles that were laying all over.

Brett painting his face

Cooper trying to give Brett and Kaden a ride

Their beautiful artwork!

They like to get dirty, and since kids and clothes wash, I figure why not let them get that way?  They had a great time, burned off some excess energy and I got some great pictures! 

Don't forget to jump on over here and give us a vote on Circle of Mom's Top 25 Parent's of Multiples List!  There is only a few more days left to vote, and you can vote once every 24 hours!  Thank you for all of your votes, we appreciate each and every one of them!