Loves of my life

The boys outside our room. Do they ever smile at the same time? Totally depicts their personalities, though. Mr. fun and Mr. serious. They're so cute. Love em so much!!

We made it!

After several hours of travel time, we made it to the big island of Hawaii! When we got on the plane, both the boys were glued to the window. They just sat and watched all the stuff going on at the airport. It was really cute to see them discover stuff they had never seen before. When we were getting ready to take off, I explained to Aidan what was going to happen, hoping to calm any fears. He thought it was so great. After just a minute or two, he turned away from the window and said : "Mommy, this is so fun!" I guess I had nothing to worry about. Cruz had a perplexed look on his face, but it left after some reasurrance from daddy. They got bored pretty quickly, so we took out the DVD player, and the battery was dead! Even so, they did great. It wasn't until we were landing that they were done and wanting out of their carseats. Everyone around us kept telling us what great kids we have and how well behaved they were. Music to my ears!

No winners

Our feeble attempt at a christmas picture. The ones we didn't include are the ones with Hank- completeley impossible. So we will try again- you will all have a christmas card from us-eventually!

The Very Hungry Aidan

So you probably know this about my oldest son. He is super cute, super talkative, super smart and SUPER curious! His mind does not stop going. I don't just say this because I'm his mom. I have had several people tell me this exact thing about him- "Wow, his mind just does not stop!" So the other day (ok maybe a few weeks ago, I'm behind on my blogging) I came into his room. He had gone down stairs and, one by one, snuck apples up to his room. They were lined up on his toy chest just like this picture. Can you tell what book he was trying to bring to life? Aidan is my very hungry caterpillar!

45th time's the charm

Does anyone else have this problem? I CANNOT get a good picture of the boys if I am the only parent there. It's impossible! Some that didn't make it past the editing room...

Pumpkins, bunnies, and bouncing, OH MY!

I took the boys to the pumpkin patch last week. We had fun, but it was SO hot! They had fun looking at the animals and bouncing in the bounce house. Can you believe that Aidan took the last picture? I doctored it with soft focus, but I was impressed!

Soccer

Some pictures of Aidan at his soccer class. Cruz, I think, liked it just as much as Aidan. He would run around and kick the ball the entire practice time. I think he just wants to be like his big brother. It was nice to see Aidan actually get worn out! Bedtime on Mondays were easy, if only for a while!

Good...even when frozen!

The other night when I was making dinner I had the fridge and freezer open getting out all that I needed. Cruz always makes a run for the open doors because he loves to explore in there. Well, I turned my back, letting him look (more to keep him out from under my feet for a minute) and that's when I heard it. It sounded like a bag of pebbles hitting the ground.
He found the corn. And by the time I got the camera he had already put some in his mouth.
So cute, but kinda gross, too. At least the floor had just been cleaned!

An apple a day...

We went to Oak Glen yesterday with the boys and had a
great time picking apples. Aidan especially loved seeing the goats and chickens. He was so excited when he found out that we were going to use the apples that we picked to make a pie! He keeps bringing up the pie that I'm going to make, when I'm going to make it, have I made it yet. You can tell he's so deprived!
The weather was really nice. We had never been there before and thought it was so beautiful up there. Although, we would not go on a Saturday again, it was really crowded! We will definitely have enough apples for an apple a day...for many days!

Lake Mead

We went to the lake again last weekend and our friends, the Lippens, were able to come with us. It was so much fun, even though it was so freezing! We decided to try and be adventurous and go out on the boat anyway. It was probably not a good idea! We found a beach and ate lunch. The kids searched for seashells while Joe took Jarrod out for a run on the wakeboard. YOU ARE CRAZY, JARROD! The way back was even colder, with rains threatening to come down at any second. It never did rain, but I thought I was not going to have a nose left by the time we made it back to the marina! The kids, of course, didn't know the difference and had so much fun playing and exploring together. They were exhausted by the end of each day, which gave the adults some time to hang out together without those ever present interruptions, as cute as they may be! We were able to get a group pic before we left, at red rock, and it didn't turn out too bad considering we were trying to get all 5 kids to look at the camera at the same time! Thanks for coming with us, guys, and for the memories we will not soon forget!

Bees+lab puppy= swelling

These are pictures of the first of three run ins with the bees in our backyard. Our chinese lantern tree is in full bloom and attracting all the bees in a ten mile radius. Hank has not yet figured out that eating them is NOT a good thing. Poor guy.

Meet Hank

Hank joined our family last weekend. He is a nine week old chocolate lab. He has such a great mellow personality, but has lots of energy to run and play with Aidan. As you can see, they are best buds. Cruz is still warming up to him, and liking him more everyday. He's been such a fun addition to our family!

Lake Trip

This past weekend we took our first vacation of the summer to Lake Mead. We had such a good time, spending most of each day out on the water, or playing on the beach. Aidan and Cruz both loved the boat. Aidan wanted to drive, while the sound and motion of it put Cruz to sleep every time. Although we had a rocky start; The boat had a dead battery, then the impeller went bad and we took on some water, things worked out and we had a great time. Thank goodness Joe is mechanically minded and was able to fix the problems in the first day. After that we had such a relaxing, peaceful time with our boys and family. It was so nice to get away from it all and have absolutely no agenda other than to have fun!

It is fun for me to see Aidan and Cruz enjoying the same things I grew up loving. Playing on the beach in the sand, exploring for "treasure", and riding in an innertube behind the boat. I so look forward to the years to come, bonding with them through fun family time.

When Aidan has the camera

I know, these pictures are so exciting...

A Shark, A bee and a tatoo

I got the boys new bath towels that Aidan just loves. Anything to make bathtime more fun!

Oh, and a pic I forgot of Aidan and how proud he is of his dinosaur tatoo!