September Events

So here are our September Events since once again I'm behind in blogging.

Taking you back to Labor Day weekend. I had bought some groupon tickets to Adventure Oasis, which is a water park in Independence. We had plans to go with Michelle and Kendall and because our husbands work too much we couldn't get together until Labor Day weekend. Which of course was also the last weekend AO would be open for the season. Just our luck the whole weekend's high was going to only be about 70-something...not really swimming weather. Which is funny since tomorrow's high is like 80 and it's the end of September! Gotta love Missouri weather! So, we decided to brave the weather on the Saturday before Labor Day and it was rainy off and on all day too. We get there, literally take our shoes off, step in the freezing cold water and lightening strikes. So we had to get out of the water, wait 30 min without it striking again, but of course that didn't happen. So after using all of our $20 concession credit we decided to leave and come back to kill time while waiting for the sun to come out. We ventured to Dollar Tree and then headed back. We got out of the car, got everyone back into our suits (including the adults) and no lie, we step out of the car and it lightening's again! So we went to our fallback plan and wasted our money to Adventure Oasis, vowed to come back next year on a better weather day, and headed to the mall play place to use Kayley's credit for the free carousel ride from her birthday. Here are our pictures from the play place...I could never get Rex to look at my camera because he was just so excited to play on the toys!

Then the week after labor day we had quite the busy Saturday. These pictures are actually in the wrong order here as we went to the Parade first, then the soccer game, then the rodeo...but you get the idea!

So here are pictures from Audrey's soccer game! She did great!! She scored three goals in the game! We were impressed! Kayley has shown absolutely NO desire to play soccer, but you can see from the pictures below that she was having the time of her life playing on the sidelines with her sister and Lauren. She kept telling and showing us how she could score a goal just like Audrey did. Maybe next year I might get a soccer player on my hands...Cora for sure will want to play. And of course Rex and Ruby got some fun playing time in with each other!
So as mentioned before, the parade was first. It was the annual Grain Valley Fair Daze Parade. We've gone I think the past 4 years since we've been here and usually always sit in the same spot every year. This year we seemed to have gotten twice as much candy this year! And a very impressive Santa Claus was a quick draw to throw out three different small stuffed animals for the kids this year...they loved that! Rex was really cute snuggling with his!
And this was our second year going to the Jackson County Rodeo. This year Michelle and Kendall joined us and the kids had a blast. We actually stayed for the whole rodeo this year. Last year we only stayed for a little bit as Rex was younger and a little fussier as a baby. Not this year...he had a blast watching all the horses and bulls, etc. The kids had fun and we had some SUPER yummy kettle corn. Probably the best I've ever had in my opinion! I'm looking forward to next year's rodeo! It's definitely not as big as the Jaycee Bootheel Rodeo in Sikeston, but it's fun to do it with the kids!
And then two weeks ago Nick had a four day weekend with being off from work so we decided to try and take a quick fun visit to St. Louis, hit the temple, and then do something fun with the kids and get a hotel. We got a deal on a hotel on priceline the night before, checked out Kayley early from school on Friday so we could hit the road early and beat the Friday night traffic on the road and at the temple...only to find out that the temple was closed for cleaning! So we headed to the hotel, watched a movie with the kids in the room, took them swimming at the pool, went to get food to bring back to the room and have a party in the room (the kids, myself included) think that's a lot of fun. Then the next day we decided to go to Grant's Farm. We had not ever taken the kids there before and I think they had a lot of fun. We went through Ulysses S. Grant's home/tour and that was neat to see Kayley soak up that information and then headed to the farm to see the animals. It was cute because Kayley kept wanting me to take pictures of all the animals and we were on the tram so I had to act fast...good thing my camera is fast and has good zoom! Here are the pictures from the animals Kayley liked to see. We saw the elephants actually in the park and watched the elephant show. There is just something really neat watching the small trainer being able to tell that huge 15 ton elephant do things. It was neat! Kayley at first said she now loved elephants as soon as we walked up to their little habitat as they were really close and I think she loved seeing them. Then she said she thought she was allergic to the elephant when we went to the other side and all you could smell was the smell of the elephant and it's droppings! It was cute!
The goats...of course we all know goats eat anything! The kids liked the goats at first until they found out the same thing...including Rex. He was so willing to pet them at first and then they started eating his clothes and anything on him and he got a little skiddish. It was fun to see them interact with them though.
Then last week Kendall had a co-worker that has season passes to the Royals and being the end of the season she had a bunch of extra tickets. So we got to go to the game for free! The other great thing was it was on a Wednesday which is also the day during the week that most garage sales in Grain Valley are open. So I was able to get all the kids some Royal's type shirts. Kayley even changed out of her dress from school (she's been alternating two dresses almost every other day lately) and put on her royal's shirt very last minute! She wanted a picture of her at the game with the game in the background. The girls are both into having pictures by their bedside, I'm just not keeping up very well with printing them off. Oops! But the kids were really good and had a lot of fun.
The "Hall of Fame" letters I think were the biggest hit with the kids. Kayley was just posing left and right..."Mom take a picture of me here, and here, and here....." You get the idea...and she is also coming up with these posing faces. It's cute...but at least I can always count on her looking at the camera when I need to take a picture!
Kayley is doing awesome at school! They have this behavior chart and everyday you start on the color green and go up or down a color depending on your behavior for the day. She almost always goes up above the green everyday. She's reading!! And is so proud of herself! I knew when it would click, it would click! She would get so frustrated with me when I'd try to encourage or teach her so I never pushed it. I guess Mrs. Kirn is able to pull it out of her...now she loves being able to try to sound out words and is doing really well! I'm so proud of her!

Cora is excelling a lot in her speech class. You still have to remind her if she says a word incorrectly, like "Tora" for "Cora" (the t sound instead of saying the k sound) and other sounds. Her teacher is great and she really loves her. She has class with another little girl and enjoys being with her too. She is doing well with learning her letters too. We do a little bit of schoolwork at home and she loves that time. She knows how to spell her name out loud and is learning how to write some of the letters.

Rex is running around everywhere! On Kayley's birthday he decided to walk around without holding onto things and from then he has just built his confidence more and more. His favorite word is "do" for dog and says it every morning when he gets up and every night before he goes to bed and all the time in between. He can say "hulp" for help and of course Dada is his tried and true buddy still! He's growing so fast and I can't believe he's already almost 15 months old!

Kayley's birthday and more

So I was doing so good at blogging things on time and then life just happens and you get behind again. So here's a catch up post on the last couple of weeks. As some of you know August is our mega-month. Three birthdays, our anniversary, and now the start of school! So needless to say that explains why I'm just now posting about Kayley's birthday and other events from August.

Kayley had a very fun birthday. She had to go to school that day, but that's going to probably be the story of her life from now on with her birthday being on August 19th. She picked out her birthday outfit (just an outfit she had never worn before so it was a new one), she woke up and like Cora, I let her chose one present to open before school. She picked the one I didn't think she'd pick, the smallest one. But she was a bit more patient than Cora was for waiting to open her presents. Then I took her to school. Later in the day Cora, Rex and I were able to take treats to her school for her birthday. Then I went ahead and checked her out for the rest of the day because we were down to one car that day and Nick had taken the van to work and let's face it, it was blasted hot walking to and from school, so by the time I left from snack and got home we would have to turn around in 10 minutes to go back and pick her up for the day, so I just checked her out and saved us that extra time in the heat. Then the plan was to go eat out somewhere fun that night with her, but plans had changed with us being down to one car and we were going to go look at a truck we had found on craigslist in Topeka, KS. Before that however, Sarah and the girls came over for Audrey to drop off something for Kayley for her birthday and we had them join us to open her presents and eat cake and ice cream. Kayley was excited to have her cousins over for her actual birthday. Then we headed to Topeka to look at the truck, which we ended up buying the next day. But we ended up having a fun road trip for her birthday and they got to watch one of her new movies she got for her birthday in the car. I think she had a great birthday overall. She is so grown-up now it's hard to believe we have a 6 year old now. Kayley is very smart and always wanting to learn and know everything about something. She amazes me on a daily basis on things she knows that maybe I don't think she knows yet. She also is very willing and loves to learn anything and everything about the Gospel. Ever since our trip to Nauvoo she is very much into learning all about our Church's History. She is very willing to help out with her younger brother, although she is still the older sibling who likes to pick on her siblings every now and then. She is such a good student at school and always willing to learn there too. She loves arts and crafts and is very timid on trying anything physical. I asked her earlier this year if she wanted to do soccer. An immediate no was her response, not even a thought about it. However, this year she has seriously made leaps and bounds in swimming at the pool. She not only learned how to go all the way under, she has learned to jump off the side of the pool and go under all by herself without us catching her and without any type of floatation device. I'm very sad the pool is getting ready to close and hope that we are able to swim in hotel pools throughout the winter year so she doesn't forget this great accomplishment! Maybe swimming will be her thing!?! We love our Kayley and seriously can't believe how old she is getting and how much she has grown and we can't imagine life without her.

Little Rex is starting to introduce me into boyhood little by little everyday. I thought the only thing I had to keep the trash away from was Einstein...apparently not. I had pulled out the trash sack to fill it a little bit more before closing it and Kayley came running into my bathroom, "Mom, come quick and look at Rex!" This is what I found...this cupcake was in the trash sack. He was going to town on it! I took it away and he actually wasn't as sad as I expected him to be. But how do you germ-x a mouth!?! That came from the trash!
And I mentioned that we ended up buying that truck in Topeka, KS...well the first day we bought it we all rode around town in it running our errands and the kids loved riding in it. We decided to do pizza that night and brought it home and did a pizza party in the bed of the truck. The girls thought that was the coolest thing ever! Rex of course realized how much he loves playing in Daddy's truck bed! It was a fun memory to be mad!
Here's another reason why Rex loves the truck bed...he can play in it without us hovering around him constantly because it's basically like a big play pen. The picture is not that great as it's from my phone, but here is Cora and Rex playing in the truck bed while Nick and I cleaned it out.
Then we had Nick's birthday. His birthday was pretty low key, but I think the older you get the more you live for those low key birthdays right? His celebration lasted two days long as the day before we cooked him cashew chicken...a birthday must for him! The girls were ecstatic as they absolutely love cashew chicken too. Then we went swimming that night and I finally got some pictures of Kayley jumping in by herself (top left) and her going completely underwater (top right) and her coming up from the being underwater...it's really a funny site because she comes up like she's been holding her breath forever and she comes up almost like Ariel does when she has legs? Know which part of The Little Mermaid I'm talking about? Anyway, it's the middle picture and little Rex is just cute to take pictures of at the pool. He's also getting pretty brave walking around, getting out and into the pool just because he can now. Cora has also made leaps and bounds this summer in jumping off the side every now and then by herself, but with a floaty thing on. She has also gone underwater a few times, not as much or as long as Kayley, but she has gone under much quicker than Kayley ever did so that's impressive in itself.
Then last week we went to Silver Dollar City for the last time to go during the hot weather. It was hot that day, but bearable at least in the shade. So hot that I couldn't believe we did, but we got on a water ride! We usually avoid these because we don't want to be walking around in wet clothes the rest of the day and because usually our girls freak out about getting wet for some reason. Well not this time around...we rode the new Huck Finn's water extravaganza or something like that. Basically you ride this little boat that goes as slow as molasses and you get to squirt water guns to objects around the ride as well as people standing around the ride. The kicker is they are standing at water guns too that shoot at you. They can move and dodge our water sprays, you on the other hand are helpless on this very slow moving boat! Cora, Rex, and I sat on the very drench able side. Nick, Grandma and Kayley were able to avoid the sprays a little bit more than us. Kayley wanted to ride a second time and had a blast on the ride. We didn't necessarily want to ride again and luckily the line had gotten a little bit longer after we got off so we got out of riding it again. Instead we let Kayley stand at a water gun to shoot all the upcoming riders and of course get shot at herself. Cora joined in a bit here and there, but Kayley probably could have stood there all day. She was getting drenched and even while she was getting soaked she would just keep shooting her gun even though she couldn't see who she was shooting towards. It was funny! Check out her expressions on some of these pictures! Then we also let Rex play in the sandbox..he didn't eat too much of it and I was reminded why I hate sandboxes myself. And we all rode the carousel. Rex LOVED the carousel!! He kept looking at the bears on the carousel and barking like they were dogs so he was in 7th heaven! Also this weekend trip was when he decided that he would take more than just two-three steps at a time. He's definitely loving to walk and it's really cute to see him toddler around! He's growing up so fast!

Oh..and I can't forget a big moment for Kayley that happened this same weekend, she lost her 6th tooth. It had been loose for a while but she wouldn't let us pull it. She would randomly get very upset about it but still wouldn't let us touch it. We were eating dinner that night at Freddy's and it came right out. She almost didn't eat anything else because in the past when she's lost a tooth while eating she's thought the reason why it fell out was because of eating and she didn't want to loose anymore teeth. But she got over it pretty quickly and finished her dinner. The tooth fairy was even good enough to visit her at the Condos in Branson, which she was really excited about!
And remember me telling you Rex is introducing me into boyhood little by little? One of his new things is to climb onto the girls' little tikes table and look out the window in our living room. Today he went from the table and climbed right into his toy box. He was having a blast for a while having all his toys at his finger tips, till he was ready to get out and couldn't figure out how. Cora luckily came to his rescue. The other funny thing he's been doing lately is pictured in the middle picture below. His feet are flat on the floor and he leans over and puts his head flat down on the ground and just stays there, will sit up and do it again! It's hilariously cute!