Chick Fil A cows

Once a year Chick Fil A has their "Dress like a cow" day where you can eat for free if you dress up like a cow. Well, you know how much we love some Chick Fil A and we never miss out on free food so we took markers to shirts, cut out spots, made ears and painted faces and off we went! I even got in on the fun by taking advantage of my huge belly and being the "mamma" cow - ha!

We met some friends for lunch and it was craziness!! But it was so good that we decided to keep our costumes on and head back for dinner (did I mention it was free :)

Daddy even met us for dinner and threw on some spots and ears for a free sandwich :)

Free parks day!

Last week our city had this neat thing where if  you are a member of any of the parks or museums in the city you could go to any of the others for free! There were about 25 places participating. Since we're members of our zoo we were able to check out some new places. First we went to Barber Motor Sports Museum. This place is right around the corner from our house and they have races there all the time but we had never actually been out there. What a cool place! They have 5 floors of nothing but cool motorcycles and cars. The boys especially loved it.

Then after naps we headed over to The Vulcan Museum. The Vulcan is this big statue that sits atop our city. For several reasons it's not really a big deal to me but I thought  it would be something fun to do. You can ride up an elevator and look out over the whole city.

This is a replica of how big The Vulcan's foot is

Someone offered to take a picture of all of us. Lovely :)

Looking out over the city

I don't think I would visit these places on a regular basis but for free they were a great day out! We'll be checking out some more next year :)

10 months

This past Tuesday, July 24th Benajamin turned 10 months! He is getting to be such a big boy!! We keep waiting for him to take off running any day now! He is walking all around the furniture and will stand up by himself on occasion but he hasn't taken any steps on his own yet. But Lord help me when he does. He's already all over the place crawling. When he starts walking he's really going to be ready to go! I love this age because they are so fun to watch explore and learn new things all the time. I don't like this age because they think they are 3 years old and want to do everything the big kids are doing which keeps mommy on her toes :)

He found one of the kids empty cups and I looked over and he was totally tipping it up like he was drinking it. I couldn't get to the camera quick enough. How different things are for baby #1 vs #4. I don't think I let James consistently drink out of a non sippy cup until he was 4 years old. I think Gracie has been using one since she was close to 2 1/2 and Ben will probably be on to the big boy cup by the time he's 1 -ha! Maybe not that young but I''m sure it will be long before 4 :)

So, how sad is it that it has only been in the last couple of weeks that Ben has taken his first real tub bath!?! I bathed him in my baby bather in the sink forever and then just kept bathing him in the sink. Bath time used to be a big fun time at our house and all three kids would play in the tub together for a good 45 minutes. Well, gone are those days. First, they are getting too big to all fit without kicking each other and somebody starts crying or splashing more water out of the tub than keeping in. Second, I'm not really in the mood to lean over the tub at 7 1/2 months preggo. Thankfully we have a hand held shower head that I use to shower the older kids now. The boys are washing their own bodies and hair and I'm just spraying them off. Bath time now takes a total of about 10 minutes for all 3 which fits much better with our schedule :) So that has left Benjamin with a good sink bath but he's really gotten too big for it and wanted to stand up or climb out all the time so I finally broke down and had Jeremy get him in the tub. Ofcourse he loved it. How much more fun will he have when his newest little brother or sister is here to play with him in about a year. Speaking of which - my baby is 10 months and is set to be a big brother in a short 2 months!! Craziness!!

On this sweet boys 10 month bday he got to go to the beach for the first time. I'll do another post about that soon - but as you can see he was loving the pool.

He thinks he is so funny. He loves to find his bumbo seat and climb in it and laugh and clap for himself :)

I think he is the only baby I've had that LOVES the vacuum at this age. Most of mine have cried of ran out of the room. Not this boy. He loves when I plug it up and wants to chase it! I have to be quick to keep from running him over!

Now starts a bit of a birthday season in our house. The 28th was my 36th birthday. Then August 11th and 14th we have the boys 5 and 4 year old birthdays. Then September Ben will be 1 and the newest Allen will be here. Busy Busy Busy.

For my birthday Jeremy took me on my annual birthday dinner to Chuck's seafood. Here is another preggo birthday pic. I have one from every year since I was pregnant with James. My 31st, 32nd, 33rd, and 35th bday pics all have me large with child! Two of the four wanted in on the pic. Benjamin was busy with a bottle and John-Mark was playing and didn't care to be bothered. Typical.