boys and summer

Tonight we went to watch Chris play his first league kickball game - it wasn't the first game of the season, just the first for him.  The game was supposed to go until 8:15, so I planned ahead.  I fed the boy, bathed the boy and outfitted him in fresh pajamas.  That way he could go right to bed when we got home.

Well, that didn't go so well.  Here's why ...

About two seconds after we arrived he looked like this.  So much for those clean pj's huh?  And of course he had to taste it too ....

So much for that bath.  (sigh)  Oh well.  I should have known better.  It's not like this is the first time he's done this. 

Boys are drawn to dirt like bugs are to the light.  It's just a force of nature I guess.  But that's what's great about boys in the summer!!  And like any mama with boys, I just brushed him off, wiped him down and put him to bed ... dirty pj's and all. 

Just Brooks

We've been teaching Brooks where his nose is. I think he found it :)

He's climbing onto and into everything these days.  And he always wants to be a part of what we're doing.  What a good little helper.

We visited the zoo on Thursday last week and this particular goat kept trying to eat Brooks' toes.  See his nose sticking through the fence??  That was after he actually nibbled on his fingers.

Saturday night was the first Viking preseason game and Chris was giddy with excitement.  Footbal is a BIG deal in our house!  Brooks and Daddy were ready to cheer on the purple and gold!

Montana

Whew, we've done a lot of traveling this summer!  First to the twin cities for our anniversary/4th of July weekend, then Brooks and I went to Green Bay for a week (oops, still need to post pictures from that).  Now we just came back from a weekend in Montana.  And in a few weeks we'll be headed back to the cities for a friend's wedding.  Since we were rarely able to get away on the weekends while working at the church, we didn't travel much - so I am LOVING this!

We were able to fly to Montana thanks to Chris' incredibly generous boss who gave us his airline miles ... we flew for practically FREE.  Can't beat that.  We decided to make a trip out to see Chris' parents since they're moving at the end of the month and childhood treasures needed to be claimed.  That and I've never seen Montana in the summer.  And oh, is it beautiful out there.  There is absolutely no humidity which is amazing!!  And at night time the temps drop down to 50 degrees - perfect!!  And the mountains ... well, they're mountains ... which we definitely don't have in South Dakota.  I'm sure folks who live there get used to the view, but they were gorgeous!  On our flight back home we saw the sun rise over the mountains.  Simply breathtaking!  I know my in-laws are moving to eastern Montana (the land with no mountains) but I do hope we get back to Belgrade some day.

This was also Brooks' first time flying and he did GREAT!  Since our flight left Sioux Falls at 8pm, he slept the whole way there, on both flights!  And we boarded the plane at 6am coming home, so he slept most of those flights too.  What a good baby.

Our first day there (Friday), we hiked up to this beautiful waterfall.  The windy, bendy mountain roads we had to take almost made me lose my lunch, but it was worth it once we arrived.  After we parked it was about a 1 mile hike to get to here.

Pretty amazing isn't it?  The water was so clear and so COLD.

On Saturday we pretty much just hung around the house.  After living in their home for almost 30 years, Les and Lue had collected a few things.  Ok, a LOT of things.  All three boys rummaged through boxes in the garage to find treasures they wanted to keep.

That evening we enjoyed a delicious roast beef dinner that Grandma Katy made for us.  She lives right in Belgrade too, so we loved seeing her every day too.  After supper we headed over to Tim's house (Chris' youngest brother) for a bonfire.  Brooks went to bed, so Grandma & Grandpa stayed behind with him while the rest of us went to Tim's.  What I really enjoyed about the weekend was getting to know Chris' brothers better.  His middle brother JD and his wife Pamela were there from Minneapolis.  They've only been married a few months so I was able to get to know Pamela better.  And Tim lives in Belgrade along with his girlfriend Katie.  We had a great time just sitting and talking around the HUGE fire that Tim built.

Sunday was church then the six of us floated down the Missouri river.  (Grandma & Grandpa stayed behind with Brooks again - I loved all the "child-free" times we had)  What a beautiful day.  I would love show you pictures, but our camera wouldn't have fared well on the water.  And the timing was perfect!  Just as we got out on shore (three hours later) storm clouds rolled in and it began to rain!  So glad we weren't the folks still on the river because it was COLD without the sun shining. 

That evening we went to dinner at a local pizza place in town and enjoyed each other's company before we had leave early the next morning.  I'm so glad we had the chance to visit Les & Lue and Brooks had a chance to spend time with his grandparents.

Here's some other pictures from the weekend.

Brooks went swimming in the "hot" tub.  It wasn't actually hot since they cooled it down to about 75 degrees for the summer - it was perfect for him and he loved it!

Grandma and Granpa had fun new toys to play with.

Brooks loved playing with Uncle Tim's puppies!

Playing with Grandpa Les. Notice the lovely drool?  Brooks cut a new tooth while we were there.  Fortunately he didn't fuss at all about it.

And this just made me laugh :)  At the Minneapolis airport there is a kids play area and daddy insisted upon this picture.

My Declaration!

I hereby declare that from this day forward, no one in this house shall, under any circumstance, clothe the child in any white shirts ..... ever again!!

Thank goodness for bleach!

Rain Rain

Look what I woke up to this morning!

And no we don't live on river front property.  This is the north side of our apartment building, next to the marsh.  The grass should go down all the way down to the reeds.  This is the highest I've ever seen the water.

It rained 6 inches last night and it is flooded all over town.  I'm watching the news and roads are washed out, basements are flooded and there's a "no travel" advisory in Lincoln country (that's our county!)  It came all the way up into our parking lot.

Yep, that's my van too.  Looks like we're gonna get wet.  I had plans of taking the boys swimming today .... looks we dont' have to go far for that.  Ha!  It's days like this I'm glad we don't own a house in a flood zone.  (sorry mom and dad)

.........

on another note, Chris and I spent the evening cleaning, organzing and throwing stuff away. We are moving at the end of August (hooray) to a little house in Sioux Falls - in the center part of town.  We've been looking for the last 5/6 months as the quality of neighbors has gone waaaaaay downhill.  I know we're supposed to love our neighbors, but when their cigarette smoke, mixed with their explitive four letter words, comes wafting into our windows every day, it's time to move.  So we're cleaning out stuff.   The less I have to move .... the better!

But for whatever reason, the mess seems to get bigger before it gets smaller.  Funny how that works.  Here's what our office looked like last night .....

Yikes!  I was amazed at all the STUFF we had and what I thought was important to keep.  I mean, who really needs 50 baby themed gift bags and every receipt from every purchase dating back to 2007??  Yeah, we threw A LOT of stuff away!  So by the end of the night, our room looked a little better.

We finally found the floor three hours later - which was at about 10:30pm ..... waaaaay past this mama's bedtime.  Let's just say I slept hard last night.  But I'll be thankful when it comes time to move and the load is that much smaller!!

busy summer

I can't believe there's less than one month of summer before school starts!  I mean, for Brooks and I it doesn't really matter, but the big boys go back to school in less than 4 weeks.  The nice thing is that since they go to SF Christian school they start a whole week later than the public schools.  But the bummer thing is that all the fun FREE stuff to do (library story time, park & rec activities, etc) ends the beginning of August, in prep for the school year.  So we'll have to get a bit creative the next few weeks in finding things to do.  But these boys are pretty creative, so that hopefully won't be too hard.  Yesterday we explored the Museum of Visual Materials and they both played with a ball of string for 1/2 an hour.  Yep, a ball of string!  Gotta love creative minds.

We've also ridden the trolley a few times.  They love doing that!

Falls Park also provides entertainment with lots of rocks to climb.

Today, since it's kinda rainy outside we decided to make play-doh.

Not only is it fun for them, but it gives me a chance to get my laundry done :)

Next weekend Chris, Brooks and I are flying to Montana to visit Chris' parents one more time before they move.  His dad took a Sr. Pastor position in Sidney, MT and will be there Sept 1.  And if you know anything about Montana, the eastern part of the state looks just like North Dakota ..... flat and boring (sorry for those of you who live there)  So we wanted to see the mountains and Chris' childhood home one last time.  This will also be Brooks' first time flying.  We'll see how that goes. 

And because I should include a picture of the baby, here's Brooks eating a salad for supper.  He makes this awful face when trying new foods! 

To his credit, he actually will try new foods, but it almost looks painful, doesn't it?  Goofy kiddo.

an update

whew!  these past few weeks have gone by so fast I haven't had time (or energy, creativity, etc) to sit down and write about it.  We've been busy busy busy!!  Here's the condensed version of what's been going on around here.

On July 2nd Chris and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary.  Wow, 5 years!  It seems like it has gone by so fast and at the same time I feel like we've been married forever (which is a good thing).  To celebrate we took a weekend trip to the twin cities. We stayed with our fabulous friends, the Blanchards. 

We spent one afternoon on their boat - it was Brooks' first time on the water and he loved it, of course ... my little water bug.

On Saturday night Kellie watched Brooks while Chris and I hit the town.  We spent the evening on Grand Ave in St. Paul, our old stomping grounds.  It was fun to reminisce and enjoy an evening to ourselves.

And Brooks LOVED their dogs.  He loves all animals, but he had soooooo much fun playing with Cassie (above) and Dallcye.

The following weekend (July 9) was my birthday.  I took the boys out for ice cream during the day to celebrate.  They didn't argue :)  I tried to teach Cole how to "lick" the ice cream cone instead of smashing his face into it ... I wasn't so successful as you can see.

The bummer part about my day was that Brooks was crabby crabby crabby.  Ugh.  Didn't he know it was my birthday??  We braved going out to eat (a poor decision on our part) and well .... let's just say we'll be finding a babysitter next year.  But I did end the evening ona  high note with homemade apple pie.  My dear husband (who does NOT bake) made me a pie for my birthday - isn't he great!

We learned a few years ago that it's not smart to put a wax candle in a warm apple pie.  So this year we wrapped it in tinfoil first.  Happy birthday to me!!

Then on Monday July 12, Brooks and I hit the road to Green Bay.  We traveled with a friend and her two boys who also has family in Green Bay.  We were there a whole week - the longest time I've been away from Chris and Brooks from his daddy.  'll post more pictures from our trip later, but here's a few of my favorites.

cooling off on a hot day

Riding with Grandpa Dave at the wildlife sanctuary

4 generations

Snuggle time with Grandma Marty. 

We had a fantastic time and it was hard to say good-bye.  Brooks loved spending so much time with Grandma and Grandpa - and I think they enjoyed it too :)  I just wish we didn't live 9 hours away from them.  But it was good to come home and see Chris.  I sure missed him.

And in case you didn't hear ......

.... we now own a mini-van.  Yep, we did it.  Remember all those things I said I'd never do?  Yeah, owning a minivan is one of them and I'm eating my words, once again.  So tease all you want, but it is very comfortable to drive and it's much easier getting my 3 boys around.