Swimming!!!!

So what do you do to survive a hot Arkansas summer??? SWIM!!! We've been to the pool almost every day this summer. The pool at the clubhouse by our new house has THE BEST POOL for kids. It's a beach entry pool, which means it starts with just an inch of water and gets progressively deeper. There's an island in the middle, too. At first I was nervous to take 4 kids to the pool by myself, but Caden and Keira are completely independent in the pool, and although Ethan can't swim, he is 100% comfortable in the water and is independent with his floaties on. So really I only have to keep my eyes on Eli.
I have a weekly swim date set up with my friends and all the kids get to play together. It's been a wonderful way to spend the summer!

He loves these goggles, even they're too big for him and don't protect him from the water whatsoever. :)

I love this picture!!!! Cracks me up everytime...

Summertime Fun

I realized that we've been having too much fun this summer that I haven't gotten out the camera very much to document it. I'm going to try to do better.
Let's see...this summer we've been swimming A LOT, reading lots of books, telling lots of stories, going to storytime at the library, going to JumpZone, bowling at Fast Lane, donuts at Krispy Kreme, playing at parks, working puzzles, playing Play-Doh, and riding bikes.

Here we were yesterday morning and this morning doing puzzles and playing Play-Doh.

7 years of happiness and fun!

On June 26, Lonnie and I celebrated our SEVENTH wedding anniversary. Wow, how time flies! To celebrate, we took a MUCH needed break from the kids and headed for Kansas City for 3 full days and two nights away. My parents watched the kids during the day on Friday, but the Grubbs took over once they got off work that afternoon and kept them the rest of the weekend. I probably don't say it enough, but I LOOOOOOVE having my sister here, and I don't worry a single bit when she's caring for the boys. And now that my parents are here, too, I've got more people to love on our boys!

Anyway, back to AWAY from the kids. We stayed at a hotel close to the Plaza, so Friday during the day we enjoyed walking around, going in shops, eating lunch, and just enjoying each other's company without being interrupted. We found a little cupcake shop and ate a fancy French Toast cupcake at a cute little table outside.
Dinner was something we were REALLY looking forward to. We had reservations at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant. If you're not familiar, you get a 4 course meal that you basically cook and eat at your table. You start with cheese that you get to dip bread and veggies in. Next they bring you a salad. For the entree, you get a plate of raw meat and you just cook it in your pot for a minute and a half each. DELICIOUS!!!!!! For dessert they bring you chocolate that you can dip cheesecake, strawberries, bananas, brownies, rice krispie treats, etc. I was too stuffed at that point and didn't even do the chocolate, I just ate the stuff plain! The atmosphere was awesome, and it was just a wonderful experience. It's super expensive, so it's probably not something we'll do again, but was perfect for our weekend away!

Saturday we had planned on going to Schlitterbahn (a waterpark), but woke up to dark and dreary skies, followed by rain. Boo. But no problem. We just piddled around throughout the day, doing whatever we wanted just because we could! We had breakfast at IHOP, went shopping at a mall, went to a casino, and laid out at the pool (by the afternoon it had cleared up).
For dinner that night we had found a Brazilian steakhouse at the Plaza and were excited to try that out. It was delicious, of course! We ate a lot of meat!

Sunday was sunny and clear, so we headed to Schlitterbahn. It was a blast! The coolest part was that the lazy river and wave pool were combined, so every 15 seconds you had a big wave that sent you down the lazy river - awesome! After several hours we headed back home to pick up the boys. It was loads of fun, but we missed them, too!

I'm shocked if anyone is still reading...I know no one really cares about our weekend away, but it was one of the best weekends I've ever had, so I had to document it! :)

Of course, I hardly got any pictures, but here we are at The Melting Pot.

At the Plaza...

Happy anniversary to the love of my life!!!!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to two great dads - my dad, of course, and the father of my boys - Lonnie!

We started our day with presents and pictures before church.
Lonnie's big gift was a book that I made for him using Shutterfly. It was my first attempt and I was soooo proud of it! I wish I had taken more pictures. Lonnie really liked it.

Last year we started the tradition to go to a Natural's baseball game for Father's Day with a group of friends. We had such a fun time! We were able to spend the afternoon/evening with the Thibodeaux, Benders, Grubbs, Dustin and Lexi, and my parents. The Gralls happened to be there too and we were happy they were able to get seats by us!

Ethan was really into the game and Eli loved watching Strike (the Saskwatch -however you spell that).

(YES! Ethan's finally learned to look at the camera and give a fake smile!! Ha! At least he's not turning his head away anymore)

The whole crew:

Love my little family!

Eli at 15 months

Haven't done this in awhile...
Here's what our little man is up to these days...

-Walking all over! He's been walking for a little over a month now. He walks a little funny with his left foot turned in and he leads with his left hip. I had our doctor check him out earlier this week and he says to give it about 1 more month and if he's still doing it, we'll take an x-ray and see what's going on.
-Finally starting to say a few more words. Mama, Dada, ball (bah!), water (wawa! or wawer!), up (puh!), night-night (nigh-nigh), and he's starting making sounds for these words, but I wouldn't begin to know how to record them...Grandma, Grandpa, brother, paci
-He's still such a happy boy - loves to smile, laugh, wave, blow kisses, get tickled
-He's not eating that great anymore, I think mainly due to teething. He hates all pasta and immediately spits it out if you actually manage to get it in his mouth. He loves cereal, applesauce, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, yogurt, cereal bars, crackers, PB&J sandwiches, tacos. He LOVES feeding himself, so anytime he has a taco or a sandwich that he can hold on his own, he goes to town!
-Teething. I'll have to make sure when he wakes up from nap, but I think he has a total of 9 teeth: 4 top front, 3 bottom, 2 molars on top. He's been digging his paci lately because of all his teething. Funny how I took the paci away from Ethan at 10 months, but I really don't care with Eli. I know I won't let him be the 3 year old walking around with his paci in his mouth, so if it makes him feel better while teething, so be it. Funny how you're so much more laid back with the second child!
-Swimming - we go swimming most days of the week, and Eli is off and on with the pool. If it's really hot, he enjoys sitting in his boat and floating/splashing around the pool. If it's not so warm, he doesn't really want to be in the water, so he just wanders around the pool area, picking up rocks from the landscaping areas and throwing them all around.
-Weight: 20 pounds, 6.5 ounces. He's such a scrawny little guy!

We sure do love him!

Moving

We are officially moved out of our old house and living in the basement at Lonnie's parents. Fun times! Unfortunately, we STILL haven't closed on the old house, but hope to either tomorrow or early next week. One thing after another keeps popping up with stuff that didn't get done in order to close. Nothing to do with the buyer, luckily, just hoops to jump through. Frustrating, though, that we could have been living in our own house for 2-3 more weeks.

I didn't really take many pictures when moving, and haven't even taken pictures of our 'new home' but I'll try to do that soon.

A HUGE THANKS TO ALL OUR AWESOME FRIENDS THAT HELPED US MOVE: LANCE, AMANDA, ALAN, DUSTIN, CURT, MOM, DAD. WE LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Here are the only two good ones I got. Please, don't ever buy a hot tub. Sooooo not worth it when you have to move! (Lonnie would disagree as he used it a lot more than I did.)


Things are progressing very slowly with the construction of the new house. It's quite frustrating to drive by everyday and see very little happening. Not sure what the deal is, but I'd like to have our new home sometime soon!!!!

Mr. Tornado

We've affectionately nicknamed Eli 'Mr. Tornado.' He is pure destruction! You can't look away for a second, or this is what you'll find...


On this occasion, he found a stamp pad and made himself look like Hitler:
Covered in dirt after getting into one of my house plants:

We sure do love him, but boy is he a handfull!!!!