Barnyard Buddies

Grandma Tracie and Krystle were bored last week so they decided to come with us to Gardner Village to go to the petting zoo, Barnyard Buddies. We met at grandma's house and left from there. It was a small petting zoo, but what do you expect for $2? Ben absolutely loved it. The first thing that he did was go grab the cicken and chase it! Isabel on the other hand wasn't fond of animals all around her!
This was the 'special' goat. We thought that it had been abused, but found out that it looked like that becuase of its' breed. It has very little ears and it's hip bones stick out. She was a very friendly goat and loved to follow us around! She was grandma Tracie's favorite!

This picture is out of order, but the kids loved seeing the waterwheel next to the resturaunt, Archibalds, where we ate lunch. Ben wanted to see the waterwheel, not have his picture taken!

Isabel wasn't very big on the goats. She hated that they would come right up to her and rub on her. If she was next to me, she would grab onto my leg and start to wimper. She didn't seem to be afraid of the ostrich so had to get a picture of one of the animals she would pet! Here she is with Krystle.

Although Isabel didn't like petting the animals, she LOVED riding the pony! Ben refused to get on one to ride, so Isabel took his turn too. I have noticed a trend with this little girl. She has expensive taste! When you ask her what she wants to eat, it is prime rib, lobster, crab legs, so it is no wonder that she likes expensive sports like horseback riding :)

Now onto Ben's adventure. Ben loved the animals. He chased the chicken, grabbed the cow by the horns and turned them like they were a steering wheel, rubbed the owner's dog until it snarled and showed him his teeth etc etc etc..... His absolute favorite had to be the pig. He petted it while it was walking around, but he really loved it when she laid down. We were all watching Isabel ride the pony and I look behind me and see Ben petting the pig. He was rubbing her belly really fast, and then pinching all of its teets (or nipples, whatever you call them) one at a time. He would pull them all out, and was fascinated with how far they would stretch. All the pig would do it twitch it's head in Ben's direction. I quickly grabbed him, only to find that as soon as I put him down he would be back over with the pig. Gotta love boys!

Even though it was a long drive, we all seemed to enjoy it. We might have to go down to Gardner Village later when they have the witches out. Could be fun! Thanks grandma and Krystle for coming with us!

Bikes in the Park & Isabel's 1st Photo Shoot

Last week we went to the park with Holly and her kids to ride bikes. It was way fun. So fun in fact that we went again this week :) Isabel and Carter loved racing. Cassidy and Caitlyn were a little more cautious than the younger 2. Funny story about Isabel's hair..... I did pig tails with 5 braids on each side. Isabel loved it. The funny part is she looked at me and said, "Mom!!! My braids are brown!" I asked her what color she thought they were going to be, and she said she didn't know, but she loved that her pig tail braids were brown! Silly girl. Always makes me laugh!
Isabel and Carter racing around the park.

This is where Ben spent most of his time. He went once around the park on his bike, then spent the rest of the time climbing on the playground. (and yes I know this is a picture of Isabel, not Ben!)

Caitlyn ready to ride :)

Cute picture of Carter posing for Isabel to take his picture. I helped her take this one.

Isabel decided that she wanted to take pictures for a minute, so I let her have the camera. The following are her first pictures taken by herself. Her first photo shoot. If I do say so, she did a pretty good job!

I asked her to take pictures of the people that were there, so that is what she did. Here is Ben.

Then there is Cassidy (above) and Caitlyn (below)

Carter didn't want his picture taken :) He had already posed for one!

And of course she needed a picture of herself :) See the close up of the 'brown' braids.....

Then there is her shoe......

and the sky with clouds. See, she had it all covered!

Guess I can get rid of Isabel's kid camera and just let her use mine. Hanging out with kids is the best :) It was a fun way to spend the morning!

Camping at Last!

Last week I asked Isabel if she would rather be in the South Weber day parade or go camping. She looked at me as if I was crazy and said, "camping!" Isabel loves to camp and so does Ben. I wasn't sure if he remembered camping, but he does :) We ended up just going to Mantua because we needed for be back Sunday morning for mom and dad's non-farewell.

Starting at about 5pm Isabel started asking for a campfire. We went on a 4 wheeler ride and started the campfire when we got back around 7-8pm. Here is Brady starting the fire.

Ben decided to blow on the fire like daddy did :) Check out his cheeks!

Isabel had to join the fun too!

Ben was in the play pen all last year, but this year he was big enough to sleep in a tent like Isabel! He only woke up once and decided that he didn't like sleeping in the tent so we made a bed up for him. Isabel is too big for hers, but she still wants to sleep in it :) Just like real camping!

This is the first year that I wasn't pregnant or had a little baby that needed a nap, so we were able to ride the 4 wheeler a lot. The kids loved it. We had to make sure that the key was out of it becuase Ben knows how to start and accelerate :)

Me and the kids would ride on the 4 wheeler and Brady would ride on the side on his dirtbike. It was fun. Isabel loves her daddy. She and Ben would both keep looking around wile we were riding to make sure we could see daddy riding beside us.

Here is Brady helping the kids get ready for yet another ride. (I sat in the middle of the 2 kids) And yes, we all wear helmets! The rides were fun. Ben got to where he could tell me when there would be a bump coming, and he would say weeeee!

Camping is a ton of fun. It was very nice to get away even if it was just for a few days!

Can you believe this kid???

My friend Holly and I took the kids to the Riverdale splash pad last week. The kids had a blast. I posted the pictures in the wrong order, but my computer is slow today, so I am not even going to try and fix it! This was after the kids were done playing. Isabel had them all roll down the hill with her. (At least she said it was her idea!) Looks like fun!

For some reason, Ben and Carter didn't want to get wet at first, so they chased each other up and down that hill....crazy kids :)

Isabel decided that she wanted to do cartwheels in the middle of the water, so here she is, getting ready to do another cartwheel... Got to love tumbling!

Before Ben started chasing Carter up the hill, he found a few new friends hanging in the ropes. He played with them for a long time.

This is when Ben and Carter finally got hot and decided that they needed to cool off. So onto the funny story about Ben. Holly and I were standing on one side of the splash pad and I looked and saw Ben on the other side. He was by the red mushroom looking thing that shoots water out of it. It seems to be his favorite toy there, so if he is ever out of sight, I look for him there first. Well, I look over and there is a 10+ year old 'big' samoan looking kid sitting on top of it. I hear Ben say, 'move'. The other boy stands up and says, 'no you move.' Then Ben gets a mouth full of water and spits it on the kids face. (Lovely I know...) The boy puts his hand on his hip and says, 'hey you dont spit water on me!' Ben being the cute 2 yr old that he is gets another mouth full of water and spits it in the boys face. (I didn't teach him this....) I'm getting a little worried now thinking that my 2yr old is calling on a 10yr old to fight, but I realize that I can't get there before anything would happen so I start to pray that the 10yr old will give up.... Well, the 10yr old puts both hands on his hips and says, 'hey, you don't spit water!' Ben puts a hand on his hips and sakes his finger at the boy and says 'no,no,no,no,no you move!' Luckily for Ben the boy just sat back down on the red mushroom looking thing and ignored Ben. He must have realize that Ben couldn't do a darn thing about him sitting there so he decided to ignore him, thank goodness! Ben gave up and went to play with Carter.... (All of the words that I said I heard are from lip reading... I was on the other side of the park, but a good story even if the words are a little skewed!) I just have to shake my head and realize that I will probably spend lots of time in the principals office when this kid goes to school.... if he makes it there :)

One more cute picture of my angel playing in the water with Caitlyn! Well, maybe not an angel, but definitely not a Ben :)

Oh, update on Ben's finger. He lost the nail and all the puss came out. The culture came back as MRSA (medication resistant staff infection) but I knew that it would. Luckily the dr asked which medicine I would prefer and we put him of sulfa which is one that you can treat MRSA with. To get him to take it I had to bribe him with chocolate chips. At least it worked. He is doing much better now!