Tanglewood

Last weekend, we went to Tanglewood Farm with the Barkers. This place was awesome. It's a miniature Old West-type town with mini saloons, mini jails and everything. But it's really a big petting zoo full of miniature animals. I didn't realize so many animals came in miniature. We saw mini cows, goats (two kinds), sheep (two kinds), horses, ponies, donkeys, pigs, cats (yep, miniature cats), yaks (!), llamas and even chickens. They also had a few full-sized animals like buffalo, bunnies, very large dogs and a couple ponies to ride on. The kids LOVED it. Patrick, of course, had to wear his cowboy hat and boots from Halloween once he heard the kind of place it was. Maddy spent most of the day squealing at every animal she saw and trying to pull their fur/hair out. Here are some pictures from the day:

The three "big kids"

"Hey kid" (get it?!... I'm a moron)

Maddy thought the horns were great

Two cowboys coming out of the saloon

Taking Mommy to the Buffalo

Maddy loving her Uncle John

Maddy loving her Aunt Wendy

Jordan and Patrick in the sheep barn being silly

Exploring the pasture

There are a bunch more cute pictures of the kids and the little animals in the slideshow below. We had a lot of fun and can't wait to go back again. As always, you can see the full gallery here. We hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving!!

Madelyn is 9 Months Old!

There is no mistaking that Madelyn is Toby's daughter. Lately she's been revealing more of her personality and with that we have discovered her love of climbing, computers and chatting. She tries to climb everything and is surprisingly agile for such a small, chubby chickadee. We keep a laptop in the family room and if it's open and Maddy is anywhere near, she squeals and crawls as fast as she can to get to it then starts pounding away at the keys. She even tries to use the trackpad.

She's starting to be quite the chatterbox as well. Her first attempt at a word, besides Mama and Dada, was birdie. She's been staring at her bird mobile in the crib for months and finally is tall enough to touch them...and eventually grab and pull them down, cracking the mobile in half. She was so proud of herself for reaching her goal. She now carries those birds around in her mouth while she crawls around the house and anytime she sees them tries to make a 'b' and a 'd' sound.

Madelyn also woofs when you ask her what sound a dog makes. The woof sounds like "woos" but it's still pretty cute. If you ask her what sound a car makes she'll blow a raspberry, food in her mouth, or not, as you can see from the video:

Maddy can also stand on her own for a few seconds before she gets distracted and starts waving her arms or dancing and then plops down on her bumper.

At her 9 month appointment last week she was 26 3/4 inches long and 17.14 pounds. She is turning out to be a social little butterfly albeit a shy one.  Madelyn smiles at everyone she sees but then quickly buries her head in our shoulder. Our greatest joy continues to be watching as Patrick and Madelyn's relationship grows as siblings and as playmates.

Cowboys and Indians

Our Halloween lasted several days this year. It started Friday morning with a party at Patrick and Madelyn's school. They had a "trunk or treat" followed by a party in the classrooms. I was working but Papa was able to go with Angie and the kids and join in on the fun. Patrick had a fun time showing Papa around his school and seeing all his friends dressed up. Madelyn had a great time getting to play in the "big kids" room with Mommy and Patrick. Here's a slideshow:

Saturday we went to the Woodstock Square for a Halloween Kids Fest. However, an overly tired, overly hungry and slightly overwhelmed by the large crowd two-year-old made for not the most enjoyable trip. So, we won't spend any time on that here.

Sunday was awesome though. This Halloween was one of those days that reminds Angie and me just how lucky we are and how great our families and kids are. Both sets of Grandparents came over to see the kids go trick or treating as well as Aunt Abbie and Uncle Matt. Patrick was beside himself with excitement from the second they all walked in the door. It was actually difficult to get him in his costume because he couldn't stop wiggling and moving around trying to talk to everyone and tell them about what was going to happen.

Speaking of costumes, we really had good ones this year for the kids. When Patrick was born, his Aunt Mandie and Uncle Tim gave him a pair of chaps and a cowboy vest with a sheriff's star on it that says "Idaho." Patrick is finally big enough to wear it so that pretty much decided what he was going to be this year. Even with his costume decided months in advance, Patrick had several ideas of his own for what he should be. He had dozens over the last few months, but here are the top 5 he kept coming back to:

5. A Mosquito
4. A family of pygmy marmosets
3. A Howler Monkey
2. Parasauralophus
1. A Bench

The bench was his favorite choice. Angie and I kept trying to steer him towards other costume ideas but he continually came back to the bench. Luckily, once he tried on his cowboy boots and learned a few key cowboy phrases ("Rope and ride!", "Saddle up partner!", "Come along little doggies!" and "There's a snake in my boots!") he forgot about being a bench and set his sites on riding into the sunset. Since Patrick was a cowboy, I went as a cowboy too. That basically meant dressing in a pair of jeans and a brown button-up shirt that I wear to work and putting on a cowboy hat borrowed from Papa. Business-casual + hat + scarf = cowboy. Who knew it was that easy?

Madelyn and Angie both went as Indian Princesses. I don't really know what the difference between and Indian and an Indian Princess is but I went with it. Both of their costumes were made by Meme and looked great. Angie's was actually one Meme made for Abbie for a past Halloween. Madelyn's was made just for her and she looked adorable in it. We put a few feathers in a barrette for her to top it off.

The kids loved trick or treating. Like, really loved it. The amazing grandmothers stayed back at our house to hand out candy so Angie and I could both go door to door with the kids. And Aunt Abbie brought her camera - since ours took an unfortunate spill off the office desk and broke the lens (spill=Madelyn pulling it over) - and took all the pictures for the night. We are very spoiled. It was wonderful being able to just focus on the kids and spend as much time as we wanted letting them wander the neighborhood knowing that our candy-distributing duties were covered by Grandma and Meme and our memories were being captured by Aunt Abbie.

Patrick went house to house filling up his pumpkin with goodies and usually asking for candy for Madelyn too - he's very clever. The kids also made some good friends. A little girl walked by Patrick and remarked "hey there cowboy!" in a very...mature way, to her mother's surprise. Madelyn tried to make friends with the alien baby sitting in a highchair at one of the houses by chatting him up. Then she realized he had a bowl of popcorn and wanted nothing to do with him and everything to do with the popcorn (pictures in the slideshow). And, Patrick tried to make friends with a man "fixing" the ride on lawn mower at the same house. Despite yelling under the lawn mower and even tapping the man's legs, the top half of him never came out from under.

It was a great time. The only thing that would have made it better if the original plan of having Aunt Katie, Uncle Brandon and Carson come over had worked out. Unfortunately, Carson came down with a cough the night before. We missed you guys a ton though and can't wait to try again next year! Thank you again to the grandparents and Abbie and Matt for making the day so memorable and fun. Thanks to Meme and the Garitys for the kids' costumes and to Aunt Abbie for taking so many awesome pictures. Here's a slideshow of the fun or you can see the gallery here:

Goofy Gus and Pretty Kitty

A couple weeks ago we went to Berry Patch Farms with Brandon, Katie and Carson. It was a beautiful fall day and we had fun watching the kids meander through the pumpkin patch. We got a kick out of Carson toddling around, enjoying her new found independence. She's walking like a champ these days!

Patrick liked trying to walk through the pumpkins rather than around them. He also tried to pick most of them up. I think that's why he loved the field with the mini pumpkins so much - he could pick up everything! Madelyn loved the little pumpkins too since she could hold them and hit them together and throw them. As soon as Patrick noticed, he wanted to bring her every one of them he saw and ended up burying her in them.

"Look Daddy!"

"You like this one too, Madelyn?"

Patrick and Madelyn had fun helping Daddy clean all the "gook" out of the pumpkins and carve them this year, which really means that Patrick helped Daddy some of the time with random dance breaks and sprinting up and down the driveway yelling, "Roxy, stay in OUR yard!" (Apparently that is a phrase he's heard once or twice before...). He also thoroughly enjoyed being the big brother and explaining every step of the pumpkin carving process to Madelyn. Maddy had fun playing with the "gook" and even sampled a taste or two. By her expression I highly doubt she'll try it again. She had a great time pulling up on the pumpkins and dancing; and loved when we put the candles in them at the end.

He had to wear his firemen boots

Here's a slideshow of the pumpkin festivities or you can see the gallery here:

Apples for Angie

Although the title of this post sounds like a bad fundraiser for a little girl who's never tasted an apple in her life and for every comment you leave we'll donate one dollar to solving her apple crisis, it's actually about our trip to the orchard. That little girl gets no help from us. There are bigger problems in the world and she needs to stop being so selfish and focused on apples.* Anyway, a few weekends ago we celebrated Angie's birthday with the Suskay family up at the cabin. There's a great store nearby (Mercier's) that also has an apple orchard. They have over 100,000 apple trees and over 50 different kinds of apples. That seemed like the perfect place to start our celebrating. 

The kids LOVED it. While you're picking apples, you can eat however many you want, to try out the various kinds so you know what you should fill your bags with. It was rare to see Patrick without an apple in his hand while we were wandering the orchard. He really liked the idea of just pulling an apple off a tree (if he was next to me while I'm writing this he would say "No Dad, we don't pull them. We twist them off so they don't get hurt.") and going straight to eating it. It was great for us because it meant the morning had a built-in, healthy snack! The other great thing about having Patrick there was that he's easy to lift up to get the apples that are way up high, as you'll see in the pictures :) Madelyn rode on Papa's back for the orchard trip and had a blast. We gave her an apple to check out that was almost as big as her head and she held onto it the whole time. She liked rolling it around, hitting it and, most of all, licking it and trying to take a bite. She also loved reaching for all the leaves and apples as we walked by them.

For the afternoon, we split up. The girls took Angie to a spa where they all got massages and the guys stayed at the cabin with the kids listening to football and relaxing. It was a perfect day outside and we spent pretty much all of it on the porch or in the front yard. When the girls returned from their time at the spa, looking very relaxed, we made a campfire and had dinner outside. Patrick got to roast his first hot dog over the fire and even got to make S'mores. The S'mores were the highlight of the night for him and he had been telling everyone about them all weekend. Madelyn enjoyed watching the fire and snuggling up to everyone there to keep warm. She's turned into quite the cuddler lately and I can't say I'm against it.

Here is a slide show from the weekend or you can view the whole gallery here.

Over the next week Patrick and I made apple sauce several times (using this really easy recipe) and ate apples with almost every meal. The following weekend something rare and wonderful happened: Angie and I went out on a date night! It's the first time in almost a year that Angie and I have gone out for a nice dinner just the two of us. We had a great time and surprisingly managed to talk about topics other than the kids for a good portion of the evening; although, we couldn't help but discuss how proud we are of them, all their quirks and which obstacles we see coming up in our future with them and how we want to handle them (I'm looking at you Patrick's pacifier).

Thanks again to the Suskays for a fun filled weekend! And, happy birthday Angie. You are the best wife, friend and mother anyone could ask for and far more than I deserve. We love you.

*This girl does not actually exist.

8 Months Old!

Madelyn turned eight months old yesterday! Here are a few of the things she started doing over the last month:

• Consistently sleeping through the night!! (Only a couple nights of letting her cry for a few minutes before she figured it out. Why didn’t we do that months ago?)
• Transferring from object to object while standing
• Saying new sounds: In addition to her dadas and babas she’s added F, P and S sounds.
• Using her new sounds to babble
• Waving hello and goodbye
• She climbed a couple stairs one time. She could probably do it again but we don’t want her to know that so we’ve not let her try :)
• Taking a bottle…JUST KIDDING…we’ve pretty much given up on that
• Dancing to every sound that could even slightly resemble a song (i.e.: the bubbling sound when I made my coffee this morning)
• Pointing at things – usually on your face. She loves to point at mouths when a person is talking
• Getting teeth like it’s her job. In the last month she’s gotten five: three on top, two on bottom.

And here are a few of our favorite pictures of Maddy from the last month:

Over the last few days Madelyn seems like she’s gotten older. Some of it is that her fifth tooth finally broke through so the month-long crankyness has come to an end. But, she’s started verbalizing more lately and seems to have a new understanding of language and interaction. She still idolizes her big brother and thinks every move he makes is worth watching and every sound he makes is worth a giggle. Last night at dinner she had an apple slice in her hand and would hold it out for Patrick to eat. Patrick thought it was hilarious that Madelyn was feeding him (“Madelyn, you’re feeding me? That’s silly!”) and every time Patrick took a bite out of the apple it would send Maddy into a fit of laughter.

We’re so excited for this time of year and all the firsts Madelyn gets to experience. Her first Halloween is right around the corner and then we get to have her first Thanksgiving and Christmas and so many more firsts. Before we know it, she’ll be one year old and our baby won’t be a baby any more. Every day we try to remind ourselves to focus on the time we have now because she’ll never be seven months old again or eight months old again. I can tell you though that there is nothing that slows my day down and makes me live in the moment as much as a smile or hug from Madelyn. Happy eight months my sweet girl!

Old McCagle Had a Farm

Last weekend, we went to Cagle's Family Farm with the Barker family. They have tons of stuff to do there but we did a tour of the farm and part of the big corn maze. Cagle's Family Farm used to be Cagle's Dairy Farm and had a ton of milking cows. The farm tour included visiting the milk processing plant and watching them actually process and bottle all the milk they made, seeing fields full of cows grazing and move into the milking station and so on. However, Cagle's is now a meat farm. We talked to the grandson of the original owner who told us that they were basically unable to compete with huge producers. They're a small farm, doing the milk process right and that costs more. So they were somewhat forced out of the dairy game and are now in the meat business. Lucky for us, they don't show the meat making process on the farm tour. Something tells me it's not quite as kid friendly as watching cows graze and make milk.

The good news is, the kids neither know or care about the economics of milk making. They just like to see farm animals and ride on tractors. The farm tour first takes you to a small part of the farm where they have several calves, goats, chickens and ducks the kids are able to feed. Patrick thought feeding the cows was a lot of fun and had a great time watching the chickens ride on the goat's back. We also got to meet the dogs we would later see herd a group of cattle. After that, we went to a milking demonstration given by Rosie The Cow followed by a trip to the defunct milk processing plant to see how the milk went from cow to shelf. Farmer Al explained the whole milking process and history of the milking process to us in great detail. The kids just liked the part where they got to put their hand on the suction thing they use on the cows' utters. Don't worry, this one was for demonstration only and not actually the one that was just on the cow.

The next part of the tour was really fun. We got to ride on a big trailer pulled by a giant tractor to see a herding demonstration. We watched as Tib, the herding dog, moved a group of large bulls from one side of the field right over to the side of our tractor. The kids got a VERY close look at the bulls and thought it was awesome. The tour ended with the kids getting to feed a group of goats. Patrick mostly just dropped the food on the ground, despite Uncle John's patient help, due to his inability to cup his hand. That must be a toddler thing. At least, I hope it is. Either way, he had fun holding his empty hand out for the goats.


After lunch, we headed into the corn maze. It was just after noon and the day was heating up tremendously so the grownups did the best they could to speed the maze process along. I imagine the maze would be really fun when it's the middle of fall and cool weather is on your side. But when it's 90 degrees and you're carrying a diaper bag, a hiking backpack and at least one child, the maze is more an exercise in "how fast can we do this." Also, Angie and I are TERRIBLE with directions. I can't tell you how happy I am that we live in a time of GPS. I hear people sarcastically say things like "we all drove without GPS for decades and somehow managed to live through it"... we honestly wouldn't have. Angie and I literally would have died. We are that bad with finding our way around. So a maze is an odd activity to participate in. I know there's help around the corner if needed and we won't really be stranded, but the back of my mind says "you might be lost forever in this corn." Luckily, the Barkers aren't as navigationally challenged as we are and made it out of the maze in record time. We'll have to go back when it's not so hot sometime and do the second part of the maze though because it was actually a lot of fun. Madelyn took this moment of quiet as an opportunity to catch up on her morning nap and fell asleep on Uncle John.

Then came the jumping pillows. I had never seen anything like this before but they were pretty awesome and the kids went nuts over them. They're basically a giant inflatable pillow to jump on, and who doesn't love that? When we first got to the jumping pillow, it was just the four of our kids and one other family with much larger kids. Patrick, Jordan and Andrew all bounced and ran and flipped and fell for close to an hour, giggling the whole time. As it got later, Patrick got increasingly tired and climbing up a bouncing pillow over and over again started to take its toll, so he figured out a way to get down without doing any work. He would start by climbing up yelling "sube!" the whole time (Spanish for "going up") then lay down at the top and let the bouncing do the work for him. As everyone ran and jumped around him, he would just flop his way down the side laughing hysterically all the way. The best video I got of this was messed up but here's a pretty good one that gives you an idea (there are more pictures of this in the gallery). He and Jordan started laying face down next to each other after a while and bouncing side by side. You'll also notice that the two of them are about half the size of everyone else on there:



And, here's a slideshow from the day or you can go straight to the gallery here: