An evening at the zoo

Probably should have done these in the opposite order...oh well. Go down to the next post and then come back up :-) I never claimed to be perfect!

Matt and Delaney on the free train ride

Car and I enjoying the train

We have this wonderful book that we read every night before bed that tells about an animal ~ some special skill or trait that they have and then compares that to how God develops that skill or trait in each of us. It's awesome!!! That week we had learned about meerkats and how they are good helpers to their meerkat friends, so we took extra time to study them that evening.

We had not read about goats though....Delaney is obviously terrified of them.

It didn't take long for them to warm up to the goats though.

May I brag?

Why, thank you for continuing to read...I thought I'd scare some of you off with my title. We are members at the Indianapolis Zoo and in the late summer they always have jazz nights where the zoo is open late for members and they feature a free event every week. We decided to take the kids on a night when the free feature was train rides. The kids always ask to ride and we always say no b/c it costs money. So, we rode the train!! YEAH!!

Am I bragging b/c we let our kids ride the train...well, no. I am bragging b/c I am so proud of Delaney. She started K4 a few weeks ago and she has grown leaps and bounds in that time...however, the growth has all been socially. She told my mom they don't learn anything in K4, and for her, bookwise, that might be accurate. She has been reading for over 6 months now and she is getting really good at it. While at the zoo she stood at this sign, totally determined to read every word on it. I, being the good mom that I am, never in a hurry, took the time to stand with her and use my best teacher skills to help her sound out the 3 words she couldn't get on her own.....I love seeing things through her eyes...she's amazing! Yes, she frustrates me to no end some days and she has horrible mean streaks where she is a beast to her brother. She is self centered and very impatient....wonder where she got those amazing qualities from. Apples do not fall far from their trees!!! But she is mine, a beautiful gift from God, and she is amazingly and wonderfully made!

The 1st Day of School....what?!?

Finally, the day we've talked about all summer...the first day of K4. Matt took the day off work (trying to burn up as much vacation as possible before his last day....today!!!). We had a lazy morning together doing nothing but eating cinnamon rolls and reading books.
She already has the school girl attitude going on....I won't let her know, but it looks SO cute!
The big girl (mommy, not Delaney) was rewarded with ColdStone. I didn't cry at all until we were sitting there eating ice cream and she was talking about everything she had done and all of her new friends. Then, all of a sudden, she was really big stuff and I hadn't witnessed anything that she was talking about. I didn't even know those kids (luckily I know her teacher).
I was very worried about how Carson was going to handle it. On the first day, we went shopping after we dropped her off and then we went home, played Slap Jack (his favorite game), and he took a nap. We had to wake him to go pick Delaney up. He listened to all of her stories with great interest. The second day he was a little bit whinier, but he also had spent the morning with his best buddy Sawyer, so he might have just been more clingy b/c he hadn't been with me the whole morning. We'll see how next week goes when we get into some sort of a routine. Matt also starts his new job on Monday, so we'll be adjusting to a new schedule there too....when it rains, it pours!

IN State Fair

Welcome to August in Indiana...the State Fair! This year was double exciting...fried food and Carrie Underwear!! They had the wonderful Wonder Trail set up that took the kids on a farming adventure. In the end they earned paper money for everything they had collected and were able to buy a snack. They each bought a granola bar...that was the absolute healthiest thing they consumed the entire day!!!

After taking in all of the animals and dinner (corn dogs, shakes, ice cream, funnel cake, pork chop, popcorn...do you feel like you are going to explode yet, because we did!!), we found our seats for the Carrie Underwear concert. Delaney was VERY excited...so excited she turned into a crazy maniac girl and wiggled around all over my mom. I believe my mom compared it to wrestling a greased pig :-) The kids were awesome during the concert. Carson played the air guitar and Delaney sang along and danced. About 15 minutes before the concert was over Carson fell asleep in my arms. I love moments like that, so I didn't complain in the least. After the concert the three of us shared an orange shake-up (I highly recommend) and then we headed for home. Much to our dismay, the kids still woke up between 7 and 8 o'clock even though they didn't get into bed until almost midnight...why, oh why?!?

It's August, really?!?

Where does time go? It seems like just yesterday that Matt and I got married and we just celebrated 8 wonderful years! It also seems like just days ago that we brought our precious little bundles home from the hospital and now we're gearing up for the start of preschool. All of this is scary and exciting at the same time.

We celebrated Matt's birthday in July. We bought him funny presents from the $ store (a snake b/c he hates them, those silly glasses with the nose and mustache on them, and a Suduko book...we had to throw in something useful!) and took him to dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise. Delaney (and I) thought it would be fun to dress up for the occasion, so we straightened her hair and put on cute clothes!!

We were able to spend some time with our friends, the Billingtons, that live in Quebec. It is very fun for me to see Joel, their youngest, playing with my kids b/c they were some of our teen leaders when I was in high school. Joel is sandwiched right between our two age wise. It is also sad, in another "time flies" kind of way, to see their oldest, Sam, reading books with Delaney. I remember when he was little and we used to read to him....now he's the big kid!!!

On Saturday morning we woke up and decided it would be fun to do something different. So, we put on play clothes and loaded into the car for a trip to Brownsburg. I had been to a really cool park there with our cousins and decided it would be fun to take Matt. So, we drove there, played for a few hours, had lunch at a little hole in the wall sub shop, and then headed home by way of a few stores. It was a fun morning! Delaney and I went shopping in the afternoon while the boys rested. What fun to be a girl!!