Sometimes...

even Dads need bedtime stories!!!

"last week of summer"

Thanks for all the goodies Erin!!

So far, so good!

It was our first day with Jack and Ella (so cute and sweet!!). We had a great morning, and everyone is sleeping peacefully. It may take Eli some time to figure out how to listen and share again, but he is doing better than I thought he would. Noah LOVES having his new friends here!

Weekend Fun

Friday night: Eli passed his swimming lessons. He was so excited!

Saturday: We celebrated Austin's birthday. The kids had fun playing in the water! Krista, Brent and the boys stayed over. We played a little guitar hero.

Sunday: Crazy Krista decided to take Eli home. We hear he was jumping off their boat and tubing by himself. He even got dumped once and got right back on the tube (after the initial screaming).

Noah enjoyed his day of being the only grandchild at the lake. Grandma tried to give him his first haircut. He wasn't the most cooperative client, but his hair does look better!

Last night, he went to sleep by himself and did not wake up until 7:45 this morning. YAY!

today's park

Eli picked another park from our list today.

*It was small.

*The equipment was very old.

*It was on the complete opposite side of town from where we live.

*It was... fabulous!

Erin, you'll be jealous! I actually got to sit on the bench while the kids played! There was a short fire pole for Eli, two smaller slides (one was a wide metal one that Noah could go down really fast), short ladders, the bridge on the climber was really low to the ground, there were two diggers, two little airplanes, and rocks (which the boys played with for a long time). LOVED IT

progress????

He went to sleep all by himself in record time.

Hello??? Supernanny????

2 days- nuk and crib free. He's doing pretty good once he's asleep. It's just the falling asleep part that seems to be a problem. He sure likes the freedom his new bed brings!! YIKES!!!!
My favorite conversation today.

Noah: (dumping a bag of goldfish on the table)
Mom: (yelling) "Noah, what are you doing?"
N: "Want some more goldfish."
M: "Yes, but you just dumped out the whole bag!"
N: "Making sandcastle."

Who authorized this???

Upon returning from some afternoon fishing, Joel was a little surprised to find Zach and Eli in the neighbors kayak (he didn't see Krista and me a couple of houses down). The boys each took a turn rowing and got exactly where they were trying to go. Impressive!

CRAZY!

That would be my cousin who climbs 60 ft. trees for a living. He took 8 down at the lake this weekend. It was pretty amazing (and scary) to watch.

PASSED OUT......FINALLY

HELP!!!!!! Our formally fabulous sleeper has turned into a nightmare! He has been up each night at least once or twice since Sunday. He doesn't really cry; he just sits or stands up and whimpers asking for me, and he will not go back to sleep in his crib! He did make it until 6:30 this morning, but he didn't fall asleep until almost 11:00 last night. He used to fall right to sleep for nap. Today, it took him over an hour (after he completely destroyed his crib). Any suggestions??

a future in mapping??

I suppose if you could really make a career out of reading road maps Craig would be doing that . I just had to share this picture that Aunt Jennifer took at Adventureland where once again, Eli loved the map!

Eli's new best friend

Yep, it's a map. We had really been slacking on our tour of parks, so it was fun when we got this map in the mail. It has all of the town parks listed, so now we just mark them off after we visit them. Eli gets more excited about finding the parks on the map than actually playing at them. Last night we picked up KFC with the idea of eating at one of the "new"parks. Well, the playground equipment was made of rotted wood and metal slides, with no picnic table in sight. We let the boys go down the slides once, and then we were off to another park.

Erin... Jen.... you will be so glad that you did not join us on this morning's adventure. Eli found two parks on the map last night that are pretty close to each other and insisted we go today. This was the first park we went to. It was in the middle of a trailer park, and it was gross. Luckily, it didn't take much to convince the boys to move on. The second park was just a little neighborhood park, and it was fine but small. We didn't stay very long!

the boys

Krista and Brent had a wedding this weekend, so I offered to take the boys for them. We got to our house around 2:30 on Friday afternoon, and I was exhausted and thinking we had done everything we could possibly do by 4:00. I didn't even take a picture until we got to the lake yesterday and Grandma and Grandpa took over. A very wise man once said "you can't let them out-number you". Oh yeah- that was my husband who now thinks another one wouldn't be so bad. Maybe this weekend changed his mind.

*On a positive note* The kids were really good. They had lots of fun, and Brady is the best baby in the world. I even saw the return of old Eli- the one who plays nicely, listens (for the most part) and uses his manners.

family night

I packed a little picnic and decided that we should show Joel Eli's favorite park (the one with the maze). I thought it would be fun to take Eli's bike and go for a long walk. Well......Eli wouldn't ride his bike, and Noah wouldn't ride in the stroller. We had fun anyway with Eli in the stroller and Noah on shoulders, and we ended with an ice cream treat at the DQ.

What we did in Iowa

We had a lot of fun during our week at Grandma's! Noah kept saying, "Go that way. Go back to Grandma's" all the way home. Thanks for taking such good care of us, Grandma and Don! We loved Grandma and Don's swing on the their big front porch. We even watched a thunderstorm one night.

We celebrated Matt and Noah's birthdays. The kids had a blast trying to break open the pinata.

We played with our friends, Jake and Chase.

We went to Adventureland with Jennifer, Rich, and the kids. Eli's favorite ride was the "underground".

Grace and Eli had a lemonade stand. They had a few customers, but I think they drank most of it themselves.

Jennifer and I took the kids to the movie Space Chimps one afternoon, and Joel, Don, Tyler and I went to a late movie that night. I don't think I've been to two movies per years since the birth of Eli let alone two in one day!

Noah turns two...

almost a week ago!! We celebrated at the lake today. He also had a party last weekend when we were in Iowa. I'll post pictures of our fun week at Grandma Cathy's tomorrow.

trying out his new fishing pole

nice outfit!

Noah got an early b-day present from Auntie Jen and Uncle Craig last night. He has been carrying his new glove and ball everywhere!! He asked for them the minute he woke up this morning and again after nap. Tonight he was running around like this saying "I'm a hawkeye player" (he's still a little confused).

Go Redhawks!

Noah still calls them the Hawkeyes. Can you believe that the Redhawks have been playing for 2 months, and this is the first time Craig and Jen got our whole family to a game???? My mom, Craig, and I took the kids for a day game on Craig's birthday in May, and Eli got to go with Jen and Katelynn on Monday night. This was Joel's first game. Monday night, Jen taught Eli all about baseball: how many players are on the field, how many outs, how many strikes..etc.

Tuesday night, he learned the most important thing about baseball: how to eat sunflower seeds (which kept him very busy for a couple of innings).

Noah just ate Jen's snacks and then sucked on a lemon for a while.

Attack of the cheese puffs!

I just had to pass along my favorite picture from the weekend.

fun at the pool?

We met Jack and Ella at a cute little pool today. The first half hour was great. The kids had fun going down the little tunnel slide and playing with the water toys in the shallow end. Then, Eli decided he needed to go hang out in deeper water which eventually led to him crying (for a long time) about not being able to go down the big kids' slide (they don't let you wear lifejackets on the slide).