We love grilling out!

Another beautiful day and the first grill out of the year.

We made the trip over to the Schwarz’s house and got our chicken on. The kids played outside as I cooked and Lindsey got the veggies ready inside.

After Jenna’s piano lessons were done, we all went inside to eat chicken, cheesy potatoes, green beans, corn and ice cream. Hadley ate like she’d never eaten before in her life. Two hot dogs and veggies were barely enough to sustain her, but a popsicle was enough to tide her over. Zoey Belle ate almost nothing and just wanted to be held.

With eating done, we went back outside and Garrett and I played basketball while Zoey practiced riding a scooter and Hadley and Makai dug in the sandbox. The kids were great and had lots of fun together.

It was starting to get late and Zoey Belle became even more clingy, so we went home and got the kiddos to bed.

Swinging

Hadley enjoying the weather and learning how to swing.

Eric: What are you doing, Hadley?
Hadley: I’m swinging.
Eric: You’re swinging? Who’s pushing you?
Hadley: Nobody.
Eric: How come?
Hadley: Because I’m a big girl and I’m a four year old and I, and I, and I want, and in school and I want to swing myself. So I could tell the teacher that I could swing all by myself.

Lunch at the Park

The weather was amazing this morning, so I called Linds and we made plans to head for the park.

We packed up sandwiches and apples and spent some great family time together. Zoey Belle ate part of her sandwich, threw the rest away and then said, “Park”. And then she took off at full speed for the playground equipment.

Hadley ate well and then the girls chased each other around and went up and down the slides.

After about 40 minutes, I had to get back to work, so we got back in the car and called it a success.

Schwarz kids

Hadley and Zoey were lucky enough to get to spend most of their day with the Schwarz kids.

Jenna and Garrett both had to work, so the kids got to come over and play a lot. During the afternoon, Makai wasn’t feeling too well and had a fever, so Jenna took him to the doctor. The rest of the kids played out back and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

After the Schwarz’s left, the family ate and took a nice long walk. Besides some attitude problems from Hadley, the day went well and we are looking forward to more nice weather tomorrow!

Getting outside

Sunday had wonderful weather. Just cool enough to wear a jacket, just warm enough to take it off as soon as you did anything.

I took the kiddos for a walk and we stopped at some big slides.

Zoey Belle was unable to climb up the ladder, but with a little help was at the top and hopping around. She would walk up to the edge of the slide and then try to jump to land on it. It was a little nerve-wracking, but I stood close to be ready to catch her.

Hadley, on the other hand, seemed really frightened to be up on the top. There is a bridge that connects two slides and she kept saying that she was a little “curious” about walking on the bridge. I asked her if she meant “nervous” and she said yes. Every time she went across the bridge, she would crawl really slowly and talk about being curious. The Zoey Belle would start laughing and would run and jump past her, which made Hadley quite mad.

After a good 20 minutes, Hadley had to go to the bathroom so we headed home.

We ate sandwiches and carrots on the back step and then went to the park to meet up with Schwarz’s. The kids all had a blast running around and playing together. Zoey Belle and Lael spent most of the time chasing each other up and down the stairs and slides. (watch the video below) Hadley and the boys spent their time climbing on a rope structure and challenging each other to climb higher. I think Makai won that challenge.

It was a nice day of hanging out in the nice weather and playing at the park. Looking forward to more days like this.

Zoey Belle's Party

Zoey Belle doesn’t turn 2 for a week yet, but with all the business that’s coming up, we had to throw the party a little early.

All of her friends came over to play, eat cake and go crazy. They got hyped up on sugar fairly fast, but all played really well. Zoey Belle got lots of great presents and kept yelling “CAKE!” and “PRESENTS!”. I think she really enjoyed her party. Lindsey put a lot of time and effort into the decorations and the whole place looked great.

That night, there was a fundraiser and free-will donation babysitting at the Holthus Field House. We took both girls up there and the place was a zoo. Kids everywhere, batting cages full of balloons, movies, games, food. At this moment we knew the girls wouldn’t have any problem enjoying their night away.

They got to stay for a couple of hours and apparently Hadley made a new friend. We were told that she was fairly attached to one girl all night, who also enjoyed the company. They walked around together, played games and read books.

Hadley stuck with her usual crew of Dawson, Makai and Lael and did their own thing of running around and causing chaos. They both said that they had lots of fun and wanted to go back to the field house tomorrow. I responded, of course, with “We’ll see.”

See all the photos from the party

Has Spring Sprung?

Well, the weather hasn’t been 70’s and sunny, but it’s a wonderful change as compared to the last 3 months.

Temps have been in the 50’s and even 60’s allowing us to finally get outside and burning some of the girls’ energy off. The swingset is back into full use and Zoey Belle loves running around it saying “Teety-totter”.

I also got the bikes out of the garage and the kids rode around the driveway. Well, Hadley rode around the driveway. Zoey Belle is actually doing pretty well at peddling the tricycle. Her legs aren’t quite long enough, but she is getting the idea. Sometimes she goes further peddling backwards than she does forward, though.

The girls singing

Lindsey and I got new phones and I wanted to test it’s ability to shoot a video and then put it onto YouTube.

Overall the quality isn’t the best, but it’s nice that we can be in the middle of something and I can get a vid of the girls online in seconds.

Here are my two test videos, the first is Zoey Belle singing Happy Birthday and the second is Hadley signing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Cleaning Frenzy

I wish we could say we have done spring cleaning at our house. I wish I could say I had done any cleaning at our house. It has been one busy week and we have been happy to help others. On Wednesday evening we went to help our friend move out of his house, and it was just a few little things. His house proved to be an awesome place for our girls to play. There were tons of little closets and secret passage ways for them to play in. They absolutely loved it.

Then on Thursday we went back to help clean the house so it would be ready for the new family to move in. After a couple of hours the girls were losing steam, so we headed home. I was very impressed with how well they did playing with absolutely nothing. They just had each other and the empty house. Hadley even helped with some dusting towards the end and it was good to get some of the work done so our friend didn’t have to do it by himself.

On Friday we were having a relatively relaxed day and Hadley went into her room to play. All of a sudden it was very quiet and I went to check on her. She was cleaning her room all by herself, and I had never even asked her to do it. She wanted to vacuum too, so I helped her with that.

During quiet time I got a call from Jenna. There had been an unfortunate turn of events at their house involving paint and carpet and she was in need of help. I rushed over to help her get some of that cleaned up and then rushed back home because Eric needed to go back to work. By the time supper rolled around Jenna and Garrett were in need of more help with their kitchen remodel, so we went back over to help them out.

The kids mostly played together and Zoey mostly wanted to be in on the action. I let her sit on my lap while I helped paint and she did a good job of not touching anything.

After such a busy and active week I just want to sit on the couch and do nothing. Unfortunately, our house is in need of a little TLC, so I think we will be spending some of our Saturday cleaning up from our week. At least the kids room is clean though!

The Girls Head to the Zoo

On Monday I got a phone call from Jenna saying that she would love for us to join her and the kids at the Zoo on Tuesday. I figured it was a great excuse to get the kids out of the house and give them some fresh air. We drove to Omaha early, and Jenna needed to make a stop at Target. All five kids did great on the way there and rode in carts together once we were in Target. It was pretty funny watching them interact. They had little notebooks that they would write letters in and then made maps for Jenna and I to follow in the store.

After we got the shopping done, we headed to Fudruckers and had some amazing hamburgers. It had been a long time since Jenna or I had eaten there and we agreed it was worth the wait. The kids were sharing meals and drinks and Jenna had gotten some pop for the kids. Hadley took a few sips and declared that she does not like pop and wanted something else instead. It was a good sign because Eric and I have been telling her that pop isn’t very good to drink often because it is not nutritious for you. Since she likes to learn things for herself we thought she would never get off the idea of having pop. Problem solved.

We got to the zoo and the place was fairly empty. It was really nice to let the kids run around and not worry about them being in the way or of something bad happening to them. Even Zoey Belle ran around with wild abandon. They got to take as much time as they wanted looking through all the exhibits because no one was really there. I think the highlight was the kids getting to pet a penguin. One of the trainers had one out and was holding it. I walked over with Zoey and she let her pet him. As soon as the other kids saw they came over too and she let them all have a turn. It was really neat to see their excitement and to try to field all their questions about penguins. I would say the next best thing was watching all the scuba divers in the aquarium. They were all cleaning and they would swim up to the glass and wave at the kids. The kids were very worried for them because of all the sharks, and Zoey Belle repeatedly said, “Bite!!!” whenever a shark would swim past the scuba divers. It appeared that she was trying to warn them. We assured the kids that the sharks would not bite, although I am not so sure Jenna and I felt confident about that.

As soon as we got to the car the two little girls were passed out. Dawson, Makai, and Hadley all had fun the whole way home chit chatting and writing in their little note pads. It was a really fun day and the kids had an awesome time.