Fun on the Farm

Jack finally started his Fun on the Farm class through our city. I have been looking forward to this for a couple of months now. Jack is OBSESSED with farm animals (or e-i-e-i-o's as he calls it). He wants to play farm all day, or read farm books, or sing farm songs. Anything that has to do with cows, pigs, horses, etc. So each Friday while Emily is at preschool, we get to go to a local farm and play with farm animals and do crafts and all that fun stuff. He got to ride a miniature horse last week and loved it. He also held and fed baby chick, that he almost squished. He was sad to leave because he was having so much fun. I'm looking forward for our second class tomorrow.

This is what memories are made out of!

Well, last week I had playdate at my house. Playdate consists of about 5 moms with our herd of kiddos. Unfortunately, Emily had preschool that day so she wasn't able to be here so I asked Jenny if Maggie could stay for the day and we would bring her to church that evening. And of course she said yes and Em and Mags were super happy.
So, they wanted to rest and watch a movie in the front room while Jack was taking a nap. They were laughing and playing and having a great time. I looked in on them a couple of times and everything was going great. Until, Emily comes walking out of the room with 2 chunks of hair in her hand. I was like 'oh no, she just chopped off Maggie's hair.' Emily was looking at me with this terrified smile on her face with this little fake laugh. I said "oh no, oh no, what happened." She of course ran off screaming. I asked her a bunch of times and she said that Maggie cut it but she couldn't remember why. I said, "tell me the truth and you won't get in trouble." She said, "But if I tell you the truth, can I have a snack." Of course I had to bust out laughing. That is SO my kid. Negotiating something else in the deal. So I told her if she wouldn't tell me I would ask Maggie.
So I went in the room where Maggie was watching the movie. She was sitting prim and proper on the beanbag chair with her legs folded. I asked Maggie what happened to Emily's hair. She said, "Oh, I cut it." I said, "I know, why?" She said, "Because she asked me too. But Kaylee, Kaylee, wait. When I cut it the fist time, she said it hurt. So I was very gentle when I cut the rest." Which again, I burst out in laughter. The whole thing was quite hilarious. I'm pretty sure that Emily got the scissors for her and what happened from then on, I may never know. So Emily, Maggie, and I had a talk about how we never, ever, ever cut any ones hair or our own. Then we went to Cool Cutz for Kids and had to chop the rest off. Luckily Maggie cut pretty straight and has such precision :-). I think we may have a future hairdresser on our hands.
Emily loved the new hair-do. I think it makes her feel free. Less is always more for her.... hair, clothes, shoes, you name it! And Maggie thought it was really cute too.
The best reaction was when Jenny and Sue (Jens mom) saw it at church that night. They look devastated. That really made me laugh because it really was not that big of a deal for me. I was trying to grow her hair out, but oh well. It's just hair and it will grow back. This is something that we can talk about forever, this is what memories are made of. I have so, so, so many memories with Jenny as a kid. When you spend enough time with people, memories are formed.


Here's a couple pictures of before and after the hair cut. I didn't actually take a close up of Maggie's hair cut.
Maggie scissor hands...hehehe. This was taken outside of Cool Cutz before the chop.

Getting her hair cut.

Some of the hair

After the haircut... Lollipops for all

San Clemente

I know this post is also really old but I wanted to add some pictures of our fun summer "camping" trip to San Clemente. This year there was a huge group of church friends that were all camping the same week as us so it was super fun to hang out with everyone and chat at the beach or around a camp fire.
My kids had an awesome time this year. I was still a little nervous how Jack would sleep (he was sleeping REALLY bad at the time) so we decided to do the drive there and back everyday and sleep at home. It actually worked out really good and the kids got good night sleeps. Next year, for sure, we'll do the whole camping experience and sleep there all week.
We did a lot of beach time, playing around camp (volleyball, games, football, lots of crafts), some fishing, and s'mores every night (yum yum). It was great to have my parents and my sister, Bryan, and all the cousins there together. We did a lot of camping growing up so this reminds me of when I was young and all of the fun memories I have. And I love making more with my kids!

Bryan and Blake dug a super deep hole, straight down and we set Jack in it. It was way over his head and kind of freaky.

Jacks 2 favorite pass times when we were camping... picking pine cones and drinking old water out of a squirt gun (or sharing his old water with Lauren).


Craft time! Michael's had all their little crafts for like .50cents so I stocked up on them and the kids had a blast doing projects, playdoh, crafts, making bracelets, etc...


The kids would ride in the back of my dads car with no seat belts on to the beach everyday.....they thought that was pretty cool.

Have I told you all lately what wonderful grandparents my parents are. My mom and dad are SO hands on with my kids and I love it so much. It's so rare to have people that want to sit down and play, talk , interact with your kids. I'm very blessed and my kids are too.


This picture might possibly be my favorite picture from the whole trip. I laugh out loud every time I look at it. My mom found this really long piece of seaweed and they decided to play jump rope with it. This is my sister jumping pretty high, trying to hold her dress down, with her ponytail flying around everywhere. The other picture I have, her dress is flying way up, so she probably would rather me not put that one in. The things we do to entertain ourselves.

Gotta love him!

Yes, we let our kids rock climb right by the railroad tracks!

The craziest thing about the whole trip was Jack falling asleep on the beach and sleeping for like 2 hours everyday we were there. I couldn't get him to sleep at home for nothin. But throw him on the beach and he just conked out. It was great! Lauren and Jack always slept so cozy together.

Our paci-head kids climbing in the trees around camp.

I couldn't keep this kid clean

Jack roasting marshmallow's for the first time. He was really good at it and loved the fire. I couldn't get Emily 10 feet from it. But that is OK by me since she has a tendency to hurt herself on EVERYTHING.
The girl in the picture was Judith (which the kids called Judas). She was a sweet girl we met and she spent hours at our campsite playing, doing crafts, and roasting marshmallow's.



I just really wanted to fit this trip in because we had such a great time. Now I'm going to skip a bunch of fun things we did this summer because my sister is bored of hearing about old news. The next post will be current, I promise!

OC Fair

Here are a few pictures from the OC Fair. Despite the fact that it cost an arm and a leg, the kids had an excellent time. Jack is SO obsessed with farm animals so he thought that the whole petting zoo, animal farm thing was just great. He wanted to touch every animal that he saw. Emily loved the huge ferris wheel. She loved being way up high. She had a great time on all the rides and playing games to win stuffed animals. Great time but it definetly hit the wallet pretty hard.

Circus Fun

There is no way that I'm going to be able to go back and blog about all the fun stuff we did this summer, so I'll just highlight some of the favorites.
We got to go to the circus again this year and stay in the suite. It is such a great show, I just wish my kids appreciated it as much as I do. It took Emily about 3/4's of the show to get used to the loud noise and everything that's going on. She spent most of the time in a corner or under a table. When she finally mustered up the courage to actually watch it, she really enjoyed it. Jack would watch the show for a while and then play inside the suite for a while. Super fun!





I love this picture. Blake is such a good older cousin. Jack adores him and thinks that he is the coolest. As soon as Blake realized that I was taking a picture, he let go of Jacks hand immediately :-).

Grandma and Emi

The elephants are always impressive

Birthday parties for the kids

Oh my goodness, am I behind. I will try my hardest to play catch up over the next few days but I make no promises.
I guess I'll go all the way back to the kids birthday parties.
This year in an effort to save a little bit of money, we decided to do one big birthday party for the kids. We mostly had family and close friends, so it didn't get too out of control. We had a bouncer, played some games, did some water balloons, lunch, cake and presents. It turned out to be a beautiful day and everyone seemed to have a great time.
I can't believe my little girl is 4 and my little guy is 2. I am so proud of the kids that they are turning out to be. They have truly completed my heart and made me a better person. They are both so different and are turning in to such good little friends. They are starting to play more and more together every day. I hope that I can show them everyday how much they've blessed my life and how important they are to me.

Maggie got Emily a Best Friends Forever necklace. They're both wearing them in this picture. They're so sweet.

All the kids loved the water balloons. They only took Matt and I 2 hours to fill up, no seriously.

Playing one of the games

Some of the girls in the bouncer

Cakes, cookies and cupcakes

Yum, yum

Jack and Cousin Lauren loved getting wet in these buckets. We couldn't keep them out of the water.

Presents


Jack on his actual birthday. We had Papa and Grandma Doerr over for dinner and sundae's.

Jacks new big boy bike.


Emily's birthday party at preschool



Some kids in Emilys class