Playing in the Rain

The other day Ruthie ran in the door from school in an absolute DOWNPOUR--South Florida style. Which is a pretty incomprehensible amount of pounding rain that even after three years, this western-er is still not used to. Since it was hot, and muggy, and no chance of swimming or playing outside for the afternoon--I had her put down her backpack and sent the kids outside to play in the rain. They ran up and down the sidewalk, laid down in the gutters, and basically had an enchanting time. This random lone slide is on the side of our house. I wish my kids were just a *bit* older and I'd be okay with them playing out there without me, since it's behind all the houses and main roads and fenced in. Really, I'm totally fine with it--I'm just not sure our neighbors would be, and that ridiculousness makes it so I have to get outside with them. So under the umbrella, Russ and I came out to watch. 

Molly went down the slide once, FLEW (due to being wet), and reopened a scab that has been reopened about sixty times now. Then she went and played in the tub instead.

Also-Ruth's school can change out recess for music/extracurricular time. I am not okay with this and plan on doing something. So I have been trying extra hard to make sure we play hard when she gets home. Usually the pool. Although, that makes dinner hard because I have no prep time. It hasn't cooled down at all (still 95 degrees over here!) so if not the pool then I usually make them go outside and ride bikes up and down the streets while I watch from our porch. I'm a good mom like that. We also started Ruthie on piano lessons--so now when she gets home from school we do chores and piano and homework. It feels oddly like my entire existence growing up. Crazy how time flies!

I have yet to catch his ADORABLE smile. But he is still a cutie pie.

That sweet boy. Oh I just LOVE him!!! 

A quick Russ post

Russ is 2 1/2 months old. The three month mark is coming up quick. At school drop-off yesterday we saw a tiny little 6 week old, and I could not believe how much one month makes such a difference! We are still completely in love with everything he does. He was cooing in his own little chair at dinner the other night and after every single coo the other kids would collectively saw "awwwwww". He loves being in the carrier, which makes my life so much easier for grocery shopping and school drop-offs (he is waaaay too heavy to lug around in the car seat!). He is also starting to smile! Which I have yet to catch decently on camera. 

Other than Russ, the kids are getting used to school. When I picked Will up the other day he kept pulling on my hand to show my something in his classroom. Then he walks right up to a boy, pokes him in the arm and says "Can this kid come for a play date?" It was sooo hilarious. We found out his name is Holden, but have yet to meet a parent. It made me soooo happy that he is making friends though--and unlike Ruthie he doesn't come home and list everything he has done that day, but throughout the rest of the evening something will remind him of his day and he will tell me. It's pretty cute. Like I didn't know they had music time but something reminded him of a napping song they were learning so then he was telling me all about it. Love that boy. (In other news, moody four year olds anyone?)

Molly had a really hard time going to the Y gym yesterday and I think it was because it was only her (the babies go to a different area). She's not used to that! Although she goes into nursery no problem...so hopefully she starts to like it soon. Luckily she still has Will to play on Tues/Thurs mornings. She loves to help me though and has been really happy and fun lately. She loves to explain things. You can make any statement in the world and she will go "Yeah, because...." and start chattering away. It's awesome.

Ruthie is still laying her clothes out at night and joyfully coming home to tell me about her day. She requests everything I put into her lunch (I guess lunch is a serious thing, guys) and we've actually started letting her go to bed a little later than the other kids, which is keeping bedtime a little calmer. I think she is one of about three white kids in her class, and the only redhead that several of them have seen (we've convinced her that Ariel isn't name-calling, it's just that they think she's a princess!). We are trying to get her into the 'gifted' program here, just for the extra opportunities it provides, but they say it takes until October. So we'll see if I want to make the switch then. Also-starting that girlie on piano lessons and she is stoked!

Naptime!

Children's Science Explorium

This is the entrance. It was so beautiful. Also--the air conditioning was TO DIE FOR AMAZING for Sterling and I, but our poor kids who were still soaked from the splash pad were shivering the entire time. Luckily, they were enjoying themselves enough they didn't even complain!

Creating fog.

Like the picture states, this was a magnet table and I think we should have one at our house. My kids LOVED building towers on it!

She fell down on the fossil dig area and got a pretty grand scrape, but was 'molli'fied by wearing mommy's glasses!

Making an engine go?

Ruth spent a good portion of time cranking this thing and watching it pick up the balls.

You had to press all these buttons in order to get this rocket on the ceiling to launch--Will loved it!

You can't really tell, but behind Sterling there is a giant mass of squiggly tubes that had air flowing through them. You would take a rag and put it in the bottom and the air would push it through all the squiggles and it would pop out the top and float down---Molly was absolutely GLEEFUL about the whole thing. 

Making a hot air balloon go up!

These tubes made the beach balls float--but you can see the tubes that Molly is playing with behind that.

Looking at our fingerprints.

See that little train that went all around the ceiling? I wasn't strong enough to pedal it forward and around-but Sterling was!

When I hit it really hard the air would blow at Molly's face and all I could see over the edge was her hair flying up. It was hilarious.

This is adorable Molly driving around the little space robot car.

It was a really, really cool place. And so nice for Sterling and I to have somewhere to walk in to beat the heat at the playground. The kids were enchanted (okay, so was Sterling and I) and we grabbed all the flyers as we were walking out to know what events to come back to. Best of all, it was free! Coolest morning ever! We came back in time for Sterling to head to priesthood session because he was ushering and ELDER HOLLAND was coming! But I'll have to have a post all of it's own for that. It was so great. And so great that we could just enjoy the slow pace of Stake Conference the rest of the weekend without ANY studying. For the first time in three and a half years. JOY!

Sugar Sand Park

Friday was exciting just to me, because Sterling stuck around and helped me drop off the kids to school (it's going to be tricky when I have to drop off Ruthie and Will on M/W/F because of the distance and times they start) and we went to the Y together. Then he went to Home Depot and got boards to fix Will's bed, hung the last couple of picture frames I had finally decided to put up, tried to fix our Wii, and he updated a bunch of things on his computer. Then that night we played games with friends until probably way too late and had such a great time! It was fun to get to know some ward members better and of course, we love to play games! Also-Citadels was new for one of the couples and so they wanted to try it out. Since it is probably my favorite game--made the night great! (I lost miserably, but not as miserably as playing Dominion on Sunday night with our friends and Jeff got 106 and I got second place with FIFTY ONE---can you believe HOW MUCH HE WON BY?!!?!?!??!) 

Saturday morning we were sluggish getting going due to the late game night but I wanted to enjoy our weekend with Sterling as much as possible. We went to check out the Farmer's Market...which wasn't going on. Oops. So we decided to head to this Sugar Sand Park that I had had recommended. 

GUYS IT IS AMAZING!!!!! Four stories tall, a slide that goes from the very top to the bottom, an entire section made out like a train yard, a whole section of stairs made to be spaced apart like the planets and you can see how much you weigh on each of them, a nice splash pad in the middle of it all---I seriously felt like we took our kids to an amusement park. But for free. It was such a fun morning!

Yeah, that is part of the playground.

This was pretty fun. For free, you could input what game you wanted to play like an arcade game. Will is playing one here where you had to try and hit the buttons as they lit up red, and if you got them turning yellow you'd get less points. It was pretty exciting.

The sweet splash pad. You could go up and look through that guy's eyes. It was pretty sweet.

This slide was kind of slow, until they realized the benefit of getting super wet on the splash pad and THEN going down. Haha!

Sterling went through and read every single plaque. He's like that.

Making music!

The trainyard. Will was impressed.

Everything was so cool. Like this drivers seat had buttons that actually said all sorts of things when you pressed them.

These space stations had buttons that said all sorts of things too.

Can you spot a Molly?

Before we left, Sterling went to look around. This place was massive. Over 12 baseball fields, basketball courts, a few buildings, and an incredibly beautiful carousel (that only cost $1--but we saved it for another time). Sterling went to check out the science center and came back in awe, so we checked that out 'real quick'--which turned in to a couple of hours--before we left. I'll separate that to the next post so it's not quite so long. But it was such a great morning with the kids!