Kiddie Park

We made it to Kiddie Park several times over the summer.....such great entertainment and the kids love it!! Here is my accumulation of pictures from this year.....enjoy!!

See ya next year!!!

What have your kids flushed down the toilet??

Lately, Austin has had this obession with the water in the bathroom.....he will say "I have to go and wash my hands" and will do so for 10 minutes until I enter and put a stop to the "handwashing" aka water playing. So the other day when I was on the computer (probably blogging) I could hear what sounded like water running from the bathroom and my kids enjoying themselves. Thinking it was the bathroom sink they were playing with I didn't get up right away until I heard Austin yelling "MOM!!!" in a panic voice. Upon entering the bathroom, I found water all over the floor and the toilet overflowing.

When questioning Austin about what happened, I was led to the conclusion that he had tried to flush too much toilet paper down the toilet. So.....after plunging 100 times, pooring hot water into the toilet bowl and letting the toilet sit for 2 days (hoping the toilet paper would dissolve) it would still not flush. Our last option before having to call the plummer was using a wire auger and it worked!! Except there was no big wad of toilet paper but instead Craig pulled out A DIAPER!!!! (I'm amazed that it even flushed as far down as it did)

Hmmm....so either Austin forgot the he had put a diaper in the toilet or else just didn't want to fess up to doing so....or perhaps his sister in crime threw it into the toilet....I guess we'll never know.

Run For Relief

Last Saturday (Aug 21st), I ran my second 5K for this year (remember the goal is 3). I was hoping the weather would cool off in time but the heat has lingered on and even though the run started at 8:00 in the morning it was still TOO HOT!!!

My mom (who is awesome) brought my kids down to watch me as I ran towards the finish line. And to my suprise they were holding up those picture signs saying "Go MOM".

I ran across the finish line with a time of 30 min 46 sec which beat my previous run time by 2 min and 59 seconds.....so I was super happy with that. And to my suprise, the next day I found out that I had won a medal.....for placing 2nd in my age group!!

On the Road Again

We recently loaded up again and decided to drive and see a few friends. We stopped in Stillwater and while Craig played some frisbee golf, I got to visit with a dear friend who recently moved. The kids had a great time playing outside in the pool.....which ended up turning into a mud bath (I'll have to see if I can get a copy of that pic)

From there we headed farther west to Enid to visit Craig's best friend. We went to the water park and it was great fun (wish I had taken my camera). Austin even went down the water slide in a three man tube with Craig and Mook twice and with me and Mook once.

We went to the Air Force Base and got to try the Jet similator.

Craig and Austin did a good job flying

Me and Mikayla crashed

(however, I did have the bigger handicap sitting in my lap :)

The next day we went to visit Leonardo's and the kids had fun playing inside and outside.

The castle outside is HUGE!! So many stairs and bridges and ladders and slides and twists and turns to go and explore. It was already over 100 degrees that morning so we didn't get to play too long but the kids loved it!

Good Night

For months I have been entertaining the thought of moving Kayla over to a bed. However, I feared that it would require me to lay in bed with her for a half hour or so until she fell asleep. I just couldn't gather up enough motivation to do it. Kayla's sleeping patterns have been more of a challenge for us than Austin's were. She never starting sleeping through the night until about 9 months old and she still cries (screams) when we lay her in the crib even though we take time to rock and sing to her first.

To help my motivation we moved Kayla's bed into her room, I purchased a quilt that I loved, and we put up the safety rail. And there is sat for a couple weeks while we continued to put Kayla in her crib screaming herself to sleep.

One night Craig decided after putting her down that he would leave the door open (something we never did). And that girl didn't make a fuss at all....no crying. Coincidence? Nope, for the next week we put her in the crib with the door open and she fell asleep without crying. And I am now thinking "there is light at the end of the tunnel!!"

So last Friday night (Aug 6), I was working and called Craig before he went to bed to say good-night. And to my suprise he informed me that Kayla was sleeping in her bed!! And she has been sleeping in her bed ever since!! She will get up a few (or many) times and needs to be told to "go back to bed" or "lay down" which she will do and usually within a half hour she is asleep.

Who would of guessed---all she wanted was the door open!!

Good job Craig!! You get ALL the credit for this one!!

Weekend In OKC

The last weekend in July we drove down to OKC for the weekend with two reasons in mind: first, we have family there that we haven't seen for a while and second, me and Craig are overdue for a trip to the temple. We arrived Friday evening at Mike and Sara's house and their kids were super excited. Austin and Mikayla were instantly entertained and taken care of.

Saturday morning me and Craig went to temple which was wonderful. The temple is always so peaceful and really reminds you to keep an eternal perspective on life. Craig got lucky that morning as there was nobody standing outside to take our picture, so a picture of the OKC temple will have to do. It really is a beautiful temple where we got married just over 7 years ago (wow, time flies).Austin was super excited about this huge army tank at one of the neighborhood parks. It was super hot that day so we didn't stay long but headed back to the house to cool off.....




Mikayla went down once (kicking and screaming) and that was it for her. Austin loved the slide and went down solo, with his cousins, frontwards, backwards, on the tummy. He had a great time!


After nap time, we all went to the Children's Science Museum and had a great time. There was lots to see and do.

Some of the kids favorites were the segway ride, the maze of mirrors, the treehouse with the super huge spiral slide, laying on a bed of nails, and the gymnastic room.

It was a great weekend and we had lots of fun!!

TIME TO DANCE!!!

A favorite thing for our kids to do is dancing with their care bears. Austin will ask at least once (or twice) a day to DANCE!!! This entails taking a care bear and running around the red rug in our living room. It's a great way for them to get rid of all that energy before bed.

For some reason, on this night they thought it was fun falling on the ground.

The video is kind of long but I was too lazy to try to edit it. And yes that is Mambo No.5 by Lou Bega. Not exactly kid music but they love it!!!