Memorial Day at Ready, Set, Play

So the Pink-eye cleared up by Sunday. Claire, Noel, and I stayed home from church just to be safe. Monday we decided to do something fun with the family and found this indoor play place for kids called Ready, Set, Play. Aaron was excited because it was all huge air toys and moonwalks. We had wanted to go swimming, but the pool at our place still isn't open. There is a mini waterpark in town, but its hours wouldn't work with Claire's nap.

The day got off to a rough start as you can see in the video. Claire didn't want to go on the toddler stuff. But once she she warmed up we couldn't get her to slow down. Aaron went on everything with her and they were both soaked with sweat by lunch time. I thought she looked kind of freaked out everytime she went down a slide, but at the bottom she would excitedly hop up and down and run right back up to go again. She loved it! Since she isn't even two yet, it's only $5.00 for an all day pass to the place. I think we'll be going back again.

Memorial day plans?

The good news: Noel's smiles just keep getting more authentic and cute!
The bad news: This is Claire after coming in from outside after bubble time. We blow them for her and she screams in delight, "BUBBLES!" and runs after them. Good fun! I thought she got bubbles in her eyes. The eyes look a little pink, right?
This is two mornings later -this morning. Yikes! Either the bubbles were toxic or my daughter caught Conjunctivitis! I heard some people in the ward complaining that it had been going around. She must have come in contact with it in nursery because during the week we are pretty much home bound. This is tonight. Much better. Grandma Adams, who is a nurse, gave us the advice to give it 24 hours before getting too scared because there isn't much a doctor can do unless its bacterial, but to keep her pretty much quarantined for a while. So, that makes us without plans for Memorial Day week-end. We were going to try a trip up to Oklahoma City to see my parents, but this is just one more reason why we shouldn't have gone. Driving 6 hours minimum each way with a 23 month old and a nursing 7 week old may have proved disastrous anyway. I hope that our friends in Texas reading this won't shun us forever! But for Memorial Day week-end, I think we are on our own again.

noel smiles

Once my babies smile it makes all the hard work seem so worth it.

Noel has a very strong neck. Look at him go!

This is one of those asleep "freaky gas smiles" as Aaron likes to call them, but I still think they are cute.

Early Terrible Two's

O.k. so Claire got to Frankenglasses the other day again. So now I am back to glasses that are missing the right stem. At least I still have a good supply of contacts. But I hate putting them in every day especially with having to watch these two babies of mine so closely every minute. The only break I get is during Claire's nap time.

Claire still terrorizes baby brother when she feels that she is not getting enough attention. It's a little better... but mostly she is just acting like a crazy two year old. I thought that I had two more months before this set in as her birthday is at the end of June. She runs all over the place, the child has forgotten how to walk... she only runs. She loves to spin around in the living room until she falls down. She breaks anything she gets her hands on. She draws on the walls. She loves to put her hand prints all over the TV screen, our windows, and the glass doors of our bookcase right after I clean them. She loves to throw food when she's done eating or if the food is a veggie. Yesterday she got hold of a mostly empty gallon of milk, dumped the rest on the floor and started mopping it around the floor with her feet.

Yet despite these things she really is a good kid and such a cute and sweet girl most times. On the way home for buying her some shoes that she really liked, she says, "Thank you shoes! Thank you Mommy!" While Grandma and Grandpa Adams were here we tried to get a lot of cute pictures of course. I had soaped up her hair in the bath tub one night and tried to get her to say, cheese, then broccoli, then pizza to produce some smiles... none of them worked... then finally she smiles big and squeals out, "PANCAKES!" I guess she just figured that she was supposed to shout out random foods?

Yesterday was our 4th anniversary. Thinking back to when Aaron and I got married, we didn't know if children would be in our future. Now four years later and two kids later we are so happy to have had the opportunity to have them come along. I'm so grateful that they are here and that I get to spend my days with them. I was reading an article in the Ensign a few weeks ago about enjoying the time we have with our kids when they are small. I really needed to read that. Instead of getting upset about having to clean up messes I need to enjoy the fun that it was making it. I realize that the time will come when I am going to miss the tiny hand prints on the windows and the footprints in the milk.

a visit to the garden

We took a trip to the Zilker Park Botanical gardens. This is a picture from the "Prehistoric garden".
Here is our family at the main garden.
Fish lips
Aaron's parents are visiting!
Baby Noel and Mommy