Bella Photo Shoot

Bella takes us to the park for her birthday

For Bella's second birthday, she wanted to go to the paygwound and 'wing (i.e., playground and swing), so we took her to a nice park nearby. She and Declan had a blast on the swings.
The bigger swings had massive puddles under them, so Gabe went for the motorcycle instead.

After a few minutes, the cousins arrived: Alexa (affectionately known as AJ), Gaige, Josie, and Kaydran. As they were driving up, we took a quick pic with Mommy.

Then we headed on a treacherous expedition to the parking lot to greet our friends!!

Everyone kind of did their own thing, having a total blast. Even though the merry-go-round was surrounded by water, I went ahead and pushed them all around super fast (but forgot to get a picture of it). Everyone had a fantastic time, and we all went to Braum's together for lunch (they are an ice cream diner that is so, so good). Later we went to Great Grandpa Fred's house to finish off our day of fun with family.

Happy birthday, Bella!!

Annabelle turned 2 on August 1st. We had her b'day party the night before and she had lots of fun. We dressed her up in a cute new dress and let her be her silly, adorable, dancing self.

She even blew out her own candles!!

We let her tackle dessert all by herself, which included a cupcake and two helpings of ice cream (she is an ice cream fanatic!).
The octopus play dough factory, tea set, inchworm, and baby doll & stroller are a hit with all the kids (who also seem to think they can ride in the stroller, despite our pleas...and our threats). Bella also loves her new hair pretties, pretty shoes, and pretty clothes (she is a princess, after all), and of course she loves her books. Thank you everyone for the wonderful, thoughtful gifts and for celebrating with us!!

Dinner Time!

We had pigs-in-a-blanket with mac & cheese for dinner the other night and thought it would be cool to let the kids help. They all got turns rolling out the crescent rolls with the rolling pin, then they all helped put the mac & cheese ingredients into the bowl and mix it up! Of course, I warned Gabe to mix side to side and not up and down, but with his first attempt he stirred the macaroni right up out of the bowl. That was the most fun I've had making dinner. They help out pretty regularly with dinner, and Gabe helps me do the dishes every night now while Declan and Bella clean the table with Pledge wipes. They also enjoy vacuuming. We just love that they are so thrilled to help with chores...whodathunk chores would be so much fun to toddlers?

Cute stuff the kids are doing lately

Declan came into Mommy's office the other day with chocolate on his face and sweetly informed her, "We're all out of chocolate cookies now, Mommy!"

All 3 of the kids are into fake burping and hiccups, not sure what that's about.

Bella is a dancing fool, dancing whenever she hears any hint of music going on. She is talking so well now, and while she loves to talk to Daddy on the phone each day, she doesn't say much. I have to ask her leading questions which will lead to a "Yeah" or "Okay!" answer.

Gabe and Declan sat on Daddy's lap and mowed a lot of the property yesterday. They loved it! They also love helping me drive the car up the driveway. My boys are getting so big!

Father's Day

I've been sick most of the week (since I went to bed on my birthday last Monday), so today we just relaxed and watched guy movies. After watching Master & Commander, there wasn't really anything else exciting on TV, so in honor of my amazing Dad we watched one of our joint favorites, Hunt for Red October. My kids never even made fun of my bed head.
After that, we had pizza!!!

The kids have all been doing and saying cute things lately.
– Gabe's new favorite phrase to Declan is "I don't know what you're talking about."
– Declan saw a junebug the other day and was scared, insisting it has teeth and would bite him. We tried to explain to him that junebugs and beetles don't have teeth and won't bite him, but apparently he saw one open its wings to fly and told us matter of factly that he saw its big teeth and it was jumping up to bite him! Poor guy. We've actually been having more than our fair share of brown recluse (translated "poisonous") spiders, so we pay close attention when they let us know of bugs.
– Now that Gabe is in a booster seat, he has a tendency to lean forward a little to see out the window better, so we're constantly reminding him to sit back in his seat. Well today, Annabelle noticed him leaning forward and decided to loudly instruct him to sit back in his seat!
- Declan's also been feeling pretty big lately now that he's 3. The other day he wanted to go somewhere but I had the car, so he just told Mommy that he'd drive Papa's truck and take them all out (because he knows Mommy doesn't like driving Papa's huge truck, but he can handle it because he's big now).
– All the kids like to pretend that baby Graysen is in their tummy, too.

Sleeping Angels

So Annabelle came to bed with Mommy and Daddy at some point last night. When I woke up to get ready for work, I couldn't resist taking her picture. Then of course I had to sneak a peek at the boys, too. What a great way to start the day. Thank you, Jesus.

Tanganyika Wildlife Park

So later that same day (Thursday) I took the kids to this fairly new wildlife park. The company I work for (IMA) sponsored the event and catered in some awesome BBQ. The kids had a really good time because it's a little more interactive than your typical zoo.

There were monkeys everywhere...

Lazy cats...And giraffes... And Declan had a talk with the kangaroos cuz they're good buddies...
This kangaroo had a baby in its pouch...all the kids got to pet the mommy kangaroo.And there was plenty of other wildlife...
Including rhinos!!!! (no children were harmed in the making of this blog)

They had the most fun, though, feeding the bunnies and turtles. They were uber-friendly because they knew we had the lettuce. The turtles wouldn't stop chasing us, which made Gabe feel safer feeding them from the bench.

We wrapped up the day playing at the park's awesome playground. Gabe was big stuff. Declan loved the slide. But Bella wouldn't do much. I'd try to get her slide, but she'd just sit.