Sweet Victory

You know we made it to Kentucky (and back), but you might not know that I count that flight as one of my greatest accomplishments to date. I will explain. Flying with the boys reminded me of a four hour sacrament meeting at bedtime, as a single mom and without the option of a foyer escape! It certainly wasn't the most pleasant of experiences (to put it mildly), but we survived. The good travel advice from you helped. I had a bag full of tricks and they all worked perfectly on Noah. As for Jake, well, we tried. He fought sleep the whole flight, and he won, which meant I had one tired and wired little boy on my hands for four hours. By the time we made it to Indianapolis I felt like I just finished running a marathon. But the exhaustion made the feeling of victory even sweeter.


What I learned that will help me in future expeditions:

• I can do hard things. (Dale Murphy's family motto)


• Plan for the worst case scenario. Don't expect your baby to do something that he doesn't normally do (fall asleep in your arms, in Jake's case). Chances are, no matter how hard you try, he won't do it when it's in an unfamiliar setting and the pressure is on!


• It is very very nice to have a row of seats all to yourself. Do whatever it takes to make that happen. (Make sure your children are especially fussy while boarding the plane. And try not to be offended when passengers give you THAT look and rush past your row desperate for seating on the other side of the plane. Remember, as long as the flight is not booked to capacity, chances are, no one will choose willingly to sit next to you!)


• Stock up on cheap Dollar Store toys. Toys get lost very easily in transit, so better to lose toys you don't care about and will most likely throw away when you get home anyway. And since they are so cheap, go ahead and get duplicates of each toy for each child. This saves a few fights.


• Invest in a good dry-erase/chalk/magnet board (Melissa and Doug's TJ Maxx 9 bucks) with its alphabet magnets and the sold-separately wooden magnet sets (we got the dinosaurs to fuel Noah's obsession). But don't use all the magnets on a flight (airborne wooden magnets are a scary thing.) It did pass a lot of time on the drive home (at least 6 hours, Thanks Melissa and Doug).


• Use the element of surprise. When they start getting bored, say you have a surprise, let the suspense build for a few minutes, and then break out a new toy, new snack, or new books.

And so, we are home again and on to new endeavors. Aka potty training Noah and weaning Jake. Well now I know we can do hard things, so somehow we'll manage!

Strawberry Picking

Today we went with Grandma, Chief, and Kenton to pick strawberries at a nearby orchard. I don't do a lot of smart plan-ahead Mommy things, but let me just say, I did a good job dressing myself and the boys for our outing.

This is why....
He kept picking berries, eating a few, but smashing each and every one of them in his little fists.

Noah didn't stay much cleaner, and kept stomping through the strawberry patch much like a T-rex would have done.
If these boys weren't so cute, they might have kicked us out and not let us come back. After we picked a few pecks, we had a little picnic at the orchard. Jake ate so many strawberries that he threw up. But other than that, we had a great time. (but not so great that we didn't wish you were there, Kyle!)

LOST

The Piepers love LOST. Last night was a big deal. in honor of the series finale, we had a little party, complete with costumes.

I was an Other, Noah wouldn't dress up, but he would let me write on his hand.
"NOT penny's boat" = Charlie
Chief as John Locke (who else?). Notice the perfectly-applied scar under his eye.
And Mom was Jack.
Kenton (the die-hardest LOST fan in the world)/Desmond Can't you just see the sorrow in his face that his favorite show is over? All good things come to an end. Don't worry, Kenton, there's always reruns and memories :)

Help please

We are getting all worked up for our big Kentucky trip. I'm excited about the idea, but I probably won't be able to completely relax until our plane touches down on that side of the Mississippi. There's just something a little daunting about traveling alone with 2 children. And so, please please please, if you know anything about flying with toddlers and/or how to keep them happy and quiet, pass those secrets along. Keep in mind, my boys are 2.5 and 1 (both in diapers), our flight is 4 hours long, their typical bedtime will be somewhere in the middle of all that, and I have no problem using sugar to my advantage.

ahhh privacy

I feel so free now that my blog is private.
This picture seemed appropriate for the occasion.
Thanks for making this possible :)

party til the cows come home

(This is the last you will hear about Jake's birthday, I promise!! I just put too much work into this party for it to be undocumented :)

Jake got a cow themed party, kind of by default. I decided on it a couple of months ago, because I thought, what little kid doesn't love cows and horses and all that? But Jake has not really latched on to farm animals the same way he has dinosaurs, and by the time I realized it, it was too late to plan a new party. Oh well, who remembers what their first birthday was about anyway. I just wanted to give Jake a good party, better than Noah's first one, just to sort of level the playing field, you know?

the invitations "holy cow....jake is one!" (i still can't get used to the idea!!)

Cow hoof prints to the door. (I asked my brother to help me find a picture of them online. He thought I said cow poop prints. Now THAT would have been some good party decorations.)

the backyard venue. I wanted to make Jake one of those insanely awesome felt playhouses I've seen on the web (like homemade by jill's), and I thought Jake's birthday was a good excuse to try it. I wouldn't say mine was quite insanely awesome, especially considering I was frantically throwing it together the last few days/hours/minutes before the party (finished 10 minutes before the party started!). You can see it in the background in this picture. I still want to add some more to the sides so technically it isn't done yet. But the kids at the party had fun playing in there, at least. We put fisher price animals and farm stuff in there so they could feel like real farmers. We did some "cow-tippin" (with a cheap plastic bowling set with cow pictures on the pins) and the kids wore cow tales. And we had hoped to get some crop planting in, but I didn't really have time to supervise that. So Noah just played in the mud instead.

We planned the party around when my siblings could come down from Provo to celebrate with us. Here's a picture of the crew that helped with all the behind-the-scenes party work.
Lauren made the cakes all by herself (since like I already said, I was tied up on the playhouse the whole day). She put off some important school work to come to the rescue. We love Auntie Yars! And this is the birthday boy enjoying the cake.

what a smile. Good times.

More of Jake's Day

not that appetizing, I know...but at least the plate is cool.

We opened presents (that Noah had picked out at the Dollar store)
He loved the balloon the most. well and the cake and ice cream of course.

brothers...awww

playing outside after cake (incidentally, on Noah's first birthday present from Grammy and Papa)

And all pajama-ed up, playing with the cool melissa and Doug cake toy Gramma gave him. He really does like it, despite the expression!

"too much partying mom...just put down the camera and put me to bed already."