This weekend, we drove up to Leavenworth to hang out with our friends the Sessoms who sadly are moving to North Carolina in a little over a month. Guess when we get our trailer (because I killed Royal in our March Madness bracket!!!!) we have a place to go visit!!
The Sessoms have a blow up jumper in their back yard. It’s pretty awesome and the kids had a blast jumping on it, even Willow got in on the action with the bigger kids!
Here’s some pics of the kids, (mostly in the car) that I think are pretty hilarious.
Jayden is having a real hard time giving me a normal smile, so this is what you get. :)
Willow likes to put on her own sunglasses, and when she does, she always puckers up her lip and stares are you like, “What?”
When went into Kansas City today to have some fun with the kids, and it was Royal’s first trip ever into Missouri, he was pretty excited about that. :)
We started at the train station because they have a bridge that goes over the top of the train tracks and you can watch the trains coming and going into the station. Jayden loved it and pretty much didn’t want to go anywhere else. Dinosaurs and trains, it just doesn’t take much to make that kid happy
Here’s the kids waiting for a train to show up!
Finally! 2 trains at once!!! Could we get any luckier??? :)
And we pretty much just can’t go anywhere where we don’t spot a dinosaur somewhere! I guess there is a dinosaur exhibit coming to Kansas City in a couple weeks. Guess we’ll be making another trip! :)
We ate lunch at Fritz’s where you sit in a booth, order your food over a telephone, and then your food gets delivered by a train that runs on some tracks over your head. It was pretty sweet.
We also stopped by the Crayola store, and let me tell you, I could of done some damage in there! But Royal was always near by making sure I wasn’t getting one of everything!
I did manage to pick up some sidewalk paint! Jayden loves painting, but man is it a mess to set up and take down all the time, so I figured since he might enjoy having an entire driveway to paint instead of just a piece of paper. I was right. :)
Willow was going to get in on the action too, but she had to take a little time out in her car…
…because the first thing she did after dipping her brush in some paint was try to eat it….
Oh! and my favorite quote of Jayden’s from the ride to and from KC this weekend (just so I don’t forget it later), out of the blue he says, ‘Gosh mom, I really hate all those wrinkles in my toes
The Walking With Dinosaurs show is coming to Wichita in a couple of weeks and in order to promote the show, a 6-month old baby T-Rex made it’s appearance today a the mall. We got there a little early and managed to find some friends who had a spot right up front, so we crowded in and sat with them. It was pretty awesome! Jayden loved it, as long as the baby t-rex was a few feet away. If it got a little close, he’d start scooting around behind me. He knew it wasn’t real (we’ve been talking about it all day), but he said, ‘He’s got huge teeth!’ Willow just chilled in our friend’s stroller and really didn’t think too much of it. (all my pictures are from the ground level, as I was sitting on the floor with the kiddos. :) )
Supposedly there is a big thunder storm rolling into Wichita this evening. I love how in Kansas you can see the storm coming, there is a total edge to it.
Looking straight out back of my house the sky looks like this…
Good-bye blue sky and sunshine…
Turn your head 90 degrees and you’ll get this view from my back porch…
Hello Storm…
Turns out, the storm pretty much missed us here at the house, (unless there is another one coming). We heard thunder in the distant, but that’s about it. Here is the view from the porch now, about an hour later…
I love that Jayden loves to do things for and with Willow. He reads to her all the time, and this is one of her favorite books. He’s such a good big brother! And Willow is the typical little sister, pulling on his ear and everything. :)
This was our 2nd Easter here in Kansas, all alone, with no family around. I actually don’t really mind being all alone on this holiday. Back in Washington, Easter was like all other holidays and semi-holidays and sometimes weekends, lots of people, lots of food, lots of noise, lots of fun. But for the past few years, I don’t mind not doing that. Easter 2007 was the last time I saw my brother alive, so Easter’s now are a little depressing and sad for me (despite the reality behind Easter - The Resurrection! - not depressing and sad at all!), so a low key Easter is all right with me.
We dyed eggs on Friday.
It was Willow’s first time getting to participate! Please ignore the drool, the girl is always drooling…
Then it was time to put some stickers on our newly colored eggs!
Willow thought it was more fun to put stickers on her leg…
She also thought the eggs were balls, so she wanted to play with them. I said, ‘well, just give her one, they’re hard boiled, so it’s not like she could crush it and make a big mess’
Guess I was wrong. Egg. Down. Never underestimate the thumb strength of a 16 month old. ;)
Today after church, we came home and did our egg hunt. I swear it was over in like 2 minutes. It didn’t take Willow long to figure out what was going on and she loved finding all the little eggs in the yard, especially when she discovered that some of them had candy in them!
(be sure to notice Willow’s shoes…luckily there’s no hippos around here)
After the egg hunt, Jayden really wanted to try and eat an egg like Marcie on “It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown”. I told him he could try it, but we were going to take the shell off, something that Marcie forgot to do…
While Jayden was trying out his salted hard boiled egg, Willow was digging through their Easter boxes looking for more candy
I decided this year to get these canvas boxes to put their Easter presents in, since they could still use the baskets that I got them last year, and we could use the canvas boxes for collecting toys throughout the rest of the year. Jayden’s is blue and is an elephant, Willow’s, you’re not gonna believe this but…Willow’s is a pink hippo. And I got these a couple days before the whole shoe/hippo incident. Guess my life really does have some foreshadowing in it. Maybe if I was paying a little more attention, I would of noticed that God was trying to tell me that hippos were going to play a small, but very funny part in my near future. :)
Jayden finished up his 1st session at the Wichita Swim Club and he graduated from Level 1 - Exploration and Comfort! Woo Hoo! That means on Monday he starts in a new class for Level 2, with a new teacher (he’s a little anxious about this, he does NOT like change), and new things to learn.
Jayden earned the highest marks in all of his skill proficiency evaluation for level 1 : Streamline, Kicking, Fully submerge face and blow bubbles, Supported front and back float, Roll over from front to back and back to front, Introduction to alternating arm action, Introduction to breaststroke kick, and Introduction to butterfly kick and body movement. His teacher even made comments about how he can float all by himself and how he is a natural in the water. Basically when you translate that into mommy-talk, it means she sees a future Olympian. :) he he he
Thursday’s StrollerFit classes are right across the street from the zoo. So, I know this is going to come as a big shock to ya’ll, but as we were leaving Jayden asked if we could go to the zoo. I said sure, as long as he knew we couldn’t stay too long. My plan was to check out a few animals and then head back home and have lunch here. So, we walked around, we fed the fish, honked at some nesting geese, contemplated feeding the giraffes, but that made Jayden a little anxious so we moved on to the tigers, and then for our last animal we were going to speed walk on over to the lions and then head home. Well to get to the lions from the tigers we have to walk around Africa - the giraffes, rhinos, elephants, and hippos. Jayden asked if we could swing by the hippos real fast and see if they were in their pool. Sure enough they were. The wall around the hippo pool is too high for the kids to see them while sitting in the stroller. So Jayden jumps out, and if Jayden is out then there is no way Willow is going to stay put. So I pick her up and hold her in front of me so she can see the hippos. She stuck her little foot through one of the bars and then kicked around a few times…mostly because she wanted me to let her stand on the wall by herself, but there was no way I was doing that, everybody knows hippos are mean suckers and I’m not letting her fall in…but on one of her kicks she managed to hit the side of one of the bars and her shoe. fell. off. It fell off! Right into the hippo pool! I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh Willow, your shoe!’ The other woman standing there with her kids looks at me a little funny, then looks down at the hippo pool and says, ‘Oh my gosh! Your shoe is in there!’ Duh. Then the hippos start to move. It swims right over to Willow’s pink shoe, nudges it with it’s nose a couple times, then pulls it under the water. Jayden is completely traumatized. He’s keeps saying, ‘Mom, I’m scared! Mom, I’m scared! That hippos has Willow’s shoe! We need to get it back! Mom, get her shoe! I’m scared! The hippo has Willow’s shoe. Now Willow only has one shoe, she needs her other shoes. Bad hippo!’ I’m like, ‘What the heck are you scared of? The hippo? The shoe? The hippo can’t get us and I’m pretty sure Willow’s shoe is toast. Get back in the stroller, we’ve got to go find someone to tell them what happened’ The lady who was standing next to me says, ‘Wow, it’s amazing that hippo knew right away something got thrown in the water’ Ummm, yea, hippos ain’t dumb lady! They like food, look how fat they are! :) I am thinking, where the heck is my camera??? I would of so taken pictures of Willow’s shoe floating around just for the blog and proof of it to hold it over Willow’s head later! :) So on my way to find a zoo person, Jayden can’t stop talking. He is a total verbal processor (ahem, Grandpa Fireball…..) He keeps talking about it and asking questions and talking and asking, and he talks really fast (I suppose that comes from me, as my mom always used to call me motor mouth). At one point he said, ‘Mom, we need to go get Dad. Dad will come back and sword the hippo and get Willow’s shoe.’ ‘Mom, I need to go get a fishing pole. Then I can get the shoe from the hippo. That is what God told me. God, who lives in my heart, told me to get a fishing pole to get Willow’s shoe back. That’s what I need to do Mom’
So, I finally find someone, tell them that my daughter dropped her shoe in the hippo pool. I had no intention of getting my shoe back, but I didn’t want to read in the headlines about one of the hippos at the zoo dying because they choked on a hot pink sandal. She radios my message in and I hear a lady on the other end say, ‘She dropped WHAT in the hippo pool?’ Oh, how I wanted to say, “ha ha ha, just kidding, April Fools!’ The zoo person tells me on my way out to check with the entrance because if they find my shoe, that’s where they’ll leave it. So, we head off to the bistro so I can get the kids something to eat while we wait to see if the sandal can be retrieved. Jayden still can’t stop talking. He’s talking so much he can’t even eat his chicken nuggets. Chicken nuggets, people. Jayden loves chicken nuggets so much, he asks for chicken nuggets for breakfast all the time! I was leaving to go to the store last night and I said, ‘Jayden, anything you want me to get you?’ He says, ‘Just make sure you have some chicken nuggets! That’s all mom, chicken nuggets!’ And now he can’t even manage to calm himself down enough about the shoe to eat some! Jayden stops a lady who is going around cleaning tables and starts saying that hippos aren’t suppose to eat shoes, and that hippo made a sad choice. Of course he’s talking a million miles an hour so she’s having trouble following him. When she looks at me and I clarify that she has indeed heard correctly, a hippo ate Willow’s shoe, she just says, ‘Oh, dear…’ and moves on. Another woman was sitting at a table next to us, cracking up, listening to Jayden’s story. She says, ‘I thought those things only happened to me!’ And then continues to chuckle to herself. Funny, lady, funny.
I wrap up Jayden’s left over nuggets and load the kids up to leave. Jayden, still very concerned about the shoe, asks if we can check the hippo pool one more time and see if we can see it. I’m like, fine, but then we’ve got to go. We see no shoe in the pool and head towards the entrance to see if the shoe made it there. I go up to one of the windows and say, “Um, yes, my daughter is the one who lost her shoe in the hippo pool. They told me to check here to see if you were able to get it.” The lady sitting at the window just looks at me like I am pulling an April Fools joke on her. But then another woman comes up behind her and says, ‘Oh yes! They were able to get it!’ She holds up Willow’s shoe just barely touching it with her thumb and index finger and says, ‘I’d probably wash this, the trainers had to tell the hippo to spit it out!’ Oh. My. Gosh. Nasty! I’d wash that shoe even if the hippo didn’t eat it, have you ever seen hippo water?????
So, the shoe is totally intact, a few stains that I’ll see if I can get out in the wash. But of course, I ran into the woman from the bistro on my way out to the parking lot. She goes, ‘Did you get your shoe back?’ I’m like, ‘Oh yea, the hippo had to spit it out.’ She just starts laughing again and I turn around and speed walk the kids out to the car. :)
And now for you…the story in Jayden’s words…just so you have an idea of the intensity and speed at which he was talking and asking questions…
