Marana Pumpkin Patch

We are way overdue for a blog post, but this time we have a legitimate reason for not posting for a while: our laptop has been in the shop. Thankfully, it's repaired now and we didn't lose any of our pictures or videos from the last month or two. On the 7th of this month, we went to the Marana Pumpkin Patch and Grandma Knight came along with us. There were tons of fun things to do while we were there and we all had a blast.

We started out at the jumping pillows - basically an air matress the size of our backyard.  This was my favorite activity and the kids liked it enough to do it twice while we were there. Ryan didn't jump so much; instead he would run and fall flat on his face and then laugh about it.

Starting our adventure at the Marana Pumpkin Patch.

The jumping pillows: giant air mattress for bouncing and jumping. Ryan spent most of his time running, falling, and laughing about falling.

The farm has a "mountain" of hay bails that you can climb and even walk under.  Here's a shot of Rachel waving about half way up the mountain.

Rachel stops to wave halfway to the summit.

Here are some pictures of Annie and Ryan exploring the tunnel under the mountain.

Annie going into the tunnel.

Ryan coming out of the tunnel.

Below is a shot of Grandma, me and Rachel at the summit.  Ryan is waving to us and Rachel is already on her way back down the mountain.

Ryan waving to me and Grandma Knight.

The were plenty of places for silly pictures: Annie the cow and Grandma the chicken.

The farm has a playground with barns that you can climb and slides out of.  There were also two or three tractors in the sand.  Ryan loves tractors.  He's a man's man.

Tacta! Tacta! That's Ryan-speak for Tractor! Tractor!

Annie is climbing to the top of the playground barn.

Colette and Ryan sliding down out of the playground barn.  These were very fast slides: notice how Colette is holding the hand rails of the slide.

Colette trying to slow down with her hands and hold on to Annie with her feet.

Annie is trying out one of the tractors at the playground.

One of the barns had a climbing wall coming out of its side.  Rachel took to climbing like a fish to water.

After we had played for a while on the playground,  we went and got some snow cones and then went to watch the pig races.  It was kind of fun to cheer the pigs on, though I think the kids liked the snow cones better than the pig racing.

Admission to the farm included a pumpkin, so once the snow cones were all eaten, we headed out the the pumpkin patches.  The kids were excited to pick a pumpkin and ride in the trailer behind a tractor.  Ryan was excited to be near a tractor (though you can't really tell from the picture below).

Annie is so excited about getting her pumpkin.

You can see the remnants of Ryan's snow cone on his face.

The sun went behind some clouds on the way out to the pumpkin patches.  We noticed the temperature go from hot to just right.

When we arrived, I informed the girls that they could pick any pumpkin that they wanted as long as they could carry it by themselves.

The great pumpkin search begins.

I love this shot of Rachel and Colette out in the pumpkin patches.  I think it's very picturesque.

I don't remember what Ryan was pointing at in this picture (probably at the "tacta!"). He had a good time in the pumpkin patch.

After everyone found a pumpkin, we had Grandma take some family pictures for us.

Below are some photos of the ride back from the pumpkin patches.

The ladies.

The fellas.  Ryan spent a good deal of the ride back telling the tractor to "Go Tacta! Go".

The workers at the farm said that we were welcome to use a wheel barrow to take the pumpkins back to our cars and then return to the farm.  After the pumpkins were deposited in the car, Colette said the kids could have a ride in the wheel barrow.

Happy kids.

Happy family.

After getting our pumpkins we went to the petting zoo.  At the petting zoo, we all decided that we wanted one more bounce on the jumping pillows.  On the way back from the petting zoo, we took some more silly pictures and Rachel went for one last climb on the mountain of hay.

Rachel, standing as a beacon, a bright light of justice, in the waning sunlight.

We bounced on the jumping pillows while the sun was setting.  Everybody was smiling.  The kids were very disappointed when it was time to leave. So were Ryan, Annie and Rachel. 

I like this shot of Colette.  You can see me bouncing with Ryan in the background.

Colette and Annette took some pictures of the sunset.  In this photo you can see the playground with the gaint barns.

Arizona sunsets, so beautiful.

All in all, this was a great family outing.  Kudos to Colette for planning it!

Fall Break

Rachel has been on fall break for the last 3 weeks. It's been a fun three weeks, but we're all happy that she goes back to school tomorrow. The first day of the break went to the pet store as the first break activity, then on the way home Rachel made a list of things the kids wanted to do over the break:

Bike ride, Jamba juice, park, zoo, cartoons, movies, mountain (have a picnic up there), goats (at Civano Nursery), play date, library, Gramma's house, museum, trip (she wanted to take a trip to Utah, but we settled for a trip to the pumpkin patch), bake cookies, toy store, end, camping.

We accomplished most of the list, while also being able to spend some good quality time at home doing nothing. Or climbing in the cupboards, for Ryan.

Most days we had a job around the house that had to be done before we could leave (pick up the playroom, vacuum downstairs, etc.). Most days it was a great motivator and the kids (mostly Rachel) did their job quickly and without complaining. Some days it was torture and we even had to put off an outing once or twice when the job didn't get done. But mostly it was a win-win situation. Our house got cleaned and we got out of the house to do something fun. 

We made it to the zoo on a beautiful day when the weather finally cooled down a bit. It was 71 when we got there and 75 when we left. Can't get any more perfect than that. And apparently the gibbons liked the weather, too, because they put on an awesome show swinging all around their cage and making tons of noise that Ryan absolutely loved.

Justin and Marie moved a couple of weeks ago, so we were happy to have Peyton and McKenzie come spend the day with us. They are such easy-going kids I barely noticed they were there. They go along with everything my bossy kids dream up without a fight or a complaint. 

We made it down to the Children's Museum downtown one day. There were a few changes since the last time we'd been there. The kids loved it. We could have spent all day there if it weren't for parking meters and naps.

The Wee World Jungle Room for kids 4 and under:

 Shhh. Rachel played on everything, too. We were the only ones there at that point, so if she beat up the little kids they were already used to it. :)

 

Ryan kept poking his head out saying "Peeboo!" (Peek-a-boo!)

 

 

Grocery shopping and picking fruit from the "tree house:"

 

Luckily the train room was kind of a hub with 3 rooms connecting to it that the girls liked. Ryan mostly stayed in the train room walking through the big train and watching the model train they have going around the top of the wall all the way around the room.  I stayed in the train room with Ry-guy and could watch the girls as they went around to the different rooms/activities that they liked.

 

One of the new exhibits was a room of balls. You could build your own roller coaster to send balls along:

Or make ping pong balls float in mid-air (similar to using a hair dryer to hold it in the air stream), or see the sound waves with a bunch of tiny styrofoam balls. But the best one was this big vacuum that you could send big poofy balls or scarfs through. You could watch it go through all the tubes, then it spit them out at you through one of three different outlets.

 There was another 4 and under part that wasn't empty, but as long as Rachel was letting the little kids do whatever they wanted I figured who cares if she's 5.

 And we finished off the Children's museum with a trip in the Ambulance and the Fire Truck. Then Ryan declared it was "oud!" (loud) so we went outside for some snacks, then headed home.

 Not on our list that Rachel did over the break: started piano lessons. Her former preschool teacher that lives one street over agreed to take her on as a student, and having had two lessons Rachel is loving it. She comes home from her lesson and goes to practice and gets very frustrated at not being able to play the new songs well, then by the next day she can play them really well. She's really good about practicing, too, and most days I don't even have to remind her, but when I do she goes right away to practice. Let's hope that keeps up. :)

We went on a short bike ride (in some crazy wind) to the Hendrix's house to see their turtles. Rachel did a really good job riding the whole way on her 2-wheeler without crashing, and all the way back, too. A few weeks ago we got Rachel a 20" bike from a garage sale our neighbor was having. Rachel does a really good job riding it, but it's just a little too high for her to reach the ground while sitting on the seat, so she's having a hard time starting and stopping, but is catching on.

We went to Lakeside Park to feed the ducks, to Civano Nursery and fed the goats, and to the Pumpkin Patch (which will be it's very own post) got to feed the pony and cows. We made it to the library, baked cookies, and the kids got to have a sleepover at Grandma's house (thankfully her one week of break matched up with one of Rachel's 3 weeks). We planned a play date at Purple Heart Park and invited several of Rachel's friends from school, since she was missing them after a couple weeks not seeing them. Only 2 showed up because most of them have both parents working, but it was fun with those two. We even made it to the movie theater to see Monster's University.

The grand finale of our fall break was to go to Disney on Ice yesterday. Jacob stayed home with Ryan and Grandma Knight accompanied us.

 Besides the ridiculously overpriced snacks ($12 for a small thing of cotton candy!) and souvenirs, it was an awesome show. We all loved it and thought Jacob and Ryan should have come because they would have liked it, too. Next time...

This is during Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid:

 And part of the show with Brave:

Overall it was a great break. I think the only things on the list we didn't get to were: Jamba juice, mountain, toy store, and camping. And we had planned on going camping on the mountain, but Jacob ended up having to work that weekend to meet a deadline at work. If the weather holds out we may do that this weekend instead. So far we're enjoying the modified year-round schedule we've got in the school district here. And now back to school. :)

Ryan 18 months old

A couple of weeks ago Ryan hit that all important milestone: he turned 18 months old. Woohoo, nursery! He actually just went for the first time today because last week right during the sacrament prayer he threw up all over himself and me as I hurried out of the chapel in the vain attempt to get somewhere more appropriate to throw up. I didn't think anyone would appreciate me taking him home to change his shirt and bringing him back for his first nursery adventure. Instead of nursery last week he came home and did this:

The little boy LOVES the computer a little too much. If it's open he types and clicks on it, changing all sorts of settings with keyboard shortcuts I never knew existed. If it's closed he climbs up(notice he's sitting on the table), opens it, and gets to work. Perhaps he's destined to follow in his father's computer nerding footsteps. :) There are a lot worse jobs he could aspire to.

Today at nursery he went without any fuss. Once he saw the puzzles on the table he was sold. I've been a little concerned about how the whole snack thing would play out at nursery, keeping him from grabbing the other kids' gluten snacks, and such, but today snack time seemed to go fine. We'll see over the next few weeks if there are any ill effects from the gluten fingers after snack time playing with toys that Ryan then touches. He's gotten a bit better about not putting his hands in his mouth, so I'm hoping that as long as we always wash his hands when we get home from church he'll be fine. It's a little nerve-wracking putting a little guy with serious food issues in other peoples' hands for a couple of hours, but I've got to get used to it sometime. And the nursery leader seems familiar with Celiac Disease, and is a self-proclaimed wiping fanatic that likes to wipe up everything the kids touch, so that makes me feel more comfortable letting him go.

Recently we decided to take down the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. Ryan is really good on the stairs most of the time, even when he's trying to go down standing up like his sisters do. He usually goes down on his tummy until he gets to where the railing begins, then he stands up and walks down the stairs holding on. It makes me nervous, but not as much as it used to. He's really pretty good about it. And hasn't fallen down the steps at all in the last few months. Most of the time I was leaving the gate open at the bottom of the stairs anyway so Annie could go up when she wanted, and Ryan would mostly go close the gate behind him and sit between the bottom stair and the gate. 

It was one of his favorite places in the house to be. And I took it away. Now he likes to just sit on the bottom couple of stairs. We left the gate up at the top so I can still corral him when I want to keep him from wandering the whole house freely. 

But he actually likes being caged up, I guess. As I was folding up/dismantling the gate all he wanted to do was sit in the cage. Freedom is overrated sometimes, I guess.

As for his 18 month appointment, we finally saw the results I've been hoping for. The boy is growing! 

 That's a 23 percentile jump in his height growth in the last 3 months, where before he was dropping in the percentages every visit.

And he's up to where he's actually touching the bottom line on the weight chart. Still in the "less than 3rd percentile," but he will be a real percentile by next visit, I'm sure. This is after being gluten-free for 3 months and dairy-free for 2 months. It feels good to know he's finally growing like he should be. This week we have an appointment with a pediatric gastroenterologist just to establish care. I'm guessing he'll recommend that we test the girls, too, since having a first degree relative who has Celiac Disease ups the chances of having it yourself from 1 in 133 in the general population to 1 in 22 (or as one study showed, maybe as high as 1 in 8) chance of having Celiac Disease. We did test Rachel last year, but the blood tests aren't very accurate for young children. If we test the girls we'll probably do the enterolab.com testing that we did with Ryan, which they claim is more sensitive and accurate for kids older than 1.

Anyway, we're happy to have Ryan around. And happy to have him not around for 2 hours every Sunday when he goes to nursery. :) He's been pretty whiny this last week, though he was sick for a couple of days and is getting one last tooth poking through. I sure hope he returns to his mostly happy self soon. He loves his sisters, especially playing monster with them, either chasing them as the monster, or being chased by them. He also knows really well how to torment Annie. And she torments him really well, too. But sometimes she really likes him and is nice to him and can make him laugh like crazy. Rachel is usually very nice and helpful to him and likes to make him laugh (and is really good at it). Ryan is talking like a champ, now. Those of us in his family can usually understand him. He occasionally puts a couple of words together, even, to make a semi-sentence. And he copies any word we tell him to say. My favorite to hear him say is pop-kick-cull (popsicle).