Legoland, Target, & The Circus

This week was action packed with a couple of special outings as you may have gathered from the title.  Before I get to that, I'll pick up where we left off from the last posting...

It was Adventurer Sabbath this week since it was the first Sabbath of the month.  I volunteered Calleigh to do the offering again if no one else wanted to do it (I heard they were supposed to do just one for the year to give other kids a chance) and it turned out no one else did so she was pleased.  Aubree was left out in the cold once again.  One of the deacons actually asked her if she wanted to do it with him but he was sort of an "interesting" looking gentleman and I think she got freaked out.

After naptime, we headed over to the Bergherms for some dinner, thank you Jennifer, and some games.  We ended up playing a game off a DVD which had you identify different movies based on the dialogue or pictures.  Duncan completely carried our team and we were winning all the way to the end until we lost in the "final jeopardy" round.  Oh well.  The biggest challenge with the game was trying to keep the kids away because some of the movies weren't exactly kid friendly.  Calleigh, naturally, is intrigued any time she can catch a glimpse of a TV screen in action.  Funny how we adults try our darndest to pretend we're just two couples having a grand old time and there aren't four screaming kids running around.

Jennifer and I in our matching Old Navy shirts from the 75% sale 

Sunday morning after our First Watch run, it was off to Madison Hilliard's 3rd birthday party at My Gym in Lake Mary.  We had been there to a party almost two years ago and were glad to go back.  There are a bunch of activities to do and then the leader also has some games they do.  One of the games was where three kids have to run around in this big circle trying to tag each other.  Aubree got picked by the teacher to do the game with two other kids and Calleigh was quite perturbed by this.  "I want to be with my little sister!" she told the teacher.  She was saying that from a perspective of being concerned about Aubree's well being playing tag with some bigger kids.  Another game was a version of musical chairs except this time it was "musical mat."  There was a long mat put out and when the music stopped, the kids had to jump on the mat.  The mat kept getting folded to make it smaller but that also meant it kept getting taller.  Calleigh was such a good sport.  Whenever the music stopped, she would help Aubree onto the mat which meant at the end she was having to pick her up onto it.  I was glad to see she was more intent on making sure Aubree got on the mat instead of looking out for herself.

The birthday girl

Not the greatest picture but you can see Calleigh trying to get Aubree on the mat.

The best part of My Gym was trying to get Aubree to understand the name of it.  I told her we were going to My Gym and she, of course, took this to mean it was "mine."  This came up in a discussion she had with Duncan:

Duncan: "Did you go to My Gym?"
Aubree:  "No, I didn't."
Duncan: "You didn't?  I thought you were going to My Gym for Madison's party?"
Aubree: "Nope."
Duncan:  "Are you sure it wasn't at My Gym?"
Aubree: "It wasn't YOUR guy.  It was Mommy's Gym!"

Sunday evening I spent some time preparing for the next morning.  We are part of a homeschool group with the Forest Lake Church and homeschoolers are able to get a special deal into the new Legoland Park in Winter Haven - - $5/person.  It's regularly $68 so clearly, a most excellent deal.  Yes, I know you are probably thinking that we aren't homeschoolers and you would be correct but we've already joined the group in anticipation of being homeschoolers and that way we can be part of the activities and get to know people.  It wasn't just to get into Legoland for $5, I swear!  Anyway, we would need to leave the house by about 8:20 and considering that the girls don't even get up until 8:00, it would take a lot of prep work to get us out of the house on time.  Fortunately, I pulled it off.  We were out the door and on our way.  It's about and hour and twenty minute trip.

At one time, I would say about two kids ago, going to an amusement park with three kids without Duncan or an equivalent, would have made my knees tremble a little bit.  But now I kind of just go with the flow.  To be fair, there is no way I could have pulled it off if it weren't for Jennifer and her mother-in-law because the kids had to have an adult with them to go on the rides and obviously it couldn't be me since I had Brady.  Jennifer was there with her troop of four boys (two hers and the other two are Zachary and Kaleb) and her mother-in-law, Ellen, was who an extremely good sport.  We could have used a few more adults actually since the kids outnumbered us but we were able to work some of the rides in shifts.  It was an awesome day to be there.  It was about 80 degrees (almost too hot at times) and hardly any wait to get on the rides.  Calleigh ended up being just tall enough (42 inches I think it was) to ride the big roller coasters and I left Brady with Jennifer so I could go with her.  She loved it!  I think my first roller coaster was at the now defunct Boardwalk and Baseball which strangely enough was probably only about 20 minutes from Legoland.  I was way older than four though.

Aubree has been talking about going on roller coasters for months now but at barely 36 inches, she wasn't tall enough to do any roller coasters but at least was just tall enough to get on some "big kid" rides as we called them.  One of them was a ride that goes up and then drops down quickly - - they have the same one at SeaWorld but she hasn't been on it yet.  I was curious to see if she would be a scaredy cat when it came right down to it (was betting that she would be) but it turned out that she laughed the whole time.   Ahhh, such a great sound!!  I could have done the ride a dozen more times just to hear that.

Aubree bawled because she was too little to drive a car.

Feeling better now.

Aubree on the big kid ride.  I look huge.

Ellen was great to have there.

I spotted this unique double stroller.

A few years from now they will probably make a face at this picture.

Aubree and Kaleb.  Awww!

With all the excitement of the rides and giant Legos, the biggest thrill of the day might just as well have been the playgrounds.  The girls both let out a squeal as we came to one of them.  I was impressed with how many play areas they had there.  The six kids spent a good 30 or 40 minutes just running around one of the playgrounds and we had to tear them away to go on to something else.  Good old fashion fun.

Aubree led Zachary all over the playground and kept saying he was "going to jail."  Not sure what his crime was.

Working on him in jail.

During all of this, Brady was as good as can be.  When there is stuff happening around him, he's happy to just sit there and observe it all.  I did switch him back and forth between the stroller and Bjorn because he would get a little antsy at times in the stroller - - I think mainly because the girls tend to harrass (i.e. kiss) him incessantly when they can reach him.  He fell asleep for about a grand total of 30 minutes while we were there which was between 10:00 - 5:00 (those are the hours its open).  Didn't want to miss any of the excitement I guess!

Finished the day with some delicious apple fries. Thanks for the tip, Allen!

All in all, I would say we definitely enjoyed ourselves although at $68 I would have felt like we needed to squeeze more of the attractions in.  When it's $5, you can just relax and go at whatever pace the kids want to go at.  We did leave some things undone so there will have to be a next time!  We left about 5:30 and didn't make it home until  about 7:20 with all the traffic.  It felt like a long day to be sure.

Tuesday we took Brady in for the second part of his flu shot.  He didn't cry a bit so that was nice.  I checked his weight since it was the same scale he was weighed on exactly one month previous.  Four ounces.  That's all he gained in four weeks.  From 14 pounds to 14 pounds, 4 ounces.  Very frustrating to say the least.  We weren't seeing the doctor or anything so I couldn't have a discussion with the doctor on it so for now I'm going to just keep feeding him as much as I can.  Maybe he's just a little guy.  I've added a second serving of solids a day although I'm somewhat hesitant to feed him too much solids since I don't want him to reduce his nursing.  That's where he gets most of his calories.

Tuesday evening we met Jennifer and the boys over to Chik-Fil-A for kids eat free night.  This time the event was a lady doing caricatures.  I don't know how much the pictures really look like them per se, but the girls thought it was fun.  As we were getting in the van to come home, Calleigh says to me. "I wish I was a boy."  When I asked her why she says "So I could play with my business.  You know, the thing where the pee comes out."  But yes, that's exactly how she said it...So I could play with my business.  Things that make you go "Hmmm."

Brady...I think.

Wednesday we were going to hit up a playground but the weather turned rainy so we decided a trip to Monkey Joe's with Jennifer and the boys, once again, was in order.  Aubree isn't quite big enough to make it up to the biggest slide and after about two or three times of my climbing up with her I was like "And...we're done.  Go find something else."  Fortunately most everything else she was able to do on her own or with help from one of the other kids.

Wednesday night Duncan was able to get home in time to take Calleigh, and Aubree, to Adventurers.  They don't seem to mind that we have a 2-year old doing pretty much everything that Calleigh does so we just go with it.  Aubree loves being with the big kids.  Meanwhile, I just had Brady back here at home so I was running around the house like a madwoman cleaning up, folding laundry, making a grocery list while talking on the phone (which led me to ponder for several minutes while I was at the grocery store what just exactly "chase" was on my list. Finally realized, once I got home, that it was supposed to be "cheese.") .

Thursday morning was a day I had been waiting for.  Twice a year Target has a huge clearance sale on their toys where they mark a large selection of stuff down to 70% off.  The last time they had it at the end of July, I was on my way to Nova Scotia and missed it.  Not this time!  By studying the coupon blogs, we were prepared that Thursday was going to be the day.  You have to go on THE DAY or else you miss it because everything goes really fast.  Jennifer warned me that I had to be there right when it opened at 8:00.  So, like Monday morning and Legoland, I had to get the kids up early and out the door, this time by 7:35.  Fortunately they weren't grumpy and we made it to Target by 7:53.  Nobody else was around so I wondered if the blogs were wrong but as I came around the corner of the aisle, I saw the big 70% off signs and all the toys and my heart skipped a little beat. Within a few minutes there were at least six to eight other fanatics there with their carts piled high just like mine.  The sickening thing is when you see something you paid full price for at Christmas and now you see it heavily marked down.  We paid $20 for a doll for Aubree and now it was $5.30.  Fiddlesticks!  Now, you may be wondering what on earth am I doing with a cart full of toys.  The answer to that is planning ahead.  I was buying gifts for all the birthday parties the kids will go to this year, gifts for their birthday and possibly Christmas if there's anything left.  Yes, I know they saw the stuff but I don't think it matters.  They were actually quite good about the whole thing. I thought they were going to have a fit when they couldn't have some of the bigger things...namely a dancing baby doll in Aubree's case.  This was my exchange with Calleigh on the way home:

Me: "Now you know girls, these gifts aren't for now.  I'm going to have to put them away when we get home."
Calleigh: "But Mom, could we just play with the boxes that the toys are in?"
Me: (After taking a moment to think how precious it was that she had asked that) "I don't know.  I don't think I really want you to be looking at these gifts.  Some of these may be for you for your birthday or something."
Calleigh (in a very serious tone): "Mom, we won't even remember any of these. We'll just forget what's in the boxes."

The real thing that amazed me was that I told them if they were really good they could pick something out to have now.  I was anticipating it would be some giant Polly Pocket set up (not that I was going to give them something that big) but it turned out that all Calleigh wanted was a little play cell phone that was a whopping $2.28.  Why?  Because it had some sparkly stickers that you could stick on it.  She's had a blast with that cell phone, I must say.  Although...I wonder if it's just encouraging her to have a real one someday.  Incidentally, Aubree never picked something out and they barely even noticed when I took all the gifts to the garage.  I guess they're still satisfied from Christmas.  I'm not going to say how much I spent on the toys because I don't want you to judge me.  But I will say that if I had paid full price it would have been in the hundreds of dollars.

Last night was the big trip to the circus.  We hadn't told them in advance where we were going only telling them the morning of that we were going somewhere.  Calleigh kept trying to guess and as a clue she wanted to know where on the earth it was.  In the middle or on the edge?  Guess we need some work on that aspect of the earth.  Anyway, at one point Aubree somehow came up with the idea of the circus but Calleigh  kept shooting her down.  I don't know that Calleigh realized it was the circus until we were in building and then they had big smiles on their faces.  We only got there about 10 minutes before it started at 7:30 but that was just fine.  The Bergherms (minus Bruce) and Allen and Braelyn (too late for the twins) joined us.  Now, the circus isn't necessarily where I would go to spend my free time if I didn't have any kids but I do have kids so I enjoy watching them enjoy it.  Since the girls are night owls anyway, they had no trouble staying awake for the whole show.  Nor did Brady who was awake the whole time too...just watching it all.  Personally, I didn't think it was as good as last year but others disagreed.  The highlight was at the end where they had eight guys on motorcycles all riding at the same time in this cylinder ball.  Calleigh said it was her favorite too...since there was no "tall man" this year.  Her favorite last year was the man on stilts and both she and Aubree kept asking me when he was coming out.  He never did, sadly.  The show lasted until 9:50 and we got home at 10:35 and the kids all went right to sleep.

I don't want to say the circus protesters are right but this is what I saw in the hall on the way to our seats.

Excited!

Picture courtesy of Allen's blog.

Picture courtesy of Allen's blog

This morning we were happy to be out on our yard sale circuit.  Not too many sales out there still but I did find a few shirts and a pair of shoes for myself.  Happy times.

In other news, I'm making a concerted effort to get Brady on a different sleeping pattern.  He's woken up between 6:05 and 6:11 every day this week.  He's consistent if nothing else.  Unfortunately this is just too early for me to be waking up.  My sister-in-law read a book about how if you put them to bed earlier, they'll actually sleep later.  The more babies sleep, the more they sleep.  I'm trying it tonight to see if it will work.  I usually don't feed and put Brady to bed until after the girls which means he's not hitting his crib until after 9:00.  Tonight I put him in there at 8:15.  He went right to sleep (he always does.  Yay!).  Please, oh please, let it work!!  If not, I've set up a pack n'play downstairs for him for the morning.  When he finishes eating in the mornings, it's still pretty early and no one else is up yet.  I just set up some toys for him and lie on the floor next to him.  Since he's moving around (not crawling but rolling, etc) I'm constantly having to re-position him.  Now I can just throw him in the pack n'play with his toys and I can relax a little bit.

The last two weeks have been majorly busy for me work wise and I've been up pretty late a number of nights (what's new, right??).  The month of January is always like this for me though because of year end and audit.  Thank goodness I'm not exercising any more!  I know that sounds really bad.  I finally got back to my pre-baby weight by the second week in December and once that happens, I stop the fanatical exercise.  Not a good thing, I know, but for now, I'm just too busy.

I think that's about it although I will share one other Calleigh conversation or conversations I guess you could say.  At the beginning of the week she asked me if people used scissors a long, long time ago.  I said I didn't think so.  She didn't seem convinced of my answer so she said "Let's ask Papa."  I was a little perplexed by this statement because I was thinking to myself, "Does she want to ask Papa that because she thinks he's old and was alive back then?"  But I didn't pursue it further.  A few days later, as we left early for Legoland actually, there was a lot of fog.  Calleigh asks me where the fog came from and as I paused to try to come up with an intelligent answer Calleigh says "We should ask Papa.  He'll know."  So it turns out that Papa isn't old, he's just really smart.  The go-to person for tough questions.  I'm assuming she must get this from my always saying we should ask Papa when she asks me Bible questions that are impossible to answer (like the "will cockroaches be in heaven" type of ones).  So there you go, Papa.  Your granddaughter thinks you're pretty darn smart!

That actually reminds me...one other Papa related story.  A little background first.  At VBS last year, the theme was Panda Bears and the mascot was one named Ping.  With that in mind...We were on our way to church on Sabbath and Aubree is looking through this picture book.  She excitedly holds up the book and says "Look!  It's Ping Crosby!!"  (This is Papa related because it's a well known fact that Bing Crosby is his favorite singer.)

Ping Crosby...errr, Bing Crosby?

Have a Happy Sabbath!