battle buddies

This past weekend Mark and I (Yes -- alone!! Thanks mom and dad for watching the boys overnight for us!!!!) traveled west to Odebolt, Iowa. Mark's good friend Mike from the army was getting married, so of course we were there. Mark calls Mike his battle buddy. They went on both tours overseas together. Mike was an infantry medic just like Mark, and I'm pretty sure they roomed together at some point too (I guess they all did - Mark stayed in a tent with 100+ soldiers for a month or more). We had some fun getting to the wedding - neither Mark nor I have ever been in this area of Iowa and our hotel was in one really small town (Ida Grove) and the wedding was several miles away in the country outside Oldebolt. So we trusted our GPS to get us there. Thankfully it got us there perfectly - unfortunately it didn't know about all of the road closed signs that we encountered along the way. Because we had no clue where we were when we got to the first one, we just drove past it !!! and did the same for the other 5-6 that we ran into - I'm not sure why the roads were closed, there was no construction or holes or anything. We did run into one big obstacle - but thanks to Mark we got through it! :) (yeah - we are bad)We eventually made it to our destination...The wedding was held at a really pretty farm and garden called Prairie Pedlar.The wedding was sweet. It was held outside and the weather was a little bit iffy -- it was sunny, but the clouds looked like it could rain at any time. Luckily it didn't rain until late Saturday night.
Mike asked Mark to give the prayer before the dinner (their pastor had to leave before it was time to eat) and then he also gave a toast. It was really special.
I'm so glad we went - it was really fun to see Mike -- and it was really good for Mike and Mark to catch up with each other. Congratulations Mike and Raquel!

peanutbutter

It seems like there are a million recommendations about what you are and are not supposed to eat while you are pregnant and as a small child under 2. I tried my best to follow the guidelines as best I could, but didn't stress about them EXCEPT for peanutbutter/peanuts. I've heard the stories of what it's like to live a life allergic to peanuts. I know how many foods have peanut product in them or are made in a location that uses peanut product. I did NOT want my boys to have to live with a peanut allergy.

I was so careful that the boys were not allowed to have anything with peanutbutter, peanuts, nuts or anything related. I'm proud to say that Isaiah was older than 2 when he was introduced to these things. I'm also happy to say he is not allergic to them (or anything that we know of)!

Levi is now 22 months old (on Saturday) and I gave in. I almost can't believe it....but we did. A few weeks ago I bought some cracker sandwiches that are filled with peanutbutter. Isaiah likes to open them, eat the peanutbutter first and then (sometimes) eat the crackers. Well Levi convinced Isaiah to give him one of the crackers (after he had already eaten the peanutbutter) and he ate that - so I'm sure he was exposed to a little peanutbutter there. But on Sunday night we had our small group to our house for a grill out and I made Schotchoroos for desert --- everyone was eating them so we decided to let Levi have one. So, I'm calling that his official introduction to peanutbutter. I'm so glad to say he had absolutely no reactions!!

whew!

Jazz festival...I think?

My sister's family invited us to come visit Memorial Day weekend and go to the Jazz festival (or was it Blues?). Of course we wanted to see them so we went and had a fun time!! Isaiah couldn't have been more excited when he saw the long row of blow up jumpers that were there. It was hard to believe that they were all FREE!

The first stop as we walked in was the balloons - Levi is still in love with balloons so he kept shouting "BOON, BOON" I love how you can see Liahna smiling through the balloon!
We made our way to the jumper things. First we got in this one:Then Isaiah went through the maze jumper -- silly boy went through and then snuck his way back to the beginning to do it again -- I felt bad for the kids behind him (sorry!! to whoever that was!)
Then he convinced my mom to go down the big slide with him.All the while, Levi jumped in the doggy jumper and another HUGE round jumper. He was a bit mad that he didn't get to do the others -- but he survived! :)

We then went for a cool snack -- a popsicle for Levi and a sno-cone for Isaiah (they had a flavor called spiderman! so of course that's what he picked!)
It was extremely HOT. We were all red in the face (especially Levi as you can see in the picture above). But we had a good time. We tried to check out the petting zoo and a few other games, but we were too late. I don't think I listened to a minute of the music going on, but just being in the "fair" type atmosphere was fun.

Thanks for inviting us Nichole, Jay and Liahna!

swimming at great grandma's

On Friday we were invited to go to Great Grandma's to go swimming with Marks dad and step-mom. We happened to have Carson and Ashley playing at our house at the time so we decided to go and bring them along with us!

Great Grandma has a really big above water pool in her back yard. It doesn't get very deep (maybe 4 feet at the highest?) but it is so big that there is plenty of room for LOTS of people to swim all at once. When we got there we found grandpa, grandma, Austin and Jordan (Mark's uncle's boys), Uncle Josh, Dakota and Khia!

Levi was so excited to get right in--no surprise there! (that's Austin and Jordan in the background)and Isaiah was a little more timid (I was surprised with that!). Carson downright refused to get in for the first half hour or so, but for the last hour we were there he was found floating around like thisThey even had a little floaty that Ashley got to sit in and enjoy the view. (who needs a swimming suit anyway?)
At one point I was surrounded by little ones, it was fun! (I wasn't kidding when I said BIG pool, see!)
Dakota and Khia are like little fish in the water. I was impressed!
Uncle Josh..The adults were all having fun going from kid to kid. We did require all the kids to have life jackets on or floaty arms (or both) to be in the pool -- but we still followed them around. The kids also had fun sitting on the big raft things..........
Isaiah was more in his element when he was out of the water splashing us with the water toys.
Thanks for having us Great Grandma -- and for inviting us Grandma Cindy! We can't wait to come back again soon!!

Adventureland 2010.

We love Adventureland. It's such a fun place to go. When we found out that Memorial Day weekend was military weekend at Adventureland, we decided to go! (Thank you Adventureland for honoring the past and present soldiers!) We invited our friends Shannon, Dan and Anna to meet us there, and they did (they live in Newton, about 20 minutes from Adventureland)! We also decided to leave Levi with grandma so that we could take Isaiah on a special mommy and daddy trip. (Thank you mom!!)

We had a GREAT time!! The weather was absolutely PERFECT (low 80s and not humid!). We couldn't have asked for a better day.

Isaiah and Anna had so much fun, and so much fun together! They got to do so many things...Mark and I took turns riding different rides with him...We each packed a picnic lunch and enjoyed it under some shade trees right outside the park near the train track. We got to watch the trains go by and wave while we ate.
After lunch, we left the strollers at the car and road the skyline towards the waterpark within Adventureland! Shannon and I sat together nervous as ever while the daddy's rode with the little ones. If you aren't familiar with this ride it is basically like a ski lift with just a bar over your lap very loosely. You "fly" over the park and it would be VERY bad if you fell out. I think the kids were a bit nervous too because they seemed to sit VERY still. Look close at the picture of Isaiah and Mark, Isaiah has his little arm around Mark. I love it.The kids had a lot of fun at the waterpark. I thought it was a bit dangerous. It's pretty much a huge jungle gym with water spraying everywhere on painted cement. But we let the kids play for about a half hour, they went down the same slide about 50 times and did a few other things and then we were off...Isaiah and Anna were so cute. Several times throughout the day they were doing this...
One of the last rides we had time for, Shannon took the little ones on the hot air balloons, I love this picture.
One of the first things Isaiah remembered when we walked into the park was the train station (which is a candy shop). He mentioned many times throughout the day that he wanted to go to the train station. So of course we did -- we rode the train and then stopped at the train station as we were getting ready to leave. We let Isaiah pick whatever he wanted and I think Anna got to pick whatever she wanted too.Thanks Shannon, Dan and Anna for meeting us! We had a great day with you!!
Bye Anna - can't wait to see you again!
Isaiah had fun for the first 15 minutes on the way home. He ate about 3 bites of his lollypop and then whined all the way home saying, "I didn't want to go to Adventureland." He was saying this because he didn't want to be driving in the car anymore. He was SO tired. He refused to rest or sleep on the way home, so it was a long 2 hours! But SOOOO worth it with the fun we had that day. I can't wait to do it again next year!! Hooray for Adventureland!

Doodie

Isaiah is in this really silly phase right now where he likes to call people doodie. He uses the word as a term of endearment similar to how some people say honey or sweetie. When a friend comes over he will often say, "hi Carson doodie" or "hey doodie!" He also uses the word in conversations like "you are funny mommy doodie" or "let's go play trucks doodie." This has been going on for at least 2 or 3 weeks -- probably longer. He probably says it at least 30 times a day! :) I'm not sure where he picked it up, but it's funny.

The other night at bedtime I asked Isaiah to say a prayer for us. Here is what he said, "Dear Jesus, I love you Jesus doodie. Thank you. Amen Jesus doodie." It was pretty cute; just hearing what he said it might sound a bit disrespectful, but knowing how he uses the word and what it means to him, it was actually really sweet.

So if you come around our house anytime soon, you may hear Isaiah call you doodie - don't be offended, he's just telling you he loves you! :)

why I love garage sales

So I love to go to garage sales. I love finding fun toys and cute clothes for cheap prices! Of course I've been to lots of sales already this spring, and I hope to go to many more! Last weekend my mom, the boys, and I went to a few sales and we found something really GREAT -- a Cranium Super Fort set! It was only $4! My mom bought it for the boys -- Thank you Mom! I got it home and showed Mark, I told them there was a second set at the sale and he said "GO GET IT!" :) So I did...
They were even in the original boxes! Here we are getting it out...

Checking it out...

My first fort...

Mark's first fort...A super fort...and a mega fort...

These are so much fun! I'd definitely recommend them to anyone wanting a fun way to build a fort (or a space ship or a boat like we have!)! They stay together with magnetic balls and are defintely kid friendly! I think brand new they are at least $50 -- so maybe you should go garage saling to see if you can find some for $4 like us! :)