Anniversary

Yesterday afternoon we got together to celebrate Mattey and Kristin's birthdays. Kristin's was a couple of weeks ago and Mattey's is coming up this week. Everyone came over to our house (we were hoping it was going to be warmer weather for the pool, but it was so windy) and we hung out. We had a huge water gun fight and played some basketball. We even found a snake and kept it in jar for a little bit of the day before letting it go - on the other side of the street - far away from our house. ;) The boys were fascinated by it. Kristin and Mattey chose the Pizza Ranch for supper and boy was it yummy.





It is Matt and my 7th Anniversary today. Happy Anniversary honey. So much going on in our lives. Boy, are we very blessed! I wouldn't want to be going through any of our craziness with anyone else. ;) ;)

Things I want to remember....

so I I'm writing about these few things because I want to be able to look back and remember.


Connor:
The library this summer is giving away free books for every 10 days that you read. All of the boys are signed up for it and we read ALL of the time. It was cool, they got to pick a book from a ton a choices. I was helping the younger two and pointed Connor in the direction of books for him and the lady looked at me with disapproval and asked how old he was. I said, "He's 5, but he can read those books over there."
"He should pick out a book from the younger tables."
"Really, even though he's reading books like those now?" I didn't want to be rude, heck, he was getting a free book.
She finally gave in and he could pick out a book of his choice. He picked out a Magic Tree house book. I would love to tell her that he read the whole book in 24 hours.

While the other two boys are napping, Connor and I usually try to do something together. We just started reading. At first it was reading together, me a page, and then him a page. Well, it has moved now to me reading my own book, and him reading his own book. Kind of sad, yet exciting that he loves to do it. He's pretty proud of himself, as am I. ;)

Connor:
When Connor is talking to us about something that he doesn't want Jacob and Nolan to know about he now spells it out. He thinks it's pretty cool. Hmmm...do you think he does that because we would always spell things out that we didn't want him to know about. We can't do that with him anymore!
"Hey, mom - when the boys are taking a N -A - P (and then he winks at me), can we do my Lego set?"
It's too funny.

Jacob and Nolan:
These two are hilarious right now. They go back and forth purposely thinking it's funny. It's their new game and I hear it ALL day and ALL night.
For example, at the dinner table:
Nolan: This is hot.
Jacob: No, it's not hot.
Nolan: Yeah, it's hot.
Jacob: No, it's not hot.
Both of them have smiles on their face.
Nolan: Mama, is this hot?
Me: Yeah, it's a little hot.
Nolan (looking at Jacob): See, yeah it's hot.
Jacob: No, it's not hot.

You get the picture. Seriously, they do this with everything. I'll have to try to get it on tape. I just sit there, listen, and laugh.


Go figure the boys made the paper for the Breakfast on the Farm (click for the article). They had such a blast.

Waterpark and Breakfast on the Farm

Happy Birthday to our niece Audrey who turned 5 yesterday. Hope you had a great day sweetie!


Yesterday was a hot one again an mom joined us at the Water park. We finally made it there and had a blast.

This morning was Breakfast on the Farm. Grandpa and Grandma and all of us opted for the bus ride this year. It was nice we parked our car in town, rode the bus, and got dropped off right at the driveway and then took it home. I got out my camera to take a picture and it wouldn't turn on. Then I remembered that I took the battery out to charge last night and in our haste to be on time and run out of the house this morning I completely forgot to grab the battery. Lucky for me, my lovely aunt Mary was there and let me use her camera to take come pictures. I will add them when I get them from her. Thank you Mary. What a fun morning. The boys loved the bus ride and then we started with a yummy breakfast. The boys enjoyed petting all of the baby animals, jumping in the jumpy thing, riding the mini tractors and getting a medal, going for a horse drawn wagon ride, making crowns, getting tattoos, eating homemade butter, and getting their picture taken by the calf. Connor took good care of it "shooing" all of the flies from it. They printed a copy of this picture there, so I do have one picture to share. Matt and I both have bachelor/bachelorette parties to go to today. He left and then is coming home early, so that I can go to mine. A friend came over to watch the boys in between.

What we've been up to

Boy have we been having fun.....

Library trips

Feeding the ducks

Parks

Fred the Frog (who Connor so kindly asked me about a million times when we could let him go)

Pool

Sprinklers

Slip n Slide

Water guns

Washing all of our "vehicles" (bikes and scooters)

Wii (Jacob has become quite the bowler!) during those rainy times

Exploring and climbing the hills from the construction being done by our house (don't worry - it's when no one is working - it's safe)

We had plans to go to the Aquatic Center yesterday, but the storm got in our way. Actually we didn't even get hit, but the clouds were ugly and it got windy. We'll try later this week.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's day!

Here is daddy and his boys! What a good looking foursome they are.

The boys are so lucky to have such a great daddy. I love watching them play and be silly together. My favorite thing is to hear them laughing together. I often tell people I have four boys. Though many times I say it sarcastically to people as though it's a bad thing, I love the fact that Matt can have fun with the boys. He also is so good with talking things through with them, especially Connor right now because he actually understands stuff. If our boys turn out like their daddy they will be very lucky. It sometimes gets hard with Matt working as much as he does, but I know it's only because he wants to provide for us and do a great job. It has to be hard having both places demanding time of him, the home and his job. I know his first choice would be his home and family, sometimes you just have to do what you have to do though. We appreciate all that he does for us. It's because of his job that I could always take such a long amount of time off for all three of my maternity leaves and that I don't have to do anything for the summer and can be home with the boys the whole time. Yet, we can have a comfortable life. Happy Father's day daddy, we love you!

Matt's one request was that all of the boys put on Packer shirts and take a picture with him. Connor was in tears over it and made daddy promise that on Connor's birthday he would wear a Vikings shirt. I wasn't overly excited about this request myself. Connor took his shirt off right after the picture, but I gave in and let the other two keep theirs on for Matt. They don't know any better yet. Matt is working very hard on turning them in to Packer fans. ;)

Happy Father's day also to my dad and Matt's dad, John.

John, thank you for the wonderful son that now is the father of our sons.

I am very fortunate and spoiled living in the same town as my parents and if I didn't - I know I would be on the phone with them ALL the time. I already am now and we live in the same town. I still call my dad for recommendations, help, answers when it comes to directions, the weather, and just common every day questions. He has always been there to help us with many things with the house, he's a great grandpa with the boys, and he still gives us his recommendations for things but always ends it with you do what you want, but that's what I think. I love it! ;) He still looks out for us I wouldn't want it any other way. Happy Father's day dad, I love you.
It's my brother Mattey's first Father's day today and it is so awesome watching him be a father. He is such a great one, Kelsey is one lucky girl. Happy Father's day Mattey.

We went over to mom and dad's for a grill out this afternoon. Bummer it was raining, oh well, we still had fun.Kelsey's getting good at getting right into what the boys are doing. That a girl!

Nolan wanted Grandma to dress him up, so she did. It brought back memories of when we were kids. Poor Natey still probably has nightmares about all of the dressing up my cousins and I did with him. I think it was with some of the same stuff even.

We had absolutely no plans yesterday for once. Both Matt and I commented on how weird it felt to have no where that we had to go or nothing that we had to do. We literally did whatever we wanted. We had a great time outside all day! I don't know who had more fun in the pool, Matt or the boys. Cannon ball!!!!!!!!!!!!

Playing Whack-A-Mole, daddy was the mole!

Have a great week everyone!

Milestone

I think I can officially say, JACOB IS POTTY TRAINED! He's been doing great for about 3 weeks now with no accidents and doing EVERYTHING in the toilet. Way to go Jacob! It'll make the summer so much easier!
Now....when's Nolan ready to start?! :)

Have a great weekend everyone!
I get to go on a date with my husband tonight. It's been awhile.

Happy Birthday Kristin!

Today is Kristin's birthday, Happy Birthday girl. Hope you have a great day.


While I'm birthdays, I completely forgot to give a shout out to my sister- in - law Angie and her son Carter for their birthday in the last couple of weeks. I was slacking there for a while with blogging.

Wow, what a storm we had last night.
Hail, thunder and lightening, winds, tornado warning and sirens, DARK clouds, heavy rain, and wind.
It was just me and the boys and they got a little scared. . I love storms (crazy I know), but I was outside looking at one of the clouds and the boys were watching from the window. Jacob got really scared and started crying about the "Big dark cloud going to get us", Nolan got scared because Jacob was, and Connor was sad because daddy was at work and not with us. We went down to the basement for a little bit and camped out. We have dish for our TV, so that wouldn't work. We turned the couch into a bed, put a movie in our little portable DVD player and they were good to go. Every once in awhile they would hear the sirens or the rain and hail and stop for moment, but they were very brave! ;)

The calm after the storm. For such an ugly scary storm, this was a beautiful sight.

Swing Batter Batter

Connor had his first T ball game tonight. We actually thought it was just practice (not that they need practice for T ball, but they were just thrown into it). I forgot about the joys of T ball - 15 kids in the field standing still kicking dirt, waiting for all of the players from the other team to hit, you get to run one base, and the tee is short and falls apart constantly! ;) Connor had fun though. I had to bribe the other two with playing at the park if they were good during the game.

My favorite thing with Jacob right now is that he loves to "nuggle" and always asks at bedtime, "Mommy, you nuggle with me?" I will always want to nuggle with you Jakey man.

The boys love the song Boom Boom Pow by the Blacked Eyed Peas. They saw it first on the American Idol finale and we had to watch it over and over. Thank goodness for Tivo. Now I watch So You Think You Can Dance - love this show - and one of the dance routines was to this song and the boys love to watch it. It's a little crazy to have on this blog, but it's a big part of our days right now! ;) Click on it over by the music and listen to it if you haven't hear it yet. Connor knows all of the words (well actually I don't think it's the exact words, but he keeps up and says what he thinks they're saying). When you hear the song maybe you can picture three boys jumping, shaking, pumping their fists, and having scrunched up rocker faces. It's hilarious.

BEEEEG Pool.......

Today we went to church and to eat at Perkins where the boys got balloons. Someone was thinking when they created balloons. Jacob and Nolan could play with them for hours. We also put up our swimming pool, or like Jacob calls it the BEEEEEEG pool. It's not all that big, but I suppose to him it is big. It'll be perfect for us this summer. It's goes up to Nolan's neck. Obviously, someone will always be in there with them. We hope to use the Aquatic Center a ton this summer, but we're not going to go there every day. This pool will be great fun for us this summer. While the pool was getting set up, the adults and kids had water gun fights. I'm not sure who had more fun, as you can see in some of the pictures.