Double Dentist Day!

Yep, I braved taking both kids to the dentist today!  It was Laney's first dental visit but Coop has been a  few times with his falls to check on his front teeth and regular check-ups.  

 Here is my stuffed animal hoarder again.  She wanted every stuffed animal the dentist had on her lap.  She was totally content hanging out there until the dentist approached.  No go Doc.  I moved Laney to my lap and still wasn't happening.  The doc was able to count her teeth and briefly check them out.  Cleaning wasn't happening, sister doesn't like to be messed with, she flat out wasn't letting that lady in her mouth for longer than a few seconds...we will try again in 6 months.  This reaction came as no surprise :).

This kid rocked it!  He went and did x-rays all by himself while I sat with Laney.  He didn't say a word while they examined and cleaned his teeth...maybe having his blanket with him helped ;).  The x-rays did show some nerve damage to his right front tooth from his 2 falls (one on kitchen tile floor, the other on sidewalk).  There is a chance of some damage to his permanent tooth, but we won't know until it comes in.  Of course the dentist talked to me and Coop about the importance of stopping the thumb sucking.   Cooper told her he didn't want to stop ;).  I told her we would work on it ;). 

We have also added flossing to our nightly bedtime routine, awesome.

Fossil Rim Adventure

Here's all about our adventures at Fossil Rim on Laney's birthday.  Basically it's an outdoor drive thru wildlife center.  You can read more about it here.  So crazy cool, we loved it!  It was about an hour and 45 minutes from us and took us about 3 hours to drive thru, including lunch.  

 The kids were so excited that we were going to be driving and they would be out of their carseats.  Cooper immediately took his spot on the console.

 Laney's reaction when we saw our first animal, this guy...

 I can't remember what it was...not pretty.

 You buy a bag of food so you can feed the animals along the way.  See the deer in the background that they were feeding?

 We saw lots of deer and they weren't afraid of us!  Many of them came walking right up to our car window for some food.

 Cooper got his first driving lesson.

 The rules are to throw the food on the ground and not to feed them from your hand...rules are made to be broken, right?

 Coop kept saying, "this is the coolest place ever!"

 The kids had no fear about these wild animals walking right up to our window.

 It was beautiful and so nice to be away from technology for a few hours and enjoy nature!

 We loved seeing the zebras up close, so fascinating!  And we reminisced about how Cooper used to say zeb-ruh instead of zee-bra...it was the cutest!

 Ask Laney what a giraffe has and this is her answer for long neck :).  Cooper used to do the same exact thing!

 We were totally bummed that the giraffes were in their pens for the day :(.  We were ready for their long necks to be stretching in our car for some food!

 This was our lunch view, so pretty!

 At one point Cooper and I had an elk that was not shy at all eating from our hands.  It's on the video camera, will share when I get it uploaded...Adam said it's hilarious.

 Laney was asleep before we pulled into Sonic 5 minutes after leaving Fossil Rim.

Laney's 2nd Birthday 8-24-13

**side note...my MacBook crashed today :(.  The kids and I (always fun, not) ventured to the Apple Store today (how and why is that place always so crazy busy!).  A few hours and hundred dollars later, I have a new hard drive and battery which means I basically have a new computer.  Good and Bad, end of story.**

Our one and only Laney Faith turned 2 last Saturday. 

I know it's totally blurry but it's the best I could get on my phone.  Here's my 1 year old in her last hours of sleep before waking up a 2 year old.  Have I blogged about her stuffed animal hoarding?  She's getting awful big in that crib but it makes me tired just thinking about moving her to a big girl bed.

 She was up bright and early at 7 and was surprised to see her brother sleeping on our floor.  (He came down scared sometime in the middle of the night....too tired to walk him back up.

She curled up with her big bro for about 2 minutes before moving on.

 We had her traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  I made this recipe, but will go back to my original recipe here next year.

 Showing off her breakfast

 We got dressed and opened her gifts from Dad, Coop and I before our adventure for the day.

 Just the reaction I had expected, so happy!

She loves her Mickey and Minnie!  I must really love you Laney Faith because I despise stuffed animals!!!!  I knew how happy these 2 characters would make you and they haven't been a disappointment!

 She rarely puts Mickey and Minnie down!  We spent the morning at Fossil Rim but that adventure deserves a post of its own, coming soon!  She was on the phone chatting with birthday well wishers when she wasn't chatting with Mickey and Minnie.

 We got back home around 3 and spent the next couple hours facetiming family and opening gifts.  She was so super excited to open her presents this year, it was awesome.  

Ugh, thought this was a video and not a picture!  He was saying, "oh, ooohhhh, oh."  It was so cute!  She got lots of princess and Dora stuff, yay for more girly stuff in our house!  

 We went out to dinner and came home to sing Happy Birthday to our princess and eat cake!

 Think she loved us singing to her?  I made this bundt cake (it was delish!) and she picked out the hot pink icing at the grocery store.

 Oh Laney Faith, we adore you and can't imagine life without you in it!

It was another awesome day celebrating a birthday for our kids!  Laney seemed to love it all :).

Happy 2nd Birthday to our Doodles, we love you to the moon and back!!!!!!!!!!!!

Smile Fridays - week 45

This Friday is especially happy because Adam has been out of town all week and came home today!  Woo-Hoo for parental backup!!!

love this article!!! http://magicalchildhood.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/what-should-a-4-year-old-know/

this one too...http://wellcommons.com/weblogs/larryvillemom/2013/aug/21/5-ways-were-making-parenting-harder/

but this one may be the best, shout out to #3 of best college bars in America! http://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/travel/destinations/2013/08/16/best-college-bars-in-america/2666061/.

After lunch one day last week I was in the kitchen cleaning up and the kids were sitting in their chairs.  They wanted to be cozy so Coop got a blanket...it was 95 outside and 80 inside.  Cooper says to Laney, "Will you marry me someday?"  She just smiled.  Melted my heart.  And 5 minutes later they were fighting over the same toy.  

This sweet, sweet girl turns 2 tomorrow!  We will be celebrating all day!  Love her sassy self!

Crafternoons!

I have been incorporating some crafts into our afternoons since (besides last week) it is still h-o-t!  Unless we are at the pool, we are inside for the afternoon.  Thought I would document for my personal reference (you're welcome baby #3) and share with you all, these are all super simple and FUN!

 I subscribe to Paging Supermom, a blog all about activities for kids.  Not all apply to my kids' ages but this one was awesome!  The direct link is here, http://pagingsupermom.com/2013/03/diy-balloon-goldfish-craft/ .  

 The kids watched a short (like 3 min) video and then we made this fish balloons.   It was fun but they had them deconstructed in about 2 minutes ;).

 We made some slime from this recipe, http://lilluna.com/homemade-gak-recipe/.  It was super easy to make.

On the original post, the blogger said her kids played hours with theirs...Cooper played with his for about 30 minutes the first day and only once since.

 This one is pretty simple, marble painting.  Laney was not a fan.  She wanted to pick the marbles up and play with them...definitely didn't get the idea of rolling the marbles to paint.

He loved it!  Forgot to get a pic of the finished product.

 Ok-this isn't really crafting but my kids love it.  We have a roll of paper on our easel.  I just pull a big strip off and give them different materials each time.  Sometimes they get stickers, stamps, markers.  

This day I pulled out the dotters I got from the dollar store...they were definitely dollar store quality.  They didn't exactly dot, more like scatter and took forever to dry which means it was everywhere.  Hence why Laney is stripped down to a diaper. 

I am just loving that the kids are both (well, almost) at ages to do some of these fun, productive activities! I have said it before...I can only play kitchen and super heroes for so many hours in one week!

Cooper's 4th Birthday! 8-12-13

Despite Adam and I begging him to stay 3 1/2, Cooper went ahead and turned 4 last week...

 We started the day with his traditional pancake breakfast.  It was even more special because Dad took the day off work to spend with us!  

It was time to add a finger! 

We surprised him with a visit to Chuck E. Cheese.  He has seen commercials for it on TV and asked several times to go.  When we pulled up he said, "Is this Chuck E. Cheese?  No, they aren't in Texas.  Oh wait, this IS Chuck E. Cheese!!!!!!"  It was a great reaction.

 She didn't know what they were for, but she wasn't letting go.

 We wouldn't recommend taking an almost 2 year old to Chuck E. Cheese...kind of a waste.  She just wanted to run and run and steal balls from the skee ball machine.  

 4 is a great age for Chuck E. Cheese, can you tell??

 The Skee Ball swiper.

 This was my all time favorite game from when I was a kid and that hasn't changed.  I was often persuading Coop to come play with me in the 2 hours we were there.

 She wanted to tandem ride everything with Coop.

 She did love sitting here and loving on Barney.

 The birthday boy got to choose lunch, no surprise here.  He and the greeter hit it off right away and chatted about his birthday while we ordered.  

Well, that sweet man not only brought him out an ice cream sundae, he also sweet talked the table of high school girls next to us to sing along Happy Birthday!  Coop was in awe, it was the sweetest ;).  

 After lunch and naps, the afternoon was full of opening presents and Skype/Facetime calls with family.  I was pretty proud of myself, this is all Coop got from Adam and I...well, besides his birthday party.  He was pretty happy about it!  The rest of his family spoil him ridiculously!

 Facetiming with Mamaw and Papaw to open his gifts from them.  The kid is officially in Super Hero heaven thanks to his Grandparents and Aunts/Uncles/Cousins.  Yep, officially spoiled.

We had birthday party leftovers for dinner and went to see Cars.  Cooper was so excited!  This pic is the only one I have from the movies, actually I have several that look like this, thanks Laney Faith!

 We came home, changed into PJ's, put Sis to bed, wrapped up our Facetime calls for the day and had one last hurrah.  Adam and I sat at the table with him for dessert and sang Happy Birthday to our sweet 4 year old.  

His reaction was priceless.  

We had such a fun day, Coop thought it was pretty great that he got to make important decisions about it and do his favorite things!  

Happy 4th Cooper William Jones, we love you to the moon and back!  Or as he has told me the last couple nights, he loves me to Robin's house and back ;).