Zoo, weekend, zoo

Last Friday we spent our first official day of Spring Break at the zoo with Lauren's friend, Myles, his brother, Ty, and their mom, Monica.  It was the perfect way to start our "vacation."  Lauren and Myles obviously get along great, and Ty and Ryan really hit it off too so basically we (the moms and Ellie) just tried to keep up as the four of them went from one animal to the next.  Ellie chilled in the stroller and snacked on whatever I could find to keep her busy - she was a trooper!  I tried to snap some pictures but because they were always moving, and moving fast, I didn't really get any good ones.  Here is the best shot I have from the day . . . it is Lauren and Myles from the backside watching the leopard walk right in front of them - they were very impressed with that, "big cat."

After a long, fun day at the zoo, we headed back home for some rest and to pack for our next adventure . . . a weekend trip to the lake.  We were in the mood to kick back and relax a little so the lake sounded like the perfect get away (it also doesn't hurt that Buffalo Wild Wings is near the lake and Trav would do just about anything to eat at that place - it is weird how much he likes it!), so off we went.  Grandma Connie and Grandpa Doug joined us on Friday/Saturday and as always, the kids loved spending time with them as well.  By Saturday night we were back to just our family and after two full days of lots of fun, we finally had to call it quits and go to bed early.  I think Trav was first to fall asleep (around 7:30pm), then it was Ellie, Ryan, and Lauren around 8:00pm, and I finally tucked myself in around 9:00pm - clearly we all needed some rest!  On Sunday, we picked up the cabin and headed back home to Shakopee.  Here are a couple of pictures from the lake.  The best part of the weekend . . . Grandpa and Trav put up the trampoline which always makes for some good times!

We finished the weekend with our BodyPump class (to work off all the chicken wings and beer we consumed), and then got ready for another week ahead.  That brings me to today (yesterday was pretty boring so I'll just skip it).  Today we ventured back to the zoo, this time it was just me, the kids, and Colt.  We decided to take things a little slower today (compared to last Friday when I think we covered the entire outside portion of the zoo in a little less than 2 hours).  We started with a Dolphin show which the kids loved!  The dolphins did tricks, waved, and even played catch - talk about amazing!  Here are the four kids having snacks and taking it all in.

After the show, we hit up the inside portion of the zoo (it was way too windy to be outside).  We saw penguins, monkeys, birds, snakes, you name, we probably saw it!  The place wasn't packed so it was nice to be able to take out time and really check things out.  After seeing some animals, we stopped to have our picnic lunch, then headed outside to see some more.  The kids did great!  Ryan and Lauren both helped out with their, "little buddies" - Ryan had Colt, Lauren had Ellie so at the end of our visit, I bought them both those huge lollipops they have at every snack stand at the zoo.  They are far too big to actually eat the entire thing, but the kids always beg for them and since they were so helpful today, I finally gave in.  Look how happy they are . .

And then there is this picture . . . Ryan said, "look Mom, now Colt will follow me everywhere!"

Clearly I should I bought the lollipops first!  Is it wrong to taunt a 17 month old with a lollipop in order to keep him where you want him?

And here are a few more random shots from the day.  The last one was taken about 5 minutes after we left the zoo.  The babies are sleeping, Ryan is sleeping, and Lauren is mad - so typical!

Before and after

The big day finally arrived for Ryan . . . time to get his teeth fixed!  He has been quiet, shy, and not wanting to be noticed since the accident, but the first thing he wanted to do after his teeth were fixed was to go check himself out in the mirror - a very positive step in the right direction!  I swear the kid was back to his old smiling, social self the minute his teeth were fixed, and we're happy to have him back.  In fact, he loves his new "smooth and shiny" teeth so much that he said, "they might actually be better than my old ones" (and I think he might be right considering the new ones are perfectly rounded and the old ones were a bit jaded on the bottom).  We're so happy Ryan is back to normal and look forward to many more years "teeth accident" free!  Here are a couple of before and after pictures I took today.

Birthday Boy!

Trav's birthday day in review . . . work, BodyPump, dinner, cake, and bed - it was simple, but sweet (I hope)! Here are a couple of pictures of Trav and his favorite "birthday helper" - Lauren. All day she talked about Trav and his birthday. She referred to him as, "handsome birthday boy" and was willing to sing "Happy Birthday" as many times as possible - these are the times she is so sweet. She loves making other people happy, especially if she can help blow out the candles! Once again, Happy Birthday Trav!

The past few days

We've had a lot going on the past few days.  Where to start . . .

This past Saturday Aaron, Ann, and Colton came over for one last grill out before the girls arrived.  They stayed until about 8:30pm, the rest of the neighborhood however was up well past 1:00am (on Sunday morning though, I'm guessing everyone wished they had left when Aaron and Ann did) - it wasn't pretty!  So that was Saturday, you can guess how Sunday went.  Other than forcing ourselves out of the house to go to BodyPump, we pretty much did nothing.  That was fine by all of us though considering the kids had stayed up late and made smores by the campfire.  So that was the weekend.

Then came Monday . . . time to finally meet the little ladies who have been camping out in Ann's stomach for just over 37 weeks - it was time!  The day was long (they checked in at 6am and didn't have the girls until 5:30pm-ish), but when they finally made their enterance, they had a whole crew waiting to meet them.  The kids were excited, I was excited, we could hardly wait.  And all the waiting was well worth it.  Aaron and Ann make cute kids, and Avery and Charlotte are no exception!  They are tiny, they are cute, they are perfect!  Congrats again to Aaron, Ann, and big brother Colton (boy is he in for a change!).  In addition to the girls being born that day, Ryan also had a musical "informance" (not exactly sure what that means, but it looked a whole lot like a music "concert" to me) on Monday afternoon so the girls and I stopped by school to watch him.  He was a little shy (with the whole mouth/teeth thing), but got through it and even did his solo up in front of everyone by himself - I(we) were so happy for him!

After Monday of course comes Tuesday.  Tuesday was a pretty mellow day.  We hit up the Y in the morning, ran some errands, then just relaxed until Trav got home.  And when he got home, he wanted to eat, so that's what we did.  He wanted to go to the Buffalo Tap, but gave in to the kids' wishes to visit Perkins (also known as the only restaraunt that serves rainbow pancakes - a big deal in our house).  This was Trav's "birthday meal" considering we would be at BodyPump on Wednesday evening so the fact that he gave up Buffalo Tap for the kids were kind of amazing, but then the big letdown happened . . . Perkins changed their menu and Rainbow Pancakes were no more - WTF?!?  Ryan was less than thrilled, but still managed to find something else to eat so the crisis was averted.

And then there is today . . .  March 21st - Trav's 34th birthday!  Can you believe my young, strapping husband is still my (sort of) young, strapping husband.  BodyPump is keeping him fit, and my lack of cooking lately is keeping him trim (your welcome Trav).  I have a feeling 34 is going to be a great year for him!  We love you Daddy and wish you many more wonderful years (with your equally wonderful family) to come!  On a completely different topic, Ellie had her first "pee-pee" on the potty today - yay!  She woke up dry from the night so I thought we'd give it a shot and wouldn't you know, the little girl took care of business (while slamming her morning cocoa on the potty of course - just a little something to help get the pee-pee moving).  This by no means means she is ready to start potty training, but it is a step in the right direction so I'm happy.

I'll leave with some pictures taken over the past few days.  The first two are the girls on a bright March morning.  Apparently they dreamt about dancing in their sleep because when they woke up, they walked onto the the deck and danced (it was about 7:15am).  They ended with some booty shaking (shown below) - classy, must have picked that move up from their dad!  After that, there is a picture of Lauren dressed from head to toe in pink (she choose the outfit), brushing what she calls, her "beautiful hair" before school.  Warning . . . we might have a Diva on our hands!  Then there is Ellie running naked down the hall this morning after she went pee-pee on the potty.  She was so happy to be diaper free, then I literally had to chase her down and make her put a diaper back on - talk about fun!  And finally, Ry Guy showing off his Angry Bird face painting.  Tuesday night is "Kids Eat Free" night at Perkins.  And as one of the perks of eating there, they also offer free face painting - free food and free face painting - not a bad deal!  And last but not least is a picture of the little ladies . . . Avery on the left, and Charlotte on the right - see, I told you they were cute!

More lost teeth

The days just keep getting worse for Ryan.  Yesterday afternoon he was riding bike when somehow, he lost control, lost his footing, and fell off his bike right onto his mouth.  I didn't actually see the fall so when I walked over to help him up, I was a little surprised when Ryan screamed, "I broke my tooth!"  And sure enough, when I got him up to a standing position, he was right, his front tooth was indeed broke.  There was lots of blood, lots of screaming, and lots of tears.  When we finally got him cleaned up, we figured out he broke one tooth almost in half diagonally, and the one next to it was broke just slightly on the side (it was a horizontal break).  So now he has a huge swollen lip and a couple of missing teeth (or at least missing parts of his teeth).  After a call to our dentist, it sounds like we'll wait for the swelling to go down, then we'll make a visit to the dentist to have him fix everything up.  Apparently he broke them in, "a good way" which (hopefully) won't require any major dental care, but until we actually see the dentist, we don't know for sure.  Trav and I feel so bad for Ryan.  The kid is probably the most cautious kid ever - never breaks rules, always works hard to be real safe, and even with that, he has already had a broken collarbone (fell off his bed while sleeping), and now broke two of his permanent teeth, all by the age of 6 - talk about bad luck.  I know his lip and teeth are sore, but I almost think he is more concerned about what he looks like.  He absolutely refuses to go anywhere because he doesn't want anyone to see his mouth/teeth.  We let him skip school today and then we'll see how the weekend goes.  If the swelling goes down and the teeth aren't sore, we'll be able to get things fixed sooner rather than later, if the swelling takes a while, or the soreness doesn't go away, it could be up to a week before we get to the dentist - not sure how that's going to go over with him.  We'll take it day by day.  Here are a couple of pictures I took last night while he was sleeping (there is absolutely no way he would let me take a picture of him while he is awake).

Bad weekend to be Ryan

Aside from all of the things we did this weekend, Ryan also had his very own "hell" weekend.  Things started out great on Friday morning when Ryan came upstairs and announced he lost another tooth.  He proudly showed me the tooth, and then gave a great big smile so we could see the empty space in his mouth - this is where the "good" ended, and the "bad" started.  On Friday night, Ryan wrapped up his tooth and slipped it under his pillow with great anticipation of a visit from the Tooth Fairy.  Well, the next morning, I got up and went downstairs to find Ryan balled up crying on his bed.  Not knowing what could possibly be wrong at 7:15am, I asked.  Ryan's response . . . he lifts up his pillow and says, "the Tooth Fairy forgot about me."  Oh shit!  I was so tired the night before that I actually feel asleep before I had a chance to get downstairs and do my "Tooth Fairy duties."  The odd thing was that the tooth was gone, there was just nothing in it's place.  So unless there really is a Tooth Fairy and she just came and grabbed the tooth, that meant Ryan's tooth was still somewhere in the bed, or next to it - time for me to start making up for being such a lousy Tooth Fairy (and mom).  So I tell Ryan I'm going to run upstairs and tell Dad about this Tooth Fairy incident when in reality I ran upstairs and started digging into my purse.  Luckily I had some cash, and because of my colossal failure, I decided the Tooth Fairy was going to be extra good to Ryan this time around so instead of grabbing one dollar, I took two, and headed back downstairs.  As I was standing there telling Ryan about my fake conversation with Trav, I was able to slip the two dollars under his other pillow.  It was at this point that I came up with my "Tooth Fairy lie."  I told Ry that maybe the Tooth Fairy left the money somewhere else in the bed considering most kids his age don't have queen sized beds.  Somehow he believed this, and started to look through the bed again, and wouldn't you know it, he found the two dollars under his (second) pillow - yay!!  And although he was happy with his find, he just couldn't figure out why the Tooth Fairy got it wrong this time when all the other times she got it right - having nothing good to say, I just nodded and looked confused as well - at some point the lies had to end and this seemed like a good place.  With the money issue done, I still had the missing tooth to figure out (God knows he would have been , confused had he found the money and then found the tooth was actually still there - at that point, I would have had to get real creative with my storytelling (or as I like to call them, my lies).  With money in hand, I told Ryan he should go upstairs and show Trav what he got so as he did that, I pulled back his blankets and sure enough, there was the tiny little ball of Kleenex holding the missing tooth - thank God!  I grabbed it, stuffed it in my pocket, and the Tooth Fairy drama was officially over!  This little slip up isn't looking promising for the girls.  I have one kid with teeth falling out and I can't even get that right.  Can you imagine what it will be like when I have two or three - good luck with that!

Onto part 2 of Ryan's weekend from hell . . .  Steve-O finally kicked the bucket.  Yes, the fish that never dies but always looks like his dead, is now actually dead.  I'm not sure on the exact time of death, but we've estimated it happened sometime between Saturday and Sunday night.  It was on Sunday evening when I went to give him some fish food that I did my usual tapping on the glass to make sure he was still alive (yes, I do this almost daily because like I said, he always looks like he is dead), and got no response.  I then got a little more aggressive and actually shook the bowl, and that's when I knew for sure, Steve was a goner.  His tiny fish body just swayed in the little baby waves and upon closer inspection, I noticed he looked bloated and even a bit stiff - not good.  So I did what any other good mother would do, I told Trav the bad news, and had him relay it to Ryan while I put the girls to bed (I already had to deal with the Tooth Fairy issue, it was Trav's turn to step up).  When the girls were in bed, I headed downstairs to see how it went, and to my surprise, Ryan handled it like a champ (in fact, he was almost too interested in tv to even show emotion - clearly Steve's passing wasn't going to be a turning point in Ryan's life).  Trav did the honorable thing and flushed Steve down the toilet which Ryan said led to the ocean where he would get eaten by a shark (what a cruel ending to a family pet).  Whatever, at least it wasn't as bad as I expected it would be, and we were able to put Ryan to bed just like any other day without having to help him recover from his first "death" experience.

And just to top off the weekend, it was Daylight Savings and because Ryan never adjusts to easily to time changes, his Monday morning was a crappy one too.  I had to basically pull him out of bed and put his clothes on so he could get to the bus on time.  Here's hoping for a better week ahead!

One step away . . .

One step away from what . . . being free of all things baby!  Ellie took one giant step toward being a "big" girl this weekend, she ditched the crib (and I couldn't be happier, that thing was old, chewed up, and most certainly did not meet any safety guidelines - time for it to go)!  We made the big decision on Saturday afternoon (right before nap time).  All the kids were downstairs playing so Trav and I got to work and had the crib apart in no time.  With some quick rearranging, her "new" room was ready to try out.  Lucky for us, the girls were really tired by then so they opted to nap together in the big beds and even luckier for us, they did it!  No talking, no laughing, just lots of sleeping (it didn't hurt that Lauren was running a temp and didn't feel great, considering she is usually the one who does most of the talking and very little of the sleeping).  With nap time down, we only had bedtime to worry about, and just like nap time, it was a breeze.  Trav put her in bed, she stayed there and slept - piece of cake!  Here she is this afternoon napping away, and here is a quick picture of her room "crib-free."

Now that the crib is gone, we have one final step to being "baby-free" . . . potty training!  I'll enjoy the crib being gone for a while before I attempt to ditch the diapers, hopefully this summer.

Aside from removing the crib, we also used our free time (as I mentioned before, Lauren wasn't feeling great so she spent a majority of the day on Saturday on the couch watching cartoons, or sleeping, and Ryan and Ellie kept themselves busy) to finish up a few household projects.  First, and most important, was to hang the shelf above our bed so we could finally complete our bedroom remodel which was started by Ash and Mom while we were in Mexico (which was a little over a month ago so clearly we have been dragging our feet on this one).  After some measuring and trying out some of Trav's new tools, we got the shelf put up and pictures put in.  And if I have to say so myself, I think we did a fine job.  The arrangement of the pictures proved to be harder than we thought because as we both figured out, we like things to be perfectly lined up, or perfectly symmetrical, the whole "randomness" (which is apparently the look we were going for) was a little difficult to achieve, but after moving things around a little, I think we got it.  And if we didn't, we don't care because this will be the look of the bedroom for years and years to come (decorating and changing things up are two things I do not like).  Here is the final product . . .

With the crib gone, the shelf hung, some light bulbs replaced, and a little bit of shopping done, Saturday turned out to be both productive and relaxing.  By 8:30pm everyone was bathed and in bed (Trav and I weren't too far behind either, lights out came around 9:30pm for us).

On Sunday (today), Lauren woke up still not feeling great so I kept the girls home with me while Trav and Ryan headed out for Sunday School and church.  By the time they got home, Lauren was starting to come around a little - her fever finally broke, and she ate some real food - so we decided to head out for a nice little walk around the neighborhood.  After that, we had some lunch and while I stayed inside with Ellie, Trav took Ryan and Lauren outside to start work on a leprechaun trap (an optional school project Ryan brought home the other day).  Here are a couple of pictures of the three of them hard at work . . .

 

So far I've heard lots of hammering, no swear words (which is great considering a couple of the neighbor kids have made their way over to "help"), and the screw gun - should be interesting to see what they come up with!  If (or should I say, when), the trap is complete, I'll be sure to post some pictures.  They only have one hour left before we head out to the YMCA for our BodyPump class (Trav joined me last week and liked it so we're going back for round 2 of pure physical pain) so I'm not sure they'll get it done today, but luckily it's not due until March 16th so they have some time.

In other news, I'm still waiting on the phone call from Aaron and Ann to say it's time to have those babies.  I was sure it was going to happen this weekend, but as of yet, no call.  I haven't completely given up hope yet, there are still 9 hours and 20 minutes left of this day so they better get a move on!