Fourth of July

So, I am WAY behind and am going to try to catch up a bit.  These are a few very blurry pics from the fourth of July.  I have a few more on another computer but Greg has it at the moment so I'll have to add those later. 

We celebrated with my parents and Greg's parents as well as our neighbors!  The more the merrier and the more fireworks there were to play with!  Aaron loved riding around on the neighbor kids' bike with help from Papa!

Luke takes after the men in our family and loves fireworks, my mom has always hated them but she was a good sport and came along anyway.

Grandparents...

Today, well technically yesterday, was my birthday and I wanted to thank everyone for all the birthday greetings!  I had a good day, mostly just hanging out with my boys and my Bartel Grandparents.  Greg made me breakfast in bed and spent the evening working on the demolition phase of our kitchen remodel while I took the boys to my Bartel Grandparent's house to hang out and do laundry.  (Greg has already put our washer and drier in the garage.)  Luke has been asking for ages to go play at their house and it just hasn't worked out very well, but today when I called my Grandma spur of the moment it just happened to work perfectly.  Since my grandparents put their house on the market none of us knows how much more time we will get to spend at their beautiful place and I am grateful both for my time with them and my time with them in that space that has so many memories for me, making new memories for my boys and I.  

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When we got to my grandparent's house I took Aaron upstairs to finish his nap and then started a load of laundry.  It was super hot outside but Luke wanted to play outside anyway so we had a job trying to convince him to wait until after supper so that it would have a little time to start cooling off.  He played with Grandpa down stairs in the basement for a while on the pool table and bowling and then made me something in their play kitchen and then I said it was time to eat.  Luke informed all of us that he was not hungry and did not want to eat, even after we told him that Grandma has made his favorite, spaghetti, corn, and applesauce. He tried to show me where Grandma keeps her chocolate gram-crackers in the freezer in the basement and we tried to convince him to eat by promising him some after supper, but he still insisted that he wasn't hungry.  I told him we would save him some food and when he was ready to eat we would get it out for him, but the rest of us were going to eat now because we were definitely hungry.  After supper we went out to hang up some of the laundry and he wanted to play outside so Grandma went out with him for a bit and then Grandpa went out.  Luke kept tearing into the house and hiding from Grandpa and then Grandpa would have to come find him again.  He really wanted to play baseball so eventually we got out the bat and ball for him.  Aaron finally woke up about then so I got to go out too and took a few pics and a video of Grandpa and Luke!

This is just a short clip of them playing ball together.  Then Luke wanted me to take a picture of him ringing the doorbell....

And I got a few pics of Aaron playing...

...with Grandpa....

And Luke being silly and making Grandma laugh while I was trying to take a picture of him.

Of course Luke didn't decide that he was hungry until the sun had set and I told him it was about time to go home.  Then suddenly he was very hungry and ate a full plate of spaghetti and corn and a LOT of dessert, both of those chocolate gram-crackers and of apricot bars that grandma had made.  Very yummy!  I sat with them for a bit and had some dessert myself and then went to get all the laundry in the car.  When I came back for Luke he had finished putting away his toys and was eating 2 more desserts!!!  My grandma definitely knows how to spoil a boy.   (-:  We didn't make it out of the driveway until about 5 after 10!  Anyway, we had a good time and my boys had a lot of fun with my grandparents too.  They are so generous and I love them so much.  

Harvest

So just a few pics from yesterday.  I finally got a chance to go out and ride with my dad on the combine with my boys, was always working other times and the boys had already had one chance earlier but this was my one and probably only chance this year so I was glad I got a good long ride.  I forgot my camera though but fortunately had my new tracfone with me and it has a 2.0 mp camera so I decided to try it out.  I did have three pics of Luke and a pic of the wheat up close that would have been good but I am still getting used to my phone and the only way I could figure out how to get the pics to my computer was to email them to myself and unfortunately those pics were too big for some reason.  The first one of Luke is cropped so that is why it is so grainy, and I think some of the others have finger prints on the lenz so there are blurry portions, but over all it is a huge improvement over my former phone camera and I am glad I had it with me!

Luke always has to pose funny, he is pointing at his tongue because I asked him to take one without his tongue sticking out and he just couldn't do it.

While we were out there D.A. radioed that he saw a fawn sitting 30 feet from him with spots still on it's back, then a bit later we came over to the area in the pic below and a doe jumped out and ran around for a while where we could see here.  I didn't get a pic of her though.

Aaron was a little anxious when we first got on but settled down really fast and then fell right to sleep for most of the ride.  This is after his nap.

My Dad is styling with his farmers hat and shades!  (Luke took this picture)

Mimi in Kansas May 9-14

Ok, so some of these pics are out of order because some of them were taken on my camera and some on Anita's camera and for some reason they didn't both save to the same date folders.  We only went to the zoo once for example, but it is too much work putting them back in the right order so they are staying as is.

We spent a lot of time outside working on getting our garden's ready, taking walks or going to the park or the zoo.  Sometimes we all went, sometimes it was just Mimi and Luke.  These are some pics of Luke and our neighbor kids playing in the sprinkler while we worked in the garden (hence Luke's shirt is off).

Bath time is always a favorite, but even more so with bubbles!

Mimi bought lots of goodies and made lots of yummy food while she was here including pop-sickles!  Did you know that they make little tiny ones for little kids like Aaron?   Other favorites included her enchiladas, guacamole, and this yummy dessert you will wee later on.  

Mimi had to take pics of Luke a couple of times to keep him focused on eating.  (-;  

Greg tried a recipe for "butter beer" (from Harry Potter - non alcoholic) that didn't live up to the hype, but maybe we will try a different recipe!

Zoo!!!

Luke trying to walk like Aaron.

While Anita was here there was Mother's day and the Infant Dedication at our Church.  Cruz was the littlest baby at only a few weeks old (with Penny and Gus, his parents).

Also being dedicated was Xavier who was the oldest baby and will turn 1 in June (Pam and Mike), and Levi (Jyl and Jeremy) who is a little younger than Charlie.  Jyl and Jeremy read a letter they had written to Levi about their hopes for him as he grows and how they want to parent him that was so beautiful I think everyone including me asked for a copy of it.

And of course Charlie (with my brother Ben and sis-in-law Andrea), such a cutie and the only one who was both awake and didn't cry!  Ben and Andrea chose a beautiful passage for Charlie's life verses.

After the infant dedication Ben sang special music.  It wasn't directly related to the dedication, just happened to be placed there, but it was beautiful and I got a video of it.  I posted it to you tube and gave them the link but I wanted him to be able to choose who sees it so you have to ask them if you are curious.

Here is that amazing dessert I mentioned!

Mother's day lunch we went out to my Regier grandparent's house and after eating the guys started playing corn hole.  Luke wanted to play but it was too hard for him to throw from the same spot as the adults so they gave him a closer mark to stand at.  The kid was an ace and he kept getting them right through the hole!   I saw him get three in a row once and his team killed daddy's team!

Luke is really into playing games right now.  He has a memory game and an animal domino game that he likes a lot, and he also loves to play this game Ben created for him one night when we were at Norm's coffee shop.  They each get a stack of poker chips and each person puts some chips in the middle (Luke always wants to put in more chips than whoever he is playing).  Then each person turns over one card and whoever has the higher number wins the chips in the middle.  Luke is in charge of counting the symbols on the cards which he loves and it has really helped him get his counting straightened out.  I am hoping that it will also help him start to recognize the numbers on the cards mean something.  

The last night Mimi was with us we went to the park to play after supper and took some family pics.  They may not be as composed as more professional family pics but they are funny!