Puppy Party

Today Jadon and Leah attended their friend, Dale's, 4th birthday party. Ever since we received the invitation in the mail, Jadon has been looking forward to it. The kids played with toys, searched for bones, decorated placemats, ate yummy treats, and played a pinata. I enjoyed visiting with the other moms. As we were leaving, Jadon said, "I had fun!"

Dale seemed to like the transformer we gave him.

Leah seems to fit right in with all the boys. Thank God for girl cousins!

Discovery Center

Yesterday Krista and I took our kids to the Children's Museum in Clinton, Iowa. It was a spontaneous idea and we went for it, realizing that with school starting, this was going to be one our last good opportunities. It was about 45 minutes from Sterling, but worth the drive. In this huge open space they had different learning/play centers and here you can see some of their favorites.

We caught Leah being an ambulance driver.
Brecken dressed up as a silly clown.
Here's baby Micah (about 2 months old).
Jadon dressed up as Spiderman and kept the costume on the rest of the time we were there.
Jadon is in a tiger phase right now. Throughout the day you can see him prowling around, sharpening his claws, lunging at things, and growling. Here you can see a little bit of that inner tiger coming out as Jadon poses for this picture with Brecken.

Whiteside County Fair

Today we went to the fair. Jadon rode all the carnival rides and Leah joined him on the carousel. We toured the exhibits. Jadon really liked the decorated cakes and car collections. We saw horses, cows, and sheep. Then we met up with the Johnsons and ate our fair food while watching the harness and hitch horse parade. All the kids played a fishing game. It was a lot of fun.

Jadon rode on Rudolph.
This car looked exactly like Sheriff from Jadon's favorite movie, Cars.

Jadon and Mark watch as Dale and Charles reel in their fish.

Leah at 18 Months

Leah is now 18 months old. She's still petite, only weighing 20 pounds, 7 ounces, so we still cuddle her quite a bit and smother her with "selfish love" as I like to call it. Her latest interest is baby dolls. After spending 3 days with Claire (5) and Rachel (3), she now knows how to take care of a baby doll. Leah is a good little eater, too. Here she's gobbling up kettle corn at the fair. Her biggest passion still seems to be climbing. She's pretty athletic and daring. Brian and I think she's going to be quite the gymnast. Leah is talking a lot now, which is very adorable. She says "mommy, daddy, baby, please, uh-oh, done", etc...oh, and her favorite, "mine." Sometimes she'll look at you and just babble on and on and you know she's telling you all about something, you just don't know what. Other times she'll screech loudly in protest. We love our Leah Bia!

Kylie's 4th Birthday

Last night we went to Kylie's birthday party. We had a lot of fun and we think Kylie is one of the sweetest kids there is.

3rd Annual Poop Camp

This is the 3rd summer I have gone to Gurnee with the kids to spend some time with my parents and my nieces, Claire and Rachel, while my sister and her husband went on vacation. We dubbed this "Poop Camp" the 1st summer while Claire was in the potty training phase and the name stuck. These pictures are from one of our main adventures, taking the kids to Six Flags Amusement Park. We also went to the Gurnee pool, which is more of a waterpark, and we had plenty of playtime outside in the sprinkler and in my parents' basement. Each day we w0uld wear the kids out with fun activities and then wind down the evening with a movie. We don't see Claire and Rachel often because they live in Grand Rapids, so this was good bonding time, and I bond a lot with my parents as we run poop camp together. Thanks mom and dad!

Training

This winter I did an indoor track program with my friend Anita and some others from the running club. At the end of track we decided to train for a 1/2 marathon. We will run the Quad Cities Half Marathon on Sept. 27th. This has kept us training all summer and today we ran 10 miles. This is my longest run to date and I'm so glad I had Anita by my side.

Summer Favorites

Today was just a nice summer day at home. The kids played in the kiddie pool, had BBQ sandwiches, corn-on-the-cob and watermelon for supper, and went to the park afterwards. They are so fun and adorable right now!

Minocqua 1

This past week we took our annual vacation to Driftwood Lodge in Minocqua, Wisconsin. We stayed in a 2 bedroom cabin on Mercer Lake and my parents stayed in the cabin right next to us. Jadon and Leah enjoyed bonding with their grandparents and Brian and I enjoyed the company and the help with the kids. Brian and I went to Marty's Place North restaurant (an old family favorite) for our 8th anniversary while my parents watched the kids. There was a playground at the resort which the kids played on a lot. One of the first activities we did was take Jadon for a pony ride. He was shouting "Giddyup!" and thought he was a real cowboy. Leah loved seeing and petting the horses. The weather was pretty cool all week, but we still swam in the heated pool and the kids waded in the lake. Brian kept our cabin cozy with fires in the fireplace each morning and night.

Minocqua 2

My favorite thing to do in Minocqua is go to the Wildwood Wildlife Park where you can feed goats and deer that roam around. They have a section where they will take young animals out of their cages and let you pet them. This year they had an albino raccoon which was pretty neat. We discovered that Leah is quite a brave little animal lover. She enjoyed feeding the parakeets and deer. Whenever the deer would eat a cracker she would say, "Num num..." Jadon's more into things with motors and he really liked go-karting with his dad. He told me afterwards that they did something naughty. "We crashed," he said with a grin, meaning that they bumped another go-kart. He's keeping up the Jones family tradition.

Minocqua 3

One of our favorite activities was playing on the beach by ourselves or with the other kids. One day we worked with Hailey (8 yrs. old) to make this big alligator. Another day she and Jadon made sandcastles and raced toy boats. Brian and my dad did a fare amount of fishing. I went out just once, but caught a couple ring perch which was fun and relaxing. If you look closely at the picture of Brian fishing you can see a loon in the background. There was a loon family that we kept seeing all week, 2 parents and 2 babies. It was cute to see the parents dive down and later emerge with little fish to feed their babies. Jadon still isn't very interested in fishing. One day I asked, "What would you rather do, fish off the dock, go for a kayak ride, or destroy anthills?" He picked destroy anthills, although he did go out on the canoe and kayaks several times and really liked it. On Wednesday night we went to the ski/boat show which seemed to fuel Jadon's imagination for the rest of the week as he played with toy boats.

Minocqua 4

One morning we went out for a big breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty. Afterwards we walked along the bike trail downtown. Leah needs to work on staying on the path, but Jadon had fun racing to various points along the trail. He's getting quite fast. The kids had fun observing and interacting with wildlife this week. Jadon got a kick out of feeding the chipmunks and Leah enjoyed holding the toads the other kids would catch. Here she's holding one in a net, but on another day she held one in her hands. Whenever we tried to take it away she would clutch it to her chest and assert, "Mine! Mine!" The last picture shows Jadon steering our fishing boat. He thought he was big stuff. All in all, it was a really fun vacation and as we were leaving on Saturday morning Jadon kept whining, "I don't want to go home!" We plan on going back every summer.