Mink Balloons

Last weekend, we took a mini-family vacation to galena, Il. It was so beautiful! It really was the iconic images you see of America's heartland...rolling hills with red barns and flags waving from the front porch of white farm houses...

the weather was perfect, in the 70s most of our time there, so we spent lots of time exploring the outdoors. we spent saturday morning at apple river canyon state park, hiking a few easy trails with the kids.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Alexa really wanted a camera so my parents gave her one for her birthday - here's a photo of our little camera bug in action! I need to download some of her photos and do a post featuring her photography! It's really entertaining! We have studies on feet, hands, dark closets, headless people, and one of my favorites, a table level view of her dinner plate!

Anyway, Saturday evening, after brody's nap, we went to chestnut mountain resort. not exactly an accurate name, since there are certainly no mountains in illinois, but, it was a pretty resort at the top of a hill that sloped downward to the mississippi river. they do offer skiing in the winter, and they have an alpine slide in the summer. the kids LOVED the alpine slide, and billy and i took turns riding down with the kids and riding the chair lift back up.

billy took this photo of brody while he was waiting for alexa and i to return from our ride - thought those of you familiar with my hair twisting habit might enjoy it!







and this next photo is brody's common expression, "where'd they go?"


Sunday we hit the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, IA on our way home. They had a "hands-on" room where kids could feel a variety of animal skins and touch crawfish. I showed Alexa the skins of beavers, foxes, nutras, weasels, and minks, having her feel the difference in all of the fur.



"Are they real?" she asked.

And again, I dreaded having to explain the realities of hunting to my animal loving child. They were real animals, I explained, but they're not alive anymore. She studied the skins for quite a while, then, in complete sincerity asked me, "So where did all the air go?" It was all I could do to keep from laughing when, just a week after I entertained her friends by making balloon animals, I realized these flat furry skins must have looked like deflated critters to her!

I honestly don't remember what answer I gave her, but it must not have been sufficent since I later found out that she pursued the same line of questioning with her father, but at a slightly different angle, and men don't have a problem providing straight-forward answers. Upon looking at a bear skin, she asked Billy how they got the skin off the bear. Billy promptly responded, "with a knife" to which Alexa asked, "did the bear roar?"


Later this week we attended the Iowa State Fair, touted as one of the nation's top ten and apparently the inspiration for the broadway musical, "State Fair." It was too large to see in an evening, although that was all the time we really wanted to devote to it. Alexa loved walking through the horse barn and seeing all the draft horses, including the budweiser clydesdales.


They also claimed to have the "world's largest horse wheel". I assumed that meant they had the world's MOST ponies for kids to ride....no no....it was a horse wheel using PERCHERON draft horses! So it was literally the "largest" horse wheel! None the less, the size of the horses did not deter my little five year old from riding!


And while we did not put Brody on the draft horses, he did get to enjoy the carousel! We also saw the "butter cow" and this year's additional butter sculpture, Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson! All in all, August has been a fun-filled month and we did our best to enjoy the last of our summer days before Alexa begins kindergarten on the 20th!

August and Everything After...

(Yes, I know that's the title of a Counting Crows CD, but it fits, so we're using it!)

This summer, even more than its predecessors, has seemed to literally move at the speed of light. Before I began my posting marathon today, my last post had been in June...back when school had been out for barely a month and I was dreaming of the plans to come. Yet here we are, a mere twelve days away from my baby girl starting kindergarten, and I wonder where the time went. Is this how I'll feel twelve years from now, when I'm looking back on her school days and looking ahead to her last year of high school and potentially her last year living at home? Will these preschool days seem like a distant memory? The days when "play with me, mommy" is a common request and our biggest disagreement is over what we're eating for dinner. I know that kids don't change over night and the transition from preschooler to preteen will happen gradually, but I'm not sure I'm ready to begin our journey down that path...but perhaps, as a parent, you never are...

Here are a few additional photos and tidbits from our crazy summer that just didn't fit in any other post!

This top photo is one of my favorite photos, taken of my kiddos snuggling on a lazy morning...

Here's a few photos of Alexa from her ballet class this summer. She loved the class and we've enrolled her in fall classes as well. The one of Brody and Alexa was taken on the last night when she was posing for me to take her photo. Brody then began imitating her pose, putting his arms out like she had hers, so she just walked behind him and hugged him! They really are so precious together!
The girl with her in some of the photos is her friend Carly. Carly will be starting Kindergarten as well, but she has a September birthday, so they're almost a year apart...and Carly's really tall for her age!! Alexa, though, has hit a growth spurt this last year! We had her five year old check up Thursday and she's in the 50% for height now!! Still 25% for weight, but how do you gain weight when you're always moving?

Brody is beginning to use spontaneous phrases now! This may not seem like a big deal, but my little man has not been much of a talker beyond mama, dada, and lala. His first spontaneous words were "Get ready, get set, go!!" which he uses quite frequently now. He also says "help me" now without having to be reminded, and we're working on please - he signs it without a prompt, but instead of saying it when I ask him to use his words, he points at his mouth and says, "puh puh puh" which is what I do when trying to teach him to make the P sound! He also says Hello, bye bye, and a multitude of animal noises. The cutest, though, happened yesterday. I was laying on the floor playing with the kids and he crawled on top of me and said, "Hi baby!" (or hI Bae-BEE") I have said this to him almost every day of his life, when getting him out of his car seat or crib, picking him up from nursery, etc. I recorded him saying it last night after his bath, but I always forget to hold the camera the right way, and I don't know how to rotate the video after it's recorded, so sorry about the angle, but the audio is the cutest part!


And lastly, we've made the move to the big boy bed this week! So far, so good...I've only been up with him when he's fallen out of the bed, but he hasn't tried to get out of it - with him being a bit short, I don't think he's figured out that he CAN get out of it if he wants! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this transition will continue to progress smoothly...

Fairies and Pirates...

These were the invitations that went out to about ten lively preschoolers - seven arrived on august 2nd to greet my little tinkerbell, including two pirates and one princess.













While waiting for guests to arrive, I revived an old traveling light skill by entertaining the kids with balloon animals. Once all the guests had arrived, we began our main activity, the treasure hunt! Pottery Barn had pirate themed supplies for summer parties this year, and I had gone into the store in search of the sandbox bones I had seen in a catalog. While there, the saleswoman did her job well by also introducing me to their dry erase treasure map and clues! It was too cute to pass up... the kids were told that captain hook had heard about the tinkerbell party, and determined to make sure on one in neverland had fun, he hid a very vital part of our party. to be sure he could find the treasure later, he had hidden clues around neverland. peter pan had learned of his treachery and stolen the last clue written, the one that would lead to all the other clues and eventually the treasure!

That clue was read to the kids and the treasure hunt began!
"There's a door to the place you jump around. The clue is below, facing the ground."





"Look in a house where you might play - above the door a clue may lay"







"Baby birds once called this home, now a clue rests here alone" (this clue was for the birthday girl since she alone would know which bush the birds had made a nest in earlier this summer)





"Beware the swamp and those lurking about! The clue is guarded by a long green snout!" (upon our blue tarp/river were green crocodile heads made from poster board)




"Many a man was buried with his woes...your next clue may be under his nose." (the pottery barn bones were buried in the sandbox, with the clue placed in a plastic bag and tied through the eye/nose holes of the skull)









"You've solved the clues to find my map! It's under the table where the presents are wrapped!"

After reviewing the map, the kids headed through the yard to find the treasure, which was, of course, the goody bags for the party. Michaels had a cute wooden treasure box on clearance for 1/3 of its original price! I had wanted to paint it before the party, but the cake took way longer than I had anticipated!


I love making cakes for the kids parties and always look on-line for ideas to copy. I loved the idea of the meringue mushrooms, although I had never tried to make meringue before. It went surprisingly well, and I think the cake was a hit (although it doesn't take much to impress preschoolers).










After Brody's nap that evening, we took her to Build-a-Bear to 'redeem' her birthday present from us and spend some of her b-day cash. She has been telling us how she "needs" another Build-a-bear, and imagine her delight when she discovered they even had TINKERBELL costumes for the bears!! Once Tinkerbell was complete (yes, that's the bear's name too) we headed to Indianola, just south of Des Moines, for the annual balloon festival. Unfortunately, it was too windy for the balloons to go up, and since we had heard that as we were pulling in the parking lot, we didn't even bring our camera up to the field with us. The kids did get to see one balloon who braved the winds to inflate while on the ground, and then at dusk, there were fireworks, which are always a hit with our kiddos.

Overall, we had a great day celebrating with our five year old!

To Texas And Back...Part 1

Sorry for the LOOOONG delay in posting! The month of July has seriously flown! Sarah and I survived our road trip - the kids did really great! We stayed at our time share in Oklahoma the first night and traveled into Dallas the next afternoon to hang out with Jennifer for a while. We then drove a little further and stayed Friday night with my friend Juli from South Carolina. The kids loved getting to see each other again! I was sleeping in the room with Karis and Alexa. We put the girls to bed around 10:00 and I headed to bed about an hour later. When I walked up to the door, I could still hear them whispering back and forth. "I'm going to miss you." "Me too." It was so cute!

We left bright and early Saturday morning so we could meet up with Robin and Emily (and boys) at the Chick-fil-a in Houston for lunch. We then had about an hour to kill before meeting up with my parents, so we hung out at Sarah's house where it was quite entertaining to watch the boys interact! Brody is the oldest at 2, although size wise, they're all about even! Gideon turns two in September, Cooper's next in January, and of course Cameron just turned one. Catching all four boys in the same photo was impossible, but I managed to get three of them, and this cute one of Gideon and Brody figuring out the ball popper!





My time in Texas was, as usual, a whirlwind. I loved spending time catching up with my family! The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins, and Papaw's animals were a big hit!

The girls got to help him feed Daisy, a not-so-baby goat who still loves the bottle, and Classy, the 20-something horse he's been nursing back to health had finally put on enough weight to handle a few riders! She really is a beautiful horse and I cannot believe the difference between December, when you could count all of her bones, and July.

On of my assignments while in Texas was to sort through the many boxes of high school memories and childhood toys and determine which ones I really wanted to keep (and therefore move to Iowa with me) and which items I might be ready to part with. I have always loved hats, and one box contained several hats that went with various outfits in high school...as you can see, my son enjoys hats too! And he was kind enough to share them with his Pawpaw!

To Texas And Back...Part 2

On the 18th, all 9 of us loaded up in my parent's motor home and started our drive back to Iowa. We again stayed in Oklahoma the first night and arrived at our house early evening on Saturday. Though we'd had relatively nice weather this summer, it chose to rain probably 7 of the 10 days my parents were in town! However, we did get to show them around Iowa and visit some of the attractions we hadn't even seen yet, like the Bridges of Madison County and the Living History Farm.

The Living History Farm is an outdoor museum where you walk through the different ages of farming, from the Ioway Indians to a 1900s farm. There are activities for the kids to participate in at each of the farms, if they are interested, and the staff at the farms are dressed in period costumes. You begin by riding on a tractor pulled cart to the furthest farm (in history and in distance!) and then you walk the 3/4 mile trail through the farms and catch the tractor back to the historic town -


Brody loved the tractor and wore his John Deere shirt for the occasion!






My favorite moment (which happened too fast for me to capture on camera) was when we visited the 1900s farm and one of the women asked Haylee and Alexa if they'd like to help her slop the pigs. The girls each grabbed a side of the bucket handle and walked up the hill toward the empty pen attached to the barn. Just as the girls were reaching the pen, the pigs must have seen them because suddenly the air was filled with squeals as 5-6 large pigs came bustling out of the barn, sloshing full speed ahead through the chest high mud! Their excited squeals were matched by the girls concerned ones as they dropped the bucket and ran away from the splashing mud! They chose not to help the woman at the farm empty the bucket over the side of the fence.

After touring the farms, we visited the historic 'town' where again there were activities for the kids to help with. At the broom shop, they swept up the loose hay from the floor. At the blacksmith's shop, they stoked the fire with an air blower. We were there for about three hours and still didn't see everything - it's not far from our house so we'll have to plan another visit with the kids while we live here.

On Saturday the 24th, we visited Madison County to see the John Wayne birthplace and museum and the infamous bridges. The weather was perfect that day!! John Wayne was born in the small house in Winterset, Iowa which now houses the museum. There were props from his movies, letters about his career from other movie stars of the era, and tons of photos from his childhood. I grew up watching John Wayne movies with my dad, and it was cool to learn his birthplace was only thirty minutes from where we live.

Winterset is definitely a place we will be visiting again! It's a beautiful farming community set in Iowa's rolling hills. Of the six remaining bridges, we just had time to see three that day.



Leave it to my kids to find a "pet" where ever we go! This was Tiger and he had chosen the Roseman Bridge souvenir shop as his new home...the man working there offered to let us take him home with us, but we declined.



The Roseman Bridge is the most famous for its role in the movie, and, it's also the only bridge still in its original location. The others have been moved, which could not have been an easy feat based on the size of those things! The settings were beautiful, and this is definitely another place we will visit.

The last bridge we saw, the Cutler-Donahoe bridge had been placed in the city park. We didn't have time to explore the park, but there is so much more to see. It has a three story limestone observation tower that you can climb to the top of, a beautiful stone bridge, and, what I want to see most, an English style hedge maze that you can run through!! The kids loved our outing and, as you can see, my mom and husband got some great photos (I don't even bother bringing a camera if the two of them are around.)



Despite the fun outings, it was a whirlwind visit that passed all too quickly and we did not see and do nearly as much around Iowa as I had originally thought. We did take them to the zoo, and to see our gold-domed state capitol, but we also did a lot of work! I got an early birthday/Christmas present (a sewing machine) while my mom was in town so she could teach me how to use it. My first project (which my mom did most of) was making a custom black table cover which fits over my table like a box top and covers the numerous scratches (this keep the cats from thinking its a toy and jumping up to slide across it like they do with table cloths). Two moves haven't been kind to my poor table, but at this point, covering the table is much easier than refinishing it! The next project will be making a new dog bed for Chance...I bought some heavy duty foam and hope to reuse as much of his old bed cover as possible since he's familiar with the fabric and feel.

My dad and I tackled a few of our outdoor projects. We built new, larger shed doors so our lawn tractor can fit in the shed (and Brody's lawnmower!), built shutters for the playhouse to keep the rain from rotting the wood inside, and put the entire perimeter of the playhouse on cement pavers to keep the moisture away (I really thought my dad was crazy when he told me we could do this by lifting the house, but, as always, his plan worked!). We bought wood and paint to finish the inside of the playhouse as well, but ran out of time...especially since mother nature gave us an unexpected project. The second night after returning home, Iowa gave us one of their signature rain/hail storms which woke Billy and I up. Because of the way the house faces, the master bedroom window takes the brunt of the storm. This time, however, we heard the disconcerting sound of rain splattering off of our window sill! We did the best we could with towels until the storm subsided, and the next day while Billy was at work, my dad investigated and discovered rotten wood. Of course another storm was expected that evening, so with my dad hanging precariously out of the second story window (half the step ladder in my bedroom, half on the small roof ledge!) he replaced the board, only to discover the one under it also had damage. The fix is temporary but it has withstood several more pounding thunderstorms while we get quotes to replace whatever has to be replaced. Upon crawling back through the window, soaked (because of course it started raining while he was fixing the window), my dad informed me this was one of those "Do as I say, not as I do" situations and that I was not to stand on a ladder the way he had just done, using only the rotten window seal as support! I don't think that's a rule I'll have a hard time following!

We also discovered while my parents were in town that Brody LOVES this little motorized four wheeler! It's parked in our garage and now, every day he puts his shoes on and points to the garage door, wanting someone to let him ride the 4-wheeler. With the grandparents in town, he typically did not have a problem getting his way!





It was great to have my grandparents in town as well, and they enjoyed the milder Iowa on our back deck just about every day, weather permitting. We had a mini birthday celebration with Alexa, and she was very excited to see Grandma and Pawpaw had given her a PINK camera!! Within the first two days she had it, she'd taken about 200 photos, including ones of her feet, the car interior, her breakfast plate, the curtains...you get the picture! (pardon the pun)














While it's always hard to see company leave, it has helped that this week has been so busy! Alexa's fifth birthday party is at our house TOMORROW and I have been running around town picking up items for our Tinkerbell-themed boy/girl party. Photos of the celebration will be posted next!