Splash Pad

We celebrated little Gough's birthday too. Her party was at the downtown splash pad and the boys had a great time. Jake is fearless when it comes to water. Noah stomps through the water and roars like a Trex at innocent children bystanders. Tinkerbell was painting faces, and Noah requested a dinosaur. And what's a party without cupcakes?

Kyle's Golden Birthday

We celebrated Kyle's 29th on the 29th (last month...we have been computerless, so I'm about a month behind). I gave him a surprise party, and (insert back patting) it was a good one. I threw it together last minute (the sorry looking streamers in the middle of the room reflect that), but we still had a great time. Every party needs a theme--this was Touch Gold (Snow Canyon's Football Theme, but I'd say it worked for a golden birthday party). This was the Kyle shrine of some of the moments when he "touched gold". The best part was his sexy senior picture in the far left! I wish I had a picture of Kyle's face when he walked in the door to the surprise. He was pretty speechless, which doesn't happen very often! His two brothers (and their cute families) came down from up north for the occasion, so it was a double surprise. (and a bonus picture of cute Jake celebrating)

Noahsaurus

Since Noah turned 2.5 almost 2 months ago, I've been meaning to write a little about what he's like these days. Sum him up in a phrase? Dinosaur obsessed. He has liked dinos for a long time now, but it became an obsession soon after Grandma sent him a pack of dinosaur flash cards. From that day, Noah has been on a mission to memorize every species of dinosaur. It's particularly impressive when he rattles off 7-syllable dinosaur names like: "Pachycephalosaurus." We've used this obsession to our advantage. How did he become potty-trained? By offering dinosaur toys as a bribe, of course!

I got the idea from his favorite TV show, Dinosaur Train. He earned tickets each time he sat on the potty and I collected them (like the Dinosaur Train conductor) and when he got three tickets, he got to pick out a dinosaur figurine. After the first day, it worked like a charm. And the "Dinosaur Potty Train" piggy back rides from Daddy made potty breaks even more exciting. Thank you Dinosaur Train for the inspiration. His buddy Croy introduced us to the show. Here are the little couch potatoes. Noah is also into dino art. He gives the command to draw, and I follow. (or in this case, Auntie Lars)

For the past few months, I've perfected my dinosaur drawing skills, and now Noah is right behind me. I love his dinosaur drawings.

And then there is the dinosaur pretend play. He likes to play in vehicles and pretend he is on the Dinosaur Train as the conductor. He collects imaginary tickets and yells "All Aboard!!" (but it sounds more like "Ahhhh Ya Bored!!")When I reclaim my place behind the wheel and we actually drive somewhere, he always says: "Let's pretend to be at the dinosaur museum!!" We then point out imaginary dinosaurs doing imaginary things and feign amazement and excitement. Here are pictures from the real dinosaur museum we went to in Kentucky. He was in heaven.

And of course there are the actual dinosaur impersonations, which have gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion. One day I came to Jake's rescue after a Noah attack. Noah tried to excuse his behavior: "But Mom, I am a meat-eater!! And Jake is my meat!!!"

As I write this, Noah is eating lunch and talking to himself. I recognize the conversation from an episode of Dinosaur Train. I think he is pretending to be Buddy, the T-Rex. He offers himself a bite of fruit salad, then answers,
"Sure, I guess. Who knows? Maybe I'm a herbivore!" [eats a bite, then spits it out and says disgustedly] "Guess not!"

The Road Home

This will be a long post, but what else would you expect from a long trip? It was quite the experience! You are crazy if you can't see the fun in this picture: The boys did a great job all things considered. We planned frequent stops to let them stretch those legs and get a few feet of space in between them. We broke down (figuratively) and got a hotel room for a night to split up the trip--a very non-Pieper thing to do, but wow, it was nice.

Our trip started out in my beautiful old Kentucky home. I miss those Piepers and all that green already.

The first day we drove to St. Louis and stopped at our favorite zoo. Still can't get over the fact that it's FREE. The boys loved it, of course. Although Noah was more excited about one measley little 4 minute dinosaur movie than anything else in the whole zoo, elephant butts included.

All the exhibits were so intimate...the kids were able to get up close and personal with so many of the animals. Hippos/fish:
and the monkeys were all plastered to the glass.
Then we met up with Grammy and Papa whose Church History tour route overlapped with our trek home. Fun! We went out to lunch with them and then headed to Independence, MO where we stayed for the night. We swam in the pool, ate some frozen custard, hit up a park, and drove around the Community of Christ headquarters/ice cream cone temple.
Then we were off to Liberty, where we went to a little community art festival and Liberty Jail.

And then we were on the road again. To help pass the time and preserve sanity, we implemented a reward system. Another blog post for another day. This is cute little Jake with one of the rewards.
We stopped for dinner in Salina at the best BBQ place in Kansas, Hickory Hut, and pigged out while the boys played at the park. This picture makes me laugh:And then we kept trucking through Kansas. I used to think it was boring, but now I think it's beautiful. Right before nightfall, we stopped at a rest stop to let the boys run wild, hoping it would wear them out enough to sleep through the night so we could drive drive drive. It worked. Props to Kyle for driving through most of the night and most of Colorado. I was a little bummed we went through CO at night because last time we made our KY-UT trip, I thought Colorado was breathtaking! Good thing we'll be doing this trip again someday. We made it to back to Utah and as good as it was to get out of that car, I was almost a little sad the trip was over.

I came to the conclusion that I prefer the drive to the flight. We live in such a beautiful world, and road trips give the opportunity to experience it. I love seeing the small towns and the big cities and the open spaces. There is just so much to see and learn and experience. And when your baby cries in the car, you aren't disturbing a plane full of people :)

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 :)