A Thursday in Arkansas

So Matt was really sweet and took the day off just to hang with us. I was so glad because we were able to have a ton of fun. They're such a great family.

We started off the day pretty leisurely, ate some cinnamon rolls, the big boys played trains at Adam's train table:


And AJ tried to do bubbles with Dizzle:


Dalton rolling his eyes at the quality of the Dollar Store bubbles :)

Not really.

I quickly observed that Adam sometimes doesn't want to smile for pictures, but he did make me this face:


The kid sure does LOVE to take pictures though. He likes to do it side-by-side with another photographer it seems. I'd seen him and AJ snapping pictures of one of my kids, and he was my picture taking side-kick a time or two as well. I wanted a picture of me and him but he wasn't going for it at the time, so I had to turn my camera around at the last second to get this one:

Sneaky. Sneaky.

Our hosts were so sweet as to let Dalton get in a nap before we headed out for the day. So, while he napped we all showered and played and read stories:

I like how even though Easton is the one with the pen thingy, Adam is sending concentration help vibes with that tongue. :)

Some more jumping on the bed too, of course:


The grown ups even snuck in a game of Scene It: boys v. girls...and the boys kicked butt, gosh darn them.

Once Dalton was up we went to lunch at one of their local favorite Mexican restaurants followed by a trip to Wilson Park. Look how cute me and my new BFF are:

Matt took that.



The boys got to do some swinging:

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Yet another of their Rebel's pics.


It was so cold that day that the boys wouldn't even hold onto the chains with their frozen fingers.





You can tell those above are with my weak little camera. When you see him from AJ's camera look at the detail you get:

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew! It looks like he's a snot licker but really he's just got a very curious tongue. I think his real mom must be a lizard. Or a camel.



It was freezing at the park and the kids' noses and fingers were turning red, not to mention Dalton's was more than a bit runny...so we headed for some indoor fun at a place called Lokomotion. When we pulled up Jason said, "How did I know it'd be spelled wit a 'k'"? I'm not sure what that means.

The boys rode some rides, a lot of rides:












That curious tongue again:


Taking a pretend spin on the motorcycle game:




They had a mechanical bull which AJ was begging Matt to ride. She would've if she wasn't pregnant, I'm sure. It was located in the middle of a bounce house looking thing and poor Easton thought it was a bounce house and took off his little shoes to climb in. :( But Diddle got to "bounce" on the edge since he's too little for much else:


We moved outside where it had started to flurry just a bit, but we braved the elements in order to feed these fish:






The 75 cents or whatever didn't last too long with my grabby guy:


"Now what?"


So we headed on back to their house for some really delish burgers Matt did on the grill. The crazy little boys still wanted to play outside in the cold. Adam was gracious enough to share his ride-on John Deere with Easton. Apparently he's very willing to share as long as he still has his mower:

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Dalton stayed warm inside with us girls. He is practicing walking with a "walker":

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Eventually the little dudes had to come back in to warm up with some more jumping:


Adam did these cool round-off tricks to land on Easton's "flower bed" as E referred to it:

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Easton was having so much fun that he waited too long to head to the potty. He would've made it if we were home with his little potty but at Adam's he had to move a little stool to get onto the potty himself and he let loose a bit in the process. :( Darn. He'd been doing sooooo well. I felt awful that it was on Adam's monkey rug. But again, our awesome hosts acted like it was no big deal and even let us do laundry so we wouldn't have to travel with pee pee pants! Next time I'm in Arkansas I'm definitely going back to their house.

Easton had clearly had a long day and was starting to get too cranky so he had to have a very short bath and go straight to bed. I felt bad but it really was best to give him that early bedtime. Dalton went right to bed too as he'd refused to take an afternoon nap even though I tried twice along with Jason and AJ each giving it a go as well to try to get him down. Oh well.

With all the little guys in bed so early we were able to play some more Scene It and Trivial Pursuit where I successfully embarassed myself at both. Good thing I was still having fun as some of you know how competitive I can be. We never did finish Trivial Pursuit...that can be a long game! We had to pack it up so we could get to sleep! It was a long, but super fun day in Springdale...and Fayetteville too, I believe!

Did You Ever Think You'd PAY to Go to Arkansas?

There were plenty of toll roads charging us admission to get into AJ's territory in the Fayetteville area. We handed it over gladly, we were very excited to get to spend some quality time with our friends.

We arrived at their house around 5:30 in the afternoon/evening and beat Matt home. Adam and Easton didn't seem to miss a beat from the K.C. days and jumped right in...literally...

The bed jumping was a favorite activity the whole time we were there. That's a pic I stole from AJ, by the way.

They were extremely gracious hosts and Adam gave up his entire bedroom and Baby Drew gave up his future room as well to house the 4 of us. Jason and I took Adam's cool construction bed (he's got a queen size!) and Easton was on an air mattress on the floor. Dalton stayed in the nursery next door in a Pack and Play. I felt bad that he was next door but it worked out for the best, I think.

The first night they bought pizza, AJ introduced me to dipping it in ranch--Yum! Easton blurted out a spontaneous, "Thank you so much!" which had me amused. Easton and Adam held hands while we prayed before dinner...and Easton wanted to keep holding hands but settled for a tickle fight afterwards instead:



Photos courtesy of AJ's Rebel

Matt headed out to get us all ice cream after that and AJ introduced me to another new trend: chocolate ice cream with spoonfuls of peanut butter. Delish. Neither the pizza in ranch nor the PB and ice cream is a particularly healthy habit for me to pick up, but the damage has been done. :) I'm hooked, it'll just have to be a rare treat.

After dinner AJ proposed a group bath--for the kids--and that was so fun!




The big boys took turns pouring water over one another's head (this is AJ's picture yet again), my camera could never get such a crisp bathtime action shot:


Dalton couldn't wait to get in on the fun:


Rub a dub, dub, three boys in a tub:


We got our sleepy boys to bed after that and the rest of us settled in to check out the Wii. Pretty fancy video game, that Wii. Jason and I bowled, boxed, and played some tennis. My shoulder was so sore from boxing. How sad is that? AJ took some pictures of us:


I'm just so thrilled that I can hang out in my pals' home in my jammies. I met her online and look how close we've become--she let us stay in her house! I guess I just like meeting people online...my husband, most of my mommy friends, some are still "online only" pals but I know them better than some of the people I've met in 3D. Craziness!

Motoring

We are on a road trip! Heading South for the winter...or the paid paternity leave is more like it. As I don't love to advertise we're not at home, the timing of my blogging break sure came in quite handy.

So we left our house Tuesday the 5th...snow had fallen during the night and our trip was delayed slightly by needing to shovel before we left. But soon we were on our way. The plan was to hit Salina, Kansas before stopping for the night at our hotel with the indoor pool. We were aiming for no more than 6 hours spent in the car per day. But alas, it was not to be.

We hit a snow storm. A big snow storm. In Kansas. The roads at some points were so icy it looked like we were driving on glass. And out in flatsville where we were it is so friggin' windy and the snow was blowing so badly...and this is coming from a Coloradan! I didn't do any of the driving but sheesh, it wasn't good. We should've taken some video or even pictures but we didn't. We eventually made the decision to stop in a town called Hays for the night instead of continuing to Salina. It was a good call. Everyone had decided to stop. We got one of 4 rooms left at the hotel! Because of the storm we were able to cancel our Salina hotel reservation without any penalties for the late notice. Whew! It was about 8 at night or so...so much for the goal of not going over 6 hours in the car. Even though it was 8 central time, it was still 7 to us mountain zoners. And we were hungry. There was an Applebees next to our hotel so we decided to walk across the two large diagonal parking lots to the restaurant. Easton thought it was an adventure, the snow was blowing sideways and it was so cold and windy. But after being cooped up in the car all day he was up for it. Dalton didn't share E's excitement but he's a trooper, that one!

After some food we headed back for some spinning in the chair...

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Followed by bedtime. The boys did great! In that above video I love how Easton touches his forehead to Baby Dalton and asks, "Is this fun?!?!"

We ate breakfast at the hotel in the morning and headed on our way. Next stop: AJs in Northwest Arkansas!

The car ride went MUCH better on Wednesday. Dalton never does all that well in the car...he's not great at napping in the car like Easton is. He'll sleep but it's always a very short nap. And he's rear-facing in his car seat so I'm sure he is quite bored and lonely as well. I brought toys and I exchanged them frequently, but I (or Jason) spend a lot of time with our hand over his seat "keeping him company". Easton got a few surprises, like this microphone:


Jason is a fan of it as well:


Dalton actually figured out how to make it work and enjoys that little toy too. But, the only picture I have is this one from over the carseat where I wasn't looking, just holding the camera over him:


The lifesaver of this trip has been the portable DVD player--thank you, Gramoo! I'm not sure we'll ever travel without one again. I just wish Dalton could see it too. Instead he passes the time by pulling off his right sock--only the right one--and putting his bare toes on Easton's seat:

He also would throw toys into his brother's lap. So on Wednesday Easton took a very long nap in the car but was frequently disturbed by all the toys flying into his lap. It's weird to me that D doesn't sleep well in the car because it's so the opposite of Easton.

When we'd stop for gas and snacks, Diddle would get out for a milky snack too. I'd have to bring him into the front of the car with me while Jason and Easton were going potty and therefore not around to distract Diddles. He'd eat a teeny tiny bit and then want to play:


Oh well. By dinnertime we'd arrived at our pals' house. Woo hoo!

Giant Upset

It's the end of the day on Superbowl Sunday. Giants beat the Pats. Going into the game I said I didn't care who won. I was 50%-50%. Jason said he was 51%-49% favoring the Pats. But as the Giants first took posession we found we were both clearly rooting for Eli and the Giants. And they won. Good game.

My favorite parts were Payton cheering on (and being nervous for) his little bro. He seemed genuinely happy for young Eli. It's how I imagine my sons will be one day... Just maybe as Kentucky Derby jockeys instead. LOL.

Some decent commericals too. Those are always fun. Thank goodness for TiVo so we didn't have to miss any.

The boys watched with us for a bit:


And I made our "snack of the year"...Jason's new favorite Buffalo Chicken Nachos:

They're pretty darn good if I do say so myself.

We skipped the boys' baths so we wouldn't miss too much more of the game. In fact I had to remind Jason to have Easton go potty and to brush his teeth!

It was a very lazy day.

No, I'm not "back"...I'm just back for this. I've been keeping up with things privately for my own benefit so I might start publishing those soon here and there. I'm even gonna disable comments on this post because it's a stupid one and because I don't want people commenting simply because they feel like they have to or I'll be sad. :)

Just checking in briefly for y'all.

Happy Valentine's Date

I love surprises. So I assume other people (Jason) will love surprises too so I arranged a special surprise date for us.

We're going to be with the boys on Valentine's Day...and Jason and I alternate years planning our festivities. So, this was my year and I decided we'd do something without the boys before the actual day. I arranged with my mom and Lauren to come up on a Saturday afternoon so I could whisk Jason away.

All I knew was I wanted a surprise date, but I didn't know what to plan. Then an idea kind of fell into my lap. When I was getting my hair cut the other day (at the same spa that did my Cloud 9 package) the hairdresser mentioned a "Sweetheart Special": an hour long couples massage by candlelight, followed by a chocolate sugar scrub, and then a trip to their "mystic room where a shower awaits you complete with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries". Sounded perfect so I booked one. I knew Jason would be game for a couples massage as he'd surprised me with one once before.

At around 2 o'clock I put the boys down for their naps/quiet time, just like any other day, and wasn't J suprised by the knock on the door at about 2:20. He said, "When you answered the door without looking to see who it was I knew something was up". He was right because Gramoo and Lauren were there with their bag of tricks. I said, "Surprise! We're going on a date!" Jason thinks we can never get in enough date nights so he would've been happy even if I didn't have such awesome plans. Dinner for two would have been enough for him. And for me to be perfectly honest, but this was our Valentine's Day celebration.

I drove and didn't tell him where we were going. The whole way I liked recounting all the ways I tricked and misled him and how Easton was even in on it. The journey to the surprise is all part of it for me. Jason often likes to make me mad by guessing things (gifts and other surprises) but he did good and only jokingly guessed we were going to see the groundhog see his shadow or not (it was Groundhog's Day). I finally spilled the beans in the parking lot of the spa.

It was super. Really really great. And then we went to dinner, just the two of us at a place in Boulder everyone always talks about but somehow neither of us had ever been. It was pretty good. Jason had the best chicken marsala I had ever tasted. It was so good.

We rushed home (about 10 minutes later than we had said) and the boys were fed, bathed, and in bed. Easton wasn't quite asleep yet but he had accidentally fallen asleep during his quiet time so bedtime is always later on those days. My mom and Lauren do so great with the boys. I have no worries when they're here which, the peace of mind, is worth sooooo much. They rock!

Once we got home I tried to get J to watch a movie with me but he fell asleep. Grrr. So we went upstairs to bed where he read for an hour and a half instead.

Anyway, it was a wonderful and romantic celebration. Thanks for reading!

Feeling Friendly

This morning we had Max and his mommy over for a little bit. Easton decided to dress up as Spiderman after they got here:

(Ummm, Easton is 50th percentile for height...how tall must that make Max???)



Jason went out for some "me time" while we were busy here at the house.

This afternoon I had some "me time" too. Well, not so much me time but kid-free time as I met my longtime pal Kelli for lunch. She's pregnant, due next month, and I'm sorry, but it is so so fun to finally see someone I've known forever with a baby bump. Seriously, we've known one another since we were two...two! Younger than Easton is. That's how long I've known her. And she's gonna be a mommy too!

I wonder if it's weird for my friends to see me as a mother...it might be weird for me to see them in their new roles. Although I have yet to see any of these old pals in mommy-action yet.

Anyway, we met at PF Changs and I was sure to bring Jason home some of his favorite dish for his dinner tonight. The boys ate and I watched. Well, I fed Dalton who apparently thought avocado and banana sounded like a lovely hair product:



I realize I should have put a bib on him, but that's his mess, not mine as he decided to eat his jammies in between bites...and that is not a normal thing for him. So excuse his disgusting p.j.'s won't you please?

That's the end of week one of J's paterninty leave! It's going pretty quickly, isn't it? We're enjoying it though. Fo' sho'.