Train Park and Fair

We ventured over the mountain this past Sunday to take the boys to another train park.  We had been to one a little closer to our house a few times before, but had heard good things about this one and wanted to try it out.  As expected, the boys loved it, and we got to enjoy a fun family morning for free!  We took a ride on a miniature train, watched the coolest model trains in an elaborate setup, and even got to walk through a real caboose!  The place is run entirely by volunteers, and they do a great job making it interesting and fun for kids.

Here are the boys waiting for our turn to ride the train.  The place was really crowded!

And here's our ride!

Notice how Jackson has his ears plugged.  Our train had a very realistic whistle that he thought was really loud.  :)

Inside the caboose...

And then we saw Thomas.  Oh, my goodness... the jibberish yells of excitement that Emmett was emitting were so cute!  He loooooves Thomas.  We almost couldn't tear him away from the fence.  Next summer little kiddos will be able to ride on this Thomas train.  We can't wait for that!

Back to Thomas...

A few weeks ago we took the boys to a cute little fair in the area.  We didn't ride any rides, but we did enjoy some yummy fair food, saw a bunch of animals, and "played with the pumps."  This was the boys' very favorite thing.  There was a great kids' play area at the fair and the boys literally could have stayed at this water pump station all day.  What a great setup for kids!

The kids cranked the pump to make water come out, and then there were all those rubber ducks that they could put in the trough.  The water they pumped out would push the ducks into another bucket.  They were in heaven.  

Jackson had the funniest expressions on his face while he pumped.  He got really into it!

Emmett picking corn out of his toes...

Dad checking fantasy football...

Leftover chocolate on his face from sharing Mommy's ice cream...

The animals were so great at this fair.  They were all raised by kids and were so well taken care of.  And they were all very friendly!  Jackson wasn't afraid of them at all like I thought he would be.  He even petted many of them!  The sheep and goats were especially sweet.  I tried not to think about the fact that most of them would be dead soon!  

A duck and a pig were sharing a pen in one area.  No idea why, but so cute!

Sorry for the long post, but I've been meaning to post these fair pics for a while now!  I'm really lacking motivation these days.  

No Pink For You!

Well, it's official... we are having a third boy!  We went in for an ultrasound yesterday and there was, again, no mistaking the gender of this baby.  :)  I was really anxious when we first got into the room, but once I saw the baby on the screen I calmed down a lot.  The ultrasound tech knew that I was hoping for a girl, but she waited until almost the end to look at the privates.  She started up with his head measuring his brain, looking at his nose and mouth, etc. and then worked her way down the body.  As she got closer to the other end I was studying the screen hard to see if I could pick it out, and then... there it was.  I said, "Oh, I think I see it," and the tech looked at me with a little frowny face and said, "Yes... it's a boy.  I'm sorry!" And I know that she didn't mean that in a bad way, she just knew that I was really hoping to see a different organ there!  There's, of course, nothing to be upset or sorry about.  The baby looks very healthy, and what a blessing that is!  You know how it is, though, when you're really hoping for something to happen and it doesn't turn out the way you hoped... there is a period of disappointment no matter how much you know that you shouldn't feel disappointed.    

I was thinking this morning about why I really wanted a girl, and most of the reasons are silly - like pigtails and bows and cute clothes and tea parties and cheerleading, etc.  But then there's the other thing that haunts me - my boys growing up and getting married and not needing me or wanting to see me anymore.  And isn't that selfish and silly of me to worry about!  They're supposed to grow up and get married and not need me anymore!!  I just thought that if I had a girl, at least she would always want and need her Mom to go to for advice and to chat with and to talk to about random things.  But then this morning I was thinking about all of the friends I have who aren't really close with their moms and I tried to remind myself that just because I have a great relationship with my mom doesn't guarantee that if I had a girl she and I would always be really close.  I know lots of ladies who see their in-laws more and actually get along better with their mothers-in-law than their own moms.  I'll just have to pray and pray that my boys marry sweet, loving women who will want to include us in their lives.  And that Phil and I will raise our boys to love and respect us and want to maintain close relationships with us.  And that we can see them for at least a few holidays!  :)

I know that this is God's will and I'm going to trust that He knows best.  And look what He has created!!

Isn't that a beautiful profile??  We're trying to decide who he looks more like. We compared Jackson's and Emmett's ultrasound profiles to his and Phil thinks he has more of Emmett's face shape. It will be neat to see who he looks more like in person!

And check out these adorable feet!  I love, love, love baby feet... even in ultrasound pictures.  

And here's kind of a creepy picture.  Head on he still kind of looks skeleton-like through the ultrasound.  Here he's on his side and his mouth is open.  We think he kind of looks like the Scream Halloween mask!  :)

And here's my favorite picture, even if the tech did spell "thumb" wrong.  :)  He's saying, "It's okay, Mom!  I'm going to be the sweetest baby boy ever!  We are going to have so much fun!  And I promise not to draw on your white couch and come home for Christmas at least every other year!"  :)

We love him so much already!

First Day

Jackson had his first day of preschool today!  He goes to a Christian preschool at a church near our house two days a week for about three hours.  I was SO nervous about today and a little sad, too.  J is such a sweet, good boy and I love having him at home with me.  I knew that he would like school, though.

God must have known I was nervous and sad about sending him.  Right before we were about to leave I ran into the bathroom for a second while the boys finished their breakfast.  I heard both of them giggling uncontrollably and when I came back I noticed that J had been tossing his eggs at Emmett's feet.  There were eggs all over the floor in front of Emmett's chair.  That's what was making them both crack up.  Well, that got me a little more ready for us to be off to school for sure!

J was really happy and excited while we were getting ready to go.  I thought he would be telling me that he didn't want to go, but every time I would ask him if he was ready or excited he would give me an enthusiastic, "YES!" He even put on his backpack and let me take some pictures!

I know he looks scared here, but he wasn't.  My camera wasn't cooperating.  J was actually very obliging with pictures today.    

Emmett would have stayed, too, if I'd have let him.  I think I might be a little more excited and ready for Emmett to go to school when the time comes!!  :)

Once we pulled into the parking lot of the church Jackson started saying that he wanted Mommy and Emmett to go to school, too, but he still walked right on into his classroom with no problem.  I got him interested in some activity and then snuck out.  I know that's not the best thing, but I knew he would be upset if I told him I was leaving.  The next 2-1/2 hours went so slowly for me!  I got coffee with some friends and ran some errands with Emmett and kept checking the time.  I was just praying that he was having fun and not freaking out!

When I got there to pick him up he was happy to see me and very excited.  His teacher said that he cried just a little off and on for about 10 minutes (he kept telling her he needed his Mommy... tear!) and then he was totally fine!  He played and participated like normal.  On the way home he had big smiles and was telling me all that he did.  He even said, "I WUV school!" once.  Yay!!  And the icing on the cake for me was that as we were sitting together eating lunch after school he told me out of the blue three times, "I wuv you, Mom," with a little sigh at the end.  Oh, be still me heart!!  I could eat him up. Here's hoping the second day goes just as well!

Lava Beds

Phil and I must have felt very motivated and active Labor Day weekend, because the day after we got back from Bend we decided to make a trip to the Lava Beds, which is a national park fairly close to our house.  We had never been there and heard that it was a neat place.  Don't ask me to explain the history behind the Lava Beds... if you're really interested you can google it!  :)  Basically there's just a lot of hardened lava rocks in the middle of a desert-y area.  And some really cool lava tube caves (or so we've heard... we didn't really get to explore any caves... more of that in a minute).

As soon as we got to the park we took a little hike on a trail called Captain Jack's Stronghold.  I guess a long time ago a group of Modoc Indians (led by a Native American man that the white people called Captain Jack) holed up in the area that the trail runs through and fought against U.S. Army soldiers who were trying to move them to a reservation nearby.  The Modocs were outnumbered by a lot, but they held off the Army for a few months, I think, until the Army cut off their water supply and the Modocs had to surrender.  At first the trail just cuts through a desert-like area and we thought it was kind of boring, but about halfway through the trail runs through some pretty rough terrain and we were having to do a lot of climbing over and up lava rocks.  This got fairly tricky with Emmett in the backpack, Jackson trying to navigate the rocks himself and every once in a while tripping and falling and having to be carried, and me being pregnant and trying not to fall myself!  And on top of that we had to listen for rattlesnakes because we had heard they were everywhere out there!  Luckily, we didn't run into any.  The trail was only a mile and a half, but it felt like much longer once we hit the rocky area!

There were very pretty views of Mount Shasta from the trail...

As we neared the end of the trail we kept talking about exploring the caves next.  Every time we mentioned caves Jackson would say something about bones being in the caves and the bones being scary.  We couldn't figure out what he meant, so we decided to just try one cave and see how it went.  There's only one cave at the park that is lighted (lit?) inside and "easy" to navigate, so we decided to try that one.  All of the others are pitch black and you need at least three light sources (they say) when you explore them.  Some you even have to get on your hands and knees to crawl through.  No, thank you!!!  Anyway, here are the boys at the entrance to the cave.  Jackson did not want to take a picture.  

This is the only picture I took inside the cave.  You can see that it was lit by strips of those red lights on the floor. Not very bright.  And Phil had to keep ducking to avoid having E hit his head.  The top of the cave was pretty jagged.  Jackson was fine for about 300 feet, until we had to duck down and enter a pretty dark section of the cave.  As soon as he saw the darkness, he started screaming, "Dere's BONES in dere!"  "Bones weewy scawy!!" over and over again.  He was crying and clearly very scared, so we high-tailed it out of there.  All during the walk out of the cave, up the stairs, and back to the car he kept saying how the cave was really scary and that there were bones in there and the bones were really scary.  Phil and I kept wracking our brains to figure out where he got this.  I finally remembered an episode of Curious George where George goes into a cave to find his lost ball.  It's dark in the cave and George thinks that the rock formations are scary things.  And I think that George thinks he sees a skeleton, which is where the bones come in.  We haven't watched that episode in at least 6 months, though.  He has a mind like an elephant!  I felt terrible that we let him see that and it scared him so much.  Needless to say, we won't be going in any more caves any time soon!  

Just a final family shot before we left...