Let the games begin!

There are plenty of days that I miss the fact that my children are no longer babies. 

Today is not one of those days, however!

We pulled out Settlers of Catan, our favorite board game!

 It requires at least three players to play, so we don't get to play it very often. And, it takes around 2 hours, so it's not really one that you can just pull out and play quickly with a few friends. Before we had kids we played it a lot, but it's mostly been sitting in the closet over the last several years. 

We had some time and wanted to do something special with Titus since Leeann was out on a special date of her own (pedicures and shopping with grandmas!). We decided to teach Titus how to play it. He has a strategic mind like his daddy and a competitive streak like his mommy. 

That's a very good combination for playing board games! 

This is a fairly complicated game. In fact, the box says 12+. However, Titus can play Chess and Stratego rather well, so we thought he might be able to catch on to this game over time. 

It didn't take much time at all! He quickly wrapped his mind around a lot of complicated pieces of this multi-faceted game. Mommy and daddy didn't help him win, but we did go easier on him than we normally would if he knew how to play. We always try to be nice to first-timers!

Lo and behold, he pulled out the win by amassing the largest army, hiding a victory point and stealing the longest road from Rob at the end! I'm such a proud mommy!

As wonderful as babyhood is, there's definitely a lot to enjoy about having school-aged kids.

I am so excited to have another Settler's player in our house now! Unfortunately, I think this little boy might give me a run for my money... I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet! 

A Day at the Circus (And More Grammy Adventures!)

Confession: I wrote this in March. I even had the pictures edited, but I'm just now getting around to posting it. Pathetic, I know!

The kids and I just got back from spending 5 days at my moms house in Klamath Falls over Spring Break. I think I’m going to need a 5 day fast just to recover. My mom is a fantastic cook! The kids met their quota for the year of both sugar and movie/t.v. consumption. Okay, truth be told, so did I!

On Monday afternoon we got a special treat. My mom and Keith took us to the circus! I don’t recall ever getting to see a live circus. It was way more fun than I had imagined it would be.

We ate pop corn and cotton candy and we saw high flying trapeze artists, aerialists, tight-rope walkers, synchronized dancing camels, horses and ponies, flame throwing and knife jugglers, obedient tigers, crazy motor cycle drivers, high-flying dogs and more.

During the intermission they opened up the floor for face painting, pony rides, bouncy sliding and ELEPHANT RIDING—for a price that is! So, like any good mother would do, I took my kids down to the elephant ring so they could get close to a real live elephant.

And, like any good blogging mom would do, I had to capture a picture of them close to an elephant. Titus, however, fought back the tears as he realized that you had to have tickets to actually get to ride the elephant.

And, of course, like any good Grandma would do, my mom rushed off to buy elephant riding tickets for my kids.

Before too long, my kids were sitting on top of a real live elephant! Titus was so excited that his foot got to touch the elephant’s ear.

Keith and I decided that we should buy ourselves an elephant and take people for rides. Apparently my mom wasn’t the only one that got suckered into paying a small fortune for two turns around an elephant ring. The line to ride the elephants was a mile long. With two elephants we figured they made about $160 every 4 minutes or so. That’s a salary I could go for!

Truth be told though, it was really cool. I’m glad my mom got suckered into it. How many people can say they actually got to ride an elephant?

We ended the night with some pizza, and a little bit of time doing laps in the back yard in an effort to work the sugar and excitement out of the kids. They were out like lights in no time flat. Just another day at the circus!

And, as if they needed more sugar, my mom made cupcakes first thing in the morning.

And of course, she let the kids help "decorate".

They didn't seem to mind!

  

And then we got to do the whole "sugar-high, sugar-low" thing all over again!

Harvest Party

(Click on the collage to make it bigger)

A few weekends ago we went to a Harvest Party with some families from NACC. It was a lot of fun and we got to do some cool things like play in a hay maze, have rubber ducky races, swim in a box of corn and shoot potatoes and corn cobs out of cannons. Oh, and we got pumpkins too. Leeann's was HUGE and Titus's was teeny.

Toward the end of the afternoon Rob's dad and brother came in on the train. They stopped by to see us for a few minutes before they took off to their annual Buhl men's football game. It was quite a fun weekend!