Park Adventure with Friends

Guess what we did this morning? Yep, you guessed it, we spent another morning at the park. But this time we we went with some of our good friends. We loved the new park we discovered a couple days ago so much that we decided to invite a few friends to come along and play with us. I baked some really yummy Banana Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins and picked up McDonald’s drinks for us mommies to enjoy and Jess brought some delicious melon to eat with the muffins. It was a beautiful morning, not too cold and not too hot, simply perfect! Here are some pictures from the morning…

Olivia is soooo sweet! She picked a flower and ran over to Owen and said, “Owen I have to give you this flower because it means I love you.” Kaitlyn and I almost broke into tears at how sweet and sincere Olivia was. Here they are smelling their flowers.

Here is Abby & Owen enjoying their muffins and melon. So cute.

Autumn and her BFF Kaitlyn. I can not even begin to explain how much Autumn adores “Kait-Kait”. She is by far her favorite person in the world. O yea, and the feeling is completely mutual. I think Kaitlyn would steal Autumn if given the chance.

Isaac & Autumn.

Bouncing!

So it started off with them going down the slide together side by side and then it led to them pushing each other down the slide. Not in a mean way, more in a let me give you a little boost kind of way.

Whoever said three is a crowd could not be more right. These three are a handful together. I love them so much!

After the playground got old, the kids wanted to play a game of soccer. Unfortunately they didn’t share the ball very well so that didn’t last long. Hahaha, the joys of 3 year olds.

So then Autumn & Isaac decided they better start fighting over the ball too if the older kids were. Lol.

So then the ball got taken away all together. Look at them, “like O’ I’m sorry, did we do something wrong?” Aren’t they adorable though?

I have no words for this picture because it is too cute for words.

but of course everyone had to be involved. Autumn hated all the attention as you can tell!

While they were walking holding hands they decided it would be fun to make each other fall down. All four of them thought it was hilarious but then I started to get a little worried about Autumn in the middle of the madness so the three older ones moved onto….

Ring Around the Rosie. And yes….they all fell down. After about three rounds an injury occurred. Owen and Olivia bonked pretty bad when they “fell down”. Owen ended up with a big welt on his left eyebrow and poor little Olivia ended up with a bloody nose. Poor kids, they were really playing nice and having so much fun. As you can guess, that was the end of the play day at that point. Not to mention we had been there for 1.5 hours.

We had such a fun morning with our wonderful friends!

The Rodeo, A Special Visitor, & Another Park…

I know I blog a lot, probably too much, but this is my life journal as a stay at home mom so I like to blog. It’s a fun way to look back and see what we were up to. So anyway, pardon my blogging, but I am basically publically journaling.

Friday night, Brandon and I were invited by some of our good friends to go to the New Mexico State Fair to go see the Rodeo. Well, I have never been to a Rodeo and Brandon hadn’t been since he was a teenager so we decided it would be a fun and a different date night then the usual dinner and movie. We called on our very awesome babysitter McKenzie and got the night all set up. It was fun to experience what a Rodeo is all about. My very favorite part was the Mutton Bustin, which is 5-7 year old little boys who ride sheep’s until they fall off. It was so stinking adorable to watch. I took my small, crappy camera, so my pictures did not come out very good but here is a glimpse of our night.

Ready to go see the Rodeo.

Here is the Mutton Bustin. The little boys are all lined up waiting for their turn to ride the sheep.

Cowgirl Barrel Racing. These little girls were about 8-11 years old. It was so cute and they were really good.

The crazy Bull Riders. I don’t know how they do it. Their backs must be seriously messed up!

 

Sunday afternoon we had a very special visitor. One of my very Best Friends, Candie, was in town visiting for the weekend. Candie and I have been BFFs since we were 15, so 12 years now. Unfortunately after I got married she moved to Denver, lived there for a couple years and now she is living in Nevada. I say unfortunately because that means I rarely ever get to see her. I haven’t seen her since I was about 7 months pregnant with Autumn so that was about 16 months ago, way way way too long. Well, she was in town for the weekend visiting her family so she set aside a time to come visit me and the kids and then Brandon offered to stay home with the kids so we could go grab a nice dinner together. Well, the visit was awesome but as always it came and went way too fast. My kids adored her and Autumn threw a fit when we were leaving for dinner because she had not had enough time with her. Owen talked her poor little ears off and he loved that she played Legos with him, the best way to his heart. Thanks again to my amazing wonderful husband for being Mr. Mom while I had a nice night out with my dearest friend. Can’t wait to see her in another month for the Balloon Fiesta. Yay!!!!! Love you Candie!!!!

Me and My Candie Apple. Haha, that’s what I called her in High School. Love you so much and thanks a million for coming to play with the kiddos.

  And here was our best attempt at getting a picture with the kids. Owen is not sad here he just wasn’t looking up at the camera. Lol. Impossible to get pics these days.

O yeah. Yesterday was also Game Day! Go Broncos. I would be way more proud of them if they didn’t make me so darn nervous at the end as they almost gave up the game, but they managed to pull out a win at the end. Cincinnati 22, Broncos 24! Being a football fan gets really stressful. So proud of the team even though it was a super close game. The kids crack me up, I wanted to watch the game and Autumn had a blast watching it along with me. She sat on the couch and watched the game with me for almost an hour strait. Meanwhile, my little boy wanted nothing to do with watching the game. He is so into doing puzzles these days so he did his puzzles in the dinning room while Autumn and I watched the game. Lol. Cracks me up how different they are.

Here is Autumn cheering the team on with me. You better watch out Denver Broncos Cheerleaders!

I am not disappointed one bit that Owen wasn’t interested in the game. His little mind is so busy and he loves to learn new things which means sitting and watching TV just isn’t an option for him. I am so impressed with his ability to do puzzles at just 3 years old with no help at all. He got this spider man puzzle as a party favor at a Birthday party he went to and he just loves putting it together. Brandon and I helped him a couple times with it and now he can do it all by himself. He sat for 2 hours strait doing puzzles yesterday. This is huge as he usually NEVER sits still for anything. He is so smart and loves figuring out things “all by himself”.

It’s a 25 piece puzzle. Not sure about you but I think that is really impressive for a 3 year old. He does all the edges first and then fills in the other pieces by looking at the picture on the box. What a little smarty pants.

He also has a 24 piece Little Mermaid puzzle and A Mickey Mouse puzzle that he enjoys doing. The little mermaid one is actually Autumn’s but she obviously can’t do it yet so Owen gets to play with it. I love how much joy it brings him to complete the puzzle.

 

Another Park. So it is now mine and the kids new hobby to drive around to all different neighborhoods, new & old, in Rio Rancho to discover new parks to go play at. It is so much fun to discover new areas and different play grounds for the kids to enjoy. Well, today we went to the Vista Hills park in an older neighborhood in Rio Rancho. Wow is all I have to say. I believe it is by far our new favorite. It is about a 15 minute drive and well worth it. It has a huge grassy area for the kids to run around, a Frisbee disc golf course, and a huge play ground with sand not woodchips and lots of slides. This is perfect as Autumn always wants to eat the woodchips and both my kids LOVE slides. Here are some pictures of our time at our new favorite park!

Here is a picture of the Awesome playground at the park. There are 2 separate areas, one is geared for 2-5 year olds and the other is geared for 5-12 year olds. The smaller one is just perfect for Autumn as she can do everything all by herself which really helps with her independence meltdowns that are at an all time high and the bigger one is all Owens, he loved it. They have two big tunnel slides that are twisty and really fast that he just couldn’t get enough of.

Here is Owen encouraging Autumn along on the bigger equipment. He is so sweet and loves to cheer her on and she just loves it.

Owen even made a little friend Devon at the park. He is so cute. He went right over to the little boy and said, “Hi, I’m Owen what your name is?” The little boy responded, “I’m Devon and I just turned 3.” Owen was stoked as he is 3 too. They were inseparable from that point on and even played a game of Hide and Seek together.

And this little girl had fun just crawling around and walking all over the place. She is so so very independent these days and went down al the slide by herself.

And here is Owen jumping on this bridge to make it bounce for Autumn. She loved it and wasn’t even the tiniest bit scared. I just adore these kids. They are so much fun!!!!

Just Another Afternoon @ The Park…

If you live in NM then you already know, but for those who do not know, the weather has been WONDERFUL lately. For about the past week or so the highs have been in the low 80’s to high 70’s and overcast skies. We have even been getting nice little showers in the afternoons. Very light showers, but in the very very dry state of NM we will take what we are given. Needless to say with all this amazing weather we have had, the kids and I have been spending a lot of afternoons outdoors. Sometimes in the front yard riding tricycles and scooters, other times in the backyard in the sand box and playing with sidewalk chalk, but most often we go to the park. My kids LOVE going to the parks and exploring different areas of town with new parks to try out. Well, our bff’s, told us about a nice little park they stumbled across a week ago so the kids and I decided to give it a try. Our BFF’s know us so well as the kids LOVED this park. The neighborhood isn’t the nicest but the park is wonderful. We have already been there twice in the past 3 days. Its not too far from the house and there never seems to be anyone there so its even better to have it all to ourselves. Well, I forgot my camera both times we went but I did manage to snap some pics with my phone. Enjoy.

Cutie Pies having fun!

Monkey See, Monkey Do! Autumn has to do everything her big bro does. She may be small, but she sure knows how to keep up!

Owen LOVED this giant rock! He climbed up it all by himself. What a big boy!

Autumn was pretty independent too. She could climb the stairs and go down the slide all by herself. No help needed or wanted. The independence is nice, but it also leads to lots and lots of meltdowns….

Here she is throwing a huge fit because I wouldn’t let her climb down this rock walk that was about 6 feet up. She would have fallen right off and probably broke her neck if I allowed her to do so. Owen can’t even do it. She was so persistent and kept going back to the same thing I told her over and over she could not do. Raising a 1 year can be quite the challenge. Especially when she is constantly trying to keep up with her 3 year old brother. Did I mention she is very very stubborn?

See what I mean. Happy one minute, and throwing a fit the next. In the picture on the left she is cheerfully playing with a big stick she found. Then she started peeling some of the bark off and was trying to eat it. So being a mom and looking out for her best interest, I polite fully told her not to put it in her mouth. The picture of the right is her reaction to the word “no”! O man, the teenage years are gonna be rough. I can already see it!

Have a great weekend Everyone!