Leader, really???

For my friends to laugh at. I took Olivia to the girl scout meeting to get some more information on it and what is involved. We walked out having joined up and signing me up as the troop leader......how do I get in to this stuff????

American Girl Place

These are the pictures of Olivia and Mary Jane and I's trip to American Girl place in Chicago. The store is overwhelming with every kind of accessory and outfit you could ever want but our first objective was the doll. Olivia decided on the "look alike" doll as opposed to one that was already named or a historical character. Her doll was #27. Layered long blonde hair...no bangs of course, and blue eyes. The picture below is of all of the "look alike" dolls you can choose from.

Olivia was able to pick out one outfit and she picked a cheerleader outfit. Then we took her doll to the "salon" and had her ears pierced and got some earrings for her. We had some time to kill before our 12:30 lunch time date at the American Girl Cafe so we had this picture taken.

The American Girl Cafe is within the American Girl Place. It is a very fancy cafe that you must have reservations for. The menu has a few choices for each course of the lunch. It was just re-done and is beautiful. This is the picture of our table.



They have seats at the table for the dolls as well. And the dolls get plates and cups too!

Grandma and Sis at lunch

This is our dessert plate, how adoreable!

Olivia and her doll Molly (previously known as Butterfly) in their matching pajamas
It was a great day. We had a lot of fun and Im sure will make another trip there soon!

Move it Dig it Do it!!

This past weekend we went to the Move it, dig it, do it. This is a big program put on by the Iowa Children's museum where they bring in a lot of heavy machinery and the kids get to climb on it, "drive" it etc.

This is Olivia learning how to milk a cow, she did this more than once, she thought it was fun.

Jacob driving Olivia to work on the Coralville bus

We got there just in time to see Air Care land. Every time we see this when we are out, Jacob says "that bring you more work mama". So it was fun to see it up close. When they landed it was WINDY!

Jacob watied in line the longest to drive the big brand new John Deere combine.

Driving the North Liberty Fire truck

After the line died down a little we went back and got in to the helicopter.

The funniest part of the day was one of the games. (they have various games for the kids to play). This game was the "scoop poop" game to try to teach kids to clean up after their animals. The had a 5 gallon bucket full of fake poop and scoopers, they would throw the poop out and then the kids would scoop it up. WE COULD NOT GET OUR KIDS TO LEAVE!! I swear they did it for 20 minutes straight!

This is a baby clydesdale horse that was born a month ago. It was sound asleep and would not even wake up when the kids were petting him. He was so cute!!

It was a great day.

Chicago

We had a great weekend last weekend in Chicago. On Friday night Josh and Doug and I went to "Top Golf". For those of you who have not been there it is this super fun driving range. It has computerized balls and targets and it keeps your score when you hit the ball. You have to try to get the ball in to certain spots and you can play against other people. It was a great time.

On Saturday the boys (Doug, Josh, and Jacob) went to Lego Land in Chicago. It is a really amazing place with rides and everything imaginable "lego"

Grandpa Doug and Jacob outside Lego Land. then Dad and Jacob and Daddy with a life sized Darth Vader.

Jacob LOVES Batman. So it was pretty exciting that there was a Batman there.

There was a whole jungle with animals made of legos

They also did the whole city of chicago. This is the John Hancock tower downtown

This big spider was part of the Harry Potter exhibit.

The picture below is made entirely of Legos

There was a room where you could make cars. Josh made Jacob a car and it won every single race. I guess not surprising when you see how much bigger it is than all the other cars!!!!

We met at the zoo in the afternoon and this huge grey back gorilla was just laying in the window.

there was another gorilla that was sitting in the window up on a log.

At the gift shop Grandma and Grandpa got Jacob a new truck that he really wanted. At the end of the day he did not want to put it down and fell asleep with it in the car.

While the boys were at Lego Land the girls went to The American Girl store. We were there for over 2 hours and had lunch and got Olivia a new doll. There are some great pics that I will post when I get them from Mary Jane. This is how many packages we ended up with!

This is Molly. It is Olivia's "look a like" doll. It has blonde hair and blue eyes like Olivia. Her lovely braids are courtesy of our sitter Maddy. The bracelets and headband were made from a craft kit for the dolls by Olivia and Grandma Diane.


This past weekend was Jacob's first visit to Kinnick stadium. He had gotten up super early that morning and was tired and crabby. Josh got $200 for our tickets to the game and we took the kids to Wal Mart for toys!!!

First two days of school

Olivia has had a great first two days of school. The first day they got out at 1:55 (as they do every Thurs, screwy huh?) and she was all smiles at the end of the day. She made a "new best friend" although does not know her name. She loves Ms Miller. On Friday I awoke at 6:30 am to Olivia standing at my bedside dressed with her back pack on wanting to know if it was time to leave yet. I miss that enthusiasm for school! She seemed a little disappointed that it was the weekend yesterday. Josh and the kids were going fishing today. We leave on Friday for two days in Chicago it should be a great time!

Off to school

We have had a busy last three days (but aren't they all). On Tuesday we went to Olivia's school for the ice cream social. She got to take in her school supplies, meet her teacher and have some ice cream.

Yesterday we had an Olivia and Mommy day. We went to Cedar Rapids to chucky cheese. We had a great time and had pizza and won 580 tickets that we bought some fabulous prizes with.

Today was Olivia's frist day of school. She usually gets up at 6:30 in the morning but of course at 7:15 I had to get her out of bed. She had some breakfast and it was off to school. Jacob wanted to go in too and wanted his picture taken by the door.

Olivia with her iCarly lunch bag and ready for her first day.

This is Olivia's teacher Ms Miller. She is the absolute textbook definition of a kindergarten teacher. She is pretty and super nice. Olivia met her at kindergarten round up and then Josh and Olivia saw her one day out on a walk and she remembered Olivia's name. None of us could believe it, out of 100 kids at round up she remembered Olivia's name. Well, Olivia hoped and hoped that Ms. Miller would be her teacher so we were very excited when it turned out that she was.

Olivia and Jacob saying their goodbyes.

My baby girl going in to school for the first time. Mom stayed relatively well composed. I was surprised there was only one kid crying that I saw.

She gets out of school today at 1:55. The house is so quiet without her.

Because we have all been there....

I think everyone with kids has been at the place where there child gets old enough to embarrass them. We have a trip planned at the end of the month to Chicago, and as a special treat I made reservations for Olivia, Josh's mom MaryJane and myself to have lunch at the American Girl doll store. For those of you without small girls, this is a mildly ridiculous store in big cities with very elaborate dolls that cost about $100 and any accessory you could ever want from furnature to horses to clothes. There are parts of the store where you can buy clothes for you, your doll and your mom that all match and there are always plenty of mothers and daughters and dolls dressed alike. They have a cafe there that you can have lunch and it is very popular.

Back to the story. Olivia has gone recently from being 5 to 15 with a mouth to match. She is punished by losing priveliges and things she may have gotten. Well this past week she "lost" getting something at the American Girl store when we go for lunch. Later in the day she asked me if I thought her Grandma would get her a doll there. I was not in the mood for a battle so I said, maybe but she may get you something for the doll you already have like some clothes or glasses or something (a $10-$15 expense as opposed to a $100 doll). I quite literally had forgotten this conversation when tonight Olivia was talking to said Grandma on the phone and said....."my mom said you would buy me a doll and some clothes at the American girl store". I said "Olivia, dont say that", to what she replied to her Grandma....."my mom doesn't want me to tell you that". Kids have a funny knack for taking things out of context and embarrassing the heck out of you dont they!!