Long Summer Days

Since we weren't sure when or where we'd be moving, I didn't sign up the boys for any camps or lessons this summer. You have to sign up early to get a spot in just about anything where we lived and I didn't want to sign up and then have our house sell and have to move. So we passed the summer days in the backyard, at the pool, the park, and around the neighborhood. Max was busy finishing his last rotations and then studying for finals so we had a lot of time to pass. Here's some photos.

The littlest guy spent most of his summer in and out of the sand box.

He even braved the fountains downtown.
But he wasn't as brave as his oldest brother...

Wyatt graduated to a pedal bike. This is his very first attempt. He has always been a little bit more timid on bikes than Jonah, but thanks to his Boot Scoot he was riding on his own within an hour or so and now he's a pro!
Many, many hours were spent on the trampoline. I love having a trampoline.


I love these little guys!

Another Zoo...I Blame PBS Kids

Max and I refuse to pay for television. We don't watch that much of it anyway and since we can pretty much watch anything we are interested in a day later on Hulu, we see no point in paying for television. Because of this, I rely heavily upon PBS kids to give me an hour to do Boot Scoot stuff in the morning before the day fills up and I run out of time to ship bikes. The boys LOVE PBS Kids and they really loved it when a man named Dan Wardel came on in between shows for Iowa Public Television. Dan is a funny and animated guy who can keep a giant library conference room full of kids entertained and enthralled for 45 minutes. When you think about it that way, Dan is amazing. Anyway, for about two months, Dan kept coming on and telling kids to come and see him at the Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines. Not only would Dan Wardel be there, but Buddy the dinosaur from Dinosaur Train too! Jonah begged and pleaded to go and even took down the calendar, found the right day, and wrote ZOO on it in big letters. We had recently been to the Omaha Zoo so I wanted to protest my case for not driving 2 hours each way for a much smaller zoo, but when it turned out Max needed to study for finals and didn't mind not having us around to interupt, my three little guys and I made the trek. And we really did have a good time.

Only in Iowa????

The Blank Park Zoo is small and more like I remember the Hogle Zoo being when I was young, complete with a train, camel rides, and lots more animal interaction. We fed fish, chickens, goats, and even giraffes.

And here's Buddy--it was stinkin' hot and humid that day and Buddy had to keep taking breaks, probably so he wouldn't pass out. Luckily we caught him and my boys' day was complete!

My Baby Turned One

Emmett is such a cutie! He is very easy going for the most part--although we have recently been in a screeching phase that now seems to be passing, thank goodness. With two older brothers he gets knocked down and pushed around a bit, but he usually doesn't mind. Lately he loves to grab onto Jonah's clothes from behind and pull or spin him around.

For his birthday, Max and I gave him toothbrushes. Yes, that's right, three toothbrushes.
And here is why--he will move a stool to a drawer where he knows there are toothbrushes and suck on everyone's toothbrush. I've gone to brush my teeth and night and had to search for my toothbrush only to find it in a pile of toys in the playroom. So sanitary. So we gave him multiple toothbrushes and tried to hide everyone else's a little better. It has worked for the most part, but every once in a while he manages to get a hold of someone else's. He's tricky like that.

This is where I wanted to take a photo so I had to stop him from grabbing the cake. Mean mom--I put a cake in front of him and then don't let him touch it. He wasn't as keen on grabbing it when I let him. He showed me--no cute photos of a messy, cake-covered 1-year-old.

His brothers "helped" to unwrap presents.

Omaha Zoo

In an effort to experience as much of the Midwest as we could in our last few months in Iowa, we took a trip to the Omaha Zoo. It's listed as one of the top 10 zoos in the US, so how could we miss the chance? And yes, I did plan for Jonah and Wyatt to wear their animal shirts at the zoo. I don't get to dress up girls in cute little frilly things so I do what I can.

If you have never been, the Omaha Zoo is a pretty amazing zoo. Our day started out with an orangutan begging for food, or maybe she wanted my child?

This was the penguin exhibit. It was great because the kids can get right up next to the glass and the penguins swim directly in front of them.
Another view station for the penguins--

The sea tunnel--sharks and turtles and lots more.

I didn't include any photos of the desert, but there is a huge dome enclosing a desert and then another huge indoor rainforest with different monkey-like animals coming right up to you from the trees, a large waterfall and rope bridge...

and our own monkeys.

Wyatt cracks me up! His cute little personality luckily shines through on so many photos.


There was also a very large farm area with goats and chickens and even a fake cow to milk. Jonah could have spent half the day feeding the over-fed goats.
And they even had a cebu or zebu or however you spell it. Since Veggie-Tales is a staple at our house, seeing a real zebu was quite exciting.

Almost forgot...

Max turned 33 back in March. With three little boys we of course had to have a party complete with party hats, cupcakes, balloons and all the candles we could find hiding in the back of the utensil drawer for the biggest boy in our family.

Campin' and Fishin'

Max took the boys camping and fishing on one of the first warm weekends in April. Since we do not yet have a tent that holds all of us and the Iowa mornings can be really dewy, and since Emmett was not yet one, and since I wanted to sleep on my bed, Emmett and I joined everyone in the morning.

Jonah took this one and I love it.

Lucky boys and lucky me!

Easter

I love Easter. I think it is partially because Easter egg hunts were a really big deal at our house. My sister, Kris, made Easter egg hunts especially exciting as she has always been a competitive Easter egg hunter well into her 30s (oh wait, I think she just turned 29 again last year;). ) Egg hunts were also exciting at our house as we got older because my parents put money in the eggs--mostly quarters, but I remember one year where we were told that somewhere in our backyard was an egg with $20 in it. So you had to push and shove to get as many as you could to could increase your chances.

So far, the eggs at our house have only had candy in them and the hunters seem pleased enough.

Emmett only found one egg. He got it, opened it, and was done.
I think Jonah is helping or sharing with Wyatt here. He is really good about making sure Wyatt has fun. When they play games lately--usually Mancala--he might win the first, and if Wyatt seems sad, I've watched Jonah throw the second game just so Wyatt can feel good.