So in love

Dear Nolan,

I haven't loved anyone this much since my own little monkeys made their way into this world. You are perfect.

Love,

Aunt Stephanie

Brown County = Love

We snuck away this weekend and spent the night in a cabin at Brown County State Park. We seriously had the best time!! They just opened an indoor waterpark in the Abe Martin Lodge, and it's absolutely perfect for our little ones! Both boys loved going down the BIG slide and playing in the various fountains and sprayers. Eli took his usual time to warm up to being in the water, but once he did, he loved it. We also had a lot of fun walking around in Nashville and looking at all of the various shops.

We're exhausted and I don't have much more to say, so I'll let the pictures be worth my thousand words :)

I can't wait to go back-- we're already planning a return trip for June 5. (SOMEBODY wants to go there for her birthday!)

PS- I can't wait for our upcoming return to Southern Indiana this week! Our first nephew is about to enter the world and we couldn't be happier. Good Luck Kelly and Lyle- we'll be thinking about you!!

You know you're a mom of boys when...

You open your fridge and find this.

WARNING!

Do not proceed with this post if you are offended by photos of at-home science experiments involving urine, draino, and caustic reactions :)

All right...

Anyone still there??

Good.

Since Sara was about 2 seconds pregnant we have been subjecting her to various gender determination tests to entertain our own impatient spirits. We have done the Chinese gender chart, (boy--- I think), the wedding ring test (girl- fo sho), and now we've also done the Draino and intelligender tests.

Much to Sara's dismay, Todd brought the Draino crystals to dinner last night, and to her even further dismay, we insisted that she pee in a cup so that could perform said Draino experiment. I believe that her quote regarding this event was, "You guys are gross!" Fair enough.

The Draino experiment is said to react with the "girl" or "boy" hormones found in the urine. Supposedly, if the draino/urine combo doesn't change colors, the baby is a girl, but if the draino turns dark green or brown, it is a boy. Okay, here we go.

Draino crystals prior to urine being added

Right after adding the urine

After about 5 seconds

After 10-15 seconds

Did you see the smoke in this last photo?!?!

So the Draino test definitely has clear BOY results. Intelligender also produced a BOY result. (Sorry no pictures of this test- I know how much you wanted to see more pictures of pee!) Sara had an ultrasound this week, but little one decided to keep his/her legs closed for the event- so no solid evidence there, other than I swear that I saw girl parts :)

So I guess there's a 50/50 chance, huh? :)

Okay, so to make amends for the pee pics, here are some funny O&E photos to wrap up this post.

Guacamole Face

Sacked Out!

Nosey Nelly

So ever since I installed my feedjit on my blog, it's been really fun to see where my readers are coming from. I can look at it, and have a fairly good idea of who is reading it. Every now and then though, I get a hit that surprises me and I have no idea who it might be.

I would love to hear from anyone out there that I might not know who reads my blog...

Minneapolis, Arlington, I'm dying to know who you are. :)

LOVE this!

For those of you who are pregnant or have been pregnant, you know that sense of apprehension that you get wondering if everything is okay in there. Usually at some point during the pregnancy you have an ultrasound and get to oooh and aaah over every little twitch that the little bugger makes. You leave feeling much better about how everything is going...

But what is even better than see the little bean twist and squirm??

I don't know, maybe a direct shout out from Baby to Mommy that says, "Hey Mom! I'm doing great great!! Here's a thumbs up to prove it!"

This is my friend Kyla's baby, Brett. Isn't this the coolest thing ever? Kyla's an incredibly cool chica, so it's no surprise that her little man is totally awesome too!

Why Not Wednesday

T and Owen woke up this morning and expressed their desire to go camping today.

Soooo...

Why Not?
Check!

Train-tastic day

I am all about finding new and different experiences for our family... Especially if we can do them on the cheap!! :) This past weekend, I discovered that the Indiana Transportation Museum in Noblesville offers a wide variety of train excursions at all different prices. We've always wanted to do their "Pizza Train" which travels to Tipton and stops at Pizza King! (WOO HOO!) But something has always come up and we've never got the chance to do it. Saturday, there was a Pizza Train running, but it was already booked, so I looked to see what else they had going on. (http://www.itm.org/) They had an afternoon train running from Noblesville to Atlanta, IN- so we did it! The ride was about 45 minutes each way and we had a short layover in Atlanta. There was really and truly NOTHING in Atlanta, but it was okay- we were pretty much in it for the train ride anyway.


During the course of the summer, ITM offer these "Small Town" tours 2-3 Saturdays per month. The tickets are $8 round trip for adults and $5 for children 2+. The boys absolutely loved riding the train, and since it wasn't busy at all- we had an entire car to ourselves!!

Owen doing his best Eli impression.

The museum is in a park in Noblesville, and there are lots of different kinds of trains there to look at and walk through. There is also an outdoor carousel at the park and several different playgrounds. On Sundays, they offer a caboose ride!

Overall, it was a really neat experience. It was nice to get away from home and do something fun with the kidlets. After the trains, we ended up in downtown Noblesville. They have an adorable town square with a mix of traditional architecture and trendy shops and boutiques. We took a little detour in Kiln Kreations for Owen to create a masterpiece.

The master at work!

After that, we enjoyed an amazing dinner with Sara and Todd at Houlihans in Castleton, and then went back to their house for the evening. It was such a fun day, and I can't wait to go on more train trips this summer!

Penguin Hero

Last Thursday I took the boys to the zoo so that we could enjoy our last daycare free day together. (I have T& Q back full time again.) I wasn't feeling the best, but I didn't want to waste our last beautiful, carefree day- So we went. Per our usual zoo route, we went directly to the Oceans building to watch fish, pet sharks, and laugh at penguins. We had watched fish, petted sharks and had just made it to the penguin exhibit when Owen became quiet as he peered into a difficult to see corner of the exhibit. He said, "Mommy, that penguin is stuck!" I didn't think that a penguin could *really* be stuck, but sure enough as I got contorted into position to see where he was looking, I saw the penguin in peril. It was hanging from a rope that was coming out of its mouth. It was flailing around in the current, trying to free itself- but try as it might, it couldn't get loose. Suddenly, he stopped fighting and the current started pulling him under. We ran back to the shark exhibit where the nearest attendant is located and told her what was going on with the little penguin. She called for back-up, and within seconds they had shut down that entire side of the exhibit to remove the penguin from the water. They wouldn't tell us anything, so we left the Oceans to take in the rest of the zoo.
We went over to the plains to visit the giraffes, baboons, and rhinos- and then went to the other plains entrance to say "Hello!" to the elephants. Much to our surprise, we discovered that a part of the cheetah exhibit was open, and THERE WERE CHEETAHS out in plain sight. Oh. My. Gosh. This exhibit has been he most highly anticipated event of my three-year-old's life, so to be able to see the cheetahs almost a whole month early was a dream come true!! Not only were the cheetahs out, but when we first got there, their keepers were in the enclosure with them, petting them and playing with them. That totally made Owen's day! Seeing as the exhibit isn't actually open, there were no other people back there to compete with to view the cheetahs. The cheetahs were very inquisitive and seemed to enjoy watching us as much as we enjoyed watching them. It was soo neat to be able to experience that with Owen without the hoards of people that will be there once the exhibit actually opens.

As we were leaving the cheetahs, Owen started asking about the penguin and if I thought that he was okay. We went back to Oceans and asked the attendant about the penguin, and were delighted to find out that the penguin was going to be okay. She told us that he had swallowed the thermometer that hangs on that rope, and he was choking and drowning all at the same time. They transported him to the animal hospital, and were able to remove the thermometer and stabilize him. She thanked Owen for being so observant and for saving the penguin's life! I was pretty proud of my little hero.