Zoo

What beautiful weather we are having this week!! Yesterday was a perfect day to go to the zoo!

When we asked the boys what their favorite part of the day was, they said the elephants!  Luke kept saying "that elephant was dirty.  He got a bath!"

We got to watch them clean "Tara" the elephant and she did some tricks for us too.  Who knew elephants could do tricks!!

My favorite part of the day was the new Parakeet Exhibit they have.  They have an enclosed area with hundreds of parakeets flying around.

The boys were mesmerized watching all of the birds fly around!

You can buy a "stick of food" for $1 and the birds will land on the stick and peck off the food and peck your fingers a little too!

That poor zoo keeper was ready for us to leave this exhibit.  We had 3 2-year olds in there trying to chase a bunch of parakeets around while Corrie and I are chasing them around saying "BE GENTLE!!"

Of course no zoo visit is complete without riding the carousel and riding the train!

These boys have a great time together...and so do the moms!! :)

American Adventures

So my family from TN came down for a visit last weekend.  We had this trip planned for a few months and had the whole weekend planned out.  It just so happens that everything we had planned to do was outside.  Who knew that we would have a flood this very same weekend...

So when you have 5 children under the age of 5 in a house and it is pouring down rain outside....what do you do??  Of course you go on to American Adventures as planned and just cross your fingers that the rain will stop.  Well it didn't stop, but we spent last Saturday at American Adventures anyway.  We were not going to let a "little" rain ruin the plans we had for the day.  When we arrived, it was still pouring so we decided to start with the indoor activities first.  After about an hour, we looked outside and it was no longer pouring, just sprinkling.  So....we decided we would just go ride all of the rides in the rain.  The manger looked at us like we were crazy, but said ok.  He gave us our own personal guide who was awesome!!

His name was Shawn and he took us around to every ride and let us ride in the rain. (He even let Luke and Cade ride every ride even though they didn't come close to meeting the height requirements!!)  He became our buddy for the day and they kids were constantly screaming "hey shawn" from the rides!!  Yes we got soaked from head to toe and the poor kids were freezing by the end of it all...but we had a great time!!

Luke loved riding every ride!

My grandparents enjoyed watching us get soaked!

I love riding the scrambler and I thought for sure Cade would hate it and be scared, but he wasn't.  He loved it!!! The whole time he was screaming "we are going fast!!"

What love!

The adults enjoyed all of the rides as much....or more than the kids!

After all of the fun riding, we went back in and played for a while hoping we would sorta dry off.  Then it was time for lunch, but this was a problem.  We packed lunches and a cooler for everyone so we wouldn't have to eat there, but we had no where to go sit and eat our lunch.  We weren't allowed to bring it inside and it was still raining outside. So....after a few different ideas, Laressa spotted a gazebo across the parking lot. (It is actually the entrance to White Water)  It looked like the perfect dry place to eat our lunch.  So we backed the car up to the gazebo, pulled out the camp chairs and ate lunch!! 

So the moral of the story is to not let a little rain ruin your day!! We had a great time playing in the rain!

Dear Rain,

Dear Rain,

Please go away!! We are not sleeping good with all of the thunderstorms and we would like to go out and play!!  We promise you can come back another day when you aren't flooding all of our roads, yards and houses. We appreciate your consideration in this matter.

Love,

Luke and Cade

It Is That Time Again!

Are you ready for some football??!!  This weekend was the beginning of college football season and it got off to a good start for us.  Joe told me I needed to label this post "A Perfect Saturday" because GT won and UGA lost!!  On Saturday GT played Jacksonville State and we were there for the whole day.  Last year, the Reardens bought an RV for tailgating.  With the help of the RV and some great friends and family, we had a great time tailgating on Saturday!  We were there from sun up until sun down!

The boys were so excited to play with Hunter and Chase!

This game is brought for the adults to play, but it quickly gets taken over by the kids!

Time for lunch!  We had some great food that we snacked on ALL DAY!  

The boys had a great time at the tailgate, but the actual game is still a little long for them and they were a little disappointed they didn't get to see Buzz close up.  Game time happened to fall right at their nap time, but they hung in there.  

This is what happens when you try and get a family pic right at nap time with two 2 year olds! Luke is picking his nose and Cade is screaming......This is why we don't have many good family pics right now!! :) (click on the picture for a good close up of the nose picking!)

Let's Go Jackets!!

Mr. Dale (one of our GT tailgating buddies) bought all of the boys (5) a frozen lemonade.  We didn't have enough spoons, but Luke did not let that stop him....

He really enjoyed it!!

After a long day, it was finally time for a nap.  They couldn't hang on any longer!

Finishing up the day on a walk with Nana!

Only 5 more home games to go!!  Let's Go Jackets!!

First Day of School

So today was a big day for us....well mostly me!  We decided back in the spring that it would be a good thing to enroll the boys in a Mother's Morning Out program.  It sounded like a great idea at the time....they could meet new friends, socialize with other kids their age, I could have some time to run errands or clean the house, or just get a small break from 2 crazy boys.  

Fast forward about 6 months and I cried myself to sleep last night and cried this morning after I dropped them off at school!!!  I didn't think it would be that hard, but it was! They are just growing up to fast!!  I was worried how they would do and of course they did fine.  They were a little hesitant at first, but as soon as I suggested they show their teachers their new Spiderman lunchbox, they were off!  Cade went to one side of the room and started playing and Luke went to the other side of the room to play.  It will be interesting to see if they stick together at all or just do their own thing.  

Here are some pics from this morning.  You can tell they were a little excited about going to school!! :)

When I picked them up, the teacher said they did great! She said they followed directions and acted like they had been there forever!! I was so relieved to hear that!  They were very excited about their day and told me all about it.  I think their favorite part was "painting their hand."  

I missed them so much while they were gone this morning, but I know this will be a great opportunity for them to have fun and learn without me right there. The first few weeks are going to be a hard adjustment for me (I am not use to a quiet house or a quiet car), but I'm sure once I get use to it I will love the free time to get things done!