Saturday, July 10, 2010

Summer Visit to Oklahoma

I know I've been AWOL for awhile on my blogging, but I have a couple of good excuses...1) We went to Oklahoma for 10 days and 2) In the past two weeks I have been the ER twice, the urologist once, and FINALLY passed that awful kidney stone yesterday!!! I know, too much information for some people, but I seriously was ecstatic and relieved to no longer be in serious pain! Hopefully, it will be my last stint with kidney stones, ironically I had this one when Annie was 8 months and I had my previous one when Gwyn was 8 months...the Dr said it could be contributed to being at a constant state of dehydration for the past year during pregnancy and nursing, but whatever the reason, I hope to never have them again.

Okay, on to more important things, like what we've been doing for the past few weeks. Thankfully, Sue flew down and drove with me and the kids up to Oklahoma, it was nice to have someone riding with me, and we were able to take Jason's Tahoe, so we had the third row seat where Jacob and Gwyn sat, they called it the "way, way back." I volunteered to drive the entire time, which left Sue in charge of all three kids (funny how I planned that, huh?!), actually, the kids did really well, especially Annie, and Sue kept everyone entertained with a constant supply of snacks, DVDs, juice boxes, coloring books, stories (she can read while riding in the car!!!), etc. We stopped in Dallas on the way up and let the kids get out and play for awhile. Emily had the yard all set up with water toys, pools, etc. and we had the goal of wearing the kids out, which they happily did themselves!
Grace and Jacob had fun together, green is both their favorite color and Sadie is 6 days younger than Annie.  Gwyn had fun and enjoyed the cupcakes in celebration of Jacob's birthday.  We hadn't seen them since Christmas, and are looking forward to their visit next month. 

We made it to Tulsa in one piece and had a fun-filled week with both sets of grandparents, and I got to see Neely and her kids, Nick and Erika and their kids, and Amy and her kids who happened to be in town visiting form Arizona.  The kids had so much fun, and their days consisted of being spoiled by grandparents, playing in the sprinkler, playing in the pool, eating candy, going to the zoo, visiting family, playing with friends, eating popscicles, etc.  Here are several pics of the week.
Annie at the zoo (beginning of the trip):
Annie at the zoo (near the end of the trip):
The kids with Dad before we rode the train (Jacob's favorite part...Gwyn's was the jaguaar I think because Diego has one):
The kids with their train cake they made with Sue:
Jacob before he blew out his candles of his birthday cake (he ate all the candy off his piece of cake, leaving the train intact, and then wanted another piece...I had to draw the line there because he was already bouncing off the walls...Brian walked in and he was sucking the icing directly out of the tube while he was decorating it!)
Annie getting a popscicle from Nana (yes, even 8 month old babies get whatever they want from their grandparents!)
Jacob hitting the ball with Dad and Brian:
Gwyn sitting on her stack of chairs, this is her favorite thing to do!
Jacob playing with Annie, he is her personal playmate, you'd think she would get tired of him being right in her face all the time talking baby talk to her, but she laughs and laughs and thinks he is the greatest thing.
Gwyn looking cute.
Annie getting dedicated at church.  She did really well, she was fussing beforehand, but then she stopped and even let Frank hold her and was so good!
Visit to the park with Amy's kids (notice Gwyn couldn't stop staring at Noah!)
Baby Blythe, Nick and Erika's new baby girl:
Picnic in the kitchen with Rafael:
Visit with my cousin James' kids Jerra and Issac (this is the best picture I got and only 1 of the 5 is looking at the camera!)  Jacob loved Jerra and wanted her to stay the night.
With Neely's girls Ava and Catherine, those girls are just too cute!
At the park with snow cones with Ava and Catherine.
With Rick, Sue, Stacy, Justin on the 4th of July:
Family picture:
Kids with sparklers, Jacob LOVED them, he's a little pyro, but Gwyn was a little nervous.
Sue with Jacob and his sparkler, he quickly learned that if you touch your sparkler to something it lights on fire, so he kepts trying to relight all the trash on fire...note to self, put away all matches!
Kids with Rick and Sue:
Teething you think?!?!  Check out her shirt...from drool!  She is working those first two bottom teeth out, but they haven't surfaced yet!
Annie Jaye with Jason:
Kids with Nana and Papa:
We had a great trip, but we were ready to go home.  The kids did pretty good on the drive home and it was sweet, Jacob cried before he went to bed that night because he didn't want to leave Tulsa.  All the kids slept til 7:30 am the first night we were here, which was nice.  I think they were worn out and glad to be home, but missed everyone back in Oklahoma.  We've gotten back in the swing of things here, we've begun swimming lessons again and Jacob is doing great.  The kids are in to "silly bandz" those shaped rubber band braclets so here they are with their Toy Story 3 ones:
We also made a decision to cold turkey get off the pacifier for Gwyn.  She only has them for nap and bedtime, but we noticed in Oklahoma that she would suck on them all night.  I slept with her one night and the next night I had to sleep with ear plugs because it was like little Maggie Simpson sucking on it all night long.  I told her the pacifier fairy came and took all her pacifiers and that as her present for those pacifiers we would get a Dora DVD.  It seemed to work the first night, but the second night she told me that she really needed one of Annie's pacifiers.  I told her that Annie was a baby and she was a big girl and she's actually done really well...EXCEPT she will no longer nap!  I think part of her incentive to nap before was that she got her pacifier and now that I took that away, she won't nap anymore.  She does go to bed good, but no naps for 3 days!!  It was funny because she was telling a friend that she is a big girl and doesn't need a pacifier anymore and she said, "the pacifier fairy came and is going to take my tooth."  She got a little confused with the tooth fairy!  Oh, and after a LONG day, she fell asleep for 20 minutes while I cooked dinner, so hopefully we'll still be able to work in a nap every once in awhile.
A couple of friends and I took the kids to The Chocolate Bar, where they got to pick out 4 different things and make their own candy bar.  Jacob picked pop rocks, m&m's, chocolate chips and skittles.  Gwyn however picked gummy worms, gum drops, cashews, skittles, m&m's and loaded it full.  They had alot of fun and got to eat ice cream and drink Sprite while the candy bars were chilled...this was 2 days ago and we are still on a sugar high!

Annie is 8 1/2 months, crawling everywhere, getting into everything, pulling up, cruising and finally I got a video of her to put up here of her.  She is such a good baby!



Funny things the kids said:
Gwyn (with hands on hips):  We gonna solve a mystery!
Jacob:  Swiper swiped Gwyn's baby doll and we're going to get it back!
Jacob (after peeing everywhere except IN the toilet):  I'm not a Daddy yet, and when I grow up and be a Daddy, THEN I can pee inside the toilet without peeing outside of it.  (this seriously made total sense to him!)

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