Going to Kansas City...Kansas city here we come

11 month picture...soon we will have the one year....sniffle sniffle.

Happy anniversary Mom and Dad! WARNING: DO NOT BE OVERWELMED BY ALL THE WRITING. AT LEAST THIS IS THE SHORTENED VERSION OF THE STORY.

We flew in to surprise my parents for their 40th wedding anniversary. My parents were very surprised to see us, although we had a crazy adventure getting to KC.


Ken and I were headed to the airport when 5 minutes out and 4 in the morning an accident happened and we were stuck on the highway for 1 1/2 hours with no way out. We missed our flight and had to fly standby to Atlanta at noon. Our original flight was at 6am. So we drove back home from the airport. Hung out at our house for 1 1/2 hours and then back to th airport where we got on the plane to Atlanta...(honestly this gave us false hope getting on a flight so easy)--but airtran overbooked their flights so much that nobody flying standby got on that entire day, so after chasing all the KC flights and waiting until the very end of the board calls we (and we cannot forget our two children under 3 were with us) We decided to pay for a hotel over the night since there was no way we were going to get on a flight.

The airline did not consider it their fault since we missed the flight...which I can understand to some degree. We stayed the night at a hotel at our expense with the clothes that were on our back- woke up the next day and got a flight to see our families--which at this point my mom and Dad had no idea we were coming in anyway...but we missed a day preparing for the whirlwind events that weekend....like Toby's birthday party and Ken's sister's graduation party....not mention the Dinner theatre we took our parents the day we arrived.

Who could that fat little baby be?
Toby and Caleb with my sister's little spitfire, sweet, smart girl.


Toby hammin' it up at his birthday party. We had it at a park in Independence. It was such a beautiful day.

Wanna peice?

Caleb and his great granna. Isn't this a cute picture?

Ken, Toby's great grandmother, Toby, and me (what is up with my hair?) at the birthday party.

Me, my cousin and her mother (my dad's sister), and my dad.
This is my highschool friends' husband and their beautiful little girls.

Caleb and his cousins hanging out. Caleb loves his two older cousins.

We got some 24 hour bug near the end-Toby was throwing up quite a bit..but other than that we had a nice and VERY busy time. We miss our families and friends so much...wish you all could move here! We especially missed my brother and his family (in Australia) who couldn't celebrate my parent's anniversary with us. Lafe and Wendy if you get to the bottom of this blog entry we missed you!

Looks like the Midwest got our Rain!

Well, I guess we are in a drought. We are behind in the rain and I think we are close to having water restrictions in our community. (We have well water) but I keep hearing about the flooding in the midwest....I know neither extremes are good. We have August/September grass now....very brown and crispy....It's going to be a hot summer! So we got prepared, sort of....

We bought this Gazebo...because it's so hot on our back deck. We have hardly any trees (we've planted some) but anyway, it's our cheap screened in porch. We really like it.
Caleb wanted to wear the life jacket we had bought at topsail island, so he blew it up all by himself and put it on! He is becoming very independent.

Toby turned 11 months!!!! This year has flown by!!!!!

Caleb at pre-school. His class had a summer birthday party for all the kids that had summer birthdays (there were 5 )! Wasn't that thoughtful of the teacher! Ms. Sandy had a summer birthday and probably remembered how the they don't get to celebrate with the kids....He got a cute hat and we sang to the special 5.

We had our friends children overnite. Tabitha (their mom) has had a very trying time. We do a swap with our children, but because it's been a difficult time for them we haven't really had a chance to swap our children in a few months. In fact, today she is having her thyroid removed and I want her to know (if she reads this) we are thinking and praying for her to have a fast recovery. Hopefully the 6 weeks of healing will fly by!!!!
Hope she has a great birthday too...which is tomorow.

What a great smile! Toby is doing a lot now! He is crawling all over the place. He's putting tons of junk in his mouth that he shouldn't and he is interacting with us a lot more, which is fun!

Shayne and Toby. Shayne has a way with him don't you think?

We had our friends over (Shayne and Penny and their two children Andrew and Victoria.) They were at our house when Caleb broke his leg last year, so Caleb has a special bond with Andrew. Andrew is such a sweet boy! We hadn't seen them in such a long time! Caleb kept asking if Andrew missed him.

We are going to miss them now that they are moving to South Carolina!!!

10 months old!

Toby turned 10 months old! Toby is completely content in my arms, but he is now crawling around a lot. He isn't very fast, but he gets where he wants to go. He is also trying to say "uh oh" but he says "uh uhhh" instead. We joined our friends Kim and Sebastian and Sebastian's parents from Germany at Topsail Island for part of the week. We had such a nice time. The weather was great. The only thing is Kim, Ken, & Toby caught a 24 hour bug and then I got it once we were home. Caleb really enjoyed the beach. I don't know if you all remember his first encounter with the beach. (below)
myrtle beach 4/2004 8 months old

Kim relaxing on the beach.

Sebastian doesn't feel too comfortable holding Toby or any baby for that matter, so we always enjoy making him squirm.
Toby is a happy fellow and such a joy to us.



We had fun burying Sebastian in the sand. He is suppose to be a Mermaid. See the sea shells?

Toby drinking his morning coffee....

Whoa, slow down little horsy!!!

Our title is a double meaning because we are so busy I just wish we could slow this horse down a bit. Life seems to be going by so quickly. The other meaning is that we went to Lazy five ranch on a wagon ride...so you know-we saw horses. Beautiful ones at that. Hope you all are smelling the roses...We had a late late frost and it killed a lot of our spring flowers....so now we are onto summer.

Easter

Toby and Caleb with their Nana and Papa-who came out to visit for Easter.

Our little soccer player....not really....but doesn't he look cute? At his first game he did a summersault in the middle of the field. Apparently he is in the wrong sport. He got quite a few laughs though.

Toby is still trying to figure out how to get to places. Right now he is doing a bit of yoga called (downward facing dog). He still needs a little instruction on that pose, but I think he will figure it out one day. His yoga actually gets him all worked up instead of relaxes him. He uses another pose to lower his stress level.
Downward, thumbsucking, hair twirling, Toby.

We went to Lazy 5 ranch last week for Caleb's Preschool. We had a nice time. The weather was perfect. Caleb's sometimes can be goofy when I ask him to smile for the camera.

This emu wanted to ride with us on the wagon.

Just so you know, Caleb did not innitiate this encounter.

Caleb loved feeding this baby giraffe.

Lazy 5 has a rhino too, which luckily was not under shelter today.

He's a big guy.

A mama buffalo with her baby buffalo. So sweet and so little! (maybe 50 pounds?)

Caleb with his friends from preschool. Caleb loved feeding the animals. (Ok I thought it was a lot of fun too).

Caleb and I on our trip to Lazy 5 Ranch. You'd think he would want to spend time with his mommy, but I guess he would rather be with his friends.

9 months old & family visit

We have been busy this month. My parents came to visit along with my sister and Addison. We have also had Ken's parents visiting, but the pictures are still on the camera. Toby turned 9 months....and Easter has passed...which will be posted later.

Caleb, Addison, and Aunt Beth at Latta plantation. Apparently this horse is 40 years old!

Caleb and Memaw making Easter cookies.

Toby & E-pa

9 mo


9 mo

Addison saying she is "So Big"