Family Campout

This past weekend we went camping at Arrowhead Campground in Iowa.  WE LOVED IT!  It was perfect for the boys.  My parents came with us.  We couldn't have asked for better weather.  Just cool enough to keep off the bugs and needed a light jacket in the morning.  It rained in the evening while we were asleep which is always the best time! I loved the fact that we could just put up camp anywhere, and it wasn't super busy.  My parents brought their kayak so we took a couple trips on those, went on a short hike, and played at the park.  The entire time talking about camping Brady kept saying "no camping, scared of bears".  But he hasn't stopped asking us about going camping again since we've been home.  He LOVED everything about it!  We are looking forward to the ward camp out the end of the month.

Throwing rocks was the top activity.  

Once asleep, this boy slept like a rock.  The rest of us... not so much

We made biscuits, muffins, and cookies with this AWESOME camp oven/stove.  It uses propane.  We wanted to test it out for our food storage.

Love the excitement!

I LOVE summer time!

Every once in a while in the mornings it's been chilly, and it is making me a little excited for the fall, but mostly I'm just starting to miss the summer time!  I am not looking forward to cold days, coughs, snow, and not being able to play outside.... So we've been enjoying our time out in the sun as much as possible!  Here are some fun pictures and updates.

Tanner:  almost 14months!  He LOVES being outside and fights for it every chance he gets.  He loves being a big boy and follows Brady, or other friends around.  We started doing a sticker job chart for Brady, and Tanner grabs the stickers from Brady, brings them to me, I give him one, and he goes and puts it on Bradys old chart.  He is so proud of himself!  He is just starting to copy some words we day, and LOVES animals! Just being around any animal Tanner gets the biggest grin on his face, and fights to get out of our arms so he can go pet them.  Tanner gives his toys willingly to brady and will give him Hugs throughout Brady's tantrums.

Brady: He liked lighting off fireworks, but not the noisy part.  He continues to be the "worried" (for lack of better words) big brother always making sure he knows here Tanner, Mom and Dad are.  He likes to surprise daddy and text him pictures at work.  Outdoors is still a favorite.  He's acting more like a Preschooler, and is able to communicate even better and starting to have more patience.  Most of the time he enjoys sharing with Tanner, and gets stuff for him.  One morning, after Tanner had been screaming all morning, I put Tanner up in his chair to eat breakfast (Brady was still managing to sleep during it all), and go outside to feed the chickens and get a break from his yelling.  I come back and Brady had woken up, gotten a sippy cup AND lid, and was  just placing it on Tanners tray while he was climbing up to eat his breakfast.  Brady noticed Tanner had already thrown his cup on the ground and went to get something else for him.  It was SO SWEET!  And... sometimes he'll just go calm Tanner down when I've walked  out of the room in frustration.

Our porch continues to make a great swimming pool and lots of entertainment for me to get stuff done.

We had one chicken "sunny" that kept escaping and would get further and further into our yard, closer to the dogs, and into the front.  This particular morning it had just started wandering onto our porch and Brady run inside "Mommy!  Chicken come play with Brady?!"

Will LOVES spending time with the boys!  He's been working 50-60hr work weeks but still manages to come home for dinner, and wrestle the boys.  He's coming up on his 3 months and the job and loves learning new things!  This is a typical picture of Tanner poking and shoving his fingers to Brady.

 Fun at the park, and visits with Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles, cousins and friends.

 When you visit Grandpa on a Saturday, you WILL be expected to do yardwork.

Last but not least, our chickens started laying eggs!  A month sooner than excepted too!  We have 11 chickens, although 2 of them are my brothers.  The most we've gotten in a day is 4!  We are so excited for the eggs to start getting normal size, and collecting more than 1-2.  This was our first week NOT buying eggs from the store!  Brady is scared of the chickens pecking him, but still likes to go out and look for eggs.

Haha... I just realized I never posted this...Happy Anniversary to us! 5 years!!!

It was actually May 21st, but it took me a while to download pictures from my phone.  My mom was kind enough to watch the boys for us while we spent a few days in Kansas City.  WE HAD A BLAST!!!  Thursday we got there around lunch time, so we walked around Crown Point, visited the Chips Chocolate factory to gain a few pounds, and had some AMAZING BBQ for lunch!  We had to stop in the lego store to buy some stuff... for Will.

We went to Lego Land store... because of course Will had to get some cool legos.  

That evening we went on a 2 hr segway tour of downtown KC.  It was so fun!  Those things look so intimidating, but were a blast!  We got rained on pretty good for about 5min, but then the sun came right now.  We saw some historical parts of the city, the party part, and toured the ground of some museums.  (Museums are way better on a seway).  I'm pretty sure the best part was the one mile loop park that we could cruse at top speeds...12mph.

Segway Tours were so much fun!!!

Friday we headed to Worlds of Fun...which was so much fun!  Until we got sick... my stomach handled the rides a little bit better then Will, but lets just say we will NEVER, EVER, not even for a million bucks, ride 2 spinning rides in a row... if you can get us to ride one again... Those were our 2nd and 3rd rides, and I don't think we ever recovered.  lol.  There were a ton of school groups there, but not as much as waiting as I expected.  It was a BLAST!

Enjoying the rides...

And leaving cuz we're sick...

Saturday, we did some shopping at the outdoor strip malls and enjoyed the beautiful weather and time together.  It was so nice being away from the kids but we were defiantly glad to be home... I'm sure my parents were even more glad to not have 2 kids running around anymore.

Here's to another great 5 years with the man of my dreams!

Happy Birthday Tanner!

Last Tuesday Tanner turned 1!  It's amazing how a year ago, I got to the hospital and popped out this boy withing 10min of getting to the room.  He has pretty much been just as easy going has his entrance into the world.  He started walking on his birthday and LOVES walking any where and everywhere... especially to bother big brother.  His tries to get his hands on any type of technology as possible and if not, he throws the BIGGEST tantrum ever!  (yes, he probably gets that from me).  He eats everything and always finishes up Bradys food, loves being outside, and is happy.  When he's not happy, it's a tantrum.  Those are pretty quick though and he'll be happy again.  It's amazing how fast they grow, I miss my little snuggle bug Tanner... although I still get a good hug every once in a while.

He LOVES to climb on anything!  I kept telling him no to touching the TV, so I put boxes up... silly mommy, that won't work.  Whenever I tell him know, he just looks at me with the biggest smile on his face and keeps on doing what he's not supposed to be doing.

Warrior Dash

The beginning of this month I ran a 3.3 Warrior Dash with my sister, and someone in my ward.  IT WAS A BLAST!!!  I haven't done a mud run before, and this was perfect!  Besides getting lost on the way there... we weren't really lost, the phone just switched and took us to the wrong address... so LanaMarie and I ended up running the quarter mile to the check-in tents for our warm up.  Our friend from church had some V1ktor Athletic shirts for us to wear to help advertise for a family member ***Most comfortable THINGS ever!!!***  The race was fairly easy with not too many hills, running through the corn stalk stubs was a little annoying, and the obsticals were a BLAST!!!  I just wish they had more mud ones :)  We really didn't get muddy till the last one.  Will took care of the two boys (give them an apple and they are as happy as can be), and cheered me on.  Will took great pictures from the last few obsticals he could see.  I am defiantly looking forward to doing it next year!  Reminder for next year... keep doing the early wave so you don't have to wait for a TON of people.  No waiting was AMAZING!  Ready for the muddy picture overload?

Quick picture before the race because we didn't know if Will would catch up with be boys before we ran.

Taking a little detour to visit my cheering boys

My two little warriors.  

V1ktor Athletics group

The water was FREEZING!!!  Slide was a blast!

Finished!

Still to this day... 3 weeks later, Brady loves to put on his helmet, and when I wear the Warrior Dash T-shirt Brady talks about Mommy jump fire.  Every other day he asks me to put on my metal (because its a magnet and hangs on the fridge).  He is very proud of his mom... and only a little jealous about me playing in the mud.

Family Trip!--Photo Overload

As you can see we got new family pictures taken!  Thank you so much Aunt Peggy for doing this on the side of everything else that has been going on!  They looked GREAT!!!

We took a family road trip!!!  22hr drive to Arizona!  YAY!!!  And we lived to tell the tale!  Surprisingly, I don't have very many pictures of us in the car...  We left Tuesday afternoon around 4ish, and stopped an hour for dinner.  The boys did great!  It took them forever to go to sleep because the sun sets so late,  but they both actually slept!  Will and I took turns driving.  The boys would wake up every hour or so fussing (they are stomach sleepers), but we could get them calmed down quick they never woke up fully.  We got to Salt Lake at 5:30, and didn't want to wake up his brother, so we slept in the car for an hour or so.  The boys were SO SO SO happy to be on their stomachs!

In Utah, we took naps, and spent time with Wills brother Brian and his family.  Brady LOVED playing with cousins, and Tanner had fun too.  We went to the Tulip Festival, and out to this AWESOME place for ice cream at Thanksgiving Point... sorry don;t remember the name.  

Early the next morning we were off to Arizona!  We stopped by an Uncles on the way, and got in Thursday night.  We loved staying with Wills dad, and visiting with family and friends.  We had a surprise birthday party for my mom, who was down there because my sister had a baby, which was awesome because I got to see even more family then usual.

Brady LOVED all the attention and was the entertainment of everything.  Tanner after the first couple days started having really bad Mommy withdrawls from everyone holding him, and started having multiple meltdowns...we are still trying to get over those.

We were there for 5 days, then drove back home.  We decided to go straight through the night because Brady woke up with the Stomach bug which lead to multiple stops... Driving through the night was totally worth it to NOT have to entertain kids a second day in the car.  Over all the boys did great!  And we were able to catch up on sleep after a few days.

Tanner started crawling 2 weeks ago, and started walking with one hand this week.  Brady wants to do everything by himself without help... so He is teaching me more patience... I thought I already had enough.  Apparently not.  We are loving the outdoors and going on bike rides with the new bike trailer I got.