More of our weekend

These pictures are courtesy from Miranda's blog and Facebook.

More of CMOE

Jumpy House Fun!

Water and Mud!

Yummy mud!

I guess Ella's plate looked more enticing!

CMOE

Instead of the Evansville Zoo on Saturday, we decided to go the the Children's Museum of Evansville with the Bertram's. You may remember our trip to New York City back in November. Adam is a co-worker of Bobby's and Miranda (Adam's wife) and I explored NYC for a couple days. They have a daughter who is a little over 2 years older than Natalie. We have never met Ella, so it was fun to get the girls together to play.

Natalie had a lot of fun at CMOE exploring all it has to offer. I think the daddies had more fun than the girls sometimes!  I am so glad Natalie is very adaptable because with 2 kids now, it is so nice to know she is comfortable in so many environments. Aubrey was fine if she was held, but didn't want to spend much time in the stroller. I wish I would have just worn her in the Moby wrap because I would have been able to get LOTS of pictures taken, but I took barely any pictures all day with her EVERY 2 hour eating schedule...right on the dot each time! It was hard to take the pictures one-handed or without free hands at all. Miranda is an AWESOME photographer and I can't wait to see all the pictures she took. You can check out her skills on her Facebook page. I also follow her blog and the pictures she captures are amazing.

Miranda with Aubrey...looks like she's ready for #2 :)

Went down the curly slide all by herself...such a big girl

 

Daddy went down, too!

Told you that Daddy had fun, too!

We NEED one of these black/white spiral thingies at our house! Both Aubrey and Natalie were mesmerized by it. Natalie sat still and Aubrey calmed down!

Hearing her heartbeat on a drum

She's ready for Kindergarten:)  

After the museum, we headed to a really good pizza place called Turoni's. Of course, as soon as we got our pizza, Aubrey wanted to eat too! Big surprise there!  Natalie had no nap and ate later than her usual lunchtime since Evansville is an hour behind us, but she did really good overall. Natalie took a quick catnap in the car after lunch.

Once we got done eating, we headed back to the Bertram's house so the girls could play and Bobby could help Adam with some electrical changes...Bobby has become quite the handyman. By the time they were done, there were no extra holes in the walls and their wall TV no longer has wires hanging down to the lower outlet. Good Job, Bobby and Adam!

It was nice to hang out with Miranda again since our NYC trip and the girls had a blast in Ella's jumpy house and water toys in "Ella's Outdoor Playland." Natalie was quite the nut in the jumpy house and very adventurous which led Miranda and I having to catch her several times as she would jump down the slide and tumble out of the jumpy house. While I was feeding Aubrey at one point, Natalie discovered the mud in the corner of their yard, which she enjoyed an awful lot...haha!  Natalie also loved hanging out in "Ella's Indoor Playland." She loved Ella's room with all the toys and books (I think Miranda probably picked up after the girls a million times...haha). Ella also had a cool Thomas the Train plush rocker that Natalie enjoyed very much. Natalie got to play with Playdoh, color, play in the water, "read" books, jump, swing...everything...Natalie enjoyed every minute of it. I think Natalie was Ella's little shadow because everywhere Ella went, Natalie was right there with her.  Thank you, Ella for all the fun! Love, Natalie

Also, thanks to Miranda for the yummy dinner and to the Bertram's for their hospitality!

Ella and Natalie in the Jumpy House

Loving the big rocker

Her favorite chair at the Bertram's

Trying to help Adam cave into having baby #2, Aubrey tried to do her part :)

The hand-off :)

A natural :)

Looks like he's ready :)

Aubrey was all smiles with Adam!  She also was very content with Miranda, too!  Ella says she's cute!

By the time we left Evansville, it was almost 10pm Terre Haute time and Natalie had only taken a 15 minute nap all day but was actually very well behaved all day...I was pretty proud of her!  Both girls fell asleep in the car and slept the whole way, except Aubrey woke up with a little less than 10 minutes to go. Natalie went to bed good and slept until I woke her up for church and Aubrey slept from midnight until 7:15am, which was good for this mama because I was exhausted and slept like a rock!

Our Sunday was an extremely busy one compared to normal Sundays. Before Aubrey was born, I volunteered to help out in the chidren's ministry. They wanted people to pick 2 times to help out, and smart me decided I would pick a morning and evening in the same Sunday. Well, this Sunday just happened to fall on a Sunday that Bobby had to do the lights for both services at church, too.  Let me say, it was pretty interesting. This morning, I had to get to the church an hour early (Bobby was already there) for "orientation" since I had never helped out before. I had Aubrey in the Moby Wrap and Natalie in tow, alongwith their diaper bags (since they are in 2 different rooms I have to bring 2 different bags...fun). Aubrey slept and Natalie sat on my lap and listened. I can't believe how well behaved she has been this weekend!  About 30 minutes before service started, I checked both girls into their rooms (Aubrey's first time in the nursery).

I was in the Elementary room and all I have to say about that is I would never have the tolerance/patience to be a teacher!  Props to all those who are teachers!  Kids are just so fidgety, but how they have the children's service set-up is great for both learning and getting out extra energy. Once I was able to leave when most of the kids (over 50) were picked up from parents/family, Bobby was already getting Aubrey (who I could hear crying). Come to find out, Aubrey was the most behaved baby of 11...yes I said 11. I don't even want to know how the other babies were because I know how clingy Aubrey can be and with only 3-4 volunteers in that room, that's A LOT of babies!  That is where I will be tonight, so at least I will be with Aubrey, but I hope there aren't 11 babies again...haha!  Natalie of course was perfectly content in her room...she's going to LOVE heading back to daycare! What a happy little girl she is!

Indy Zoo

Natalie and Aubrey's daycare friends were going to the Indy Zoo today, so we met up with them and Aunt Amanda. It was a fun day, but HOT. It definitely wasn't one of the hottest days this summer, but was humid which made it seem pretty warm. I haven't been to the Indy Zoo in a very long time, but for some reason I was thinking it was bigger than it was. Luckily, some of the animals were pretty active, like the brown bear, baboons, fish, and penguins!

When we got to the zoo and met up with her daycare friends, who she hasn't seen since the end of May, she acted shy. One of the little boys who is 2, came up to her and was calling her cutie pie and all kinds of cute names. I told his dad that he better watch out because he has his lines already down. He played with Natalie a lot when she was there since they were in the same room together and napped in the same room, too (separate cribs of course). He was so cute!

They also have a small splash pad area for the kids, which of course Natalie loved...that is until we were about ready to go and she got ran over by another kid. Poor girl got leveled and hit her head on the ground (luckily it was slightly padded). I think she was more scared/stunned than hurt. I was standing right there when it happened. Needless to say, it was time to leave and she settled down once I got her in dry clothes.  During her fun times at the splash pad, she was running around like a nut!  She also had a little boy following her everywhere she went. At first, I thought the little boy liked her, but he ended up being somewhat of a bully. Every time Natalie would go to a place where water was spraying out, he was sure to follow and put his foot or hand over the water source so Natalie couldn't play in it. Bobby asked me what I did, which I responded with just watched. He wasn't doing anything to hurt her and she would just leave that spot and run to another. She didn't seem phased.

Aubrey, overall, was good, but of course we didn't go without a couple crying fits.

It was so nice to have Aunt Amanda with us!  An extra set of hands is always better than being by myself!  We had fun and can't wait to go to the Evansville Zoo tomorrow with the Bertram's!

 

Petting a shark

With her daycare friends...the girls plus Thomas

With her daycare friends...the boys

Feeding the giraffe...however, she wanted to eat the carrot, too!

Feeling a rhino horn

The elephants had a baby June 28th...it was SO cute, but couldn't get a great picture of it because it was constantly standing underneath the mother.

 

The bully

Feeling Better?!

I'm not sure if the Prilosec is already helping or Aubrey's low grade fever has to do with how mellow she has been today. She has actually slept with occasional crying, but nothing like it has been. She seems happy today, so I hope the medicine is actually helping. I'm kind of surprised though since she's only had 2 doses.

Natalie was being a stinker today and not listening well. Oh the joys of a toddler!

I decided to take a picture of the purple "green" pepper that we got from my parent's garden. We had a pretty healthy dinner tonight...lots of veggies...zucchini (Natalie didn't care for it which I am surprised because as a baby she loved squash), green/purple peppers, sweet corn, and BLTs with gardent fresh tomatoes. All vegetables courtesy of my parents...yum!

I have never seen a purple pepper and my parents didn't plant them either. Must have gotten crossed with an eggplant or something. They are milder than regular green peppers.