Summer Colds and All!

We've had quite a few dance parties in the kitchen courtesy of the LeapFrog Farm on our fridge. One child or the other is constantly running through the kitchen and pushing the chicken button so the songs play.

This one has finally discovered he can move his diaper up and down.  We're all crossing our fingers he never discovers that he can get it ALL the way off!

Friday morning I took the kiddos to a park to burn some energy, hoping to get there early enough and beat the heat..  Unfortunately, we weren't as quick as we'd hoped so we were red-faced in no time.

The sun didn't stop them from having a good time though.  Maverick has become very loving lately, holding hands, giving hugs and I've thoroughly enjoyed watching him interact with his big sister.  There are times I think it's all just a power play, but sometimes I think he's really showing affection instead.

After a ridiculously crazy, chaotic lunch at Chick-Fil-A (the Wallis family loves their chicken AND all the company stands for -  we were just a couple days behind as we'd attempted to have dinner there on the 1st but the drive-thru was over 20 cars deep).  Maverick quickly fell asleep in his car seat after lunch and then we stopped at Conner Prairie

(since it's air conditioned and free now that we're members). 

We churned butter.

Played with puzzles.

Shot some hoops.

Picked some apples.

Did some shopping.

And solved the wheel puzzle!

Then we headed outside.

Phoebe has no desire to go up in the big balloon so this may be as good as it gets for awhile.

On their playground, she handed me this pine cone and said it was her "treasure."

I think she got tired of me telling her to smile for the camera!  And Maverick isn't in the rest of these pictures because as he was walking out of the barn and took a tumble - as I tried to catch him, I whacked him in the mouth with my camera and as a result, he had a busted lip most of the weekend.

Just as we were about to arrive home, Ryan called to say we needed to head to Tipton and pick him up as the jeep had bit the dust.  Luckily, after a quick inspection, it just needed a new radiator so it's not down for the count just yet.  The kids handled all the extra driving well and we made it to YiaYia and Papou's around 7:00 and Ryan and I managed to still go out and grab dinner, just the two of us. 

On a side note, Maverick had gotten up between 1:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. six nights in a row so when Saturday rolled around, we decided to take advantage of our pediatrician's Saturday hours and had the little guy checked out.  We were secretly hoping for an ear infection - something in which medicine could work its magic and we'd all start sleeping again.  The diagnosis: he just had a small cold (that could develop into an ear infection in a few days) but for now we were to just ride it out.  Not what we wanted to hear but he did sleep through the night Sunday, so hopefully we're back on the straight and narrow.

I think two hours after our visit to the doctor, Maverick got a full-fledged cold - you could tell he just felt yuck so we didn't do much the rest of the day and did a lot of sanitizing!  Sunday we decided to avoid the church nursery and took it easy at home.  We'd gotten a really bad storm around 5:30 that morning but the radar showed clear skies the rest of the day so early afternoon, we decided to head to the State Fair which had opened on Friday.

I always thought buying one of these would be a good idea but then I thought she was too big and he was too small...Phoebe still thinks we should get one (despite the fact that her knees bump the front every time she moves).

Maverick wanted to go for a ride, too once he saw her riding around.  This picture was the last one we took as things soon got ugly and we left shortly thereafter to get naps in and escape the heat.  We'll probably try to go again next weekend with the rest of Indiana when the temps are supposed to barely make it into the 80s.   See you then!