Chucka Cheese

In early March, Avery had her latest doctor's appointment in Wichita, so like always, we were up very early in the morning to get there in time for her 8:50 appointment.  After a glowing report, we took Avery and Rylan to experience one of the funnest places for a kid. (And two adults that are addicted to skeeball.)   Enter Chuck E. Cheese, or as Avery calls it "Chucka Cheese."  We arrived about 10 minutes after they opened, so we basically had the run of the place on a Wednesday morning at 10 a.m.  Everyone had a fantastic time.  Avery loved playing all the games; Rylan loved trying to stuff tokens into anything he could think of, and he also got quite adept at grabbing the tickets as they were being spit out of the machines. 

We had this issue for most of the morning.

The issue continued.

And some more.

Luckily we didn't get kicked out of the place.  Good thing too because we are definitely planning a trip back sometime in the near future.  We all had way too much fun. 

Sledding and George

Since the snow in February didn't immediately melt, we were able to go sledding for the first time with the kids the following weekend.  We scouted the entire town for the perfect sledding hill, but couldn't come up with anything new so we headed to the standard sledding hill over at Wall Park.  Everyone else in town also decided to sled there that Saturday afternoon, and since we didn't want Avery and Rylan's first experience with sledding to involve getting plowed into by a bunch of 12 year olds, we moved to the north side of the park.  There we found the perfect hill for a 3 and 1 year old, and there was NO ONE else to have to share with.  We had an absolute blast; Avery and Rylan took to sledding like old pros, and we were able to spend about an hour having fun in the snow.

Every time Rylan would get to the bottom of the hill, he would yell "Guck, guck!" (Stuck.) Avery figured out very quickly how to get herself back up the hill dragging her sled with her.  After many, many trips down and back up our little hill, we headed home to change out of snow clothes.  Or so we thought.  We pulled into the garage and the little ones beelined it to the front yard for some more fun outside.  Avery had never built a snowman before, so we decided to all work together to create one.  And then we had George.

After we finished the snowman, I asked Avery if she would like to give him a name, and she promptly answered "George," as if she had given this name quite a bit of thought.  So every time we looked out the window for the next few days, George was there standing guard in front of the house.  It didn't take too long for George to melt away, and Avery wasn't too upset about that.  All in all, it was a very fun snow day for all four of us to get to hang out. 

A Glimpse...

of what we've been up to the last month.  As I had it pointed out to me a few times in the past several days, it has in fact been over a month since I last posted anything.  So here is a preview of what we've been doing to keep ourselves so busy that I don't have much time to sit down and write.

Yes that's right.  Chuck E Cheese.  Best Place EVER.  Seriously.

More to come in the following days.  I have several posts worked up in my head but don't have the time at the moment to get them all written down. 

Snow Day(s)!

 As I'm sure everyone else in the state of Kansas is well aware of, it snowed yesterday and this morning. Avery's school was canceled due to weather. And like every other child who can't stand to stay inside no matter what the weather, these two kiddos were practically dragging me out the door at 7:45 this morning to go out and play.  Never mind the fact that Mommy hadn't had breakfast yet or that Rylan's boots are about 3 sizes too big. (I bought them on sale for next year; he is determined to have them on his feet every single day this year.)  So out we went.  The snow Daddy had shoveled already was as tall as Avery on the sides of the driveway.  She would stay out in the snow all day long; Rylan not so much.  He likes to stand and watch and then realizes he's cold and wet.  So then he's ready to go right back in and poor Avery's left to play in the backyard with the dogs.  Here's some pictures from the last couple of days.  You should be able to tell by the accumulation which pictures are from which days.

Starting to realize that the snow is not so warm and fuzzy.  He has snowflakes caught in his eyelashes.

She had a brief moment when she honestly thought she was stuck.

Ha ha.  Not really stuck.

And the final moment that did him in.  He fell and really was stuck (or guck, as he says it.)  So in we went to warm up and I'm assuming we will be back out again as soon as he's up from his nap. 

Avery's Preschool Christmas Program

As previously mentioned, Avery had her very first Christmas program a couple of weeks before Christmas.  We had all been very excited about it; Chris and I couldn't wait to see our pretty little girl belt out some songs.  The day of the program, I took Rylan into the doctor because he had started running a fever and had a lot of gross stuff coming out of his nose (more gross than usual), so he got the pleasure of having his first swab up-the-nose experience.  And unfortunately, it came back positive that he had influenza.  Poor baby.  Per doctor's orders, he had to stay away from people in general for 24 hours so the Tamiflu could work it's magic. 

With this wrench in the works of our much anticipated evening, Chris volunteered to stay home with baby boy since he had gotten to see Avery "perform" at the Thanksgiving celebration a couple of weeks before.  Avery was still so excited about going to her school to sing, but couldn't quite understand why her whole family couldn't make it to the big event.  We stayed at home with Rylan and Chris as long as we could, then left about 2 minutes before Avery was supposed to be at the school.  (It's nice being about 5 blocks away.) 

I felt very, VERY guilty about leaving with Avery for two reasons.  1. This was Rylan's first time having anything other than just a cold, so knowing he was running a fever and feeling completely miserable was enough to break my heart knowing I would be away for a bit.  And 2. Even though Chris went to the Thanksgiving deal already, I know I still get to see Avery with all her classmates so much more often than him between dropping off and picking Avery up at school.  I know he would have loved every minute of the night, but when there's a sick child, what can you do?  Luckily, when we got home, Rylan was fast asleep on Daddy, catching up on some much needed rest.  And Daddy got some special snugging time that our little guy doesn't like to do very often.  So I suppose it all worked out somewhat.  Here's some pictures from the night:

Avery before we left.

And again.

 I love how when they walk in a line going anywhere, the fingers automatically go up to their lips.  Genius.

Here she was on "stage."  It's the only one I got with her full face showing.  Otherwise I just took videos the rest of the time so Chris didn't miss a thing from the evening.

And after the show.  So proud of herself!

Ready to go home and check on little brother.