Somersault Video

Suddenly Maddox won't stop somersaulting and has figured out how to do them straight.  Might be time for a tumbling class!

Kersey Valley Maize Adventure

Yesterday we spent 4 hours at Kersey Valley!  It was sunny and warm and a beautiful day to spend outside!  It's in High Point, about 30 minutes from our house and has a bunch of fall activities and at night in October has Spooky Woods.  They also have a new zip line.


How tall are we in relation to the corn?  Not very!  Maddox is just short of 3 feet tall.



Here's a picture of the maze.  The green lines are pathways.  There's little tiny red dots, 1-6, that are the different signs that gave you the clues to figure out the crime.  The red bars are a bridge.  It was a Farm Scene Investigation theme and was kind of like Clue.  A picture would have, for example, a llama, with a rope, at the creek and you'd use the hole punch to punch those items out of your card and know that wasn't who commited the crime.  After finding all 6 signs you'd be left with one animal, scene, and item as the answer.  I don't know if it's cheating or smart that we took a picture of the map and would then zoom in on it to figure out where to go next.  It only gave us a general direction to another number since there were so many paths that following one on a map was impossible.  Even following the map it took us about 1 1/2 hours to find all the clues and then our way out.  Maddox had no idea what we were really doing, but she had fun anyway.

 

 This is the jumping pillow!  Groups of kids were let in to jump for 5 minutes at a time so there wouldn't be too many on at once.  Maddox wanted to do it, but wanted to do it only with me.  As it turned out, that was fine.  With all the other kids jumping and bouncing you it got a little overwhelming.  Maddox would not let go of me at all and really enjoyed it for about the first 4 minutes.  She was laughing and jumping.  Then it all became too much and she got overwhelmed and scared.  She'd alternate between laughing and whimpering.  Finally, near the end of our time she got so scared I had to sit down with her and slide down to the sand and get off.  She said "I don't want to jump anymore!" with a few tears in her eyes.

 After the stressful jumping pillow we sat down for a snack and then took a ride on a tram pulled by a tractor.  Maddox thought that was going to be scary and loud (we sat in the first seat right behind the tractor) and kept saying "hold my hand!  Hold it tight!"  She looked worried.  But it was surprisingly quiet and she enjoyed the ride.  Even Jessi got to ride on the seat next to me.

 By the time we got to the pumpkin patch we'd been there for almost 3 hours.  Maddox was tired, hot, and hungry and did not want to cooperate for cute pumpkin pictures.  So we laid Hadlee down and took hers.  Well then Maddox wanted to lay down too and be surrounded by pumpkins.

 The last thing we did was ride the cow train.  Maddox said she really wanted to do it but again would only do it "with Mommy".  We sort of had to wait a long time for our turn.  So we played around, climbed the gate . . .

 Sat down and played some more . . .

 Then it was our turn!  I even got Maddox to hold her hands up like on a roller coaster.  It was pulled by an ATV and weaved back and forth and went over two little fast hills so to her it was sort of like a roller coaster.  She loved it!  After we got done I asked her if she would have done it by herself and she said yes.

 Another fun day in the Schultz family!  Maddox cried when we left and said " I don't want to go bye bye!"  She and I both would love to spend every beautiful warm day playing outside, especially doing farm-like activities!  I think Jeremy was ready to go after about 2 hours. What will we do when winter comes and it's actually cold outside?  I'm sure there will be a lot less fun outings.  But for now, it's time to paint and carve pumpkins!

Lazy 5 Ranch Plus Some

This week we decided to go check out Lazy 5 Ranch.  This is a place where you can drive your own car through or ride a horse drawn wagon to see animals.  They come right up to you so you can feed them.  Lots of different kinds of goats, llamas, ostriches, emus, sheep, pot bellied pigs, buffalo, cattle, etc  It was a great day!  It was around 80 degrees so the animals were up and moving around.  Here's some photos of us feeding the animals.  Even Jeremy fed all the animals!  I was kind of surprised!  Funny, I don't question that my 2 year old will feed the animals, just my husband!

 And I just have some random cute pictures of the sisters hanging out together.  Sometimes they'll sit together in the chair and watch a cartoon.  (Good mom huh?  Let me point out that this particular picture was taken when Daddy was letting them watch tv while I was at work.)

 Another day Maddox asked to hold Hadlee...

 Hadlee spends lots of time in her jumparoo now.   She'll sit in there for 30-45 minutes at a time before she gets fussy.  We think she does a LOT more jumping than Maddox ever did.  Maddox jumped some but played with the toys more.  Hadlee plays with the toys but spends most of the time doing big jumping.  Here's a video of Hadlee jumping.  (Remember, to watch the video you'll have to click on my blog link below my signature if you got this in an email.  No videos can be seen through the email.)

Hadlee Stats and Fair Photos

So I'm pretty sure these pictures are totally out of order.  I just started using the new blogger layout and am trying to figure it all out.  Not having any luck yet.

Since Hadlee's at the top we'll start with her stats from her 4 month checkup.  She weighs 15 lbs 8 oz. (2 pounds more than Maddox at that age) and 25.5 inches long, both 90th %ile.  She's wearing size 6 month or 6-9 month clothes.  The good part of that is that she'll be able to wear Maddox' winter clothes even though she was born 5 months later in the year.  She's the happiest baby, so smiley and laughing a lot now.  She is really starting to enjoy Maddox and laugh at her.  We finally moved her to her own room mid September after all of our guests were done coming and she's been sleeping through the night.  I'll feed her around 10:30 and she'll wake up around 6:30 to eat again but go back to sleep after that.  Annoyingly she's still spitting up a lot.  Not a ton, just more than I'm used to.

Hadlee's first ride on the ferris wheel!


 We did go to the Dixie Classic Fair this year.  Every year I say I'm not going and then we end up going.  This year Maddox could ride the kiddie rides so I wanted her to be able to do that if she wanted to.  And she did!  She rode all the rides she was allowed to ride at 36 inches by herself (even though she's not quite 36 inches).  The roller coaster below she had to ride with an adult, which was fine because she wasn't so sure about it.  After it went around a couple times though she was laughing.

Maddox riding the roller coaster with Mom

This is the only ride she was scared of.  She tried not to cry the whole time, but was only partly successful.  I don't know what was so bothersome about this ride.  I even put her on the back of another boy's motorcycle so she wouldn't be alone and so scared.  At first she was by herself and just wanted off. 

As you can see, that's a look of fear with a quivering lip, not a smile.

Seemed okay when I first put her on, but then I guess she changed her mind.

 She wasn't allowed to ride this one alone either.  Had to ride with a parent.  Yea.  It was this big bus that went up and around in a circle clockwise a few times, then went counter clockwise a few times.  It only made me slightly nauseous.  Wimpy Jeremy wouldn't ride anything with her though, so I had to suck it up and do it.

Maddox was a little bit worried about this ride the whole time.  No tears, just a very serious look.

Maddox loved the planes and waved every circle around.

 This was the first ride she rode at the fair.  She was so excited!  I kind of thought she'd be a little more reserved about riding things, but I said "What do you want to ride?"  And she pointed right away and said, "I want to ride that!"  There's a video of it below.  She smiled the whole time.

Obviously if Hadlee rode the ferris wheel we all did.  I told my mom that Jeremy and I rode it with Maddox and she said "What did you do with Hadlee?"  Just left her in the stroller below, watched from above.  No, we ALL went!  Even Jeremy who is afraid of heights and looked like a little kid nervously shifting away from the chain opening.  It was a beautiful day up there.  You could see Pilot Mountain, Hanging Rock, and all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Gorgeous view!

Of course we started the day visiting all the animals.  Maddox checked out the sheep (my favorite!), the cows, the very huge horses (2000 lbs! Really?), the chickens, and bunnies.  The chickens sort of made her nervous because there were rows and rows of them and one would loudly blurt out "cockadoodledoo" right next to her and she'd jump.  At the petting barn she fed the goats, llamas, and camel.  I so want some pygmy goats!  They're so cute!  Maddox loves them too and wasn't at all concerned with them eating out of her hand.

It was an awesome day and Maddox was so tired.  We were just about home when she fell asleep in the car, got to nap about 30 minutes, then had to be awakened to go to church choir.  We all slept well that night!

Hadlee 4 Month Video

This was supposed to be released on Oct.1 but the video wasn't working so it took a couple days to get it fixed. Just pretend, okay?  It's also a video so you can't watch it through your email, you'll have to click on the blog link below my signature to watch it directly from my blog.

Hadlee is 4 months old today! It's also Jeremy's 34th birthday. He got to choose her birthdate and chose the 1st just for this reason, so they'd share at least a number. I was trying to take video of Hadlee laughing hysterically at her rattle. Of course the funniest things happen when no one else is home. She was giggling so much!! By the time I got around to recording it she didn't find it quite as funny, but there are still some laughs in there. But more so, there are some bodily functions! Apparently she saved all the toots, burps, and hiccups up for movie making time!