Zoo field trip

Last month we went to the zoo with our home school group. I was so thankful that the weather turned fantastic just for our trip to the zoo. It had dropped 20 degrees, just so we could have perfect 70 degree weather for our field trip. I was in heaven!

When the boys were little, we would always make it a yearly tradition to go to the zoo. Now that there are so many littles running around, we can only afford to go with the group/field trip rate, which means that Ryan usually can't go with us because he is at school. That just means that I am in charge of keeping track of 5 little people (all with their own ideas) with only my 2 eyes and 2 hands. That doesn't always turn out as well as I would like.

The kids enjoyed watching the animals. V was especially excited, since it was her first time. She was really curious about the orangutans and loved to watch them climb all over and hide in the sheets that they were given to play with.

 Looking at the orangutans. She did not want to leave them!

 All the kids loved the farm, like always. They could not get enough of the petting zoo, cow milking, or tractor climbing. We ended up having to walk through the farm twice, just to appease all the children.

 Posing on the tree bench where they ate their snacks.

While I was getting more snacks out for the kids, I turn around to realize that V was not next to me anymore. It took all 2.5 seconds for her to take off and head for the play area. Thankfully I had other little bodies to catch her and hold her hand while I got snacks out for everyone. She is definitely my cute little run-away!

This little one just loves the camera!  She will give me the best faces when I pull out my phone to take a picture of her.

After I took this picture, all the kids were shivering from sitting in the shade. They were begging me to let them sit in the sunlight again.

Of course, all the kids had to ride the wood horses. 

 As usual, as soon as Aimee starts to concentrate on something, her tongue comes out. (It makes me smile every time--Daddy's little girl.)

 

 Ethan was really getting into it. It was quite funny.

  

 V (with a mouth full of cheese) wasn't so sure about it at first.

After a while, she loved it and didn't want to get off.

 I had to include this picture to show what Aimee normally looks like, with her hair right over her face. (Sweet girl has her momma's hair. I remember my own mother asking me if I was ever bothered by my hair being directly in my face.)

And now with her real face showing, after a little momma intervention. 

 V had her chance, too, but she wasn't as excited as everyone else.

 

The kids also begged me to stop at the statues, so they could pose next to each of them.

 

 V's little expressions just crack me up!

 

 

 

 The girls wanted to pretend they were in The Little Mermaid, and began to sing. V just wanted to get out of there!

 

 

 

 Aimee was so thrilled to be up here.

Jayke wanted to have an updated photo from when he was 3, except this time he didn't choke Timon. (Awww, he was so chubby and cute!)

 

After we left the farm, we had one more potty break to take and we were ready to head out. We had just got to where the elephants were (halfway to the potty), and I turned and noticed Kate wasn't with us anymore. Somewhere between the trail up the hill (she was with us at the end of the trail) and our walking a few yards towards the bathroom she had lost us. I gave instructions to Jayke to stay right where he was and make sure everyone stayed with him and I ran off to find Kate. This was actually the first time I have actually ever lost one of my children. I was terrified, but at the same time, I knew she couldn't have gone far if she had just wandered off. It was the fear that someone might have actually taken her that had me so scared. I went back to the last place I saw her, yelling for her the entire time. I looked by the elephants, even went past them, just in case she had turned left when we turned right. I went back down the trail...she was no where and I began to panic. Then I stop and look around and I see this lady staring at me strangely, so I walk towards her. She asks if I am missing a little girl. (Duh, I am running around like a crazy woman, screaming a girl's name.) She tells me that her mom had just taken Kate to the main office and then she called her mom to let her know I was found. I guess Kate had become distracted at the end of the trail. She lingered, looking at something for a minute, and then she turned left at the top of the trail instead of right. When she couldn't find us, she found someone with little kids and informed them that she couldn't find her mom. Of course, she couldn't remember my phone number, so they just took her straight to the office. I am so thankful that Kate knew exactly what to do and even more thankful that there are kind people in the world, willing to stop what they are doing to help a little child. I am most thankful that my other kids obeyed my commands and did not move an inch from where I left them.

At the end of the day, the kids had all enjoyed their time at the zoo, I had enjoyed the nice cool weather, and all 5 kids made it to the car with me. Next time, I am getting a leash for all my children.

Poem recitation

Aimee memorized two poems from a library book without any prompting from me. I had no idea she could memorize poems.

Translation (if you couldn't understand her): Boy Girl, Garden gate, standing kissing very late, Dad comes big boots, boy runs girl scoots.

It's hard to lose your lover when your heart is full of hope, but it's worse to lose your towel when your eyes are full of soap.

I just love her choice of poems. There were plenty of other poems in the book, but she chose the two about lovers.

Blind in underpants

This video needs no explanation. Enjoy. :-)

Parks

We had a couple days this month where the boys went to school for a 1/2 day, so we found some parks to play at to pass the time until we had to pick them up. The first day, only J had to go, so all the rest of us went to Riverview. Ethan bribed Kate with a dollar if she would climb to the top of the rope tower. It took her a while to figure out how to do it, but she came home to an extra dollar in her collection. She was quite happy about her accomplishment.

 We put E in the hamster wheel and let him spin. It was making me sick just watching him.

 After E got out of it, V wanted to play in it. She ran up to it, climbed right in, and sat to drink her water in the shade.

V is getting to be such a handful when we go anywhere. I have to constantly keep my eyes on her or else she runs off before I can even turn around. Thankfully this park is separated from the street somewhat and I was able to block her in a corner to let her run around and play.

The second day we went to Tumbleweed Park. We had been to the farm house for our field trip, but we had not played at the playground portion before. I was pleasantly surprised by the shade structure over the main section of equipment. Even though it was early in the morning and only April, it was still HOT in the sun.

Kate showed me she could do the monkey bars.

Aimee finally was (barely) brave enough to cross the "swinging" bridge.

V just wanted to run around and chase all the birds. Once again, I had turned around several times just to see she wasn't standing next to me anymore. I am glad the park wasn't very busy, so it was still easy to find my little runaway.

 

Wise beyond his years

I was just grading the kids school work and I came across a problem that Ethan got "wrong" but was so correct at the same time. The question was, "A students pushes a box of books across the room. The teacher pushes them back to where they were. Who did the most work? Why?" He answered, "The teacher because she teaches the class." While he did not grasp that because they both pushed the same item the same distance they actually did the same amount of work, he realized that teachers do actually work harder than the students on a day-to-day basis. We are so thankful for all the teachers around us, putting in endless hours of unseen work, just so that our children can have an enjoyable experience learning how to survive (and thrive) in this crazy world we live in.

V overload

I love this stage when kids are independent and always wanting to explore. I can see their little personalities developing and I just fall in love!

We found a ladybug in our yard and V was so curious about it...that is until it was on her.

V also LOVES shoes! She will walk around wearing any shoe she can find. I recently bought her a pair at a thrift store and she was so excited! When we got home and I put them on her, she just started stomping her feet and dancing all around. The video doesn't show her little dancing very much, but it does show her excitement about her shoes.

V discovered a love for Home Depot's car carts. We went in to the store to look at one thing and then she wouldn't get out. I didn't have anywhere to go for a while, so I walked around the store just to let her enjoy her car time. After about 20 minutes, I was ready to go, but she still wasn't. When I tried to pull her out, she just shook her head "no" and held on to the steering wheel. I realized at that moment that she loves cars just as much as her daddy.

She also loves to put her foot out when she is in her high chair.

She even likes to eat her toes.

Most of all, she just loves the camera. She always gets huge grins when she realizes that I am taking her picture.

 

She also likes to throw all her food on the floor when she is finished eating. It is a common sight to see the floor under her high chair completely covered with little bits of food.

V also loves to climb. Everything. I found her sitting in her high chair one day when I was cleaning her tray. I thought it was only because I had it adjusted so low, but I found her in it again at its highest setting. I have no idea how she actually gets in there, but somehow she pulls herself right into it when she wants me to feed her.

Her favorite place in the world is on top of the table. She loves to play with all the food the other kids leave up there. Sometimes she just gets up there to dance and see the world. I have to pull her off the table at least 10 times a day. Hopefully she never learns what it feels like to fall off.

When Aimee had her ear infection and always had cotton balls in her ear, V started putting little pom-pom balls in her ear. It was so funny to see her trying to be like Aimee.

 At 15 months, she still sits right around the 25th percentile. She is up to 20 lbs, still measures 30" tall, and head is 45cm.

She is jabbering all the time, but doesn't say many words. She will occasionally say bye, hi, dad, mom. She can nod "yes" and shake "no" with her head. She loves to laugh. She does this thing where she just laughs to be silly. She almost sounds like a chipmunk when she does it. It is hilarious.

She loves to comfort people when they are sad. If the other girls ever get hurt, she is the first one to hug them and try to make them happy again.

She is finally down to just one nursing a day, which will be ending very soon. She now sleeps all the way through the night. I am so relieved! It was all the nursing that made her wake up so much. As soon as she was mostly transferred over to solids and didn't breast-feed all day and all night, she slept through the entire night. It took only 2 or 3 nights to transition and now she consistently sleeps from 6:30/7pm until 6:30am, sometimes even later. I am so happy to finally be able to get some sleep at night!

Riverview Park

A few weeks ago we finally went to the new Riverview Park. I really wanted to check out the climbing web to see just how tall it was. It really wasn't as tall as I thought it was, but looking down it did seem really high. Ethan climbed all the way to the top. He was excited that he was the only one to get all the way up there.

Jayke tried, but he didn't get as high as Ethan. He still did better than I did, though.

 The girls were happy to just hang on the bottom.

(She always has a tongue sticking out when she is concentrating.)

V was completely fearless. She wanted to climb to the top of all the play equipment and did not know to be cautious near the open edges. She had a blast, but I was freaking out the entire time. 

We didn't know there was a splash pad until we got there, so we were not prepared with swimwear. I cautioned the kids to not get too wet because I didn't want my van sopping wet. By the time we left, we had kids dripping wet and shivering. Needless to say, some kids had to remove their wet clothes before getting in the car.

 

RAIN!!!!

After more than 2 months without rain, we finally had a nice storm. Everyone loved it!

I took the opportunity to transplant a few strawberries in my garden before the rain to help minimize the transplant shock. I am looking forward to eating real, fresh, ripe strawberries in a few weeks.

The girls were thrilled to have a use for the umbrella, and spent the day running around with it in the rain.

I just love their bare feet. I guess that's better than getting their new shoes all muddy.

V was very excited about it. I don't know if she was old enough the last time it rained for her to actually remember it. This past weekend, she could not get enough of it. As soon as I would bring her inside, clean her up, change her clothes, and get her warm again, she was right back outside shivering in the water again. She is definitely her mommy's little girl.

Watch for her shiver right at 18 seconds. I love it!

This video was taken on probably the 4th time I found her outside. She just did not want to stay inside, no matter how wet and cold she was outside.