A Little Taste of the Country Life

 A couple of weeks ago we had a discount coupon to go to a local farm that basically caters to little people. It's called Davis Farms and it has lots of "tame" animals to pet and look at and feed and then lots of play areas for little kids to enjoy.  It was our first time there, it's pretty pricey without the discount, but the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.  Strangely we didn't seem to get many pictures of them actually with the things you can do there, but they are cute pictures anyway!

 There was an area for water play which was fun to send stuff down the stream and catch and pour water.  Ruby did bully a few kids out of a fishing pole!

 This picture cracks me up, so typical Oliver when he has decided things aren't going his way!

 Making music on the "musical maze."

 Just gettin' down and dirty with the country folk, Ruby got right to work.  ha, ha

 They had lots of cute little baby goats you could feed and pet and pick up.  The kids thought that was fun.

 Ruby found a brush somewhere and was trying to brush the goat, I'm not sure he appreciated the new coif.

 We also got to take a hayride and hear about all the animals there and it was actually a pretty fun ride, and none of the kids was freaked out by the tractor which was a first!

They also had like 3 playgrounds to play on and a water splash area (too cold yet) and a face painting station you could DIY.   This was Oliver's creation!
All in all it was a pretty fun day for the kids and best of all was that August basically slept in the baby bjorn the entire time.  Although by the end, my back was KILLING me, little man is getting kind of heavy!

Graduation!!

Yesterday Zack graduated from Clark University for his Doctorate degree!!  I know he technically finished in December and we already announced it then that he was done with school, but it was sort of anti-climatic back then with all the other stuff going on at the time.  But yesterday he got to walk and wear the robes and all that jazz and it was pretty great.  It was a beautiful sunny day and the graduation was outside so I took the kids and we sat way in the back where they could run around on the grass and have fun, while I sat in the shade with little August.  As they called out his name and he walked across the stage in his puffy hat (yes the doc. grads get puffy grad hats, special eh??) and green and black robe with puffy sleeves (again with the puffy) I felt so much pride swell up inside me.  He has worked really hard for the past 5 years for this moment and I was so proud of him.  Sadly I clapped as the lone clapper way in the back section as I tried to tell the kids that there was daddy walking across the stage.  (They didn't seem to care or get it.)  But luckily some of his fellow graduates clapped up front for him to hear.

After it was all over he found us in the back and I tried to take a few pictures and was hoping to take at least one with him and me together, but the kids were cranky and tired by that point and they were freaking out about the robes and hat and wouldn't even go near him until he took them off.  Sigh.  Kids.  It was kind of frustrating.  But I was proud of him and was happy to see him!  While we were waiting for him to find us, I couldn't help but feel a little sad watching all the families and friends of different grads taking pictures and laughing and having fun while waiting and greeting their grads, I was wishing our family and friends could have been there to cheer him on and congratulate him on his great achievements. (And to have someone at least be able to take a picture of us.)  Instead he got me, chasing after 2 cranky kids and one strapped to me fast asleep.  Oh well, such is life right?
They had a reception after for the graduates in each dept. with "cheese and wine" and fruit and treats.  So we decided that heck this was a once in a life time event, so we kicked back a few glasses of champagne and got crazy!  HA HA HA

(He already has his robes off by the time we catch up with the other Psych grads so that the kids would go near him!)

Okay, so we just watched the girl pop open the champagne which was kind of fun and watched other people drink it while I had water and luckily for Zack's sake they had Coke!  But the kids likes all the treats and fruit of course.  So different than graduations at BYU n'est pas?!
And we topped it all off with a 4 yr. old birthday party at our next door neighbors.  I'm pretty sure the other grads didn't have nearly as cool of plans!  ha, ha.  We came home thinking how different our lives are having a family and being Mormon and having kids.
But even if it wasn't the ideal situation and the celebration was only between Zack and me, I still think he is pretty special and I'm really proud of my grad!
Congratulations Zack!!!  We love you!!

Plymouth

Ruby was so disappointed in us for never taking them to Plymouth before!!  She hung her head in shame!

Just kidding, That was her on the car ride home, she fell asleep that way, pretty funny.  

So a few weeks ago we decided we needed to see some of the things on our list before leaving MA for good.  :(  And Plymouth Rock was one of them.  I mean you have to do it right?  It's seriously historic!  So we headed our with our good friends and had a day of fun.

We also went to a beach there for a little bit at the end where the kids had fun running around in the water and wind!  It was really windy!  We sure are going to miss being able to go to the beach.

Oliver is getting more brave in his old age!

Ruby had her fast friends Estrella and Isabella wrapped around her little finger as we walked around town.

Plymouth is a fun little touristy type town and it was such a nice day with the weather to walk around and site see.

Just a boy and his panda.  If Pandy could only talk, the stories he could tell!

Here's Flor "cleaning" the rocks in the ocean.  We went down the steps and there was a broom sitting there so naturally she picked it up and got to work!  ha, ha.  

Here's a picture of the Mayflower II, which actually took the voyage to England and back with a crew.  Pretty cool.

Here's what August did most of the day.  Chill in the stroller and chomp on his burp rag.

Oliver wanted to take a picture of Pandy and so Zack told him to go ahead and this is how Oliver placed Pandy and Polar Bear when Zack looked back at the pictures on the camera.  Pretty cute, kinda funny.

Panda and Polar Bear enjoying the sea breeze.

There she is, Plymouth Rock.  Frankly not that impressive, but hey, it's just a rock after all.  Not sure what I expected, but I was a bit underwhelmed.  But the view from the rock was pretty.

That is where the Rock is housed in that column building.

Didn't know we had a little punk rocker on our hands!  August looks like he is sporting a Mohawk in this picture.  We had a tasty lunch of hamburgers and fries after seeing a few of the sites and then headed out to the cemetery.  I can't remember if it's the oldest in New England or what, but some of the Pilgrims were buried there.

So naturally all the kids played hide and seek in the cemetery because that's super reverent and respectful!  Yeah, well.......it was darn cute to see Ruby searching for everyone and hiding behind broken tombstones.  At one point she was running down the path with her hands up to her eyes like binoculars saying, "Where are you???"  So cute.

This is the most beautiful cemetery I have ever been to.  It's up on a hill and you can see the ocean, I told Zack I want to be buried there.  (Well beside the graffiti it's beautiful.)

All in all it was a fun day trip to Plymouth and we had a good time with our friends the Piedrasantas.  We sure are going to miss them.

He's on the Rise!!

Ok, for any of you who haven't heard yet or don't get on facebook, the big news at our house is that Zack got a JOB!!!  YAHOO!!!  He passed the background check and everything!  ha, ha.  We are super excited!  He got a teaching job at St. Gregory's University in Oklahoma!
So looks like we will be moving to Oooooooo......klahoma-  Where the wind goes rushing down the plains.....
Wow, never thought I would live in Oklahoma, but hey, at this point, a job is a job and we are happy for it!  But I'm sure there are nice places there, it's just pretty hard to compete with New England and all it's beauty and history.  However, I'm pretty sure on the whole, people will be more friendly in Oklahoma, so that's a bonus.
It's pretty funny because I think we basically told our parents and then maybe one or two other people that Zack got a job and then suddenly everyone knew.  It spread around our ward like WILDFIRE!  One innocent mention of a reason to celebrate in a newsletter from Zack's advisor to the other people in their social psych group and then one random comment from one of those people from Korea on facebook and an announcement was made for us!!  ha, ha.  Ahhhh....the powers of facebook!  On Sunday we were surprised when people started coming up to us and congratulating us and asking where we were moving (because the guy in Korea didn't mention details, just said Congrats!)  And we were thinking, "What?  How the heck do you know that?"  But it all came down to facebook and then word of mouth after that.  Good times.  You have to love mormons and their love of gossip!  :)
So there you have it.  We are moving onto our next destination at the beginning of July.  Now all we have to do is figure out how to get 3 kids to not go crazy driving in a car for 3 or 4 days.  Ha, ha, should be interesting!!

Walden Pond

We visited Walden Pond last weekend and had a good time.  The day was pretty nice when we started out, but by the time we got there the sun sort of went behind the clouds and it was pretty windy.  But Oliver and Ruby still had a lot of fun.  

 August didn't love it as much as the others, he was not digging the wind, but we did manage to get a smile!

 Some other kids let them join in on their project building of rivers and castle.

 Oliver had fun throwing rocks into the water, he loves to try to skip them.

 I'm amazed that they put their hands and feet in the water because it was pretty cold.  That's kids for you!

Anyway, it was a nice get away for the day to go and see something different and have some fun.

Tickles

2 months old, or 10 weeks, take your pick

I like to go with 10 weeks since it sounds like he is older and that is good to me because it makes me feel like I am closer to him making a break through on the sleeping front. What? You might be thinking since before I had said he was a pretty good little sleeper. But as we all know, with babies, nothing is permanent and apparently the whole awesome sleeping thing was a short lived dream. He's not horrible mind you, still 100 times better than the other 2 were at this age, but he has decided that he doesn't like to nap. Yeah, kind of a problem. He will only sleep for about 30-45 min and then he is up. So it makes for a lot of naps everyday to try and get in all the sleep that he should be getting, but what can you do? However, he is doing pretty good at night, so I won't complain. But I will say life has been a little rough around our house in the past month and so I'm looking forward to when he gets a little bit older and can stay up a little bit longer between his naps. (And hoping, fingers crossed, that his naps improve as he gets older.)

In better news, he is getting bigger and he is smiling and giggling which is fun. He has also discovered his hands and they are fascinating! He also has figured out that he can sometimes randomly hit and kick toys that jingle which is also fun.
It's hard to catch babies smiling, but here is a sort of half smile. Doesn't he look like Oliver when he was a baby? Trust me he does, if you don't remember.
He likes to stick out his tongue when you do it to him, a fun game.

"Heeeeyyy"
He looks like he is being mean here sticking out his tongue. ha, ha.
Babies first "wet willie." Ha, ha. Just kidding, that's just what it looked like when I first saw it.

He has decided he likes tubby time. This is his Magnum Steel pose.
"What you talkn' 'bout Willis?" or "You did WHAT?" ha, ha.