Miles of Smiles: June 2015

I finally decided to take the kids to the petting zoo in Waterloo. I say finally, but really, it wasn't open when we arrived last September and then didn't reopen until Memorial Day, so there hasn't been all that many opportunities. Turned out to be a beautiful day, so we decided to go. It is quite small, but sometimes that is just really desireable when taking kids somewhere. They are easy to find should they scurry, and there isn't all that much walking. Blake loved it and Sadie was a bit indifferent. I think she was kind of tired. But she did manage a wave to the brand new donkey that was born last night around 8:30 pm!

Sadie waving to the donkey

Baby donkey and his mommy

Since I am typically really bad about either remembering to bring my camera or if I do remember it, to actually take some photos, we got a group photo right away.

Me at 27 1/2 weeks pregnant and Blake and Sadie and llama. Hey, we are all wearing the same blue! Blake dressed himself and had on an army green shirt with these shorts, and it was a bit much for me on how badly it mismatched, so I changed him into a yellow shirt :)

Of course we have to do these shots!

Sadie was a bit short, but taking a shot from above solved that issue

And Blake took one of me :)

How did this kid get to be so cute??? Blake having a blast holding the kitty

I am having a hard time cutting Blake's locks, b/c I think it looks so cute, but I realize he is in need of a summer haircut soon :) Sadie doesn't have that problem--her hair grows so slowly and she has started pulling it out as well. She is a MAJOR hair twirler, so she got a big knot in the back that I had to cut off. She had played with it so much that the knot wasn't holding on by many hairs by the time I cut it. Also, lately, I've been finding hair on her shoulder, which she pulls out while playing with her hair. I've just started trying to break the habit b/c immediately upon picking her up, her hand goes to my hair. I usually pull my hair back, so she just pulls it out of my ponytail. So, on top of this being incredibly annoying, I also want to break a bad habit before it gets too bad, or before she had a bald spot on one part of her head. :)

1 day old baby donkey again :)

Checking out the mules (or donkeys) or is there a difference?? They weren't good about posting signs as to what the animals were. I mean it is a petting zoo, we are supposed to know what farm animals are, right?? Well, I'm sorry, I don't really know what a hedgehog looks like, and some might not know the difference between a regular pig and a (hideous) potbelly pig. They might just think he is a tad overweight in his sagging belly. :)

The goats were the highlight as you could actually go in their pen and feed them. I was impressed Blake was brave enough to do this, but he really enjoyed it! There were some small baby goats as well, which were sooo cute!! The older ones tried to hog the food though, naturally.

Here is a bad picture of some of the babies who had climbed up their "fort"

So glad we decided to go. We'll have to make this a regular stop for beautiful days!

And, randomly, another attempt at a great sibling picture :)

Sadie wasn't smiling for me again...until Blake bonked her on the head with his teddy bear. Go figure :)

Oh, and then they decided to both put their teddy bears behind their heads.

And this was just cute :)

That's how it works, right? You plan something, it should work...so, I decided to take the kids to a play of the Jungle Book. There was a free showing today at 10:30 at the University of Northern Iowa. It was a free event put on by people with special needs, so I was hoping they'd be a little more understanding about having a toddler there. Blake was ok with going, but said he didn't want to go. I told him we could leave if he didn't like it, so he agreed. Well, we got there just before 10:30 (who shows up early with toddlers anyways, right??). Well, there wasn't any parking spots! I didn't exactly expect that, but thankfully we found one spot as someone was pulling out. This was just before I almost got backed into by a lady so focused on finding a parking spot, she had no idea I was behind her. She was about to leave the parking lot, then stopped abruptly and started to back up. On top of having to break suddenly because she started to turn then changed her mind, thus faking me out, I also had to honk desperately to stop her from backing up into me. It was a close call!

So we finally got our spot, only to find out they were all metered spots in this parking lot, and I had hardly any change. So, we tried to find one in the free spots--nothing. Everywhere else you needed a permit, and even across the street in the residential area, you couldn't park on those streets (you can everywhere else in town)! Blake was obviously all of a sudden very disappointed--I think he started to get excited actually being there, but I had to tell him we couldn't go b/c there was no parking, but we could go get ice cream instead. He readily agreed so, we got Wendy's frosties. Found out Sadie is a disaster trying to eat one, so she reluctantly let me feed her. Then we went to Aldi's for groceries. Found out I didn't have a quarter to get a cart, go figure. First time ever, though, someone saw me walking in the parking lot with two kids (and pregnant) and offered me their cart for free! I told her thank you so much b/c I had just discovered I didn't have a quarter and was so glad to get the cart. It made both of our days.

During Aldi, Sadie opened my fresh mushrooms and Blake opened the green beans so they were both spilling everywhere and a too helpful employee was trying to help me with some tomato cages I was buying. They were tied at the bottom, so I was having trouble trying to get them out. So, she stepped in and pulled out 6 for me. I told here there were a couple that were kind of bent out of shape and wanted a couple different ones, so she put down the four good ones to get 2 better ones to add to them. She then pulled out 4 more, which were ok, but not as nice as the other 4 and added them to the 2 broken/bent ones and said "there we go, here's 6!" I didn't have the heart to tell her she had all the wrong ones and thought I'd exchange them after she left. Oh no, she volunteered to bring them to the front of the store for me so I didn't have to carry them. :) During checkout, I had another clerk go exchange the one that was actually broken and left the others that were bent, haha.

Ah, let's go to Hy-Vee and finish our shopping there, b/c Aldi doesn't have everything I want. They bag your groceries for you, we can get the nice car cart that Blake loves and it will be relaxing comparatively. Maybe we'll even get a slice of pizza...

Shoot. No car carts available. Every time I pick up Sadie, she pulls my hair out of my pony tail. Blake continues to point out every car cart he sees. They are doing a total revamp of the whole store, so employees everywhere crowding the isles. Everything is moved around making it hard to find stuff. Blake points out every chip and candy that he sees and says he wants it. He opens a banana and start to eat it and ends up sitting on the peel, smashing it into the cart. He is smashing the marshmallows inside the bag, so he gets banned from the cart. Sadie keeps trying to stand up. Blake loves to stand on the outside of the cart and be pushed, but steps down while I am pushing and I run into his ankle. At check out, Sadie bites into an avocado of the customer behind us, so they have to go exchange it. There is no employee available to load my groceries (first time ever). My back is starting to hurt from standing so much with this big belly. We didn't get pizza. :)

Driving home some college/high school kids are trying to yell at me from their car. Not sure all that they are saying, but I do hear them ask how my day is going. I give them the thumbs down. They say, "want me to make it better?" I don't look and start to pass them, then I hear them say, "cute kids." I stick my hand out the window and give them a thumbs up for that :)

Finally get home, make lunch. Kids eat so-so. We go to read books before bed and Blake brings some blueberries with him. No big deal, but when they are gone, Sadie goes to get a plate of food that wasn't eaten yet, along with some avocado. She drops it on the carpet and steps on part of it. I have to go clean it up. She then rubs her dirty avocado hands all over my shirt--right over my big belly. Awesome. Finally, they are both in bed. I decide I should document our day for the past 4 hours b/c some days just aren't that fun and such is life with toddlers!

They can be cute though, so here are a few pics of our last few days:

Trying to get a couple of them together. Blake is more than willing to smile for me, haha.

The smile starts to wane as I am trying to get Sadie to cooperate...

Blake drug in their little outdoor table, so they enjoyed some yogurt together

Cute pic of Sadie today :)

Ok, so what she was really trying to do was chew on Daddy's belt, but still...;)

Bath time! (I love Blake in the background, haha)

Check out that farmer's tan! :)

Sadie and I. My hair is finally starting to grow long enough for a pony tail, but it doesn't always make it. Plus, Sadie pulls at the hair every chance she gets...not sure which it is here.