Bowling!

Last weekend, we decided to take the kids and go bowling.  

Let me pause for a moment to remind you that for the past four and a half years, our lives have revolved around feedings, diaper changes, naptimes, bedtimes, snack times, sippy cups, potty trainings, etc.  Deciding at the last minute to take the kids and go bowling, without planning or preparing or packing bags might not seem like a big deal, but I feel like we have arrived on the other side of some monumental divide between people with babies and normal people.  

Anyway, we went bowling and it was a blast.  The Doodlebug was insanely funny.  He started trying to imitate Craig and I by ruuuuunning up to line when he threw his ball.  After watching us bowl a few frames, he started standing there and lining up first the way we do, then running and throwing.  It was funny because he stood there like he knew what he was doing, and then ran up there like a crazy man.

 

And every.single.time he let go of the ball, he would get so excited and jump UP and down like Rumpelstiltskin the entire time the ball was rolling.  Every frame.  Hilarious.

What's amazing is that he bowled an 83.  Now, admittedly, we were using bumpers, but he picked up a lot of pins without them.  You can see from the scorecard that he was actually beating me during the sixth frame.  

 The Ladybug would throw her ball, then clench her fists and mutter "I hope it does, I hope it does!" until her ball made it to the end.  She had fun but the ball was so heavy I think it wore her out a little, and she checked out about halfway through.  She loved dancing on the slick floor in her bowling shoes, though.  It was glow-in-the-dark bowling, so I didn't really get any good pictures (too dark), but the kids thought it was an awesome dance party.   Anyway, totally fun.  

SeptemberFest

Last weekend we went to SeptemberFest at the Governor's Mansion.  I posted about this last year.  We had so much fun.  Here's Franny going down a giant inflatable slide.  Now, this girl isn't afraid of anything, and she has been on inflatables and giant slides on numerous occasions.  So when someone asked if she would be okay on this 25' slide, I was like, "Are you kidding me?  She's got this."  Well, wouldn't you know it, she got to the top and was scared to come down.  I had to go up and get her.  

Here she is going down another one.  After the first, she was good to go!

There were some FFA kids with a little petting zoo.  They had lambs, chicks, a turtle, a pony, and the sweetest little piglets.

The Ladybug milking a cow.

The kids both got to ride horses.  They've ridden ponies and donkeys before, but I think this was their first time up on a full-sized horse.  You can't see Atticus' face that well in this picture, but he was absolutely positively beaming the entire time.  He was thrilled to be riding that horse.  

This is such a cool event to take kids to.  There was so much to do, and there were short lines for some things, like the horses and the inflatables, but I don't think we waited more than five minutes for anything (except maybe hot dogs).

 

My mom's friend at the State Department of Agriculture showing us their gardens.  Instead of flower gardens out front, they have these cool gardens with vegetables and Oklahoma commodity crops like cotton, canola, and soy.

Anyway, so fun!  People with kids should definitely check it out next year!

Mid-Summer Check-In

I've been doing an internship this summer, so we've been in a little apartment without internet.  Thus, no picture-posting for the past six weeks or so.  A tiny bit of catching up:

We went to a car show over Father's Day weekend.  The Doodlebug and I went around and found all the characters from the movie "Cars."  We found Lightening McQueen, Sally, Doc Hudson, and the Dyno-King.  And to top it off, we found...Mater! 

("Mater" actually belongs to Papa, so Atticus got to sit inside it and play around.)

Here is Franny-bug out on the farm feeding the sheep.  We have video of her petting the sheep, giving it kisses, and then looking at the camera and saying in a perfectly sweet little voice, "We are going to eat these sheep!"

 The Doodlebug helping Daddy work on the cabin/cottage/tiny house.  I can't believe he just turned FOUR!!  Such a big helper! 

 Here are the kids last night at the Fourth of July celebrations waiting in line for the bounce house with their cousin Neely.  The lines were really short so they got to do plenty of  bouncing.  

This was the first year they got to stay up and watch the fireworks.  Neely invited us over to watch them from her yard.  Franny was a little fazed by the loud noises, but she loved watching the fireworks.  The Doodle would have preferred to watch them from inside the house.   

I wasn't scared of the loud noises, but I was scared about keeping the kids up two full hours past their usual bedtime.  You could tell they were getting tired, but they did great.  As soon as the fireworks ended, Franny's first words were "Can I go to sleep now?"

Who Needs Toys?

So I get home this afternoon and the Doodlebug is out in the backyard, carefully cutting up chunks of mud with the side of a garden spade.  

What are you doing, Atticus?

Cutting up vegetables.

He recently figured out how to cut up his pancakes with the side of a fork, and the other day he got to help dad cut up carrots with an actual knife.  Apparently this new skill is very simulating for him, because I got him a plastic knife and he literally sat out there for two full hours doing this.  We had to drag him in for a bath but promised him that he can work on it again some more tomorrow.   

I think it is amazing when the kids hit on something that coincides so well with their development that they are willing to concentrate on it for hours.  It's pretty amazing.  He was just so relaxed and happy out there, perfecting his technique.

In other news, we go to the dinosaur museum and the "bug guy" is there with a cart full of snakes, turtles, and tarantulas.  When we walk in he's sitting there with a snake around his neck.  Franny-bug, of course, shrieks, "A snake!  I want to PET IT!" and makes a beeline for the snake.  She loved on that snake and let it lick her all over the hand and face with its little forked tongue.  (Ugh, right?)  She didn't even hesitate for a second.  

I'm kind of proud of her for being so brave, but it also terrifies me a little on a daily basis.  I mean, this is a girl who caught a bumblebee in her bare hand.  I'm a little scared she might walk in the door with a rattlesnake one of these days.

One more thing: I try to take the kids' questions seriously and give them the best, most truthful answers I can.  So Atticus asks me the other day, completely thoughtfully, "Mom, why does everything have sides?"  

Good grief.  What do you say to that? 

Little Chef and the Alligator

I just have a few random pictures so I thought I'd post a life here the past few weeks.  First, the Doodlebug thinks he's this guy from the movie Ratatouille:

 In case you haven't seen the movie, this kid who works in a restaurant but can't cook meets a rat who is a great cook but can't work in a restaurant because, you know, he's a rat.  So the rat hides in the kid's chef's hat and helps him cook, propelling him into a career as a celebrity chef.  The kid calls the rat "Little Chef."

So the Doodle has this little plastic lion that he carries around and calls Little Chef.  I guess because it has whiskers like a rat?  Anyway, Craig made him this chef's hat from posterboard.  The Doodle keeps the Little Chef in his hat.  It's mildly hilarious.

 
Now Lady Frances.  I post this picture even though her eyes are closed for two reasons.  One, because she insisted on wearing this ensemble all day, including at the dinner table.  Two, her eyes are closed because she is preparing to jump.  Which she did, off of the rim of the wagon.  I don't know how it didn't turn over on top of her.

Here they are at the zoo last week:

What else? We were driving the other day when Craig turned around and looked at Atticus sitting there in his carseat, serious as can be, wearing the chef's hat (yes, I know).  Craig laughs, saying, "He looks like the pope...or a priest...whoever it is that wears those hats."  Atticus says, "What's a BEAST?  I look like a beast?"

As for Franny-bug, she loves to ride the elevator at the museum, but she calls it the alligator.  As in, "Mommy, we went up in the Alligator today."  And she insists on wearing her brother's underwear.  You know, because they have Thomas the Train on them.  Sooo much cooler than her own.  She'll love that story someday.

Doodlebug's Fall Adventures

What!? It's raining!!

  The Doodlebug is growing up so fast!  He loves school, and he has learned how to spell and write his name (although it's usually backwards...but I think that's a good start!)  He is getting more and more adventurous about making new friends.  He loves to run and race, and loves to wear his tennis shoes ("My fastest shoes").  Interestingly, now that it has gotten cooler, he has also decided that he loves his shorts and wants to wear them every day.

Here he is at the zoo with his friend Jonathon checking out the birds:

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The other day he came into the bathroom while I was getting ready and told me he needed me to leave so he could have some privacy to use the restroom.  He said "Privacy is when you stay in the bathroom by yourself."  

I told him I was getting ready for school and if he wanted privacy, he needed to go use his own bathroom.  

He thought that over for a minute, then shut the bathroom door and said, "New privacy is when you can have two people in the bathroom.  That's new privacy."

SeptemberFest

This morning my mom and I took the kids to SeptemberFest at the Governor's Mansion.  We had never been before, but her neighbor works for the Department of Agriculture and is involved with it, and she thought the kids would love it.  They totally did!  We went through a hay maze, rode in a carriage, and the kids got to milk a cow and make butter.  We ate biscuits and beans that some chuckwagon guys were cooking in a demonstration outside, and had free hot dogs, lamb meat, and blue cheese. 

Here is a "train" from the Railway museum.  This was the first thing when we walked in, and it was hard to convince the kids that there was more to see.

The kids both climbed this giant slide and slid down by themselves.  The only bad part is that they both fell asleep in the car on the way back to my mom's house, and now neither one of them will nap.  Argh.  It may be a looong afternoon.

P.S. Of all that stuff, the Doodlebug said his favorite part was the librarians who were reading stories to the kids.  Like he doesn't go to storytime twice a week already!

This Week

 Just a few pictures of my sweet babies from this past week, before I start back to school and no longer have time to share pictures!

Here's Ladybug in her play kitchen.  She was pouring water back and forth, back and forth.  She was totally concentrating and stuck with it forever!

My Doodlebug, excavating dinosaur fossils at the museum.

 

Doesn't he look...scientific?  He loves the dinosaur museum.  We got a membership for his birthday and I thought they would just want to go straight to play in the children's area, but they really want to go through the museum every time and look at all the exhibits.

I like to call this Frannybug's "Witchy Woman" hair.  Typical Frances here.  This girl is absolutely cracking me up. 

Transition

I was in no hurry to move Franny-bug to a toddler bed.  She was going down easily and sleeping through the night.  Therefore, had she been content to sleep in her crib until age four, that would have been fine with me.  Not with her, though, so here we are.  

We moved her about a week ago.  Overall, the transition has gone smoothly.  We put a gate on the door, and decided to follow the "room = crib" philosophy.  That is, we aren't trying to make her stay in her bed, we just shut the gate and leave her in her room like we would have left her in the crib.  If she cries, we come to the door but don't go inside.  She fussed a little while the first few nights, but now she just plays around, opens her door a few times, and then gets in bed and goes to sleep when she gets tired.  

The Big Girl Room:

 We found the toddler bed on craigslist.  The big bed belonged to her great-great-grandmother, and we are keeping it in her room as a spare bed for now, and she'll use it when she gets big enough.  It is nice to have in there to cuddle on with the kids while we are reading stories. 

My little Fashionista:   

 

Pretty much every day, Frances wants to wear some combination of this pink polka-dot hand-me-down jacket, plaid thrift store hat, and green froggy rainboots (not pictured).  I put her in this little red-shorts, white shirt outfit, and five minutes later, she comes into the kitchen like this (you can tell she put on the sandals herself).

I also wanted to post a few pictures of this cool free children's museum my friend Mendy and I took the kids to last week.  It was amazing.  They have whole little turn-of-the-century play town, with a dry goods shop, bank, jail, train station, and house.  They have clothes for the kids to dress up in and lots of props.  Here's the Doodle in the bank:

 

And Franny-bug enjoying some "lunch" with Renna and Regan:

Keep your fingers crossed for us that she keeps up the good sleeping!

2 kids + 105 degrees =

Have I mentioned how much we love the splash pad?  

1. It's a fun way to cool off.
2. It's free.
3. When you have two toddlers, letting them run around and splash is MUCH less stressful than trying to take them to the pool.

 

 

For some reason, the Doodlebug enjoys running around the perimeter as fast as he can on the hot concrete.  He'll get another kid to run with him, and then tell me, "We raced, and raced, and raced..."

 

Franny Girl jumps right in there with the big kids.  When she gets splashed in the face, she flaps her arms wildly.

 

Spring has sprung!

Yesterday the Doodle comes into the house with his hand in a fist. Says "Dad, look at this fly!" Opens his hand. Bee flies out. Nice.

Climbing the "snake" at the ladder park:



Here's the Doodle climbing one of the ladders:



With little sister right behind him!



She was scampering up the whole thing by herself. Daddy was hanging on to her in case she fell, but she did all the climbing by herself.



Sweet Frances was smitten with this little bear this afternoon. It was Craig's when he was a baby. It is darling and squeaks when you squeeze it.



Great things about spring:

-Daylight Savings Time! We can actually do things outdoors after dinner. Like go for walks.
-Strawberry shortcake. Strawberries generally.
-Sandals. Shorts. Skirts.
-Daffodils. Next year we will have some at this house. I love them.

Pictures Old and New

My good friend Mendy's parents have a farm, and a month or so back they invited Craig and the kids out for the day. Mendy sent me pictures ages ago, and I'm just now getting them up.

Franny loves animals of all kinds, and she was thrilled about hanging out with the goats.



The Doodlebug, riding bareback.





We recently "discovered" a park near our house that is just at the right level for the kids. Not too boring, not too scary, not too close to a road...

We're calling it "the Ladder Park."



Who needs baby swings? Look at this big girl: