Black Island Farm Fun!

One of my friends, Dallas, arranged for a discount day at Black Island Farms.  It was a blast.  Instead of having to spend $10 for me and $8 each kid, it was only $4 each kid and I was free.  Great deal, huh?!  We spent all day there.  I hung out with Dallas and her cute kids and then my fried Natalie met em there with her little girl Eleanor and we stayed the rest of the day, at least until they were getting ready for their night stuff anyway.

 This was a definite favorite of the kids!  I mean, who doesn't love to jump inside a huge pumpkin?

Brena had  a blast bouncing around!

Ian wanted to stay in that thing all day!  He even did pretty good in it with the older kids.  He would bounce and fall on his stomach and say "plop!"

 The kids even got to feed some animals.  The donkeys and llamas loved being fed by the kids and they go such a kick out of it.  I think we spent about a half hour just letting them pull grass and feed the animals.  I was so proud of Brenna for not being scared.  She is my big scaredy cat so I thought she wouldn't go near them, but she did!  she even petted the llamas.  =)

They had fun swinging on these cool tire swings.  Not your average tire swing huh?  I loved the dragon shaped one. 

Of course if there is something to make noise, my kids are sure to find it!  They had fun jamming out.  Brenna loved the drums and Ian just loved banging on everything.  Typical boy huh?

The kids got to ride around on a little train.  Brenna rode that thing all afternoon!  I think she rode it at least 10 times.  She loved sharing a car with Deakin, Dallas' boy.  These two have fun whenever they get together.  Ian liked the train, until it drove away from mom.  We took another ride in it later and I rode with him and he was fine with it then. =)

Now who doesn't love a good romp in the corn box?  You don't have to worry about little grains of sand getting into weird places.  Brenna kept making "corn angels."  Ian loved this too!  He kept laying in it and burying himself.  He doesn't like it when the sand sticks to his hands so he loved the corn.  He loved it so much that he kept trying to eat it.  Yuck!!

 It's playtime!  They loved the teeter-totters.  But their favorite was the slide.  There was a huge slide that Ian couldn't climb to the top on so I helped him ad then we would all slide down together.  It was fun!  I felt like a little kid again.  I need to do that more with my kids.

Last but not least, the pig races!!  They would have piglets run around to race for a treat- animal cookies of all things. =)  The second to last race Brenna picked the pink pig to win and it did!  The last race, Ian said green, and the green pick won =)  Two out of four races aren't bad.....maybe we should find some real races to bet on =)

My little poser!  She was such a good girl for me all day!  I don't think I had to get after her at all to listen or anything.  Such a sweet girl!

My two lil' punkins'!!  I sure love these kids!! They make each day an adventure.

ROAR!!!!!

I have been wanting to take the kids to the Dinosaur park all summer and haven't.  I had some tickets for free kids admission but when we had to get something fixed in my jeep they took them out and didn't put them back in the door.  Grr!!!  Well, today they were doing a free admission day and since I'm a cheapskate, I took the kids today =)

Ian was so excited to see the dinosaurs!  Everytime he saw one, he would yell "Dinosaur! roar!"  He has become obsessed with them lately.

Brenna, on the otherhand, not so thrilled to see dinosaurs.  She gets freaked out at new things sometimes and she was not liking this.  The part that scared her the most was the dinosaurs that had speakers by them that made noises.  Am I such a mean mom for making her come along anyway even though it scared her?

Even the big bad Allosaurous didn't phase him =) (at least I think that was an allosaurous)

He loved being able to get close to this one.  He was even petting it.  

I love this one because he's carrying a lunch bag, and the dinosaur looks like it's getting ready to have him for lunch.  Good thing the starachosouroursjklsdfhaslojfh (i give up on spelling them) is an herbivore.

Brenna didn't want to get close but she wanted to take a picture of us.  Finally, I have a picture with one of my kids at an activity that we go to that I'm not taking myself. =)

Brenna finally got over her fear of the dinos once she found the little ones that weren't so scary.  After that, she had no problem.  Until she ran into the Halloween decoration the park had up.  There was a little cave with an allosaurous fossil in it, and in the back of the cave there was a skeleton and a coffin....that really freaked her out.

Hopefully next time we go she won't be such a fraidy cat now that she's seen it.  Let's cross our fingers cause I got some more coupons and I want to take them again =)

What a stinker!!

 Ian was being a little stinker butt today.  I was trying to do something and I told him to go away ( I know, I'm so mean).  He walked away, kinda sad.  Then a afew minutes later it was quiet.  Then I heard "clunk, clunk, roll, clunk."  I decided to investigate.  As I walked into the kitchen, this is what I saw.

This was before he noticed me taking a picture of his little escapade.  He was so intent and focused on what he was doing.

Then he turned around and saw me.  Look at that grin!  He is just so proud of himself.  He is my little monkey boy.  Then, just a few minutes later, he climbed up on the computer desk and gave me the same look.  Oh boy.....I am going to have my hands full the next few years.  I love this little monster.  He will definitely keep me on my toes.

Under the big top!

 On Thursday we went to the circus.  I don't know who was more excited to go, me or the kids.  =)  Luckily Jason only had to work until 11:30 so he was able to go with us too.  Yay!!

Before the circus and before the preshow we headed over to go look at the animals.  Ian was so excited to see the elephants.  They had a new baby elephant too.  The elephant was 1 day older than Ian.  =)  It was born January 19, 2009.  It was so cute!  Ian kept saying "more, more."

Brenna was being a turd and wouldn't let me take many pictures of her so this is one of the few ones.  Luckily, it's a picture that I'm in too and those are few and far between.  I think I need to start sticking my hand in the picture so that I can have some part of me in pictures.

We got to see all the miniature horses, a few lamas, the elephants, and a few of the tigers.  I couldn't get a good picture of the tigers since they were behind the fences.

After seeing the animals we headed to the preshow.  They had some of the performers out on the floor and people could talk to them and they did a few performances.  Ian got to play catch with a clown =)

Ian loved this part.  We got to get up close to one of the elephants.  They even had the elephant paint a picture.  

If all else fails, He may have a job as a clown or a ringmaster, or maybe even an elephant trainer =)

Maybe I could give both kids to the circus =)  I asked Brenna if she wanted to join the circus, she said "No, they don't have training wheels for unicycles."  What a funny girl!

Jason even got into it a little bit and tried some clothes on.

The only picture Brenna wanted with a clown was with the girl clown.  Before we went inside she was so excited to be able to see the clowns and then when we got in she was being a scaredy cat.  You never know what kinds of things will freak her out.

They got some tatoos =) 

The clown in green had spiky hair =)  These were some of the cool clowns. 

The guys that walk around on stilts were pretty funny.  They were dancing around and everything.  I can barely walk in heels, let alone on stilts.  He even danced around while holding a baby.  Ian was so excited when he gave him "fives." 

This was the beginning of the circus.....and then my camera said the battery was low.  How lame!  even though I let the camera charge all night.  But I guess that wasn't too bad since the pictures I took after this didn't turn out since it was too dark.  Some of the highlights:

• They had 7 motorcycles going at once in the metal cage!  That is insane!!  Plus, one of them was a woman. =)
• They had the tigers stand up and walk and jump.
• The trapeze attempted to do a quadrouple somersault but the catcher didn't catch him in time.  Good thing there was a net =)  Doesn't everyone go to the circus secretely hoping to see the trapeze or high wire act fall?
• The hire wire act was pretty good too.  They had 4 people, 2 guys, 2 girls.  The older guy was the best one out of them.  He didn't even have a line attached to him to catch him, just in case.
• They had "pirate" acrobats.  It was set up that there were dueling bands of pirates.  One group would set up a trick, then the next would.  They had people jump onto giant teeter-totters and launch someone into the air onto the shoulders of others.  I think at one point they had someone launch up5 people high.  There was also a guy that did it with the giant stilts.  He did it once with both stilts, and once with only once.  That was pretty cool.  There a few girls that did it too.
• They had the "strong" people.  They a girl and guy that were awesome!  The girl did a backbend and the guy balanced on her stomach with one had!  Talk about abs of steel!  There were also 2 guys that did some cool stuff too.  I think one guy did the "chair" position, had the other guy balanced on him and then turned around.  I do the chair for 10 seconds and my legs are killing me.

Ian started to get a little tired, but he snuggled a little bit, got a second wind and was back to being a goofball.

Ian's favorite part of the night!!  They had all the elephants out!  He was so excited.  When they left he got a look on his face like his heart was breaking and asked for more.  It was so cute/sad.  They they brought out the baby elephant again and he was happy.  When we left that's all he would say, "elephants, more."  

I love being able to do things like this with my family.  I know they probably won't remember it, but since I have the pictures, I can tell them all about it when they get older.  I remember I went to a little circus when I was little.  It was just in Morgan, so not a big one.  But I remember I got to ride an elephant =)

When did she decide she could grow up?!

So today I had to deal with that day that every mom has to go through.  I had to finally admit that my little girl isn't so little anymore. *sniff, sniff*  

(I love this picture of me and her!!!)

Brenna started kindergarten today!!  She was soooooo excited!  She usually sleeps in until around 7:30 ish, but today she was up at 6:30am wanting to get dressed and ready for school.  I didn't even have to fight with her to eat all her breakfast this morning.

Of course I did the mom thing and had to take a ton of pictures of her.  Isn't she the cutest thing ever?!  I finally gave in and got her some skinny jeans, and now I'm wishing I would have got her more than one pair because they look so stinkin' cute on her!

She loves her backpack.  It is purple, of course, and and has hearts and skeletons =)

We walked to school (have I mentioned that I love living in walking distance of her school?) and took her to her class. 

 Jason didn't have to work this morning so he got to come too, but I don't think he got as hung up on everything as me.  

Once we got there, Brenna immediately made a friend.  I think it was a little girl she met at the Mother-Daughter night this past weekend because the girl came right up to Brenna and said "Hi, Brenda." (she gets called Brenda  a lot, kinda annoying but she'll learn to deal with it).  It looks like she is off to a good start with making friends.  The little girl in green was the one who said hi to her and when we left they were sitting next to each other on the floor cor circle time.  I was kinda bummed that she wouldn't have her friend Eleanor in her class, but Natalie (her mom) and I have realized it is a good thing because the girls will either be talking the whole time or trying to tell the other what to do.  This will keep them friends longer. =)

Of course, Ian didn't want to be left out of the fun.  He saw the little chairs and immediately wanted to sit in them and join in.  If only.....then maybe I could get caught up on my scrapbook....or I would just spend that much more time on facebook.....

My little girl is just growing up so fast.  I can't believe she's in school already!  I'm sure I'm not the only mom going through denial that they are old enough to have a kid in school.  I'm so excited for Brenna to start.  She will learn so much and have so much fun.  This will be a very good experience for her.  I'm just glad it's only half a day so I still get the rest of the day her =)  Plus, this will give me time in the mornings to hang out with my other little monster and he can get some one-on-one mommy time =)