Heard Museum

Today, since it was Chip's day off and absolutely perfect weather, we went to the Heard Nature and Science Museum. It is not far from our house and I have heard about it from many people, but we had never been there. There is a small, kinda hokey museum with snakes, fossils and stuffed animals and 6 walking trails through nature. It was a fun outing and seriously you could not have asked for better weather. I am surprised it was not more crowded. We hardly saw anyone else while we were there, which made it better since it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

Lily HAD to bring her baby with her.

Checking out the snakes.

With the real dinosaur skull.

Next to the real dino poop!!

How cool is that? :) Million year old turds.

A skull and tent like replica of an ancient creature that used to swim and live here in our county.

Inside the tent like replica.

Baby wanted to see the sea shells.

Leaning how buttons were made from shells.

digging for fossils.

Saying hi to the Wallaroos.

Out on our first 1 mile trail.

With the prairie in the background.

It was such a pretty trail.

On another trail that went out over the wetlands.

Turtles and a snake -- a water moccasin. There were tons of turtles and LOTS of snakes. Chip was more than a little freaked out.

The snakes blended into to all the sticks. It was freaky to think how easy it would be to be surprised and attacked by one of the snakes.

Needing a break.

After a mile and a half, Lily was tired of walking and complained that her "whole body was in so much pain!" She is so dramatic.

But she quickly tired of riding on Chip's shoulders and wanted me to carry her. There was no way I was carrying her for a mile back to the museum. Chip was smart and started running and taunting her to catch him. She loved it and they ran the whole way back. So much for being in total pain.

running . . . .

running . . . .

"run daddy run! you are not running fast enough!"

Saying goodbye to the Wallaroos.

More running all the way back.

It was a fun afternoon.

Preschool Picnic

This afternoon was the family picnic/fundraiser for Lily's school. Chip got away from work for a couple hours and we brought my Mom with us too. It was a nice event at a local elementary school with pizza and drinks, games, a bouncy slide, a DJ and of course the big silent auction. Our golf basket was one of the top earners, but there were a lot of really nice baskets there. I only bid on one thing (actually I didn't even bid on it, my friend Jennifer, Makayla's mom, did and I split the cost with her) and we won! A lunch at McDonalds for Lily and Makayla with their teachers, Ms. Andrea and Ms. Melinda. I know Lily is going to LOVE this. She adores her teachers. In fact, we spent the majority of the day following her teachers around or looking for them! When we weren't chasing her teachers we were chasing her best friends, Matthew and Carys. I think Lily was a little overwhelmed at times since she doesn't do as well at large functions with a lot of people, but she had fun!

Since it was an elementary school playground, the toys were a little advanced (and scary for us Moms), but Lily climbed up over and over and was loving it.
Playing the fishing game.

Bowling game.

Throw the football in the bucket game.

The big slide. She was a little scared at first since there were so many kids pushing and screaming. But after awhile (and once Matthew and Carys went on) she was better and went up and down the slide with everyone. That is Lily at the top of the line.

Lily and Carys.

Pole dancing with Carys.

FYI

While I have been busy this evening catching up on a weeks worth of blogging -- Lily has been sitting next to me painting.

This was the look I got when I told her to smile for the camera.

Room Parent Duties

After school we spent all day Thursday cleaning for playgroup on Friday and baking cookies for Lily's preschool picnic and fundraiser this weekend.

As always, Lily is a huge help with the sprinkles.
The finished products!
They are for the "cake walk". Apparently all baked goods were fair game for the cake walk and they had to be divided into individual portions. I figured cookies would be way easier to make and transport than pieces of cake. Plus, I got to use up all the random sprinkles I had in the pantry. :)
.............

Another duty of mine for the preschool fundraiser was to put together a gift basket for the silent auction. Each class had to have a themed basket. It was a no brainier for us to have a "golf themed" basket and I got a gift certificate from the golf course and collected donations from the rest of the parents in the class. I'd been working on this over the last month and got my basket completed and turned in last week. It is worth $323! I hope it makes a lot of money on Saturday!

Sick AGAIN!

Monday morning Lily woke up screaming that her stomach hurt. It had already been a LONG night since Lily has started waking up multiple times during the night. It seems to have started when she switched from her wonderful and cozy sleep sack to a regular blanket. She has night terrors and thrashes around at night and can't keep her blanket on. So she wakes up screaming for me to fix it for her. It is beyond annoying. I am sure she could straighten it out herself if she just tried, but it is easier for her to wake me up screaming for me to fix it. After weeks of this, Chip and I had had enough and told her if she kept it up we would go back to the sleep sack. So Sunday night/Monday morning, we held good on our threat and put the sleep sack on her. Needless to say it led to a huge tantrum and breakdown before she finally fell asleep. She still called me in for hugs and to say she loves me. Again, totally annoying since I greatly value my sleep, but it is hard to be mad when she just wants a hug. So when she woke up complaining that her stomach hurt it was hard for me to tell if she was telling the truth since she'll use any excuse to get me to come into her room. It was almost time to wake up anyway, so I took her out of bed and we started to go downstairs. She didn't make it past my bedroom door. She threw up a little and fell asleep in the hallway outside my room! We slept there (I didn't want her to wake up alone) for over an hour and then she woke up and threw up again. She had a slight temperature and was obviously not feeling well, so we made an appointment at the doctors for later that morning. While we were waiting to leave for the doctor's she fell asleep on the couch in this position:

Totally asleep and totally snoring!

I've never ever seen her this lethargic before!
Asleep again waiting for the doctor.
They did a flu test and it was negative, so I am not sure exactly what she had. She never did throw up again and her fever was gone by Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday, she stayed home from school and rode her tricycle around the house. This is significant since she has never before used petals to ride the tricycle. She just uses her feet. That was part of the reason for getting her a big bike -- I figured if she couldn't reach the ground she'd have to learn to petal. We haven't had a chance to try out her new found ability to petal on the big bike yet, but it was a huge success with the trike!

Not participating for the camera.

Before her nap -- feeling MUCH better!