Harper and I just finished reading “5 Little Pumpkins,” which is well below her “grade-level,” but she loves it because it’s about pumpkins. Anyway, we got to the end of the story and she asked:

Harper: “Why did they roll out of sight?”
Me: “Umm, because they had somewhere to go.”
Harper: “Oh, where?”
Me: “I’m not sure, where do you think they went?”
Harper: “Caribou. That one needs some coffee, and that one wants a chocolate milk.”

Well, you know we’ve officially switched our coffee allegiance from Starbucks to Caribou when our 3 year old recognizes it!

And finally, a Romanism to add to tonight’s post… this afternoon the kids watched The Little Mermaid, and upon seeing Ursula the sea witch, Roman promptly declared “Hey look, a gorilla!”

Harper was in a great mood for most of today, which means some real gems came out of her mouth. Here’s a sampling:

On an afternoon date with Mommy to Starbucks
Harper: “Mom, do you want to go on vacation?”
Me: “Yeah, I love vacation. Where do you want to go?”
Harper: “Vacation.”
Me: “Yeah, but where is vacation?”
Harper: “Wintergreen.” (duh)
Me: “Is anyone else going to be at Wintergreen?”
Harper: “Yeah, Charlie and Alicia and Baby Wyatt and Uncle Luke. We are going to build a sandcastle, then I’m going to ski on ONLY ONE FOOT.”

Later into our date…
Harper: “Mom, you and me can’t go on any more dates.”
Me: “Why not?”
Harper: “Because moms and dads need to stick together on dates.”
Me: “Then who are you going to stick with?”
Harper: “Roman. Me and Roman can go on a date.”

At dinner
Tonight I made chicken stir-fry with carrots, broccoli, onions, and water chestnuts. It’s something that I loved to eat growing up, but I guess I haven’t made it much for Harper and Roman. Roman devoured his, but Harper took one look at it and climbed down from her chair. I promptly put her in time-out for a minute, then invited her back to the table. She came back, looked at it again, and said “I think I’ll go back to time out.” At this point we just ignored her (let’s face it, the giant cookie we shared on our date probably didn’t help her appetite for stir-fry), but we did make it clear that Roman had earned a trip to the “ice cream store” with Daddy and that she would be staying home. She seemed fine with this until she saw Roman putting on his shoes and going out to the car. Boy did that make her hungry for broccoli! I’ve never seen anyone eat broccoli that ferociously! She shoveled in her food (while I threatened that Daddy was turning on the car), then stared right at me, burped, and declared “that was my mouth saying ‘YUM!’”

On Friday we drove up to Strasburg, PA for “Day Out with Thomas.” Yes, as in THE Thomas the Tank Engine, for all of you non-train enthusiasts. We have been counting down to this trip for quite a while, so the kids were beyond excited. Roman climbed into the car around 8AM with his mimi and his trains, sat in his car seat and declared “I’m ready to go!” and then proceeded to sit anxiously for the next 90 minutes while we packed the car!

Our train tickets were actually for Saturday morning, so we had to come up with something fun to do on Friday afternoon for fear of a major meltdown when we didn’t immediately go to Thomas. We landed at the Cherry Crest Adventure Farm, which featured the best petting zoo I’ve ever seen, slides, jumping pillows, and oh so much more. It was a great way to spend the afternoon, even though the kids were beyond exhausted.

This llama would rush over to the food dispenser as soon as he saw you bearing a quarter, and would actually open the flap to get the food out once you put in the money. It was hysterical!

We really want a trampoline:

The Strasburg train came by every 45 minutes or so:  

On Saturday we woke up bright and early and made our way over to the Thomas event. Evidently we were not the only ones who thought this would be a fun outing with our toddlers. It was SO CROWDED! Despite the crowds, we were all in awe when a real live Thomas train came tooting down the track. It was very cool! We got to ride on Thomas, then take a longer ride on the Strasburg train. There were also miniature train rides and pretty much anything you can imagine that involves trains. It was a little slice of Heaven for Roman!

 
Pop pop and Harper catching their first glimpse of Thomas:

On Sunday all three kids woke up with colds, and Roman was running a nice fever. We had already made plans to spend the day with Portman’s grandparents, who live in Lancaster, so we headed over there for a family lunch. Everyone was sick and exhausted, but we enjoyed a rare visit with family. Evidence of a good time: Harper fell asleep at 5:30pm on the car ride home and slept through the night!

Last Tuesday was Harper and Roman’s first day of preschool! Both kids were SO excited to start school, and boy were we ready. It was a long, busy summer, and we are much in need of some structure! They both marched right into their classrooms without so much as a hug goodbye, and didn’t want to leave when I picked them up. This was a big change from last year when Harper screamed for two straight days!

This year Harper is in the three year old class with six of her friends from last year. It’s really nice having familiar faces. Roman is in the “younger” two year old class on the same days as Harper, and he is with two of the younger siblings of kids in Harper’s class. We are no longer close enough to walk to school, but we are hoping to start biking them to school once we get our stamina up (ehem, Daddy…)

Here are some pictures of the munchkins on their first day. Roman was so proud of his “school bag” and kept repacking it with trains and toys:

This weekend we had lots of visits from family. We are glad that they came to us because we never leave the house! On Saturday great-grandma Abie, great-aunt Carolyn and Yaya came up for a visit and the kids got lots of hugs and kisses and got to show off their cool moves. Harper spent a long time doing a paint-by-number kit with Abie, which she still insists on showing us about 6 times a day!

On Sunday Luke, Alicia and cousins Charlie and Wyatt made a pit stop at our house on their way home from MD. All of the kids had a blast playing together, and we had an exciting (mostly exciting for our waiter) brunch at First Watch. The first time we all ate at First Watch was when Portman and I visited Luke and Alicia in Florida with just Harper, who was only 5 months old at the time. This was definitely a different dining experience with five kids ages 3 and under! We had a great time and just wish that we all lived closer and could do this more than once a quarter!