When Grandma and Grandpa Came

Ok, I am so far behind and I put about a million pictures on my computer today, so I apologize for the abundance of pictures, I actually left quite a few out!  Anyhow, my parents came to visit a couple of weeks ago for about 10 days and we had a great time.  We packed a bunch into the time they were here.
The day after they got here we left for Berlin, OH...Amish country.  I didn't actually take any pictures in Berlin, but I got a picture of the chocolate pretzel the Grandpa bought for Claire at the Outlet Mall on the way (by the way we got some great deals at the outlets).  In Amish country we ate and bought huge amounts of cheese, cream cheese, jerky, fudge, and baked goods. We also went to a bunch of the shops and ate dinner at a Swiss Chalet type restaurant.  It was Jared's birthday... wow I really am so far behind.
From Berlin we headed to Kirtland, OH so the parents could see some church history sights.  Jared and I tried to join them for the tour, but Jacob and Claire wanted nothing to do with it.  It was raining while we were there (Jacob had a little pants accident, so he is wearing pj pants).


We went to a Reds game on the Monday after our weekend trip (picture above) and the Reds actually pulled off a win, it was a good time!  We also took a trip to the zoo while they were here.  The peacock was so happy to see us!

Grandpa and Jacob, I am pretty sure they were looking at the baby rhino.

There are elephants in the background if you look real hard. It was a great day for the zoo with great weather and we saw tons of animals, Jacob and Claire really are loving the zoo now.
We also took a trip to the children's museum while they were here and we went out for dinner at a great place called 'Grand Finale'...awesome desserts.  We celebrated Mom's birthday and Jared's birthday while they were here.  My dad also finally got the chance to get the sundae he has been dreaming about since his first trip to Graeter's: a brownie, a scoop of chocolate chocolate chip ice cream and hot fudge...he says it is proof that there is no such thing as too much chocolate.
Jacob and Claire really had a great time playing with Grandma and Grandpa and looked for Grandpa every morning for a little while after they left.

It's Official

We booked the tickets last night and I am SOOOOO excited.  We are going to Cancun in September!  (Actually our hotel is in Playa Del Carmen, not Cancun). I have been to Canada once and other than that have not been outside of the country, I have my little passport just waiting for a stamp and now I will finally get one (even if it only is Mexico).  We were on the phone with our friends Jim and Mel last night for quite some time picking the best price/best vacation combo and we finally settled  on where we are going and we can't wait!  Jim and Mel live in Oregon and we haven't seen them in quite awhile so we are really excited to go on a vacation with them.  It will be short, but we decided we will pack as much as we can into our 5 day, 4 night stay, we even have the same flight into and out of Cancun so it works out perfectly.  Lets all just hope that there aren't any hurricanes in the area while we are there!!!!  I have also never stayed all-inclusive which I am really excited about.  Oh, and did I mention, we are going without our kids...I love it!

This weekend we have our trip to Red River Gorge with Matt and Camie, and Rob and Holly and all of our respective children, we are really excited and I promise I will actually post some pictures!

Now that our vacations are beginning I promise I will get out of my blogging stupor and I will post some of the things that I am so far behind on, maybe tomorrow I will get the pictures up from my parents' trip here.

Journaling

I am sooo behind on blogging because my parents came to visit for 10 days! We had a lot of fun and there are blogs to come on our activities while they were here, but until I put the pictures on the computer I need to journal a couple of little things about my kiddos. Jacob never ever ever never walks...he runs (or jumps), it is really like he is incapable of walking. He is also super affectionate and gives so many hugs and kisses, mostly unsolicited. Yesterday at the park he hugged some random mommy, it was hilarious and she just couldn't get over it. He is very high energy and very intense, lately I wake up to him screaming "NO!" at his sister from his crib every morning (and as is tradition she breaks down bawling after every "NO!"). He frequently is asking "HELP YOU" which is his way of asking for help. It is hilarious when he needs help because he starts calmly asking "help you" and it quickly gets more frantic "help you, Help you, Help You, HELP YOU", someday he will learn that it is "help me."

Claire is our little princess and she is quite sensitive to every grunt, scream, or holler made by her brother. She is sneaky too, she can provoke her brother pretty well but she always careful to look around to make sure she is clear before doing it, she also will sometimes break down crying when she thinks no one is paying attention because she can usually get Jacob into trouble. She loves to say "okay" when she knows you understand her, for example today she wanted me to "help you" (she learned it from her brother) with the "choo choo"and when I said "you want mama to help you with your choo choo?" she quickly went from frantic to a cheery "OKAY!" She also likes to say "Oh Boy" when she is excited; yesterday we went to playgroup at the park and as we were walking from the car to the playground she exclaimed "Slide, Oh Boy!"

Both of my kids scream "Fry!" (actually it is more like "fwy") every time we pass a building that resembles a fast food drive thru (I promise I don't really feed them fast food often). They love to point out every airplane they hear and they have to say "bye bye airplane" before they can move on with their day.

There are so many funny things that they are doing and so much they are discovering, they try to repeat everything and are starting to repeat us as we say family prayers. I will journal more as I think about their funny things

Close to Hooray #2

We almost had another hooray during bathtime. Claire told Dani she had to go #2 - but it 'fell' a few inches short and turned into an 'uh oh.'

We're coming to the realization that potty-training does not mean that we get to stop cleaning up messes. It just changes the form of cleanup!