Gwen loves her princess helmet. She even wore it the other day to eat lunch. Safety first you know. We make her wear it even though she rides her tricycle slower than she walks. That's saying a lot.
We went to Wheeler Farm with Noah last week. The weather was okay at first but started to pour buckets a few minutes after this picture. Here's the cute kiddos with their money to pay for their pony rides.
Gwen got to ride Marshmallow and their ride was even longer than normal. They got to ride the ponies into the barn because of the rain.So, last Tuesday we went with my mom, my sisters Laura and Linda and their kids up to Lagoon for my mom's stake Lagoon day. We had so much fun. The morning had started out cold and rainy so we weren't sure that it was going to happen, but around 9:00 the skies cleared and the weather stayed wonderful until that evening. The threat of rain seemed to have scared off the massive crowds so we never really had to wait in lines or fight for a spot to eat. I sometimes forget that Gwen is only 2 1/2, she's really tall and big for her age - wears a size 4T in case anyone wants to buy her clothes for her end of summer birthday. Because she's as big as her older cousins, I let her ride all the rides with them. She did awesome. She did get a little scared if the ride got a bit too fast and would bury her head in your chest until it slowed down.
One of these things is not like the others. Jonathan's never been a fan of big rides so he had fun riding the kiddie rides with Gwen and her cousins. He and I did get to sneak off and ride some of the bigger coasters though. He'll go if I make him, distract him, encourage him, and hold his hand - much like going to church on Sunday.
Gwen didn't quite understand how these bumper cars worked. You had to turn the wheel for them to drive forward. She stayed like this stuck against the wall for the entire ride. They even stopped the ride in the middle and tried to show her how to get it moving. We'll have to try this one again next year I guess.Her favorite ride was the carousel - big surprise. That night when I was putting her to bed she suddenly said "Emily's got horns." I looked at her and asked "what?" She explained "Daddy ride zebra. Emily's got horns. Her . . . goat. Grandma ride zebra too. Me ride kitty, nice, like Sneakers in my closet." Oh, yeah, we adopted my little sister's old kitty, Sneakers, since nobody else wanted her. She lives in Gwen's closet and has for about 2 months now. She has only recently begun to venture out into the rest of Gwen's room. I guess she's getting more used to living with us.
This last week was also Jonathan's 30th Birthday. We celebrated it all week because I had to work the evening of his birthday. We went to Lagoon on Tuesday and on Wednesday my mom watched the girls and Jonathan and I went to dinner at this Sampam chinese food place. I found out that duck is utterly and totally disgusting. In fact I will start teaching my kids to call them "yucks" instead of ducks because that's a much more fitting name. After dinner, we saw the new Star Trek movie and it was pretty awesome. Even with my husband having to point out what other movies or tv shows all the actors are in. That's his thing, by the way, he loves those type of connections. He loves to say, "hey, Spock is the guy from Hero's who eats other people's brains. Isn't that cool?" It's fun that his brain works like that, but I'm never as excited about it as he is.I'm still loving that it's summer. It's rained nearly constantly for the last week or so and I'm very ready for that to stop. If anyone's up for anything fun to do during the day we'd love to come along or plan something with you. We got so antsy today to go swimming that we all went and stayed for about 40 minutes even with the rain dripping on us and the wind blowing. As we were walking back home, the sun came out and it actually felt warm, go figure.
My gym recently started charging $10 a month for their previously free daycare. It's totally worth it, but still stinks. Since Emily is still too young to go (only 6 more weeks until she can, wahoo!), I just leave her home with Jonathan and take Gwen. Gwen loves the daycare and has some friends there that she looks forward to seeing. Plus, when she's there she has 15 other little kids she can make dance with her and give her daddy a break. She's really into copying the dance scene from Cinderella and is learning the one from Mary Poppins. Throughout the day she'll come up to us and say "dance with me" grab our hands and make us sing the "This is Love" song. She then leads us around and makes us sit next to her and even ends it with a kiss then abruptly runs away. I guess it's no surprise that she's picked up yet another cold since she's kissing all the kids at the daycare. Oh well, she's just too cute.
Speaking of cute, Emily is becoming less and less of a lump and is more interactive these days. She smiles and coos. She tries to roll over. She reaches for toys and grasps them and puts them in her mouth. The other day I gave her a taste of the bread from my sandwich and she loved it. We can't wait to start her on solids because it's so fun to watch babies try new flavors and textures. She seems to have gotten really big all of a sudden and is fitting in her 6 month old clothes and has definately outgrown her 3 month old stuff. My little baby is getting so big.
Here's Gwen watching the dancers at Lagoon. It's super cute how she copies them and is just a step behind what they do. Too bad it was raining and they stopped the program right after this.
At Liberty Park they have some of the old kiddie rides up and running. They have this old 
They had these exact cars when I was little. They look like it too. Jonathan loves that Gwen recognized the Batman car and wanted to ride it instead of the pink one.
They also have a big playground with a water area. Gwen was scared to get wet at first, but you see that she got over that pretty quickly.
