Ten on Tuesdsay

1. We are three days into Zach's business trip and my week of single parenting. Huge thanks to Grandma, Uncle Able, Aunt Abbey, and Aunt Anna for coming to keep us company and helping watch the boys the next two days while I work. The boys have been doing pretty good, but I am so ready for Zach to come home.

2. Saturday Rowan went to his very first movie in the movie theater. We went into it will a full back up plan for when he decided he couldn't sit still and needed to leave, but little Ro baby did an amazing job. Of course snacks and drinks were a huge help, but he seemed to thoroughly enjoy the minions as well. When I asked him what his favorite part of the movie was he said "the polar bear" which was a very short scene in the movie, so maybe he did know what was going on.

Saturday just so happened to be little E's first movie too. Can you tell how excited they both were about it.

3. Look who we saw on Sunday at the grocery store! Very exciting and I managed to get out of the store without buy a $20 balloon!

4. We have been struggling to stay cool in the depths of Oklahoma's July heat. Monday we went and had ice cream at the new Dairy Queen by out house followed by the book store. Tuesday we went to the library and of course our daily trips to the gym. The pool is still up with new water and is getting lots of use these days. 

5.One of our library books was about Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of Teddy Roosevelt. Alice was apparently quite wild and difficult to control. She also had a pet green tree snake that apparently got loose in the White House quite often. Who know?? Alice sounds like she was quite a bit of fun! There is your fun fact of the day, and yes the majority of our library books were about snakes, obviously.

6.Today we met Aunt Anna at the Science Museum to show her the new CurioCity exhibit. She of course loved it and it was just as fun as last time. We followed that up with a visit to Uncle Able's shop and lunch with both of Zane's Godparent's. It was a banner morning, followed by late naps which makes the day go by so much quicker.

 Zane made Aunt Anna lay on the bed of nails. I am guessing Zane took this lovely shot of Aunt Anna after lunch while I was paying, found it on my phone, pretty entertaining.

7. July is almost over and I have yet to figure out how to get Zane into swim lessons. Apparently the private lessons are generally only in June and July, who knew. I am going to look into other Y lessons I guess. How does summer go by so quickly. 

8. Rowan has a new found interest in potty training. He goes pee on the potty quite a bit and wants to sit and try every time his brother goes potty. He has figured out that this is a great stalling method before naps and bed time, "Mamma, my bottom hurts, I need to go potty" as soon as it's bed time. He really wants to wear underwear like brother, but I don't think we are ready for that at all. He is getting too big and it's hard to believe that when Zane was his age I was getting ready to have another baby. Craziness!!

9. There was another big earthquake here yesterday afternoon. Rowan had just woken up from his nap when we felt it. I was holding him and he just said, in his little two year old voice, earthquake. Zane was in no way phased by it, didn't even look up from the iPad. It does seem to be a pretty common occurrence here these days. How does a two year old know what an earthquake is??

10. Just about the time I thought I had things under control here, single parenting this week, I go and almost cut my pinkie finger off. There might have been a few too many cooks in this evening, trying to cut up our butternut squash for dinner and I cut right through my left pinkie finger's fingernail. Turns out fingernails serve a purpose, because I didn't cut my finger off. Zane was a big helper and Aunt Abbey rushed to my rescue, big thanks! Now it hurts a lot and I'm dreading washing my hands all day at work the next two days. It is a real struggle.

Ten On Tuesday

1. It had been too long since my last spice shop visit, so Friday the boys and I headed down to load up on all our favorites. The boys were excited to see Uncle Able and there was the surprise bonus of seeing Aunt Kari too. Uncle Able quickly put the boys to work organizing and cleaning and they loved every minute of it. "But Mamma I really want to mop," was the whines I heard as we left.

2. I worked on Saturday while the boys had a man day. They went to Grandma's to help fix a few things then came back to OKC for the snake festival, to celebrate world snake day, on Saturday evening. From what I hear they saw multiple boa constrictors, who were not in cages, and lots of venomous snakes who were safely locked up. Zane got to hear a real rattle snake rattle, which I think was his highlight. They also made neck tie snakes and both finally got up the courage to touch a few snakes before they left. I'm sad I missed it, but sounds like they had a blast.

3. On Sunday Zach was back at work and the boys and I headed up to Grandma's for more summer fun. In the morning the cousins were still there so they played in the tree house, which is much more fun when all the cousins are all there. In the afternoon we headed to torn for some cooler fun at Leonardos. We were greated by the ball python who was out of his cage, Rowan had zero fear of this large snake, while Zane had a healthy fear that it might eat him. Both said hi and gave him pats before it headed back to it's cage.

Zane was much happier when he was back in his cage.

Serious faces in the king chair with their new snakes!

4. After dinner we braved the blazing heat to go ride the rides at Meadowlake Park. They are only open on the weekends in the summer so we had to jump on the chance to ride them while we were in town. First up the train! This was the only ride that was there when I was a child and is still as fun as I remember.

Next up the carousel, this was added last year and is the longest carousel ride I've ever been on. Great summer fun. Zane choose the horse with a K on it, for Korenak of course. Rowan choose one of the little OSU horses, channeling his namesake no doubt.

Lastly, Zane and I braved the new farris wheel. The farris wheel was this years addition and it just the right size for kiddos. Zane was slightly nervous going in, but decided this would be his training for roller coasters with Uncle Able. He did great and loved all of it. So much fun!

Hands up!!!

5. Monday we had more farm adventures, starting with my early morning run/nature hunt. Zane had instructed me to "look out for nature" and take pictures of any snakes I might see. I didn't see any snakes but did see lots of nature, including this guy who was eating a stink bug! Nature find of the day!!!

I also saw tons of different footprints which I took pictures of and Zane identified when I got home. I might not have gotten much running done. Can you tell I was running on a road that doesn't see much traffic???

6. While Grandma was in PT we tried to play at a park but nearly died of a heat stroke. Why is there never shade in parks?? And why does the Oklahoma wind never blow when you need it too? Zane climbed up to the top of the playground equipment to find his shade.

At five Zane has mastered the monkey bars.

7. Apparently there were five big earthquakes up by mom's house on Monday but we didn't feel any of them because we were outside exploring. Our nature hunt for the day was for locus skins and this particular tree, and the ground around it, were filled with them. We also found a few locus who had not survived, great nature lessons all around.

Look at all our treasure.

8. After much debate and concern about my beloved Atticus possibly being a huge racist, I went ahead and started Go Set A Watchman, Harper Lee's new book. Mom read it in a day, or something silly like that, and assured me that it is wonderful. I am halfway through and so far I have to agree. I so hate that Harper Lee didn't write anymore books because she is an amazing writer and her books are an absolute joy to read. Scout remains hysterical and it's been wonderful to revisit Maycomb. I'll let you know my final review soon.

 

9. We registered Zane for fall ball today. He claims he is very excited and can't wait to play baseball again. He seemed to enjoy it last time, hopefully it is a success. I am unclear of whether he will be on the same team, possibly we could practice this time?? Just a thought.

 The coolest baseball player around!

10. Zach is deep in trying to finish a big project at work which will be followed by a whirl wind trip to the West coast all of next week. Turns out I am not that great of a parent when I am doing it by myself. This evening at dinner time everything crumbled into a mess ending with all of us in tears. We all agreed to pull it together and went for an evening bike ride in the very humid, but somewhat cooler weather. Then the boys had a long glow stick bath. God bless all the single parents out there. I could not do it and am praying that my partner in parenting will be freed up from work sometime in the near future. We miss you Daddy!!!

All things considered these two have really done great and have been wonderful helpers. Sadly their mommy just is lacking patience currently!

P.S. I swam with a Gold Medal Olympic swimmer at the Y this morning, Josh Davis, so I am pretty sure that makes me an Olympic swimmer!!!

Ten on Tuesday

1. Last week I finally made it to the new CurioCity exhibit at the Oklahoma Science Museum. It literally blew me away. Absolutely amazing!! I have no idea where they got the money to do this but it was fantastical! My highlights were the carousel, the heart beat drum, tight rope, huge pirate ship water area, and of course the bed of nails. Seriously if you are anywhere near OKC this is a must see for everyone, the adults walking through the exhibit were just as excited as the kids!!
I forgot my good camera so here are a few phone shots, I'll be better ones next time!

 When you put your hands on this bar the drum beats the rhythm of your heart.

 This was a huge pirate ship room that included digging in sand, sometimes for dinosaur bones, water play, slides, and the best part a place that was warm/had fans to dry everyone off at the end.

 The kids had to pedal their animals to make the carousel go, physics in action.

 Xylophones made out of wrenches and they sounded lovely!

2. This weekend we were back at the lake/farm. Started off the fun on Saturday morning with a snake hunt.This was our first unsuccessful snake hunt, but we did see lots of snake skins and a few lizards!

3. Then we helped Grandma do some gardening, since her arm isn't quite back to one hundred percent. The boys helped me dig potatoes and then they clean them all off for us. I proceeded to have a heat stroke pulling weeds. All classic things you do at the farm in July

 4. Then we headed out to the lake after naps for a little swimming/fishing. In good news there are tons of fish, that we could see, so it was almost impossible not to catch a fish. Zane caught his first fish, all by himself, and later in the afternoon so did Rowan. It was great fun and both boys were so proud of himself. 

First fish!

 Rowan was happy to pretend fish for a while, but eventually we put a hook on the Spiderman pole and he immediately caught his first little fish!!

 Fishing boys!!!

5. On Sunday all the cousins were there and the real fun began. Lots of swimming, laughing, diving, fishing, cousin fun! Look at these cousin shots, so classic.

 6. The kids were in the lake all day, possibly way to long, and ended up a little red. However, they had a great time!

7. The highlight of the day was the diving competition/photo shoot. I was the photographer, in the paddle boat. I got some amazing shots that are going to need to be hug in the cabin ASAP!

8. After weeks of waiting we finally cracked open the birthday coconuts!!! Rowan almost threw up, but Zane loved it!

9. Tonight there was a strange turn of events. Uncle Able took Zane on a mattress buying adventure and Zach was working late, which meant it was just little Rowan and I at home for most of the evening. Rowan played quietly in his kitchen and at one point I found him laying on the floor looking at a book. I think this is what having a first child without any other child might be like. Very quiet and slightly strange. Of course Rowan was lost without his Bobo.

"Mommy cuddoo me while I watch Mickey, right there." -Ro

 Rowan went poop on the potty twice today. I guess I should invest in some M&Ms as my random candy supply is running low.

 Meanwhile Zane was on an adventure in a 1970s Ranchero. Yes he had a booster and there are no airbags so I am mostly sure he is legal? He got these rad glasses at Sonic and came home with great tales from his adventures. Thanks Uncle Able!!

10.The evening took a turn for the crazy when Zane got home, shocking I know. It ended with Rowan having a bloody nose and he was bleeding from the mouth in two different places, really unsure how this happened, but everyone was screaming, there was blood on the couch, and it felt much more normal to me. The struggle is real with these kids, we are going to be in the ER in no time.