Fun With Cousins

A week after Tyler got home from Colorado we were all planning on taking a trip to Washington to see my family. Last minute, Tyler found out he had a couple work meetings he had to go to so I ended up taking the kids by myself. Why do I always do this to myself? Really though, my kids and I have become professional travelers. I made the 500 mile drive in 7 hours, which is how fast we used to do it before kids. There was no screaming and yelling, and a very minimal amount of crying. Success!

Now for the fun stuff...

We stayed at my sister, Kristin's, house because my younger sister, Whitney, and her family are currently residing at my parents' house. Anyway, here are the fun things we did...

Dressed up like super heros and chased each other around the house pretending to be cheetas...

Ate lunch at Grandma's house.

Played in Grandma's backyard after lunch.

I did this. All by myself. You can imagine the looks I got. My mom met up with me like 20 mins later, luckily. :)

All that hair is gone now... :(

We took all the kids to an indoor waterpark near Coeur d' Alene, ID. It was sooo much fun!

The video below is just part of the kids section designed especially for toddlers. It was perfect since 5 of the 7 kids were under 4. The older kids enjoyed the wave pool and the big slides. Even us moms got to ride on a few of the big ones. They also had smaller versions of the big slides in the kid area which the 2 and 3 year olds liked to go down, too. I'm so glad we decided to go there...

20140319 175810 from Kim Muir on Vimeo.

Lincoln did this slide probably 100 times. He would crawl to the stairs, climb up them, slide down on his belly, and repeat, over and over again!

20140319 190540 from Kim Muir on Vimeo.

There are these guys who rent a space in a strip mall to build model trains. They let the public come in for free a few days a week. Dominic was in HEAVEN! (Although you can't tell by this picture.)

We came back from the train place to find Lincoln like this....Haha

Saying goodbye...in the OJ car! 

We, also, went to the park and the mall play place, and did more shopping than I'd like to admit. We seriously had so much fun. We wished with lived closer. Maybe someday. ;)

(Blog posts coming soon of Lincoln's very first haircut!) 

98 Hours And Counting

Tyler will be home Friday evening. Can you believe it?!?!

After my last post of bragging how good I was doing with Tyler being gone the very next day was from hell! And so was the next one. They have gradually been getting better since then. Lincoln was sick for a week and waking up one or two times in the middle of the night and Dominic thought it sounded like fun and also started waking up nearly every night for two weeks. He is actually still doing it, though less often. He just cries and screams my name until I go up in his room and when I get there he just asks me to sing him a song or get him a drink. I finally started telling him he cannot scream my name unless there is light coming through his window. So, now he only does it every few days. Oh my goodness, I am soooo tired! It's like I have a newborn or something. Also, he's been pushing my buttons, as two year olds' do, but it has just been this constant power struggle with him. He refuses to do things when I tell him to and instead yells no and hits me. I think he has been having a really hard time with Tyler being gone and doesn't know how to process his emotions. Add that with a sleep deprived impatient single mother and you can imagine how our house has been. I finally came across this article and started using the techniques. They have really helped with Dominic and I'm so glad I ran across it.

Yesterday at church we were on our way to nursery when we walked by this bulletin board in the hall with pictures of all the families with kids in primary. Our family photo is at the bottom right at Dominic's eye level. He's seen it there several times, but this time he pointed and yelled, "Hey, that's my Daddy!" It was so cute. Later at my in-laws, Grandma Muir asked Dominic who was coming this weekend and Dominic answered immediately, "Daddy!" No prompting and no recent conversation about it. He sure misses him. We all do.

Photo time...

As you may have seen, he has been riding this bike inside since he got it for Christmas. He's been begging to take it outside and since the snow was melting we went and got some protective gear. Tyler thinks I'm being over cautious. :)

I walked in on him like this.

He never stops.

I posted this on insta and fb, but this is actually a different photo. He is still following me around the house begging for me to carry him everywhere. Walk already!!!

I took Dominic to this gymnastics center with some friends last week.

He took a really good nap that day.

I bought a bunch of frozen berries to start making smooties again. I gave a few to Lincoln and now he is obsessed. He's staining his white under onesies like crazy.

Waiting for mom to get him some pants on Sunday and trying to keep warm in the meantime.

This was last night. I went upstairs to check on him after I got off the phone with Tyler and found him in this nook just to the right of the top of the stairs.