Children's Museum

We figured we should get together with Neil and Ashley again while they were still on this side of the country, so we met at the Children's museum in Indianapolis a few days after Christmas.

Dallin and Connor thought this tie fighter made out of balloons was pretty awesome.

 We started at the "Treasures of the Earth" exhibit. The kids explored a shipwreck.

And put together pieces of a terracotta warrior.

Riding on a train.

 There was a Ninja Turtles exhibit that included some ninja training activities, like moving through the alley rope maze. The kids really liked this one.

 The "big kids" (*cough* dads) liked it too.

We call this extreme babywearing. And Neil is channeling his inner Catherine Zeta-Jones, a la Entrapment.

There was a winter wonderland exhibit with a rink for "skating" with socks on.

 The kids were being so adorable spinning around together, holding hands.

All of my phone pictures of them are blurry because they were moving so fast.

And speaking of blurry phone pictures:

Neil and ?? (Charlotte?) zooming down the yule slide. I slid down with Bennett on my lap, racing with Madoc.

Micah and Ashley (with either Amelia or a purse in her lap)

 Mckay and Connor

Sadie and Dallin

Dallin loves Sadie. He loves all his cousins and had so much fun with all of them, but he really loves Sadie and hardly left her side the whole day. There was more crying in the parking garage as we said goodbye to them, this time for good. (Until they come to the midwest again in the summer.) We love when our family comes to visit!

Carmel Marathon 2015

April 18th, 2015

After running his first half marathon in October last year, Mckay decided to train for a full 26.2 mile marathon. He found a friend from church, Nick, who was equally as crazy and agreed to run with him. It was probably better that they had each other to be accountable to, otherwise there wouldn't have been much training during the cold winter months.

The marathon was on April 18th in Carmel, a suburb of Indianapolis. We drove down the night before and stayed at a nearby hotel so we didn't have to drive for an hour to get there early the next morning.

We dropped Mckay off at the starting line. My friend Ashley (Nick's wife) took these pictures. I "borrowed" them from her Facebook page. 

Mckay is all the way on the left of this picture, in the red shirt. Nick is in the picture too, he's the third person from the left, with red hair and wearing a blue and white shirt.

There were race photographers along the marathon route taking pictures of the runners. There were a couple pictures of Mckay. Here are screen shots of them: 

Mckay saw the photographer coming and posed.

The three boys and I went to cheer Mckay on at a few points along the route. We made some motivational signs.

I would have taken pictures of the boys holding the signs, but they weren't very interested in holding them up, so it was mostly me doing the sign holding. They did cheer though!

 The Marathon conveniently had a phone app for tracking the runners so I had an idea of were Mckay was at points. One of the spots we planned to see Mckay was at mile 24, almost to the finish line! The way the race route curved around, we were able to park at the finish line and then walk almost a mile to reach the 24 mile marker. I was pushing the two older boys in our double stroller and carrying Bennett strapped to my chest in a baby carrier. We made it to mile 24 with a few minutes to spare before Mckay made his way around the corner.

The boys hugged him and cheered for him as he ran past.

Now we had to hurry to walk the one mile back to the finish line, hoping to get there before Mckay could run 2.2 miles there. I thought that the older boys could run on the sidewalk for a bit and make the stroller I was pushing a little lighter. That lasted about 20 seconds before Connor tripped and fell into some sharp bushes and mulch by the sidewalk. He was all bloody on his legs and had a bloody nose too. So not only did I lose time stopping to clean up and console the poor boy, but now I had to push 75 pounds and carryanother 15 pounds while walking quickly. Did I mention it was the first warm (75 degree) day of the year? I was a little sweaty and out of breath as we approached the finish line. In fact, a man nearby commented, "I can't help but think that you are working harder today than whoever it is you're cheering for." I told him I'd thought the same thing several times that day.

We made it to the finish line just in time to see Mckay crossing. Here are a few more professional screen shots:

I love this one because you can see Nick clapping for Mckay in the background. You can see Nick's face inside the letter "f" of Proof.

And here's the picture that Ashley got of Mckay crossing the finish line.

There was a ton of free food being handed out to the runners at the finish line; chocolate milk, water, pizza, bananas, apples, crackers, chips and trail mix.

The runners also got free massages. (I say free, but when you have to pay to enter the marathon, I don't think it really counts as free.)

When it was Mckay's turn for a massage, he was asked where he needed it the most. Um, legs. Mostly the legs. Dallin and Connor worked on his arms a bit though.

After Mckay was rested enough to begin using his legs again, we went to the van, got some lunch at Chipotle, and then drove by the new Indianapolis temple being built in Carmel.

Looking beautiful and almost complete!

Mckay ran the marathon in 4 hours and 36 minutes. A new personal record!

He also beat his old half marathon time with 1 hour 59 minutes this time around. He is pretty amazing.

Spring Break

We did a few fun things during Dallin's spring break this year. One day, we went to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. It was just me and the three boys, which is quite an amazing feat of endurance for a parent, if you ask me.

We saw the Chihuly glass sculpture.

If there is ever anything related to Star Wars in a room, the boys know how to find it.

We played at the water table.

And then the sand table.

That's the best way to do it: get the kids wet first and then let them get sand all over their bodies. They managed to keep pretty clean, surprisingly.

Connor played some drums.

Really fast.

We had fun and despite being there on a very crowded day, each boy only wandered away from me once for 30 seconds. (Except for Bennett. I had him tied down pretty well.)

Before we go into a busy public place like this where it's easy to get lost, I remind the boys of what to do if they got lost: I tell them to find someone with a name badge who works there and ask for help. Or I tell them to find a mom with kids because she'll know how to help. In fact both times one of them wandered away (like when Connor wandered out of the bathroom while the rest of us were still in there changing Bennett's diaper), he was brought right back to me by a mom who saw the boy looking around scared. The other important safety step we go over is to make sure both boys know my name. No one is going to know how to help a lost kid if he's looking for "Mom." So I make sure they know to say, "My mom's name is Sheri Easton." We should probably eventually teach our kids my phone number too, but it's a little harder to remember 10 digits for area code AND phone number instead of just 7 digits. Any tips on teaching phone numbers to kids?

Anyway, we all survived and had fun.

Later in the week, I thought I'd be really cool and let them do a fun art project by gluing ripped up scraps of colored tissue paper.

As usual, 10 minutes of preparation bought me 5 minutes of craft time. And don't be mislead by their happy angelic faces in that picture above. They were laughing AT me for getting angry because I was trying to take a good picture and I growled at them when they did the wrong thing or made the wrong face. Whatever... I got my picture.

We kept dinners simple during spring break and I let the boys choose most nights. That means we had quesadillas, pizza and macaroni and cheese.

Dallin saw this Star Wars Mac and cheese at the store so we had to buy it.

 It made his day.

Conner Prairie

Dallin had some doctor appointments in Indianapolis in September, which required him being out of school for the day. I figured that rather than drive all the way down and straight back (like I normally do), we'd do something fun and turn a missed school day into something educational. We met my friend Deidra and her 2 kids at Conner Prairie. It's an interactive history park. There's a small indoor museum, but most of the attractions are outside.

There were farm animals that we got to pet in the barn.

 Actors are dressed up in period clothing and they teach you about life in Indiana in the 19th century as you explore the "town."

The kids sat listening to this blacksmith talk about his job for like 10 minutes. I was amazed at their attention span.

The kids got to dress up and do chores.

 Connor in the apron/skirt is cracking me up. (It was his choice to wear it.)

I love these 3 cuties.

We got to play some games that kids played back then, like hoop rolling and walking on stilts.

Connor thought it was a hockey stick and kept trying to take slap shots.

They told me they were on their way to Florida.

 After a beautiful, warm afternoon spent running and playing, we stopped at the apple store (not the kind that sells iPods) on the prairie for some chocolate dipped pretzel sticks and apple cider slushies. 

Our kids sure are a silly bunch of apples.

We love having good friends to do fun things with; friends who talk me into buying an apple cider slushy. That extra cold, sugar rush kept me awake on the hour long drive home.

***

Also in September, Mckay's parents came to visit. I didn't take many pictures when they were here, but I did get a few cute ones of the boys when we went to Fair Oaks Farm with them to see the pigs.

Dallin getting an up close look at a newborn piglet (kept behind glass, of course).

There are veterinarian coats and stethoscopes for the kids to wear as they learn about pigs. Connor kept his on for along time.

Looking at all the little piglets.

We love going to Fair Oaks Farms.

Spring Break

Dallin's spring break was at the end of March. It doesn't change our schedule much since he only has preschool for 3 hours on 4 days of the week, but it's a good time to schedule some of his doctor appointments in Indianapolis. This way, we don't have to go drive down super early in the morning to make it back in time for afternoon preschool.

We grabbed a wagon (provided for use by the Children's Hospital) and went back and forth to three different appointments in 3 hours. Its funny that this picture shows Connor sitting in the wagon, because he spent 90% of the time pulling the wagon by himself, insistent on no help from me. Good thing they schedule lots of buffer time in between appointments so we had time for Connor to slowly pull Dallin around. 

Dallin was a trooper through his two ultrasounds and blood draw. He got to choose a coloring book (seen in the wagon above) as a prize for getting his blood drawn. That poor kid has been through so much and so many blood draws (at least 30 in his 5 short years). He cries at the sight of the chair. The Children's hospital has a pretty great phlebotomist though and we lucky to get her this time. It only took 30 seconds!

After all the doctor stuff, we ate our sack lunch in the cafeteria.

With it being spring break, I wanted to do something fun with the kids. So we stayed in Indianapolis for a bit instead of driving straight home. We went to the Children's Museum. It's been a few years since we've been there and Connor was only a baby then, so there was a lot for them to see.

They liked digging for dinosaur bones.

Connor popped his head up to tell me, "I'm digging dinosaurs!"

We got to play with some clay and make shapes. Dallin asked for a snowman so I sculpted the pieces and he put them together.

Then Dallin made his own person. He made this completely by himself with no help or prompting of any kind from me.

I was amazed because he's never made anything like this before. I've read studies about how children with Williams syndrome have difficulty with visuospatial construction. For example, a child with WS can draw a bicycle with all the correct parts present (seat, wheels, handles), but not in the correct locations.

That's why I love this person he sculpted, complete with arms, legs, torso, head and a very large nose. (In his defense, we had just made a snowman so I think he was trying to make a carrot nose for his guy too.) Maybe it has something to do with constructing a 3D model vs. drawing on flat paper. His drawings of people are scribbles. It's also possible that Dallin doesn't struggle as much with the visuospatial problems that many others with WS have. I've heard how difficult it is for even adults with WS to complete a simple 6 piece puzzle, yet Dallin is amazing with puzzles and can handle 30 pieces on his own.

Enough bragging about Dallin...

 Dallin asked me to make Darth Vader for him too.

I made the head and body, and while I worked out making the cape, Dallin reached over and stuck arms and a lightsaber on Darth Vader. I love this kid.

We played in the little kid area for a bit.

Dallin and Connor both loved climbing up and down these leaves.

 I thought they'd be nervous to climb so high, but they both climbed all the way up to the boat on top of the structure.

We all had a really great time. I'm glad we managed to have some fun during the cold, rainy spring break.