Granny Pie

This summer we were able to make the trip up to Rigby for a visit with Granny Pie.

It was great spending some good quality time with her.

We wish it could be more often. There's no place like Grandma's house!

I have some sweet memories of trips to Grandma's house, and they always ended the same way: my arm stuck out the window of the van, waving goodbye as Grandma cried and stood on her porch until we were out of sight. She gives the best goodbyes! We love Granny Pie!

Pioneers

In the month of July we talked a lot about pioneers. I think the lessons stuck. Just the other day, the boys took a break from Transformer play to do this:

I love my pioneer children!

30-year-old Kyle

Also while in Kentucky, we celebrated Kyle's big 30th birthday! I'm married to an old man now. At least until I catch up with him! We ate cupcakes decorated with 30 things to love about Kyle.

(He's Superdad, the biggest sports fanatic I know, He loved looking at cows out the window when his parents would take him out of the city for a trip to Pioche, ulcerative colitis survivor, flip flop wearer of the world, climbed a ladder as a child and then hit himself in the head with a hammer and fell off, Homecoming King, the cleaning champion of our house, EBay book salesman, co-CEO of pickthefights.com...)

And to further celebrate the man of the day, we colored in an original Kyle Campbell coloring book.

It wasn't an elaborate celebration like you might expect for a 30th birthday, but it was filled with lots of love anyway.

Kentucky pictures

We fit a lot of fun into our 2 week vacation. We would have had more pictures, but alas our camera is broken. Here's the good times that Chief was around to capture with his phone camera:

The Grand Prize Game...a Bozo show/Pieper family tradition. The grand prizes were magazine cutouts of cool toys. The boys really did get excited about winning the pictures. Who needs the real thing?Playing Transformers

Fishing in the Thompson's pond (the boys' first experiences with a pole)

And who needs a beach?

Our trip to Kentucky just wouldn't be complete without a trip here:

The birthplace of Bluegrass Music...

That bluegrass got Jake all riled up.

(a T-Rex moment)

The Kentucky Horse Park

We made the 3 hour drive for our little horse lover Jake. We thought we'd capitalize on the horse obsession while we were in the middle of horse country. We got to see some retired Derby champions and other beautiful horses.

for a horse-crazed little boy, you would be surprised at his reactions to the real horses up close.

but that makes this all the more impressive:

Jake loved his little pony Twix. And he still talks about it a month later. Noah had a great time too.

And we even spotted Grandpa Henry! ha ha.

And one more thing: ice skating!

Jake's balance was impressive for a first timer (and a two-year-old, nonetheless).

The milk crates helped too!

And Gramma was especially impressive. All that time spent in snowy Minnesota paid off, you should have seen those skates cut through the ice :)

Thanks Mom and Dad for a great time! We can't wait to go back.

Noah's latest quotes

Noah has a sensitive sense of smell. After using the bathroom, he called me in to help him wipe. When I came in, he seemed distraught and expressed the reasons for his frustrations: "I am so mad about that poop! It's so stinky! I won't ever poop out that guy again!"

Noah is not a big fan of wearing underwear (until just recently, when we got him some Transformers undies that he really loves). Once I told him he needed to put some on under his shorts. He said: "but mom, do you know that I usually just pretend that I am wearing undies?" Wouldn't that be something if pretending to be clothed was enough?

One morning Noah wanted cereal for breakfast. (Actually that is his first choice every morning.) When he saw that we were out of milk, instead of crying like a child, he said to me in a no-nonsense tone: "Mom, the milk is gone. I trust that I can have a bagel?"

He added the word "Dominate" to his vocabulary. One morning a 7-year-old boy was playing at our house, and apparently Noah was getting the upperhand in their friendly games/ competitions because Noah kept gloating to him: "I dominated you!" Other applications of his new favorite word: I told him to clean up his mess, and he said: "If you don't talk nice to me, I'm going to dominate you!" One morning he downed his breakfast in record time and declared: "I dominated that cereal!" And he threatened Kyle: "Don't you get mad at me, or I'll dominate you!"

While watching tv, a commercial came on for French's Fried Onions. Noah ran into the kitchen and exclaimed: "Mom! Did you know that eating french fried onions makes people so happy???! Let's have them tonight!!" Apparently that friend onions company is running a very successful advertising campaign among the 3-year-old age bracket.

Noah has been asking questions about his boy parts. One of his curious moments ended this way: "Daddy was in the bathroom with the shower on. I saw his butt! But then he closed the door, and I ran out of time!"

Our Travel Tips

I am happy to report that the trip to Kentucky was all we hoped it would be. I can't post pictures yet, so instead, I'll just report on the success of that 3600 mile road trip. I learned a lot about traveling with kids. Here is a list of what worked for us, for reference when I plan the next big trip!

*PRESENTS AND TICKETS: In the weeks before our trip, I accumulated little toys and books from garage sales and the Dollar Store (with the expectation that I might dump them in a trash can while cleaning out the car somewhere in Kansas). I did splurge on a big Amazon order of dinosaur, Transformers, Diego, and horse activity books, sticker books, and coloring books. On the night before we left, I separated the presents into Jake and Noah piles, wrapped them up in different-colored paper, and numbered the presents in the order I intended to give them. I thought it out very carefully, staggering the big presents and the junk ones. The kids got to open a present when they got 3 tickets for good traveling behavior. It worked so well that I think I'll do the ticket present thing even on short trips up north. I love bribery.

*STICKER ALBUM SCRAPBOOKS: Before we left, I decorated photo albums and filled them with blank papers, drawings, and magazine cut-outs. Quite a big chunk of our travel time was spent putting stickers on the album pages and decorating the blank pages. The boys also enjoyed putting postcards in the album at random stops in the adventure. Next time I'll bring my Polaroid camera and we will add photographs of our travels too.

*STARBURST: The pack I bought at a rest stop was surprisingly helpful and made me think in the future, I will always include a pack of Starburst in our travel snack bag. The advantages: it takes a while for kids to go through a pack, and if you give them out one by one (or one half by one half) you can really stretch it out, without giving the kids too much of a sugar overload. Just eating starburst kept the boys happy for at least 30 minutes.

marshmallows are good too :)

*RANDOM PIT STOPS: I had such a good time researching our route and planning fun stops along the way. We hit up the T-Rex Cafe in Kansas City (the favorite),

the Buffalo herds outside Denver, Winter Quarters Visitors Center and Pioneer Cemetary, St. Louis Science Center,

and one of the 8 architectural wonders of Kansas (a really big barn). Random cool places are one of the best parts of road trips. And it was cool having a fun stop to look forward to every few hours.

*TRIPADVISOR.COM: this is where I did the bulk of my planning. The ratings and comments of other travelers were really helpful in choosing tourist stops, restaurants, and hotels. Last year this is how I found the best barbeque in Kansas (Hickory Hut BBQ) which was tragically closed for the day when we passed through this year.

*KIDS MAP: The boys followed our route using a laminated place mat of the US. They referred to our location based on the color of the state, and caught on pretty quick ("are we out of the yellow one yet?" "Ooooh! We are in orange now!" "I can't wait to get to the red one!") I bought this US atlas for kids with activities for each of the states, which will be really cool to use when the boys are a little older.

*HOMEMADE TRAVEL GAMES: Nice because this just takes a little work and it is all free. I searched the internet and printed out some coloring pages of the boys' favorite things. There are some cute printable Travel Bingo games all over the internet (crayola.com has several different bingo cards to print and color). I also made up a Dinosaur Hunt game comparing dinos to different vehicles. The boys loved it and throughout our trip would point out the window and yell out which dinosaur they spotted.

*THE "WOULDN'T IT BE FUNNY IF..."GAME: Very basic idea, just complete the sentence by saying something funny. Noah really caught on to this game. Although most of his funny scenarios revolved around poop. (for example, "Wouldn't it be funny if poop fell out of the sky instead of rain?") He requested this game probably every hour or two and it was always good for at least 10 minutes of laughs.

*DRY ERASE CRAYONS: Those things are the best. No caps or mess to worry about. We used them on clear sheet protectors and dry erase boards and we never had a problem with clean-up. Drawing and erasing kept the boys busy for a few hours of the trip.

*LAP DESKS: I made the boys their own lap desks like this one . I have mixed feelings about these things. The desk was so helpful for snacks and coloring, and the removable pillow was perfect for naps. But I think I spent too much time sewing them to justify the amount of time they were used on this trip, mainly because of space issues. There just wasn't much extra room in the backseat for anything unnecessary, so they were stuffed in the trunk for a lot of the trip. But if you have a roomy vehicle, I recommend them, and I will definitely break them out again in the not too distant future when I am a mini-van mom.

*EARLY MORNING/NIGHT TRAVEL: We approve the time tested strategy of drive-while-the-kids-are-knocked-out-in-the-backseat. The more miles we could pass while the boys slept, the better. That meant Kyle and Lauren and I got to have some good adult conversations and listen peacefully to our book on CD (the Hunger Games series). It made for a very pleasant traveling experience.

*PORTABLE DVD PLAYERS, of course: Incredible entertainment potential! It worked best when we used the movies sparingly and saved them for moments of desperation.

and....
*MY SECRET WEAPON: Auntie Lars. Lauren came along with us for the Kentucky vacation, and she was amazing! She helped distribute the snacks and crayons and keep order in the backseat. She was so good and patient with the boys. Everyone should have a Lauren!

And so, thanks to Lauren and everything else, we made it to Kentucky and back. The destination was my old homestead, which was just a perfect vacation. Everyone knows that there's no place like home (what I felt both when we arrived in Kentucky and when we arrived back at our house at the end of the trip)! The boys were as close to perfect little angels as 2-and 3- year-old boys can be! And also, let's not forget that I had the best driver of all time up front with me. Moral of the story, road trips are the most fun things in the world!! We can't wait to do it again.

self-affirmation

As for other news that is over 2 months overdue....

I ran a 10K and loved it.

That's an action shot of me and Kim approaching the finish line. I know I look like I was walking, but I promise, that is a run. I finished the race in about an hour, which was exactly what I hoped for. If I hadn't found out I was pregnant a week before, I probably would have pushed myself a little harder and won first place. Ha.

Either way, Kyle was proud of me. He will probably make me edit this out, but I remember that he told me at the finish line that he almost cried when he saw me running. Awwww.

I was proud of myself too. There's something so empowering about having a goal and then working hard and achieving it. Our family motto, borrowed from Dale Murphy, is "we can do hard things". It felt good to do something hard. As a mother, sometimes I feel like all I do is dishes and diapers and dinosaurs. So it is refreshing to get an reminder that I can do other hard things too.

(me and my mother friends who ran together)

It is kind of funny to remember that on the night before and the morning of the race, I felt sickeningly nervous. Funny because those feelings are not too dissimilar from my reaction of the recent ultrasound findings! It builds my confidence that things that make me nervous and seem hard really do end up to be a pleasure. Including raising girls, I assume.

Thanks for your votes of confidence. I'm feeling 90% less nervous and I can definitely live with that. :) Bring on the girl.