August Birthdays

First of all, I have backlogged in the last update, so you may want to go back and look at it....It has some important news.

Caleb went to a princess party, but he went as a knight! I think it was the hottest day of the summmer, but it was a lot of fun.

Toby Chillin'.
Snuggle bunnies (can you see my black eye?)

Ken's Parent's came into town for about 9 days and brought Josie and Collin with them. Collin and Josie are so good to Caleb. They are great kids, we really enjoyed having them around.

Caleb and Josie went to Vacation Bible school at Caleb's preschool. They also went to Dan Nicholas Park and Lazy 5 ranch (pics above). We celebrated Joe and Beth's birthday the same week and then Thursday Nancy and Skip took the kids to the speedpark. (Go-carts, bumper boats, arcade). At the very end of the week we had a Shark birthday party for Caleb...It was the busiest week of the summer.

My mother in law made this cupcake cake. I think it turned out really well.We had blue punch with fish ice cubes and blue jello, with fish and seaweed in it. We also had some goldfish and pretzels.
Josie helping me out.We played pin the fin on the shark.We made acquariums.The Pinata.Caleb and Emma, Their birthdays are two weeks apart.We played musical gifts to the jaws music.

Our well water can be a little cold.

The waterslide we have enjoyed all summer.

clean up time!

A Jam packed July

First of all, we have been busy this summer. I haven't kept up on the blog very well, but hopefully this will bring us up to date.

-For Toby's birthday my parents came into town and we had a train party. We also went to Dan Nicholas Park. We rode the carousel, train, saw a little zoo and went gem mining. It was very hot, but a lot of fun...

-Then we headed to Chicago for our family reunion. It was a lot of fun. We went to the acquarium, John Hancock building, Navy pier, and had a rainbow cone at the "Taste of Chicago". It was great to see our Aunts, Uncles,cousins and their spouses and their kids.

-After we got back from Chicago, we had to deal with the fact that our first house is vacant after our renters of 3 1/2 years moved out...man did we hear a ton of terrible stories about that family. I guess the neigbors had a party once they moved out. They said the neighborhood was peaceful. We are selling it to Ken's sister and her husband. Of course we have spent many hours fixing it up....but are ready to release it to Beth and Joe.

-Ken has sold his house that he is subcontracting . It's his very first house he has built. We have a blog of it (look at our links under Craftman building). We are very pleased with how it has turned out. We are also relieved to have sold it..However we have not closed yet...so we still have to do that.

-At the beginning of July I also took my state exam for Real Estate. I am now officially a provisional broker for the State of North Carolina. I need to get signed up under a Broker in charge and I should be learning much.

I forgot to mention that we went camping with some neighbor friends on the last weekend of July and Toby gave me a BLACK eye. He threw a camelback water bottle at my face. It was an accident...he said he was sorry. I had a black eye for 10 days. I know I haven't mentioned the fact that I also found out I was pregnant after we got back from Chicago...so I wasn't really feeling that great when we were camping--but we had planned this in january (the camping trip).

-Caleb had Vacation bible school and Swimming lessons in the last two weeks of July. He can now swim to Heaven.

So there you have it. I wish I hadn't missed July updates, but better late then never.

Our little conductor/engineer turns 2!

Toby became a big 2 year old on Friday! It's hard to believe 2 years have gone by...they have gone by FAST. It doesn't seem like I can remember him much as a baby. He is so much fun and so loved by his brother Caleb and his mommy & Daddy...not to mention his grandparents and his aunts and uncles. We invited friends from next door (whom he loves to play with) to our "Train Party". We had his Uncle Joe and Aunt Beth, and his "E-pa" and his "E-ma" (memaw). We were going to be heading to Dan Nichols park to finish the celebration where there is a choo choo train to ride, but the poor guy developed a fever on his birthday and has had one since...about 102 degrees.

We had Thomas plates and napkins, Toby had an engineer hat and overalls that he loves to wear. My mother and I spent quite a while decorating his train cake, which I know I could not have done without her. My parents have been visiting since the 25th and we are heading for chicago over the 4th of July. We have had a great visit with my parents (Memaw & E-pa). I wish we could see each other more often. They are so great with the boys.

Memaw decorating for the "train party"This is Everyone who came to the "train party" except me (I'm taking the pictures). We had aioli chicken, a homemade southwest bean salsa with chips, cheesy bread, and a pasta salad for dinner. (Not that you care, I'm just recording it for future curiosity). I have to say the records are nice to go back to...It's been two years I've been blogging and It's nice to see what we did two years ago or last year.Toby is eating the "smokestack" off the train cake.

THE Happy birthday boy! We love you Toby! Life is always interesting and joyful

when you're around.

Ketchup

My blog entries are pretty boring now. I'm not really sure if we have much to write about. It seems it's the same old same old....but not really. I checked out a documentary on "The future of food". I thought it was a message of hope and how things were changing for the better and I could learn how to make better choices for our own family, but INSTEAD it made me depressed and scared to eat another thing. I'm thinking the dust on my floor (not to imply that my house is the least bit dirty) is better than what they are SELLING us at the grocery store. You vegetarians out there may not feel threatened, but I would recommend this extremely disturbing documentary---Nobody is safe....especially vegetables.

Caleb graduated from pre-school in May. He looks thrilled doesn't he?
Here is a better one of him and Toby.

We also drove to Ohio in May for another wedding. Ken's friend, Brent, got married. It was a very nice wedding.

We found a frog in Elliott's pool....it looked like pond water (yuck). Caleb thought it was pretty fun to catch it. Boys....

Lots of pictures

When we got home from our visit to KC, MO my flowers were beautiful!

Aren't these foxglove impressive?

I'm a little late with my update. I have so many pictures-May is a busy month for most everyone and so goes it for us as well.

We love to catch our boys sleeping. It's so precious.Ken's friend ,Sebastian, and his wife had a baby girl in April.

This is Kim and her mom in the hospital.
Ken, Caleb, and I went to Lazy 5 Ranch for Caleb's preschool...father son moment.

Smile for the camera!

My college friend Tara got married this month and I was able to attend her "bachelorette" party. We had dinner with her friends and then we went to Chuckee cheese and the boys went to a pool hall. It was nice to see Tara...I'm so happy for her and her husband.

The cousins goofing off....bribing them with gum to smile.Ken's parents and the grandchildren.

Our visit with Ken's granna. I think she is 87 years old

Me, Addison, and Toby.

We went to the park in T-town with my sister, Addy, E-pa, Ken, Caleb, Toby, and me. We had fun...but we missed memaw who had to work.Toby and E-Pa in T-town (Topeka)Back in T-town (Troutman) trying to make those goals.

We had a nice time in Trimble, Independence, and Topeka...I had such a great visit. It was so nice to catch up with old friends, See Ken's family, my parents, and my sister and her family. Addison is talking like crazy. I also saw my highschool friend, Colleen, and her two girls. I wish I would have had a camera, because her girls are so cute. We went to Minskys and her oldest daughter shoved a toy motorcyle down the pool table...oops...had a lot of fun, though!!! I am going to be back in KC in October where I will be "not really celebrating" 1o years out of college.