Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Free Admissions Day...again!

This year we decided to repeat our Free Admissions Day adventures. You can see our fun last year by clicking here. After church and eating at Red Robin (yum!) we headed to the Muttart Conservatory. This time we took some friends with us and I spent most of the time we were there feeding Grayson in the lobby. So my friend and I raced through each exhibit to catch up with Charlie.
The pyramids are fun to see and this year one of the pyramids was done in all pink flowers to honor Breast Cancer Awareness.

Grayson was asleep, but I wanted a family picture! This was the best we got...Claire never looks at the camera. She will say "cheese" while looking elsewhere. Not sure what that is all about!
After we finished looking around we went back outside to get in line for the free face painting. Claire had never gotten her face painted and she was really excited. She finally got to the front of the line and was put in the special "you're next" chair and burst into tears. She thought they had forgotten about her!
I thought her face looked so cute painted!
We got back in the car to head to the zoo and Claire was awake for maybe 5 minutes....pretty much long enough to leave the parking lot!


I must have gotten tired (or distracted!) at the zoo because I never got my camera out of my bag. Claire did wake up to see the animals, but by the time we got home we were all exhausted. Thank goodness for picking up pizza on the way home!

Monday, September 26, 2011

It's Fall...where's the corn maze?

On Saturday we drove out to Lacombe, Alberta in search of a corn maze. I had no idea Lacombe was so far away! It took an hour and a half, which isn't so bad, but Claire is just now the age that she kept saying from the backseat, "stop driving, Daddy! Please! Stop driving, Daddy!" And then she fell asleep, so maybe the trip made her tired!
We got turned around a few times, but we finally made it! Claire was super excited! She pretty much refused to eat lunch until she had jumped on the "jumping pillow."
I guess part of having two kids is trading off who is with whom. I have been spending a lot of time with Grayson! While Charlie took Claire to jump, I stayed with Grayson and fed him. While I was sitting on the bench feeding him the chicken show started! I was slightly embarrassed to be suddenly surrounded by a bunch of families with my nursing cover on!

Chickens at the chicken show...
Charlie brought Claire back and she really loved hearing the chickens tell jokes. She wanted to stay and dance to the music forever!

Then, we went to the petting zoo. You know Claire...she just loves to pet those animals! She kept picking up grass and trying to poke it through the fence to feed the animals. We have trained her to be thrifty...no quarter food for us, we use free grass, ha!
Little blue eyes peeking out!
I convinced Claire to leave the animals and ride with me on a huge tricycle. It was so much fun! The pedals were a little far for my legs, but Claire liked the ride!
Claire and I then went to the barn slide. I got her to the top and told her to race me and see who was the fastest. Bad idea! The slide was so fast that Claire landed face first in the dirt at the bottom. She was not thrilled. I felt so bad!
It looks fun, though!
To make up for causing a "boo boo" on Claire's knee, I stuck her on the pony ride. Aren't these cute? It was the perfect way to recover from falling.
We figured it was time to attempt the corn maze. I was really glad that they had a kid maze within the big maze. It made getting lost in the corn manageable.

Claire decided she was starving at this point and went through the whole maze begging for grapes. We were so glad that we hadn't put the cooler back in the car! Thanks Charlie for carrying everything! :)
Love that little face!
Claire wanted to jump one more time before we left. I was going to jump with her, but I chickened out. It was wild up on that jumping pillow!

It was a long, full day! We really had a lot of good "family" time together.
When we got home, I took this picture of Grayson. Isn't this shirt funny? It describes him perfectly!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Two Months

Grayson is two months old, can you believe it?

He is growing like a weed....and eating a lot too! :)

Grayson now weighs 12 pounds 4 ounces. He is 24 inches long. He is exactly one pound heavier and one inch longer than Claire was at two months.

We are starting to stay pretty much on schedule. His morning nap is still a little random, but he takes a good afternoon nap at 1pm every day. Grayson is now going to bed between 9 and 10 and waking up once at night, usually around 3:30am. He then wakes up at 6:30am and (thankfully!) goes back to sleep until 8:30am.

He just started cooing and smiling at me a lot..which I love! He is pretty laid back and really doesn't require much to be happy!

Grayson is now wearing 3 months outfits and a size 1 diaper, but the next time we get diapers we have to get a size 2...they are getting a bit small!

Claire and Grayson at 2 months.
Grayson at one and two months.
We are enjoying out sweet boy!

Also, Grayson's surgery has been scheduled for November 3rd. We have quite a few appointments coming up to check his hearing and meet the doctor again and anethesiologist. He also has to be fitted for his arm splints he will wear for 3 weeks after his surgery. We are nervous about having him "put under" and have to be tormented with surgery, but hopeful that this will repair his lip and make him look more "normal." (We still think he is handsome, though!)

Friday, September 9, 2011

Chuck E. Cheese

A couple of weeks ago we ended up at Chuck E. Cheese. It was one of those "what can we do last minute that might be fun...and include dinner?!" kind of times. I went in to look around before we fully committed and came back out to the car to report the "sky high" pizza prices to Charlie. We agreed to go in anyway because we thought Claire would enjoy it.

We ordered a pizza and I sat with Grayson while Charlie and Claire went to the toddler area. After we ate (the pizza was pretty good!) I took three dollars (a twoonie and a loonie here!) to the machine to get some tokens. Of course I chose the broken machine and had to flag down a worker to help me. He went over to the register and grabbed a handful of tokens and gave them to me. Yes! Extra tokens!
Charlie and I relived our childhood by playing skeeball and Charlie played the basketball game twice. I do have to say though....who remembers being able to get a prize even with just one ticket? Not the case now! You have to have at least ten tickets to get anything. And by anything I mean one plastic bracelet or one piece of candy. Ridiculous!

Claire loved this horse ride! She could've sat on the horse all day!

I tried to play this game with Claire. She did pretty good. You just have to roll a ball to make your "man" move. Thank you Charlie for stepping in and helping her win!

I ♥ skeeball!
I was all about trying to get as many tickets as possible, but Claire only ended up with a plastic bracelet and a pack of smarties. She wasn't dissappointed, but I guess that is why parents spend twenty dollars on tokens instead of just three, ha! We decided it was more fun for us to play there than Claire...maybe we'll go back in a couple of years!