Scout had his first field trip to the petting zoo. Icka was lucky enough to tag along, and they both had a blast. Scout cruised the place with his buddies, and I stayed behind with Icka to make sure the animals around her were safe.
Scout who I wouldn’t consider a huge animal lover has warmed up over the years. (Probably thanks to B.) He liked holding the guinea pigs — but truth be told, Icka who is the true animal lover, had to round one up for him each time.
Here is the class getting instructions on how to hold the animals.
Icka mustn’t have listened, unless I didn’t hear the part about choking the animal being correct.
Scout loved the “corn box” (that is in place of a sand box). It really is a genius who came up with this no-mess alternative.
He also loved riding the “biggest horse in the whole universe” according to him.
The place is set up for Halloween, so Scout got in on the action.
But little sweet thing wanted nothing but the petting zoo part with the bunnies and the guinea pigs. Every time we left, she would say, “But Mom….I want to go back with my friends.” Needless to say, we spent most of our time with “her friends”. She would go in and round up as many guinea pigs as possible, and then get another to hold, and then just sit and pet her pig. She would honestly sit there for forever, and as soon as other kids came and messed up her little entourage, she would just start gathering again. It was pretty cute until I had to explain that the high pitched yelp that was coming from some of the pigs meant that she might be hurting them. She informed me that she wasn’t “hurting” them, but that they were just trying to talk. Unfortunately, the other mothers and the zoo keepers didn’t quite see it her way.
For Family Night this week, we headed to a local pumpkin patch. There were two huge blow ups that my kids were loving. Micah honestly thought that the slide in particular would scare off our kids, but I knew better. We have little dare devils on our hands, and they proved me right.
After his first run, he was hooked and went on it about eight more times.
Icka got tossed around like a rag doll on her way down, and although she claimed “it was scary”, she headed right back up.
Our action shot.
The spectators minus me who is always snapping away.
Poor Icka kept returning to this same pumpkin, but I finally had to tell her, “These people hike these prices WAY TOO HIGH. We’ll get one at the grocery store tomorrow.” That seemed to suffice, and she headed back to head up the slide for one last go around.
Women — I am warning you — reading this story might jealous you up a bit!
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Micah relayed the following story to me last night.
(Background - I am 9 1/2 months pregnant, look as big as a house, super uncomfortable this time around which has allowed more complaining to escape my lips, and am scheduled to deliver on Oct. 26th which is a week and a half away.)
In his words….”Babe, Caren (our friend) is doing work in our office so I see her every once in a while. And the craziest thing happened when I saw her the other day. She came up to me and was asking me if I was so excited for the big day. I told her that I really was, and could barely wait. She then asked me if I was ready to go and completely prepared. I told her I thought I was as ready as I was ever going to be. Then she asked if [Lindsey] was ready. I didn’t know how you would or would not be ready, but I told her I thought you were. And then when she finally asked if the kids were excited, I started to catch on that we weren’t on the same page. I didn’t know how the kids would be so excited about my upcoming Ragnar race, and then it hit me and her at the same time! She was talking about the new baby, and BABE — IT DIDN’T EVEN OCCUR TO ME!!! I was pumped that she was so into Ragnar.”
I guess things were really weird when he told her that her brother was going to be there (were are talking Ragnar — not the delivery room).
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So here I sit and type one of the prouder moments of my life.
And now I show you possibly the proudest moment…..
The facial hair that goes along with the race.
As if the story wasn’t bad enough — I have had two months of nasty facial hair. And because he has a really lame friend who says, “Dude…it is the most awesome stash I have ever seen”, he thinks it just might be his “new look”.
(This picture is before he shaved it down — but I try to crop him out of as many pictures as possible, so I didn’t have a huge selection.)
So then I pose one simple question.
“Do you really want to take advice from a guy who loves it, or all of the women you know (including the ones who hold their children’s hands tighter and make rude faces when they turn a corner to see you) who are telling you the truth?”
I guess time will tell us who he’s trying to impress.
At 9 1/2 months pregnant, I thought I got a free pass on decorating this year. But according to Trilby, her house always got decorated — pregnant or not. I then reminded her that “I don’t remember you making a blanket for your son, or a Halloween costume for your daughter, taking constant road trips, making dinner for 10 on a regular basis, or anything of that sort when you were over nine months pregnant.” Then she said something obnoxious like…..”Maybe not, but my house always looked good!” So the guilt in me bubbled over, and we pulled out the stinking decorations and got going. We also purchased some ghosts and spider webs for our front tree when Daddy got home.
Scout and Icka both put up five ghosts on our front tree.
Icka was wondering who the stranger holding her was. (It is always a surprise to see what Micah looks like each day, as his facial hair has evolved from homeless beard, to rapist fu-man-chu, to the current Dr. Mario stash.)
Then the kids started to stretch the spider web.
Here they are helping Daddy get it up.
I was trying to get close ups of the kids, and Scout did his “I am too cool” facial expression that I think is funny.
You would hope that she is embarrassed when I snapped this shot. Instead, she immediately said, “Let me see” and came to the viewfinder to see the shot. When she did, she smiled ear to ear and walked away proud.
Then in an attempt to see more shots in the viewfinder, she just kept showing me every dead worm she could find. And there were a lot because we are in the middle of a boiling hot heat wave.
But when she started to tell me how cute they were, and then started kissing them, I had to put a stop to her worm obsession.
So we put the weasels to work by cleaning up the front porch.
On top of being the biggest weasel in history, my little Icka is smart! Just like Scout — but in a different way. Scout has a memory like you wouldn’t believe. He is constantly reminding me of things from years past (keep in mind that he is only four, and we are going back to when he was barely two), and I can’t believe that he remembers them. He is a little scriptorian. He knows everything I have ever taught him, and picks up things extremely easily. He can figure things out, he excels in school, he can reason through things, his memorization skills are amazing, and he literally potty trained himself in a morning.
That being said….Icka is equally as smart. But it is completely different. She is quick and witty, and is always about two steps ahead of anyone. She can manufacture situations to get the outcome she wants. She can charm anyone — if she wants. And she can make a very strong case for anything with her ridiculous vocabulary and facial expressions.
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I think extreme smarts can create the heroes or the villains of life. I already know Scout is on his way to heroism. Sadly though, at times (and too often) Icka seems to enjoy being a villain. I guess my work is cut out for me as her mom. (If I could write all of her antics she pulled at the mall a few days ago, this might be even more clear. But it is literally too humiliating — especially the part where my classy mother stooped to chasing the taunting little girl around the Nordstrom shoe department.) But, I saw a glimmer of light just yesterday. We were all sitting at the table for dinner, and Bella said, “Boys and girls…..”. Icka immediately corrected her improper use of boys plural and said, “No Bella, there is only one boy here….it is boy and girls!” When everyone oohed and aahed over her smart observation, you could see a little smile creep up her lips. And then it hit me. If I have an all-out party every time she does something smart that is good, and she just gets inundated with positive reinforcement on being a “hero”, she might like being the hero.
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So everyone….raise your glasses….and let us toast to a lot of praise and excitement over the next 16 years….in hopes of creating one of the world’s greatest superheroes of all time!
Super Icka!!!
While I make dinner, the kids will go out and play while Ka or NayNay do homework and watch them.
This day, Scout scootered and mastered a “Loop de Loop Speeding Bullet” — an exclusive trick he named himself.
He “had” to go in the street, but it was okay because NayNay was watching him.
(But when I checked, she had her pretty little nose stuffed inside her math book.)
Meanwhile, Icka was “watering the plants” as she attempted to go potty like her big brother does. (After this, I had to tell Scout that he can only “water the plants” when he is wet from the swimming pool, or we are on a road trip.)
Then she made a huge mess with all of our roses that she had to clean up.
At first she was pretty cooperative.
And then her M.O. of being dramatic kicked in!
“I Love You”, my sweet boy, and a harbor sunset.
Tristen sent me this picture they took while on a harbor date.
It’s like a little piece of heaven.
With the apple and pear season coming to a close, I decided to take the kids to Julien for some apple/pear picking. The final goal was to make baby food and some good homemade applesauce. Bella and I headed out, and were able to talk Jake –my kid’s idol– into coming with us. Here is our afternoon in pictures:
Icka had to go potty on the way up, and Bella came up with a really good solution for the girl who doesn’t “like to get dirty”.
Isn’t she a weasel!
The kids were loving the apple farm. There were tons on the ground, and I had to teach Icka that we only wanted apples from the trees. Luckily there were still a bunch on the trees, and the kids found it to be a great treasure hunt. I know where they get it, because I totally thought it was like we were hunting for treasure too!
Icka scored with this “beauty”! I kept saying, “Look at this beauty,” and every time the kids found a good one (no worm holes, a little yellow with a little red, firm to the touch), they would holler out, “I have a beauty!”
With Scout’s love of fruit (and Jake claims he is semi-fruitarian), the kids loved the part where they just ate whatever and however much they wanted. Let’s just say that they definitely had their fiber intake for the day — or for that matter…for the week! I estimate that Scout had at least 20 apples while we were there. (They are on the smaller side, but that is still absurd!)
The best sport in the world, Jake, was up for orchard races vs. Scout. According to Scout, he won every time. But seeing as Jake is signed up for a 50 mile run in November, I think he was giving Scout chancies!
It wouldn’t be a complete day if Icka wasn’t doing something to make us laugh. Here she is getting stuck in the ropes between the aisles.
But the real laughs came when she would offer to clean our apples for us. She saw us all cleaning them on our pants to shine them up — but took it as putting the apple down our pants and when they came out the bottom — wallah — they were clean!
After the apple orchard, we headed over to pick pears. Scout loved using the basket to get to the pears. But he wasn’t in love with the fact that they were all hard. (I found out later that pears don’t ripen on trees, but rather wait until they are off the tree to become soft and delicious.)
The princess Icka took a seat and waited for Jake to serve her. She apparently didn’t care if the pears were ripe or not.
As you can tell!
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Our loot was plentiful, and we did make both applesauce and baby food.
It was all a success
Why would they make bath finger paints for little kids such a royal mess. What I thought would have entertained for many baths, had a one-bath lifetime.
Needless to say, I don’t endorse these big wastes of money!
In anticipation for our new baby….Icka said to me the other morning, “Ooooh…I can’t wait for Sumo to come out of your stomach so I can kiss him on his lips.” Then I said, “Are you going to be the first person to kiss your baby brother?” To which she went on a rant that said, “You tell everybody ‘No No’! Tell Scout ‘No No’. Tell Nonnie ‘No No’.” She was telling me to tell everyone “No No” when they tried to kiss him first, because she was definitely getting in there first!
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