Cara's One on Ones

So I feel like we haven't made doing 1:1s with the kids a priority as much lately and so I decided we needed to do them again. We started (again) with Cara's. Now, back when we did this more often we'd take the kids out to something big, like a bounce house place or indoor playground. I was trying to make these a little more lowkey, something like taking them out for a soda, donut, some sort of fun treat. That way we get a treat and have time to actually sit down with them and chat. I feel it's important to teach our kids that they can tell us things and we will always listen and be there for them.

The bad part is, I kind of didn't inform Larry that I wanted to make them smaller so he went first and took her to Nickel City, which she LOVED! But by the time I realized I should have informed him of the switch, he'd already told her that's what they were doing so I didn't want to take it away. So he took her to the arcade and she had a bunch of fun and got a lot of tickets, which means a lot of toys (which means the other kids want to go to the arcade now...of course).

I, however, took her for a more lowkey, but fun one. Her school backpack broke, so I took her to Wal Mar to pick out a new one, we also passed by the jewelry section so I let her pick a thing of earrings (to wear after her holes healed up, of course). We also stopped at Starbucks for a cake pop (which she mentioned the smell of coffee is stinky, haha) and then we ended it at the soda place so she could get the monthly kids drink that comes with a rubber duckie. 

I really enjoyed taking her out shopping and for treats, the cake pops were AMAZING! She only ate a little nibble of the frosting off hers and then gave it away. The sodas were yummy. But the best part was our silly conversations. 

So now we are going to definitely make sure these happen regularly, again. And I'm REALLY looking forward to it! An excuse to get a treat AND 1:1 time with my favorite human beings? Score!

Pumpkin Patch 2024

So Cara came home with some free tickets to a kind of local Pumpkin Patch. It was more south (which is nice, because, as I mentioned, I'd like to explore more events that are more south), but not too far. The best part was with the 2 free tickets and Pierce being free, it means it was a cheap outing, cheap and super fun!

The place was called Jaker's and they had corn pits, a "haunted" cave, big slides, corn maze, hay ride, and we got to pick out our pumpkins! We kind of split off when we first got there, the girls wanted to be in the corn pits while Pierce wanted to walk around so I took him to the big slide that he loved. 

Eventually the girls and Larry joined us and we explored more together. We got to the corn maze and the kids were rushing it and arguing so I had to put my mom foot down and tell them that we were there to have fun and make memories and if they were going to fight we'd just head home and they'd lose out on screens the rest of the day. That totally worked and they were on such good behavior the rest of the day.

 

We let the kids each take a turn deciding which direction we should go when we got to a "fork" in the maze and I think that made it more fun. It took us a bit to get out, but not as long as I would've thought.

Clearly, Pierce was DONE with pics
By this point

I think everyone really liked the hay ride and once we finished we looked around for pumpkins and bought those and left. 

As we were leaving they gave us coupons for their Christmas Market they have during that time and we got 2 more free tickets so score! It ended up being a really fun place and I'm really excited to come back during Christmas time to see what that is like!

Even More Kitties

You read that right, we got more kitties (yes, plural) haha. However, for the first time, these ones weren't my idea. So a while back Larry mentioned he really wanted to get more cats and I just kept throwing the ol' "we don't need any more cats" comment back, but it didn't go past that. Then one day he mentioned he kept looking at kitties up for adoption and how much he really wanted a new one and I told him flat out, no! After a couple days I told him I felt bad because I shouldn't just say no. I've brought it SO many kitties into this home that he wasn't always on board with at first. I did stress that I didn't want or feel we needed any new animals.

So fast forward to yesterday, he had the day off and told me that instead of working out he was going to take the kids to a playground. I thought it was odd and questioned him a bit, but then realized they'd really like going to a playground and it gave me a quiet house so why not. So he took them after school and was gone for a long time, like 2-3 hours. I wondered why he was gone so long, but when they got back we had dinner and then got ready to go to the library (our books were due back). 

As we got in the car he confessed that the real reason he took the kids to the playground is because he had some kittens lined up to pick up and he wanted to surprise me by coming home with them, but it didn't work out like he had planned and the person "selling" them had to take them to the vet for the initial shots and said they'd let Larry know when that was all done, but then they never responded back. So he showed me the picture of them and I had to admit they were cute. He said there was a brother and sister pair left and he wanted both of them so that they would be together and acclimate to a new home better. So as we're driving to the library the person finally starts texting Larry saying the cats are ready to pick up. We quickly dropped off the books and instead of walking around to get new ones, we drove straight out to the house to pick them up.

The kids decided to name them Meow Meow (the dark one, a girl) and Cucumber (the white and gray fluffy one, a boy). I fought the names as much as I could, but after a day they kind of stuck and we weren't thinking of anything else (although at one point Pickle and Cucumber were on the table and I really liked that combo). They are super cute and sweet, pretty nervous still, but warming up. They definitely like Otto and Charlie, the kids and us humans they are iffy with still. The funny thing is Meow Meow looks just like Oscar and Cucumber looks just like Baby Girl (so opposite genders). It's nice to have them back in a way. Cucumber also has a little deformed back paw where he either only has 2 pads or like 3 of them combined into 1 so he has a small one and a big one, we can't quite tell. The vet they took them to said it was a birth defect but shouldn't negatively effect him.

So welcome Cucumber and Meow Meow to our home!

Hogle Zoo Trip

Funny thing, I was thinking over the last month that we never did our annual zoo trip. Not that we NEED to, but we usually do, and it's a fun thing to get out and do, so I was shocked we made it through the whole summer without doing it. I was thinking we should plan it sometime soon before it gets too cold, but maybe it'll be cool enough that the animals will be pretty active. Then my mom text me and Rachel and said she wanted to go this weekend and asked if anyone was interested. I jumped at that since I really did want to go.

Luckily, the weather was really nice when we got there, a little more on the warm side than I thought it would be, but still nice. We started with their new area and it was actually really cool and seemed to be more educational than I remember the zoo being when I was younger. 

Unfortunately, the elephants being gone felt really weird (I really hope they bring some back eventually), but the bears were being really cute so it made up for that. I really like that they have the playground areas too, so we let the kids play for a while there.

I will say I still miss the old hippo and penguin house that they had, but I still really like our zoo and I really like going and seeing how they are always improving. I'm glad we got this in this year!

Halloween Town

A while back I saw an "ad" saying our city was having a "Halloween Town" event and wanting to soak up as much fun for the holidays I decided we HAD to go and I'm so glad we did! The girls decided last minute to throw together costumes (we haven't gotten costumes yet, but they found some items in dress up to make it look like they were dressed up) and it worked out because they got to kind of "trick or treat" there, each vendor had some candy and the city booth gave out bags for them to collect treats in (which I think was their favorite). They even set up a mini petting zoo to pet some animals (which is always a part I like).

The event ran from 11-2, which I'd usually avoid because that's basically all of nap time, but Pierce is in a kind of in between phase where he doesn't always nap during down time, and if he does it isn't the full time, so I figured we could see if we could get away with it, and I'm SO glad we're in this phase of life where we can do our down time, but if something comes up and we miss it, it isn't the end of the world.

The real best part of this was that it was at our really cool city playground and, because the kids were doing good without a nap, we decided to stay and let the kids play for a little bit. Unfortunately, it was a REALLY sunny day and we ended up staying a little too long we definitely got some sun, but it was worth it. Everyone had a good time and I found some good businesses we might use in the next year or two, so win for all!