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!
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!
