Road Trip to Spencerville.

After our fun day at the zoo, we had more fun plans to take a road trip to Spencerville to see my grandparents. My mom came along, too, since she is on a hiatus from work. :) It was a beautiful day for a drive, and Jack and Emma are just the best little travelers! We got to Spencerville around 12:30 and had a yummy lunch of pizza and salad with pudding and fresh raspberries for dessert! Jack was being difficult...wouldn't sit still in his chair, and wouldn't eat his pizza because he didn't recognize the black olives that were on it! Then he insisted on having pepper on his pudding. I think he was just really excited about being in a new environment, and couldn't concentrate on eating. So Jack had raspberries and tomatoes he picked out of the salad for lunch.

After that, Jack got to go outside to the fruit and vegetable garden with Poppy to pick some raspberries himself! I, of course, tagged along with the camera. Jack had so much fun picking raspberries. I had Poppy and Jack pose in front of the apple tree for a picture and Poppy told Jack not to pick the apples because they weren't ripe yet...do you think Jack listened? Of course not!

We could only stand the heat for so long before we went back inside. Nana got out a deck of cards for Jack to play with, which was a great idea, and Jack had a blast naming all the numbers! Aunt Babette came over for a little while, too. Poor Emma has been working on some more teeth for some time now, and she started to get quite upset that her little gums were so sore. Wonderful mother that I am, I had not even brought a teething ring with us! But I brainstormed a little bit and finally decided that we could put an ice cube inside a hanky and let her suck on that for awhile...and it worked like a charm! Thank goodness for that!

After some coffee, it was time to head back home. It was such a nice day. I am so happy that my grandparents are able to enjoy my little ones so much! And Jack just thinks that they are so cool. He is still talking about our visit to Nana and Poppy's!

After our 2 busy days, I thought for sure that these kids would sleep like logs that night. And Jack did. But poor Emma was in a bad place with her new teeth trying to poke through! Once she went to bed, she woke up 3 more times crying and gnawing on her little fist. I got her out of her crib each time and put the Orajel on her gums, which helps for all of 10 minutes. I gave her a cold teether and rocked her til I thought she was asleep. But each time I went to lay her down, she would open her eyes and look at me as if to say "you aren't going to leave me here, are you?" Talk about tugging at your heartstrings. So the third time I laid her down, I sat on the floor right next to her crib and looked at her through the bars. She seemed to like that. She smiled her soft, sweet little smile at me as her eyelids got heavy. She looked so adorable laying there with her wild hair, in her little boy hand-me-down jammies, just sucking away on her little teether. Each time it looked like she was going to fall asleep for good, her heavy eyelids would shoot open and look right at me as if to say "oh good, you're still there". It didn't take her long to slip into dreamland, but after she did, I sat there for a few more minutes and just watched her sleep. I felt so much success as a mom in those moments. It was nice. As much as I had wanted to crawl into my own bed after our day of travel, it was so much sweeter to have rocked that little girl, quiet her pain and watch her fall asleep. I am sure it is obvious, but I love being a mom!