Summer Fun and Sad Farewells

And summer begins:

The summer has been a summer of saying so many goodbyes! LAME!  

First my friend Jenny left...seriously--her family was so so fun and Luke LOVED her daughter Juliana.  He proclaimed it many times apparently in their primary class.

Here are the kids after going out to dinner.  We all went to this frozen yogurt place that is soooo yummy.

The first day of summer the boys invited some friends from the neighborhood over for some backyard mini pool fun...this was a pool from last year...and had lots of holes in it turns out...so it lasted just this one last time.

Luke and Rhett were playing outside one day and Rhett had a nasty habit of always messing around a little with the mud in the garden, so I stripped him down to his diaper and let them do their thing...but since Luke was in the equation this time, the hose was added.  They got so so nasty.

So I hosed them off and they played on the tramp. Woo woo!

I love this man!

Then Kelly and Jason's awesome family moved. We will miss them and their AMAZING dance moves for sure!  (They're champions at Just Dance!) We all went to Red Lobster..mmmmmmmm---for real, Jess and I could eat their coconut shrimp in pina colado dipping sauce ALL DAY LONG!!!

(notice Adam is in the background in his pretty pose)

Afterwards we hit up Baskin Robins and had some crazy funny conversations-HA!

This group is a freak'n HOOT!

It's funny...cause besides one other pic, this is the only family picture we have of all 5 of us...it's really pretty.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESS!!!  He turned 31 this year!  I honestly can't believe how amazing he is. He surprises me all the time by just getting more and more awesome.  I mean enough already!

He truly is amazingly hardworking, loving, kind, thoughtful generous man.  LOVE YOU JESS!

Plus--this was like 'it' for his birthday. A store bought cake and then...eating it.  LAME.  Sorry JESS!!!  We've turned into such lame birthday people.  How did this happen?  How do you have fun birthdays? Mine's coming up...so...we'll see if we get any ideas before then.

Next Sarah and her family left. BOOO.

We trained and ran a triathlon together, ran a few mud runs together, went on a cruise together---our kids played sooooo well together, and her family is AWESOME...we miss you guys.

Here are the kids out on the tramp....Kade's doing bunny ears to Abby....I think he kinda likes her...a lot. So that was fun to watch :)

Here are the boys at their going away party.  That's as far as Jess could reach turns out.

They also did this fancy pyramid that Jess was maybe a little reluctant to do.  Look at the look on his face of pure joy. (its NOT the face of Cari...I can't believe  you made me do this)

I may have grabbed Megan's face right before we took this shot for no apparent reason....

Miss you Sarah!

  I took Luke to Adventures Crossing the other day and it was awesome. He's been waiting for a full year to be able to drive these go karts--you had to be five, so we finally went and he was hilarious! 

Here is is next to his immediate best friend.  After this ride they went on all the rest together.

 Luke was timid at first.  A little short to reach the peddles which was tricky for him--too short to actually ride the ride turns out, but the attendant didn't care and I was so glad that he didn't--it would have broke Luke's little heart.

He ran into the bumper pads and the guy had push him off since there was no reverse...and I had to put it up because of the uncanny resemblance to a recent picture of my own :)

Must run in the family

We also played inside at the arcade. With his last token he played one where you spin a wheel (like wheel of fortune) and you get the amount of tickets that you landed on...BIG MONEY!!!  HE LANDED ON 100! WOO WOO!

And with his TONS of tickets......ha ha--he loved it though.

Okay...so..I know this looks bad.  And it was.  Me and Jess were trying out a new parenting thing to teach our kids to work.  Jess bought Kade a game he'd been wanting for his D.S. We told him that if he wanted to earn it, he would need to work for 10 hours.  I gladly handed over weeding as the job of choice cause 'there's always weeding'..unfortunately, Kade didn't want the game quite BAD enough to weed....ever.  And since I had already mentally handed this over...it turned into this. HA HA---CLASSY!!!

So he earned some time here and there, and I offered a DOUBLE TIME day for him to help me in the garden.  It was a lot of work, but worked out real nice!

This plant here has since died.....turns out watering IS necessary. So now I'm seriously considering a welcome mat, or a nice sign that says, WELCOME.  Cause that's way easier to take care of. :)

Luke loves playing with camera's.  This one was on my camera...I kinda love it so...here you go :)

Rhett is soooooooo grown up!

Luke LOVES playing in the rain. So Rhett joined him this time.

4TH OF JULY

"It's not often a Mormon party gets shut down by the Po Po"

But this year ours was! HA!

For those who are concerned.  Street fireworks are not legal in Grovetown.  Yes you can buy them at Walmart there--but you can't light them.  Only sparklers.  Luckily we were almost done lighting ours. Unluckily, we LOVE watching our neighbors, uh, 'more elaborate' fireworks each year, but the cop went from ours to theirs so we didn't get the big show that night. Here's a few pics from that night :)

Rhett stayed up...he was so tired....

MEGAN'S FAMILY LEFT!!!

I don't have any pics from their going away party but I'll miss them soooo bad! She's like the funniest girl ever. I like her lots and lots.  Love your face off Megan!

Okay--Kade TOTALLY looks like a troll here right?!

This was right after Rhett's haircut/shave (his hair's like translucent so now he's totally a mini-Jess)

 I love this pic cause he looks like an old man shouting at hooligans to get off his lawn!

School starts in less then 2 weeks.  The summer went by sooooooooo fast!!!

VAL'S WEDDING!

YAY!!!  One of my best-est friends from growing up got married in June!  Valori T. Infanger got married to an amazing guy name Will.  I love them so much!  They are seriously so so good together.  I like that lots!  ANYWAY, I got to fly out for the wedding (thanks to an amazing husband who watched the kids all week--thanks baby) kid free and do all the wedding fun!  

I got to be one of her bridesmaids (here's the dress that Jess' mom so awesomely fixed :)

Me and Val go way back, and I just love her family sooo much.  It was so fun to see them again. This is Robyn-Vals sister, and her husband Caleb ---I like them...me and Robyn even fell into old habits chowing down on cookies the night before the wedding...good times :)

Ann, Amanda, Val, Natalie, Me and Jessie at the reception. She looked soooo incredible--the day was perfect, the food was great and it was so fun to catch up with friends!!!  HAPPY WEDDING VAL! 

I was only in Utah for like 48 hours but BJ and Kara, and Chris and her boys came down to moms house and it was soooooooooo much fun to just talk and laugh. I love my family so freaking much!!!

PLUS!  It was my first time meeting my ADORABLE nephew EMMETT.  He was such a happy smiley baby. And he laughed like all the time.  YAY!

Here's me and Kara!  She's a hoot!

Here's Gavin with the pokeman Kade wanted me to give him.  Kade loves his cousin like crazy!

LOVE YOU GUYS!

Baseball, School, and lots of mud! Spring 2011

In May, Kade and Luke started baseball! Woo woo!  Kade started with 'machine pitch'.  He was so worried that all the other boys would be better then him and he'd 'let the team down'.  It was really sweet-but he did totally great!

The first game he was given the team ball for hitting the ball and getting home both times at bat. He felt so so special and that relieved his worries for the rest of the season.    I'd like to say he LOVED it and it was the best thing ever...but really, he liked getting candy from the candy stand, and he liked the treats after the games...and the baseball was just fine.

 I just asked him what he liked and didn't like about baseball, and he said, "there was nothing I didn't like about baseball, but what I did like was all my friends." And really, that's one of the best things about sports, so turns out it was a success.

Luke started with T-Ball. It was really cute. A parent needed to be on the field with them for the first 3 games.  Grandpa Winn was here for one of those games and Luke LOVED having him out there with him.  

He liked his little friends and that he got a cool hat.  He LOVED the snacks he got at the end of the games and when he got to be catcher.  

We had to run around a TON to get Kade and Luke to their different games at different parks each time and many on the same night...it was busier then I like...a taste of the future I suppose.  But they really did enjoy doing something different.

I'd say that one of Luke's favorite things about this season of baseball was bringing his money to his games and Kade's games, buy all sorts of goodies from the snack stand.  His favorite--cotton candy (seen above)  Andrea, Aubrey and Julie did tons of work getting them to their games while they were here too.  That was nice :) Thanks guys!  We LOVED that these guys could stay a bit longer after we got back from our cruise so we could play with them too.

Here's Julie studiously working on fixing a bridesmaid dress for me that didn't exactly come as modest as we would have hoped.  She's nice like that :)

 And here we are...one seat to few on our way to Chuck E. Cheese

THANKS WINNS FOR ALL YOUR HELP FOR OUR FAMILY!!!!  YOU'RE AMAZING!

For Mothers Day Jess bought me a new phone, and bought his mom some roses, which I happily inherited when she had to leave them behind...see how pretty that picture looks--bed of roses :)

...okay...remember that...cause last week (after several attempts by my cautious husband telling me to get a protective case) I dropped it on the road and cracked it....now it looks like this.  Classy with tape and everything. 

 ANYWAY--Also, Luke graduated Trinity Baptist Preschool.  He really liked it there.  He had great teachers (Ms Shannon and Ms Andrea), and we had the best carpool ever. I loved driving and listening to their kids conversations.  I also loved driving only one day a week.   It was sweet!

Here's Luke with one of his best friends Bridger after driving to school before they went in to their different classes.  Kade and Luke share my old camera so Luke brought if for the last day of school and took lots of pictures.  I love all the random things he takes pictures of.

Here's Luke and his friend Conner.  They were BEST buddies in class.  He had a good time there.  And now we'll start Kindergarten in a few weeks! FULL DAY kindergarten.  It makes me sad that he'll be gone so long this young.  But he is definitely ready for the excitement!


MARINE MUD CHALLENGE!!!  2 years ago I did this and when I found out kids could run it too, I was sooooo excited.  And the boys were even more excited.  Here they are with some good friends before the race.

Right before the race started we thought we should probably tell the boys to stay together since we wouldn't be able to see them for most of the course.  This was a bit harder for Kade...Luke lost his shoe in one of the muddy spots and had to stop to search for it amidst the stampeding children all around him. He found it and kept going without being worried at all--it was rad...

Here is Kade above Luke on a giant slab of mud, in an insane shrill voice yelling "COME ON LUKE!  HURRY!!!!"

 But after they got together things went much more smoothly :)  They LOVED the mud--and those clothes were never the same again.

HAPPY CHAMPIONS AFTER THEIR MILE MUD RUN!!!

 Luke helped Rhett feel part of the group by adding a little color to his face.

 We had tons of girls from our ward team up to do this race. There were even 6 more who should have been in this picture who were using the little girls room at the time--it was so fun!  Our team was the Muddy Buddies, and the others were Pretty Tough, and Mud Sweat and Tears.

Here I am bulldozing into the first mud bath!  (I know I look kinda--lame--BUT it's a pretty cool shot so there you have it.)

It was a 5 mile course with 20 obstacles that were AMAZING.  Here's the video from last year that has more of them covered...we didn't have a husband to follow us around with a camera this year :) but we still managed to get a few pics to prove we were there.

It was sooooooooooo fun and I was defiantly challenged!  Last time I'd been exercising and doing all sorts of healthy things--plus it was only 4 miles last time...so I thought--hey, it will be easy even though I haven't worked out for 2 years.  HA HA!  WASN'T EASY--but it was insanely fun--so there you go :)