Xander was really excited to come to our house because we have both a wii and an X-box 360, but I wanted to leave the kids with memories better than just sitting on the couch for a week and a half. My mom sent Xander's Tiger Cub book which provided a plethora (yes that's the big word for the day) of activity ideas. I think we did about half of the requirements in the short amount they were here and I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it more than Xander but whatev.
One of the first activumties was visiting an adult at work. Since I'm currently a burden on society, we went and visited Zach at Old Main. I wasn't sure how exciting this would be for the little kids, but it would sign something off! Ha ha. Actually, though they were really excited and loved seeing all 5 floors of Old Main, looking out the windows on the top floor, checking out the document cams, and running through the empty corridors. Zach even showed Xander how to clean the windows. After our little tour, Zach was able to go on a break and we walked around campus with the kids. They thoroughly enjoyed that too. We showed them the A and told them about True Aggies and showed them the fountain. Of course they had to climb all over that A and throw a penny in the fountain. Unfortunately I only had one penny and with two kids that is not really acceptable. Zach came to the rescue and stuck his whole arm in the fountain to pull out a penny for them to throw in! :)
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| Xander has this weird thing about always wanting to look like he's falling off things in photos |
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| See what I mean? |
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| Future Aggies :) |
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| The awesomest fountain and 3 creepers |
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| Gotta love these goof balls :) |
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| Cute :) |
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| Love these creepers! |
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| Don't bust the statue! |
We also went to visit Gosner's which is a cheese factory. I was hoping they did tours, but no such luck. They did however, have a window that showed the inside of the plant. We sampled some of the delicious cheese and bought some squeaky cheese, ice cream, and milk boxes. I was pretty ticked because Xander was whining about wanting ice cream the whole time we walked through the store and then he wouldn't eat his ice cream because 'it didn't taste like chocolate'!?! What the? Oh well, between Zach, Paizley, and I we ate his too :)
Another thing we did was that the kids loved was go up the canyon and have a picnic and go on a hike. I'm pretty sure their favorite part was being near water. I bet they would have jumped in if we'd let them. Ha ha. They love throwing rocks in it. We were able to see a few fish swimming around. It was pretty boosh. We also did leaf rubbings. This is where you pick out a cool looking leaf, put paper in front of it, and lightly color on the paper over the leaf. You are left with a rubbing that looks like a leaf. I had never done it before and was pretty excited to try it. Mine turned out alright, but not perfect. The kids' turned out slightly worse than mine. Then Zach tried it and I guess he's been hiding his leaf rubbing talent from me this whole time because his looked incredible! We were all very impressed!
One of Xander's favorite things was scooting around the back yard of our apartment. Paizley loved to race him. Ha ha it was really cute. Here are some random pics :)
We were going to take the kids swimming at the aquatic center, but Zach and I both had to catch the flu :( Not the stomach flu either, but the flu where you feel like a train ran over you and you will never feel better again. Let's say that was a lot of fun with little kids :/ Oh well. The tv,wii, and kindle got a mega workout for those couple of days. We were planning on driving to my parent's house on Friday to go to my sister-in-law's baby shower, but we ended up feeling too sick to do that :(
Well overall I learned several things from this experience....Here's my top 10:
Well overall I learned several things from this experience....Here's my top 10:
Things I Learned from Xander and Paiz
- The word "maybe" is your best friend....If you tell a kid sure or yeah later, they WILL remember it!
- The best way to get a kid to go to go to sleep right after you put them in bed is to let them run around beforehand. We took them to campus one night and they were sooo tired out by bedtime :)
- You never know how much food they are gonna eat...sometimes they would only eat a few bites and then "weren't hungry anymore" and other times they would eat two or three helpings of something....
- The people who make the current small children tv shows need to be shot...The theme songs and basic plots are pretty much obnoxious. Do you know the theme song for Wonder Pets? 'Cause I do! :P
- I'm pretty sure children's picture books are amazing. We went to the library and checked out a bunch of kid's books. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed reading those to the kids at least as much as they enjoyed listening to me if not a bit more.
- Children love making random stranger friends....There were several times when we were in public and I had to tell the kids to stop harassing strangers :P We rode the bus once while they were with us. When we were waiting at the bus stop, this guy in a Jazzy rolls up and Paizley starts asking him questions. I don't think he heard her and she starts saying fairly loudly, "Why doesn't that guy over there talk?!?" Hmm....
- Never expect kids to find anything! Every time we were going outside I would tell them to find their shoes. I think I ended up finding them every time....Once I watched Paizley look. She looked behind the tv, on the table, and pretty much on the ceiling :P
- Even when kids are being little brats, it's very hard to stay mad at those cute little faces. Especially when they give you a big hug :)
- Small children + the flu + cleaning inspections = disaster! Bah of course we had cleaning checks the weekend when we were sick and had small children running a muck in our small apartment....
- I think I'm ready for kids :)
