On a Safari!

Last Friday, Jude and Cole and I took a trip down to the Safari Park to meet up with two of my very good friends, Rachel Bailey and Emily Jones. George was working and Lance was in Fairfax with his dad, so it was just me and the little boys.

I had never been to the Park but had heard many good things about it, so we were excited to go. I told Jude earlier that day that we were going to take a long drive (about 1 hour and 15 minutes) to see some animals and pet them. "We see the animals? We pet them?" He probably repeated this phrase twenty times in the car on the way there until he fell asleep. Upon getting to the park and waking up, his first semi-coherent words were, "we pet the animals?" Needless to say, he was excited.

For something that is in the middle of nowhere, it was a very cool experience. They had a small petting farm area that had goats, pigs and even a baby camel.

We bought buckets of feed and Jude was more than happy to feed the animals.

Cole was such a trooper!

Jude thought it was fun to feed the goats by hand.

They also had a small reptile exhibit. If you look close, you can see the water monitor in the glass. It was kind of sad... it kept trying to climb up the glass to get out.

Chasing the birds.

Jude thought the animals were "cute" and kept saying, "aww, so cute!" while he petted them. It made me smile.

We were the first ones to get to the park, so we took our time with the goats while we waited for our friends. When they arrived, we had just enough time to feed the little parakeets before we took off on the "safari".

Jude with Lizzy and John Jones. They are trying to get a flock of parakeets interested in the treats.

One brave bird came over to investigate.

Emily showed them how to be careful and hold still so the birds would come.

Jude really wanted to feed the birds...

...until one actually landed on his stick. He quickly decided it was not as fun as he thought it would be.

Emily with her cute kiddos John and Lizzy.

Still a little hesitant, but excited.

After feeding the birds, we all piled into the truck that Rachel and Chris Bailey brought and took off on our self-guided safari. We drove around many acres of land that housed all kinds of animals.

Most of our group. I had Cole in a carrier (you can see his little blue hat). Chris's sister came, too (she's holding James, the little boy in the blue baseball hat). Chris and Rachel rode in the front of the truck.

It was awesome! All the animals came up to the truck and ate from the buckets. It was a little overwhelming at times, but a very neat experience to be so close to so many huge animals.

First up were the llamas.

John's not entirely convinced the llama was nice.

Good job, Jude!

Camel! I'm still confused as to why a tiny bird landing on his hand was a scary experience, but being this close to a huge camel was okay for Jude.

Me trying to juggle feeding buckets, a crying baby, cameras and keeping Jude from falling out of the truck.

Elk.

Jude thought these little deer were cute.

These animals were very friendly and had no concept of personal space.

Next up: buffalo.

Technically, we weren't supposed to feed the buffalo, but it was because they're strong and a little pushy. Emily, who had been to the park several times, showed us how it was done. It was so funny to watch the buffalo try to eat the grain. They stick their tongue out and swing it around to catch the falling food. We couldn't stop laughing.

Hello!

James thought the buffalo was pretty neat.

Zebra! Probably one of my favorite animals we got to feed.

Jude wasn't too sure about them at first.

They were a little pushy, too.

Jude warmed up pretty quick and was great holding the bucket so they could get a snack.

Where else would you get to pet these amazing animals?

More camels! These were huge!

We all laughed at the hair on these guys. One looked like a stoner with floppy hair covering his eyes, and the other looked like some sort of punk with a mohawk. Awesome.

There was as sign right before we got to these camels that said: "Camels will steal and chew buckets. Feed them anyway." They were not lying! Jude is watching the camel chew and actually swallow one of the feed buckets.

Capturing the moment.

Jude loved getting to pet the animals.

Last up, the Watusi cattle. These things were AMAZING!

This guy just loved being with Emily and snuggled right up to her. They were very sweet and surprisingly soft. It almost made me feel bad that we eat beef. Almost.

We had a great time! We're already trying to plan another trip so Lance and George can come with us. They had some other animals, too, like a paddock of giraffes you could feed, kangaroos, wildebeests, and water buffalo.

Want to come? Just let us know and we'll plan a day!

Lance, I killed your fish... on purpose

Yep. This afternoon I asked Lance if I could flush his black molly fish and he said yes. So I did. No, the fish wasn't hurt, sick, or dying. She was just the spawn of Satan.

When Lance first got his fish tank, he got a black molly and two white catfish. They did pretty well together so we decided to add a few more fish. None of those fish lived. They all died within a few days of being placed in the tank. We weren't sure what was going on, so we stopped adding fish and just stayed with the original three, thinking maybe our tank hadn't cycled completely.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that our cute little catfish were missing most of their fins... they had rugged stumps left. I thought maybe they were sick or had fin rot, but it turns out the black molly was biting their fins off! So I started to feed them more, thinking that maybe the molly was just super hungry and they were fighting over food.

Nope. She's just the devil.

Today I watched this horrible fish chase the two catfish around for no reason and bite them. She just had babies, too, and ate all but two of them within 24 hours. I realize this is a natural thing, but it still upset me as I watched her chase these tiny fish around the tank and hoover them like they were fish flakes. The last straw was when I was looking at the little catfish I noticed that one of them was missing a fin entirely. There wasn't even a stump left.

So I marched myself over to our neighbor's house where Lance was playing and asked him if I could flush his molly (he was upset that this fish was killing and beating up all the other fish, too). He was a little sad afterwards, but forgot about it after I promised we'd get another fish. I almost felt bad right after I flushed. Almost.

Hopefully we'll now have peace in our tank and the two small babies left will get along with the catfish and not take after their cannibal mother.

Who knew a fish tank would be so much drama?

Remember

As I put my sleeping baby in his crib tonight and checked on Lance and Jude, I couldn't help but feel happy. This really is a wonderful time. Yes, it's busy and loud and hectic and I often find myself counting down the minutes until bedtime, but if I look beyond the time-outs, the meltdowns, the burp-up, the midnight diaper leaking, I know I am going to miss this.

The boys are growing up so fast. Those cliche things you hear all your life really are true: if you blink,  you'll miss it. In an effort to capture these moments, I decided to write down the little things I want to remember about each of my boys at this time in their lives.

Cole (2 1/2 months old)

He's big! At his 2 month check, he weighed 14 lbs, 8 oz. That's in the 95th percentile. He is now wearing Lance and Jude's old 6-9 month clothes!

Cole is starting to coo and "talk" to us now. He's been pretty reserved with his noises until just the past couple days and now he'll sit and "talk" to us all the time. I love his little voice. It's very soft and sweet.

He is so smiley and will laugh at you if you smile at him.

He sleeps very well at night. When he wakes up he doesn't really cry (unless I ignore him for a while), but stretches and grunts and kicks his legs. He usually has a good stretch of sleep from around 8 or 9 at night until 2-3 in the morning.

Cole almost never fusses. If he's fussy, I can change his diaper or nurse him and he's perfectly content again.

He even takes a bottle! (Something neither Lance nor Jude mastered until they were much, much older).

He's as spitty as Jude was and is already starting to drool. Jude was a drool monster and still has trouble holding back the tide when he's excited. I'm afraid Cole is going to be exactly the same. Oh well.

Jude (2 years, 3 months)

Jude's ability to talk has exploded. He carries on full conversations and does a great job getting his point across. It his so cute and hilarious to listen to him talk.  One of my favorite things he does is when he asks a question, his voice will go VERY high at the last word. It makes me laugh every time.

 He's started to volunteer "I love you!". He'll say, "Mom, say 'what'." "What?" "I love you!"

He is a very compassionate child and will get concerned if he thinks someone is hurt. He'll often say. "Oh, poor ______" if he sees someone crying or sad.

Jude has the funniest sense of humor and is always smiling and laughing. He loves to climb on people and his newest game is "don't catch me!" where he yells "don't catch me!" and then runs away, waiting for you to chase him while he laughs hysterically.

He is very social and says hello to everyone he sees, even if he has no idea who they are. If he recognizes you, he'll run up and give you hugs. It's very sweet.

One of his favorite phrases right now is saying "what the..." after he discovers something. For example, he'll find a piece to a broken toy and say "what the..." when he picks it up, or if he discovers the fishy crackers are not where he thought they would be. He probably says it 30 times a day. I can't imagine where he picked it up, but I think it's pretty hilarious.

We were driving in the car the other day and Jude asked to listen to Lady GaGa. "Listen to Lady GaGa?" Yes, I'm embarrassed to say that Jude actually recognizes some of her songs and will routinely request we listen to them in the car (probably because Lance always asks to listen to her). Jude is starting to have a music preference. Before, he happily listened to whatever I had on, but just yesterday I changed the radio station and he got upset because he was listening to the song I changed. Listening and trying to sing along.

Jude routinely escapes from our house and wanders over to our neighbor's the Elmers. He'll knock on their door, let himself in and then help himself to whatever he can find in their pantry. He's probably consumed more popsicles, chocolate milk, candy, and soda over there than their own kids! If ever I can't find Jude, I always know where to look.

Jude thinks Lance is the greatest ever. Oh, they have their issues, but in the end Jude thinks Lance is awesome. He will imitate whatever Lance is doing or saying and insists on being in the group of kids when Killian and Kendall come over to play.

He is very sweet to Cole and will love on him--sometimes a little too much--while stating "I love him!" or "Oh! So cute!"

He is going through an independent stage right now, where everything is "my turn!" Getting in and out of the car, buckling his seat belt, clearing his place from the table. Whatever it is, he thinks he's big enough to do and will insist he do it himself.

His favorite thing to watch right now is "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse", with a close second being "Phineas and Ferb" on the Disney channel.

He likes to sing.

If I let him, he would eat fruit snacks, fishy crackers and popsicles all day long. Luckily, he does like broccoli and corn which is our saving grace when it comes to getting him to eat a balanced diet.

Lance (6 1/2 years old--Kindergarten)

Lance is by far my most active child. He is constantly running and climbing. We have a pull-up bar hanging in the doorway to our kitchen and about every three minutes Lance will shimmy up the door frame and hang upside down from the bar. He is a monkey.

The first thing Lance does when he gets off the bus in the afternoon is take off his shirt. And no, he doesn't even wait until he's inside. He literally steps off the bus, walks about 5 feet away and pulls his shirt off. Even on cold days. I always ask him if he's cold and his response is always "No." How does he stay warm, you ask? Apparently he has a "force field" that makes him impervious to the cold. I wish I had said force field. Lucky boy. I cannot for my life keep clothes on this boy. If he could run around naked all the time, he would (and sometimes does).

He is starting to be quite the reader and is taking an interest in learning about real-life things. The past few books he's brought home from the library have not been story books, but rather books about how paper is made, or about a different animal. I recently got him the book Incredible Cross-Sections by Stephen Biesty and he's been looking at it ever since. I remember thinking this book was amazing as a child.

Lance is actually starting to be nice to Jude. He's beginning to share and to help Jude learn things, although the things he teaches may or may not be exactly what I want Jude to learn (think all the silly/nasty tricks you knew as a kid). He's growing into his big brother role and is doing a terrific job with Cole. He always wants to hold him and love on him, something he did not really do with Jude. He's learning and I love it.

Lance plays with Killian and Kendall every single day. If it's Killian, they play with Bey-blades and video games. If it's only Kendall, they will play with stuffed animals.

Lance really likes stuffed animals and snuggles with one at night.

He likes to have his back scratched. Since he and Jude started going to bed at the same time each night, I don't usually lay down next to him and scratch his back anymore, but occasionally I'll sneak in after Jude falls asleep and scratch for a minute or two.

Lance likes art. He likes to paint and draw and is becoming a better artist.

He LOVES Legos and is very creative with the things he can build. He'll get a new set, build it according to the directions and then take it apart and build something entirely different. I think I've managed to keep one set together in the "proper" form.

Lance is very VERY loud. I don't think he has an "indoor" voice. It's funny to talk to him when he's excited about something. He just keeps getting louder and louder until he's practically shouting at us three feet away.

Lance loves George. Probably because George is the calm one and is very good at giving him attention, being fun, and showing love. It doesn't hurt that George is amazing at video games so Lance can always get him to help him out.

He hates anything we make for dinner. Even if it's something he actually eats. He'll come in and ask what's for dinner, I tell him, and his response is usually somewhere in the range of a grimace to full-on crying because "it's gross" or "you know I don't like that!" Yep, we're working on only saying polite things about the food. Tonight he asked for spaghetti and meatballs, so I made it for him. He was happy, but at the end said he wished I didn't use sauce because he wanted his noodles plain. Oh Lance. I just can't win!

Lance is a rollercoaster. Everything he does, he does 100%, which means we have lots of ups and downs. If he's sad, he's really really sad. If he's happy, he can't contain himself. If he's mad, he's very very mad. It reminds me of the poem "There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid." He makes our lives more interesting, occasionally more difficult, and often a lot more fun.

Lance loves to listen to Lady GaGa's "Bad Romance", Adele's "I Set Fire to the Rain", and Gotye's "Somebody that I Used to Know". He also likes listening to the song from "Wicked" called "What is this feeling?"

Lance is not a breakfast person so in an attempt to send him to school with a semi-full tummy I've been feeding him Hot Pockets in the morning. Either Hot Pockets or biscuits, he'll eat a lot. Anything else and I might get a bite or two out of him.

He loves milk!

He likes to sing, but won't admit it. He'll narrate what he's doing or his day in a song he made up, but continues to tell me that he can't stand music. Just recently he's admitted that his school music class isn't as torturous as he previously deemed it.



I sure love my boys! They challenge me every day to learn to be more patient, more kind, more fun and more loving. I am so lucky to be their mom and to try to develop these attributes. Hopefully life will give Lance a few bonus points for being my guinea pig as I try to become a better mother. I think I'm getting better as the years go on. Oldest children really do have it rough!

Happy Birthday, Pop Pop!

April 15th we were up in Ashburn to help celebrate George's Dad's Birthday. 

We went to a new Chinese Buffet (Dad's choice) for lunch, then came home and had homemade carrot cake.

Lighting the candles.

Jude thought that was pretty neat.

Getting ready to sing.

"Happy Birthday to Pop Pop!"

Dad blew out all those candles in one rather fast go. Impressive, considering he's missing part of a lung that doctors removed about three years ago.

Jude saw Dad licking the candles clean and thought he would follow suit.

Diesel came by to see what the fuss was all about and of course sniffed Jude over to find any bits of food that may have fallen. He knows Jude is the one to follow because that kid is always sticky with something.

 This picture was taken in November. Diesel's gotten big in the past few months, huh?

Lance and Callie discovered Angry Birds in Space and could not have cared less about eating cake.

Cole loved being in his aunt's arms for most of the afternoon. Look at those lips! Well, he certainly didn't get those from me.

And, as usual, Jude and Bryce kept each other laughing the whole time. These boys are so funny together!

Happy Birthday, Dad! May you have many, many more!

Mud Warrior

Last October, Nate ran the Tough Mudder down here in Charlottesville. I got to see the pictures George took of the event and have had my heart set on doing the Tough Mudder ever since.

April 14th George and I did the "Mud Warrior" here in Southern VA. We're training for the Tough Mudder that will happen in September, so we figured we'd do a smaller race in the mean time. I was rather nervous because I haven't had much chance to exercise since I had Cole 10 weeks prior to the race. I shouldn't have been so worried.

It was a blast!

George's parents drove down for the day to watch all three boys so George and I could both participate. I think that may have been my favorite part about doing this race--George and I got to do it together.

The way the race worked was interesting. They had heats that left throughout the day, so when we got there and signed in, we lined up at the starting point with a few other runners and, because we got there a little early, we ended up running with an earlier heat than what we were assigned. Fine by us!

Before the race. Look how clean we are!

We decided to bring along our waterproof/shockproof camera to try and capture some of the experience.

George was kind enough to give me some appropriate "face paint" (aka permanent magic marker). Thanks, Love.

Excited to start! They had a cover band that was playing to entertain the people who were not actively racing. You can see the finish line behind George. And yes, that's mud they're pumping onto that black slip-n-slide.

Here is a quick video of our first obstacle--crawling through mud underneath barbed wire.

We encountered several mud pits like that one along the way. It was fabulous!

This picture looks strange because there was water on the lens of the camera, but I wanted to include it to show how truly muddy we got. George even had some in his mouth!

The race took place on a farm and most of the time we were in the woods on the side of a mountain. One of the obstacles was to essentially climb up the side of the mountain for about half a mile. We were not running at that point!

The race was supposed to be 8 kilometers, but it didn't feel that long. The newspaper reported it to be 4.5 miles, but I guessed it was more like 3. 

I wish I could include some of the "official" pictures they took of us jumping over fire and climbing walls, but they belong to the organization and we have to pay for them, so... you'll have to just imagine. We do have some video, but unless you have a strong stomach you get motion-sick pretty quickly since we were taping while running/jumping/sloshing through mud.

At the finish line. Yes, I know this is a terrible picture of the both of us, but whatever. If we only looked at pictures where everyone looked perfect, we wouldn't get to see very many pictures.

We finished the race in less than an hour! Yay us! George bruised his arm pretty badly on the last obstacle and I took home several purple spots on my arms and legs, but for all the rocks, mud, walls, tires, fire, and nets we overcame, I think we fared pretty well.

Thank goodness we brought clean clothes! We toweled off was well as we could, changed our clothes and drove back to Charlottesville where we enjoyed a wonderful long, hot shower. It took forever to get that red Virginia clay off (my nails are still a little stained over a week later!).

I am so excited to do the Tough Mudder in a few months! The Mud Warrior was not as difficult as I thought it would be and honestly, I was a little disappointed the obstacles were not as challenging as I was anticipating. The Tough Mudder will deliver, though, and I'm hoping we'll be ready!