Wheeler Farm... watch out for killer ducks!

Today on our journey to get out of our house, we ended up at wheeler farm.

(By the way, Shellie, this would be a good place to take Legacy for lunch. Next time we go, we'll meet you there or come pick her up and give you a little break.)

My boys have been asking to go to the farm. Yesterday was too rainy to go, so we headed there today. Now, farms have animals, my kids love animals until they get too close to them. When we first got there, we went in to the office to buy duck food. As many of you may know, my kids are a little afraid of ducks. We thought it would be okay because the ducks are mostly in the pond that is fenced off. Not today!!! There were ducks wandering around everywhere and duck poo everywhere! We tried several different times to feed the ducks. I would try to carry the kids through the ducks to put them on a bench or table where the ducks could not get them. Even I would get scared. They must smell our fear because they would even hiss at us! Lots of other people would stand out there feeding the ducks (and geese) surrounded by them and they didn't bother them at all.

As long as we avoided the ducks and geese, we had fun looking at the animals, playing in the tree house, riding the tractors and riding on a trailer around the farm.

As we were leaving, we found two mellow ducks (no geese) all by themselves. The boys finally got the chance to feed these little creatures (from a distance) without being too scared!

Dino Museum

After having a near meltdown (okay I had a real meltdown) of realizing that I was stuck home ALL summer with both of these boys with no preschool (and sometimes no nap) and I had to keep them entertained, I decided we must schedule activities! So, I am going places! We renewed our membership at Thanksgiving Point and headed down there with my sister-in-law Ashlee. As usual, the boys had tons of fun. The great thing about it is that they tend to fight less when they are places that keep them busy, they get worn out, so at least Joren will fall asleep on the way home!

So, if anyone would like to go anywhere with me, you are welcome to come! I usually leave my house around 10:00, so just give me a call and let me know if you'd like to come. We have lots of ideas of places to go! Keep checking the blog for pics and I'll try to keep it updated (as long as Joren naps).

Camping

This past weekend we went camping. The boys have been asking to go camping and have been so excited to go. They are so good to help get set up, put up the tent, pound the stakes in the ground.... really, they just love being outside.

Brenner's favorite part of camping was the fire. He loved squirting the "fire juice" on the fire to get it started and he loved playing with sticks in the fire, roasting marshmellows, etc. His daddy is teaching him how to be a real boy, I guess. Joren did NOT like the fire. Maybe he associates it with getting burned, which he knows all to well about. Or maybe he really just didn't like the smoke in his face. But he would not go near the fire without a blanket over his head and he preferred to be on mommy's lap.
One thing we did learn was that little Legacy loves Brenner. She would follow him around and always wanted to be by him. She doesn't so much like Joren. He tends to love on her a little too much. (And poke her eyes, tackle her, etc.) But she loves being around Brenner.

Garage Sale Finds

Those of you who know me well, know how much I love to go garage saleing. I go almost every weekend from spring until fall. I haven't had a good weekend yet... mostly just a few little things here and there. This week I scored! I got a cute jeep for the kids... which they LOVE for only $25. And a cute table for my scrapbook room for a mere $25 as well. I also got a few other little things, but these were my great finds.

4 Yr. Pics

We got Brenner's 4 year pictures taken. What a big handsome boy he is!!!

My Big Boy!

I took Brenner to the doctor today for his 4 year well check. He weighed in at 37 lbs. (70th percentile) and was 42.5" (95th percentile). I knew he was tall, but I didn't know he was fat:) He is so skinny... it must be the norm for boys his age.

He had to get two shots and he was so brave!!! He didn't even cry.

He did an eye chart and his eyes turned out to be 20/30. It looks like he may be heading toward his daddy's eyesight.

Butt Scoot

For some reason Joren won't crawl... and it hurts to stand on his feet. So, he scoots around on his butt. It's just kind of funny.

Happy 4th Birthday Brenner!

After being a week overdue and not wanting to leave the comfort of Mommy's womb, Brenner was born by cesarean at 8:10 p.m. weighing in at 7 lbs. 13 oz. We were so excited to have him and he has been a joy ever since.

Brenner is a sweet little boy. He is great at cleaning up and helping around the house. He makes his own bed and is pretty good about getting himself dressed.
Brenner loves crafts, coloring and writing. He is often coloring in a notebook and writing letters to people in the family. He's really good at writing his name and many other letters as well. He also loves playing on the computer.
Brenner is our little climber. He loves to play outside in the yard. He loves gymnastics. And he loves to ride his bike. He especially loves Power Rangers and fighting and shooting.
He loves to wrestle and fight with his little brother. Brenner is such a big boy and we're excited that he's four!

Grilled burgers, hotdogs and Joren's Feet!

For Brenner's birthday we had a BBQ. Ryan was cleaning the grill and got it hot, scraped it off, then stuck the grill plates on the ground to clean up inside the grill. Little Joren ran clear across the yard to where Ryan had hidden them in the corner and still managed to step on them. Boy oh boy, did he burn his feet. We put them in cold water forever until he was freezing to death and shivering. Then we just had to endure his endless crying until he cried himself to sleep after about 2 hours. Poor little guy has huge blisters on the bottom of his feet. He can't walk, therefore he thinks he's a baby and talks like a baby. It's going to be a fun couple of weeks until these feet heal!

Kangaroo Zoo

We decided we would go somewhere fun for Brenner's birthday on Friday... it's our one day of the week when we don't have anything else going on. We headed down to Pleasant Grove to go to Kangaroo Zoo. If you live any where near Utah county and haven't been here, you should check it out. It is just a whole bunch of blow up bouncy things. It's tons of fun! My kids ran around for about 2 hours and got totally exhausted. The thing I like about it the most is they DON'T have VIDEO GAMES. Most of the places in Salt Lake County have video games... so I pay for the bouncies and all the kids do is play video games. This place only has bouncies. It's great fun!

A Product of Summer

On our trip to Florida, we put the kids in shorts for the first time. They both fell down several times and scraped their knees. I'm sure their knees will get pretty calloused by the end of the summer! This is Joren's poor little knees.

Pretty ingenious

My kids love the panda store (Panda Express). They love the rice and noodles and other things as well. We went there for lunch. They always try to use the chopsticks, but they can't figure it out. So, Joren was pretty ingenious and folded his straw in half to use as a chopstick... what a smart boy!

Beach Fun!

We decided to take a break from Disney World and head to the beach. We went to the East Coast first (I have never been to the east coast) and went to Cocoa Beach... so we could go to Ron Jon's Surf Shop. It took the kids a little to warm up, but they loved playing in the sand (Joren loved throwing the sand) and they loved to run out and race the waves in from the ocean.

A couple of days later, we went over to the west coast or gulf coast. We went to Clearwater Beach. The kids fell asleep on the way there, so they just wouldn't warm up to the beach at all. There were too many sea shells to hurt their feet and the salt water was hurting Brenner's many owies from falling and scraping is knees.

It turns out the best beach of all was Blizzard Beach (part of Disney World). The kids loved the water rides... even as the park was closing, Joren kept saying, "One more time." It was totally nice because they had a sand area the kids could play in. Plus they had all of the fun water slides. They had food and there were plenty of places to get cleaned off in non salty water!!!

Too Little!

Joren was very sad that he was too small to go on "Soarin" with his Daddy!

Disney Characters!

It all began with Buzz Lightyear! He was the first character that we saw. They have these great autograph books that you can buy and have all of the disney characters sign your book and get your picture taken with them. Brenner was a little nervous at first (and Joren was down right scared) of these dressed up characters. We got a few of Joren against his will.
The highlight was going to Disney's Hollywood studios and seeing the Power Rangers!!! Brenner's favorite is the Blue Ranger and this is the Blue Ranger from his favorite show- Jungle Fury! I was so excited for him (I told Ryan it was almost as exciting as seeing a FRIENDS actor in real life). The power rangers come driving in on a cool car and they make fun poses for the pictures. We got signatures from the blue, red, white, yellow and pink rangers. Very awesome. After a couple of days of doing this and a bribery of Ice Cream, we got Joren in a few of the pictures!

Getting Here!

The airplane was tons of fun! The kids were relatively good. It was nice to be able to have them have their own seats... usually we have a kid sitting on our lap. The layover at the airport was quite entertaining! They thought the moving floor was quite fun and had to go back and forth several times! I'm sure it won't compare to the rides at Disney World!
We are having a blast at Disney World! We haven't had the time (or access to the internet) to update our blog until today. We'll try to catch you up on some fun posts!