4th and more

I remembered on the 4th that it was exactly a year ago that we were starting our trip to Pittsburgh.  I had gotten in the car wreck on the 28th and we were in Cheyenne for the 4th of July.  We had a picnic with my Mom and Grandma and Quinn got her first sunburn.  What a year it has been!

I had to forgo my usual 4th of july homemade attire but I threw together some cute festive outfits the day before with the help of Walmart.  We were by far the most red white and blue people around that day.

We headed out to Terry Bison Ranch so the girls could go on a pony ride and we picked up some fireworks afterwards.

They were in little girl pony heaven.

We also decided to take the Bison train tour again, because it was so fun 2 years ago.

Quinn was hot and bothered and was letting everyone know it.  Alex and Heidi were having fun but wouldn't feed the buffalo, and I hand fed a few bison and had my entire hand inside one's mouth, kind of creepy.

The weather was perfect until it wasn't.  Story of Cheyenne.  About 5 minutes after the tour ended it started to rain cold rain.

We were up on the scaffolding at the time and ran to the car.

The girls wanted poppers and sparklers and smoke bombs, so that's what we got.

These two are just adorable together.

Quinn was super interested in everything and wanted to touch and eat everything.

Alex is my right hand.  Don't know what I would do without her but I'm pretty sure Quinn was the 3rd born because it takes 4 of us to handle her.

Heidi informed me that she wanted to be a baker but it's to bad because she is going  to be a cowgirl when she grows up.

I have such a wonderful family.  The other day Alex said "Wouldn't it be CRAZY if we had ANOTHER girl in our family!"  It really would.

Quinn fell off the curb and scabbed up her eye, again.  Daddy ran her around the block to cheer her up and then gave her a sparkler.

This one has spunk.

She get's it from this one.
Friday night we had a picnic and then went to a field to watch the fireworks.  Once they started, Quinn clapped her hands and smiled and walked in front of us all to sit down and watch.  It was priceless.

Because Friday wasn't exhausting enough, Saturday we took Tyler to Vedauwoo and had another awesome and completely different experience.

We decided to try and hike UP this time and ran across a mother moose and her baby.  This sent us farther UP to avoid them and we got to see that our kids are actually really good hikers!

We also discovered that when you pay $20 for a baby bjorn knock off, you get your money's worth.  Tyler ended up carrying her in his arms the last 3/4 of the trek.

Tyler saved us from a rolling boulder.

And then Heidi totally upped him by lifting it with one finger.

Quinn is pretty well entertained by anything as long as we leave her alone.  She probably would have walked off, joined a pack of wolves and been entirely happy if we had let her.

In our pathless wanderings we found a path and some people and discovered that there was a great lookout and a fun path to follow.

So we did, and it was so cool, except we were suddenly afraid the girls were going to fall off a cliff and die.

Heidi loves her father.

And he teaches her crazy things.

It wouldn't be a family outing if all the children weren't begging to be carried back to the car.

All except the one who actually needs to be carried.  She ate cherries, it's not blood.

There may have been a melt down when it was discovered Daddy wouldn't be carrying a certain child ALL the way down the mountain.

Quinn was ok to walk.

We returned to the car and the girls disappeared to chase chipmunks while Tyler and I bet how long it would take him to climb that mountain.  I bet 45 minutes, it took him 6.  It's further away and larger than it looks in this picture.  I was impressed.

Our last week in Cheyenne was spent trying to slow time down and enjoy every minute.  This of course included parks and treats and movies and fun.

The girls spent hours in the secret garden.

Quinn especially.

We even ran into a cousin!  What a treat to discover great friends in cousins, and also a sadness to say goodbye!

Quinn loves to be wet. Just soaking wet all the time.

The girls finally got to go swimming in the lake and they loved it.

We took those puddle jumper floaty things which are heaven sent, that way I don't have to go in the water.

Quinn was content to eat pretzels and be photographed.

We had a read a book about Esther Morris and her CAN DO attitude. Then we discovered this statue and I began brain washing the girls into loving Esther more than Cinderella.  We aren't quite there yet.

we said goodbye to Daddy and Grandma Friday morning and there were lots of tears.  He headed to Montana and we started West.

The girls were so excited to get to Utah that they never wanted to get out of the car!  We stopped ONCE to go to the bathroom.

My body was not quite as resilient and we had to stop once again so I could stretch my body.

They would have stayed in Echo canyon all evening chasing prairie dogs and climbing hills if I would have let them.
This is where I discovered that marshmallow rat's nest in Quinn's hair.

Cheyenne week 3+

So I'm back!  To blogging!  Let's see if I can remember everything I was going to write!

Our time in Cheyenne really flew by.  We started out with a huge list of things to do for fun and left with plenty still waiting on our list.  We did make it to a Gunslingers show which was super corny, and then we walked around downtown and Tyler surprised the girls with rhinestone necklaces from an antique store.  It was an awesome day that included face painting and balloon animals from the Historic Governor's mansion for Wyoming's birthday.

Quinn NEVER falls asleep on me and she's done it on Grandma twice!  These two became such good friends, I think Quinn likes grandma more than me!

Quinn's had her fill of being followed around by the paparazzi.

A few weeks in to our stay, my awesome Aunt and 2 cousins came to visit!  We had a blast and visited Vedauwoo- one of my top 5 favorite places on earth.

The kids spent the day climbing and running and hiding and laughing and didn't want to leave.

We stumbled upon this awesome hidden picnic area next to a cave while we were exploring and decided it was perfect for some smores.

Cheyenne has amazing clouds.  I stared at them everyday.  They made me want to learn more about clouds.  Especially since we randomly had a tornado warning and actually seeing the funnel clouds was terrifying.

We may have fed the chipmunks.

This is one hilarious group of individuals.  So much fun.

These two acted invincible and were in little adventurer girl heaven the whole day.

We decided that this is not the way to cook smores, as no one wants a solid marshmallow, dripping chocolate and toasted graham crackers- save yourself $5 and don't buy it.

We hung out in our little village for a few hours and even had a weather a rainstorm inside the cave!  How cool is that!

Of course Gnomee came along.

Quinn had a personal body guard and escort for a week while cousin Greir was here.  These two were connected by the hip and It was so fun watching them play.

Then there were the hail/rain storms that tried to ruin our fun.

My kids got completely spoiled by all the attention.  Pretty sure Alyson is their favorite person in the world.

And Alsyon with Aunt Lisa- non stop laughter!

We were lucky enough to get in on Super Saturday in Cheyenne.  Its a day full of free activities for kids!  The girls waited in line for over an hour to play in these balls for 5 minutes.

And i'm sort of wishing that i'd gotten in one as well after all that wait.

My kids were trapped inside giant beach balls in a pool of water and it was the happiest moment of their lives.

Of course no trip to Cheyenne would be complete without many visits to the Children's botanical garden.

And a day in the sun knocked us all out.

My mom even came up to visit that week and so my little darling were surrounded by so much love.  It was fantastic.

Sometimes Quinn steals my camera and leaves me creepy selfies.

Our last day of fun was spent at the historic train depot.

We went on a horse drawn carriage ride around downtown.

My beautiful cousin. love her!

I'm pretty blessed in the family department, having so many people willing to take us in and love my kids.  We loved Cheyenne and our time there!

Mcdonalds

I wrote this during our second week in Cheyenne and never posted it.  Things calmed down and life became normal shortly after- put I post it so I will remember- and not judge in the future.......

Here are some lessons I've learned from our month stay in Cheyenne.......

1.You end up paying a lot more attention to sidewalks when you have an umbrella stroller.  Those cheap little wheels don't cut it on more than a skating rink.

3. You can only eat fastfood so many times before you HATE fastfood.

 2. Don't Judge.

 There I was, we bought a yogurt parfet that sat uneaten because it was the only item I thought I could stomach after weeks of fast food.  I wasn't hungry, but I had to buy something so the kids could play on the play place.  Quinn was strapped in the stroller with a bag of chips and cookies, anything she wanted as long as she would sit still and I could check mail, pay bills, and mindlessly surf the internet.  I ignored the girls climbing up the slide, and zoned out.  I looked like a perfectly awful mother. If I had seen myself and my brood, l'd have judged.
Baby eating cookies for lunch, tisk.
Ignoring children to play on the computer, completely detached.  Those poor children,  how are they going to turn out?
No one would ever have guessed that for the past 3.5 weeks I've spent every waking moment with my kids.  Reading, drawing, teaching, cooking for them, cleaning them, feeding them.  There is an occasional break when Quinn is napping and they are engulfed in fairyland for a few minutes.  I may get a solid 15 minutes without someone crying for me, or yelling at a sister.  So when I escape to Mcdonalds, and can feed the baby cookies while the big girls disappear into big plastic tunnels, and I stare at my ipad mindlessly for 30 minutes, I hope not too many people are judging me too harshly.

       Maybe I'm being dramatic, or putting to much pressure on myself.  We have certain rules at our house to keep the peace and a vague level of cleanliness.  I try to let the kids work out their own fights if they can, and learn from natural consequences on things like shoes worn outside (one bee sting on the bare foot for Alex is all it took to learn that one last year.)
      On the road, certain rules lax, but when visiting and staying with people, suddenly the rules multiply 10 fold.  The old standard of cleanliness can't cut it, neither can I let them scream at each other for 10 minutes while working out a dress up wardrobe issue.  The expensive landscaping can't be picked for salads, and we shouldn't strip the tree branches of leaves.  Suddenly we are are feeling stifled, parents are putting on pretenses and kids are suffocating for freedom, their own space.  They are trying (or not) to stand up to an impossible standard of childhood, and I to one of parenting.
    So here is the hope that I get this figured out, that the kids learn the rules and start to obey and I can calm down and shake off the stares from the other mom's while my baby plays in that mud puddle and the older girls play daredevil on the playground.  I'm all helicoptered out- if these kids are going to survive their childhood it's going to be God's will, because I can't chase all 3 of them around everywhere and keep them all out of everything.  So I'm sorry in advance if my kid teaches your kid to climb up the outside of the tube slide, or walk on the outside rails of the bridge.  We may end up with a few more doctor visits, but our house is already a lot happier.