Cow Train!

It's cow train time!! The girls have been waiting for this for a whole year! We finally planned it out to go on Sunday, but after watching the weather, I decided to take them this morning. So I enlisted Grandpa to join us to help me get Harper in and out of things, since Finley was strapped to me! We had so much fun, and the kids had a blast!

Waiting for the tractor ride
Chloe thrilled to be going on a ride

Finley's first tractor ride - yes she is in the pouch!

Harper sitting in the cow train. He had absolutely no clue what this whole thing was about, but he was not going to be left behind! He hopped right in and kept telling me it was going to be loud (I think he was just prepping himself for the start of the 4 wheeler). It took off and his expression was priceless - kind of worried! He had fun, and when it came back he just says, "That was bumpy!" (I rode it last year and it was so bumpy, I got a headache)

Carly had to ride in the last one. She wanted Chloe to be in front of her so she would go first (even though it is all attached) She loved it so much, before we left she had to ride it again. Chloe and Harper didn't want a second ride, but Cheese was bound and determined to go again. She had to ride in the cow that Chloe rode in because she didn't want to go by herself, so riding the one she was in was comforting to her. She was so brave!

Chloe could hardly control her excitment - she loved it!

There they go!

Carly in the corn box - they were making corn angels!

Grandpa burying them in the corn!

Harper on Gunshot - he was nervous, but once he figured out what was going on he was petting his horse - this was is first pony ride!!

Carly on Levi. She wanted a small pony. Hers actually was going a little wild and her face got very nervous. The lady said that her horse didn't like getting his feet wet, so I talked it up and she calmed down.

Chloe rode a huge horse- Maverick. She was petting her horse while she rode - she was proud of that!

Traveling back to the car after a morning of fun!

Mousse

This post is backwards - oops

This is just a funny story about Harper. Matt was intervening with Harper and one of the girls. Matt was coaching Harper to say, "Carly, can I please have that book." Harper whines and says, "That's Chloe!" Poor Daddy still can't get the girls straight!!!
In order to try to control this hair of Finley Claire, I thought of using mousse! It worked pretty good. This picture was my first try - obviously used too much, but I gave her a bath and tried again. It gives it a little weight! I can't believe I am having to look for hair products for my 8 week old!!

Pumpkin Time

Seeing as how everyone was so sick, we weren't able to go get pumpkins until 3 days before Halloween. So, we only got one, but we had fun carving it! Harper picked out the nose, Carly picked out the mouth, and Chloe picked out the eyes.

Cleaning out the pumpkin!

Harper didn't like gutting it out at all. He stuck his hand in and said it was dirty, so Matt gave him a spoon - he stuck it in for this pic and then was done!

Oh, the Sickness!!

Well, we made it!! Our first big bang of sickness! It lasted a week and a half and is still lingering, but the worst is behind us! Harper came down with it first and it spread like wild fire. Harper, Carly and Chloe all had high fevers, cough, runny/stuffy noses and just felt yucky. Finley got it too. She just got the nasty cough and stuffy nose (an 8 week old sounds pitiful with a nasty cough). Matt had to join the fun as well! All these sick babies at one time, man it was fun! We had several days where the kids just layed around and were just burning. Nights - well, we got Finley sleeping through the night, just to get our nights still disrupted by miserable girls. I am so glad they are feeling better now. They were so pitiful.

Daddy and Finley feeling rough together!
Carly with her sick bucket! She doesn't like to cough, so she holds it in. As a result, she pukes from all the flem - lovely!

Chloe on Fire - you may see steam coming off her head if you look closely :)

And the culprit who started it all! He was feeling better by now, but he had to join in on all the sick fun!

My Sweet Chloe

Today's post is going to highlight my little Chloe. She has such a sweet heart! Here are a couple things she has done recently that just melt my heart because of her sweetness.

I took her to the grocery store the other day and she happily got her cookie at the door. We did our shopping and at the check out she says to me, "Mommy, I think Carly and Harper would like a cookie too." She is so thoughtful. She wrapped up 2 cookies and ran inside the house to give out her treats to her siblings.

We have had a bought of sickness run through this house this week. All of the kids have gotten it starting with Harper, then Chloe, and now Carly. Today Carly was laying down resting and Chloe proceeds to gather books from around the house. She states, "Mom, I'm getting all the dog books for Carly so I can read to her and make her feel better!" Carly's favorite animal is a dog and Chloe knew that would lift her spirits. So she sat next to her sick sister reading every dog book to her.

Then today at lunch, the kids were eating pb&j's and I had 1 piece of leftover pizza. Harper wanted a bite, but didn't not politely ask for one, so I told him not until he asked the right way. Well of course, the girls heard that and they politely asked for a bite of my pizza. I tore them both a piece of my slice and they put it on their plate. Chloe was coaching Harper to ask politely, but he was stubbornly festering to himself. I continued to eat my pizza. When he finally asked the right way for a piece, I had none left! I told him he took too long to make a good choice. Chloe looks down at her little piece I had torn off for her (it was no bigger than a quarter) and tears it in 2. What does she do? Hands Harper a piece of her pizza. This girl's little heart is so big. I love her!

Role Play

The girls were doing a little role playing today. Carly was Mom sweeping the kitchen. Chloe was Dad. Chloe, "Dad," walks in the kitchen and says, "Do you need any help Mom?" Mom replies, "No, but you can change Finley." Dad said, "Ok!" And he proceeded to get Finley and wrapped her up in a blanket.

Then "Mom" said she needed to change Finley too - because we both do that!

I had some brownie treats for them and Carly, " Mom," had to hand them out because "only Mom feeds us."

So funny! I like seeing how we are perceived through our children's eyes. It is a good check for them to do a little role playing every once in a while so you know if you need to change your tone towards anything! These children are truely little sponges and watch every move we make.

Side Story: The girls are really into princesses now. They know all the Disney princesses, but have never seen a movie or anything, just products in the store. I decided that a sing-a-long movie would be a safe bet to the whole princess thing! They were watching it this morning and discussing what was going on. All the princes were Dads. The beast - Belle's Dad, Aladin - Jasmine's Dad, etc. That just shows who their true love really is!! They just see the body language and all the hugging and they know that is what a Daddy is for! So innocent - I love it!

Squeeky Bones

Matt has the most annoying bones in the world! His whole body pops when he moves. Every time he bends his thumb - it cracks. Well, normally I am pretty used to his squeaky bones, but last night it was absolutely crazy!! Finley had a bubbling stomach - one that made her wake up at 3:30 and Matt didn't get back in bed until 5:15. Not so fun when she has been sleeping through the night for over a week! Well, he was holding her and pacing the room (my rules for middle of the night awake babies - that is his job - he can be tired at work, but if I am tired and have a short fuse, I don't want it to come out on our kids - so he is on night duty). As he was pacing, his body was cracking every step he made - his knees and ankles!! AGH! I finally had to make him leave the room it was so loud! This happened when the girls were babies too. So bad I wouldn't let him take another step - he had to freeze where he was until I could leave the room! Yes I am a little extreme (but if you know me, that is just my personality), but man, he sounds like the tin man and needs a good oiling!!!!

First Words

Finley has started to try to "talk" lately. It is so cute to see her try so hard to get just one little sound out of her precious little mouth. It is kind of funny to think about me trying to get her to "talk!" In about 2 years, I will probably want a cap on that cute little mouth and wish it didn't talk so much!! And those little sweet sounds will soon turn to words, some loving, some funny, and some hurtful! I guess that is why I love babies so much! They are so pure and sweet - not like adults who just have too much on their minds and know way too much! I like the simplicity of a baby - where contentment is just having a full belly, clean diaper, and some weird person making funny faces to make you smile. I love being her whole world and just want to keep her in a little bubble so the world can't get to her!

Billboard

Here is the latest from the Red Cross!! Oh yes, Harper's great stunt landed us on a billboard! It is on 74 by the McDonalds in Monroe (so I have heard - we haven't seen it yet, but plan on going by sometime soon). It is kind of embarrassing, I guess, just weird because I don't feel like I should get recognition for what happened - I just did what I had to do so my child wouldn't be blue!!! But I do realize that this is the whole point of the Red Cross - equipping people for emergency situations and I am so glad I had some what of an idea of what to do for Harper. So if our billboard gets more people CPR certified - then I am very proud of that!!!

Cheeeaps!!

We went out to eat last night (and Heather, if you are reading this - it was to El Valle - your favorite dirty Mexican place!) They give you chips and salsa when you sit down. The kids ate the first basket in a matter of seconds and the man (all authentic "mexicans" at this restaurant) asked, "Do you want more cheeeaps?" He walked away and Harper looked at me and said, "He said cheeeaps - this is a cheeeeap (holding up his chip)." It was hilarious!! I couldn't control myself and everytime he asked if we wanted more, Harper would wait until he walked away and smile and said, "He said cheeeaps!!!" Love it!

This week

After the zoo, we stopped at Andrew Jackson Park. The kids played on the playground and we walked to the little lake. They had to get in this boat.

Daddy and his baby girl

Harper reading to Fee Clara (Finley Claire) - He loves to read to her

Finley helping with the laundry! She does a great job holding the clothes down.

The kids found Charlie yesterday in the backyard. He is a turtle. They thought it was so neat that they got to pick him up!! That is the only animal the girls will touch!!

Finley's smiles are getting bigger!!

Zoo Trip 10/3

We took the kids to the Columbia Zoo on Saturday and had a great time!! They were so excited (we had to make a picture to count down the days until we went). The weather was absolutely beautiful and we packed a picnic lunch. Grandma and Grandpa came with us too (I guess you just can't pass up a good zoo trip no matter how old you are!!) Of course Harper looked forward to the elephants and Chloe was excited about the giraffe's. When we got there, there was a zoo keeper holding a baby chinchilla. It was so soft!! It had some big ears and kind of looked like a huge squirrel, but it had whiskers like a bunny and its nose twitched like one too - interesting animal. Harper pet it. The girls wouldn't! Funny story: There were these two enormous turtles that were mating. Well the kind of growl when doing this. So we were standing there watching this big turtle kind of standing behind the other turtle with its front "paws" on the shell of it. The girls thought it was funny what the turtle was "saying" (the growling noise). Yesterday, Carly was telling me all about that turtle and this was her take on the situation: "Mom, the big turtle was eating on the other turtle and it was really yummy so he kept saying MMMMMMM!!" It was hysterical! Anyways, here are the pics!

Grandpa helping the girls feed the big orange fish!
Riding the elephant

The cute baby giraffe!

Harper feeding the giraffe - Chloe did once, but kind of got grossed out I think. Harper laughed so hard the whole time - he loved it! Carly wouldn't get too close!

The girls riding the horses - Bear and Blondie. They were so proud of themselves riding the real horse all by themselves.

They also got to ride the carousel. They had a train ride too, but I just realized that I didn't download the pic, so you will just have to use your imagination on that one!!

Can you tell Harper had fun??

Matt and I were so excited to take Finley to her first zoo trip, and as you can see, we didn't take a single picture of her!!!!!!! Can you believe the slack parenting on this end!! Oh well, there will be many more zoo trips - maybe will document one she actually sees and doesn't sleep through the whole thing!

Random

Ok - if you are so sick that you have to wear a face mask to go shopping at Target - THEN DON'T GO!!!! I was at Target yesterday and there was some lady doing some shopping with a mask on!! Come on people!! With all the sickness going around, please just keep it at home! I went to the doctor's on Monday and it was so weird. There were signs posted all over the hospital that no one under the age of 18 was allowed in the hospital unless you are really sick/injured. Then when I signed in at the desk, there was a box of face masks (complimentary - kind of like hand gel) in case you were that sick. And then when I took Finley to her 1 month check up, there were kids in the sick side of the waiting room with the masks on. OOHH, I feel germy just typing about all this - I need to go wash my hands!!

Another random thought - For 8 years Matt and I have been married. Ever since then, he has insisted to have this long body pillow at the top of the bed so his pillow wouldn't fall through (I don't know why, he is weird, but I went along with it). Well the other morning he was laying there complaining about our bed and saying it was too small. (It is queen size) He said, "I just want to be able to stretch out and not have my feet hit the foot board!" I looked at him and said, "Are you serious?? Just move that body pillow at our heads and move your pillow up!!!" You would have thought I gave the boy a million dollars!! He was so excited he could stretch with his extra room!! FOR 8 YEARS he had been suffering with a bed that was too short (according to him)!!! CRAZY! So now his feet don't hit the foot board - I know, I know - I am a genius!!!