Hurry, Hurry, Drive that Fire Truck!

We were invited to a birthday party at the fire station today. Who knew you could have parties there?! Ryan had some things to get done so I took the kids by myself. It was a lot of fun! The chief showed them 2 fire trucks and they were able to climb in them and play with everything. They also got a fire hat!

Afterwards we had snacks and cupcakes. It was a lot of fun!

 

We went to my parents to swim after but it started thundering so we weren't out there very long. Oh well, we should get a lot of good swimming done this week!

 

Stay tuned because we got Peyton THE CUTEST outfit for 4th of July! It came today and I can't wait to put it on her! Ryan's also got a little something up his sleeve for his ensemble---guarantee it won't be cute--it's kind of bordering on white trash...but very funny!

It's Video Time!

Here are a couple videos from this week! Last night Peyton was hitting Ryan in the head and cracking up afterwards. She started doing this cute thing where she'd cover her face and bend down because she was laughing so hard! It cracked us up!

 

The second one is from tonight when Ryan and Colin were practicing riding his bicycle again. He's doing so great--we still need to get him a bigger bike though!

 

And because my videos can't go into the blog book--here are some pictures!

 

This is from when we were in Florida--I hadn't posted it yet though!

Peyton put my headband and lip gloss on tonight...while sitting on the table, of course!

So cute!

Love them so much!!

Ryan took this when we were at Eckert's last weekend. He is so handsome!

He got some new Batman PJ's today! Cape and all!

Action shot!

It's sooo hot and humid during the days that I pretty much refuse to be outside unless I'm swimming but the nights don't seem to be so bad. We were out there for awhile tonight...I stink now though!

Happy Summer!!!

Date Day!!!

Ryan and I had an afternoon/evening date today. Danielle got to our house at about 2 and we were off for some massages! There was a torrential downpour on the way to St. Louis that pretty much came out of nowhere! Luckily we made it in time for our appointments! 

After our hour long massages we each did the hydro-luxe for 15 minutes. It's like a water bed that warms up and massages you with jets from underneath. It was pretty cool! 

After our massages we went to Dewey's pizza for dinner. It is SO good!! We got a big one so we could have some left overs! I'm still stuffed!

It was kind of funny because we were done with dinner by 6 pm!

 

We headed back to Illinois and hit up Cold Stone. I'm not really sure how we fit it all in our bellies! 

We got home a little after 7 which was kind of fun because the kids were still up and we got to play with them before bedtime!

It was a great date and fun to spend some one on one time with each other!

 

...I'm hoping Ryan won't ask me to give him a massage for awhile!

Summer Time Fun

We're having so much fun this summer! It's hard to believe it's almost July! The time goes WAY too fast! As always it feels like we're constantly busy but never get anything done. How does that happen?!

 

These are a bunch of pictures from the last week. It was easier to lump them all together then do a million posts! I'm pretty much not sure what I do with my time.

...I take that back- I spend a lot of time wrangling Peyton because the girl is into EVERYTHING! No joke. Not only can she unlock and open doors, she loves to put food in Belle's bowl (food and water side) until it overflows, she's obsessed with opening the dish washer, standing on it, and taking all the dirty dishes out of it, she loves getting into the shower after I'm through with it- and while I'm in it she pulls all the towels off the racks and strews them around the house. She is exhausting!! And a little bit rotten! But she's absolutely adorable so we'll keep her!

 



Last Friday night we met Kim, Mike, and Garrison up at Eckert's for a Dock Dog show. The dogs jumped off a platform to get a toy. The kids really enjoyed watching the puppies!

Garrison and Peyton: so cute together!

So much fun!

Peyton made a new best friend! Stevie was such a good boy! He was so patient with her as she kept petting him and giving him hugs!!



Afterwards we headed over to the custard shop for some ice cream. Peyton enjoyed hanging out with Ryan!

They played horsey on Saturday morning!

Colin went to a Ninja Turtles party on Saturday. They made these masks and shells for all the kids! It was so cute!

We spent Saturday afternoon at our favorite place! Dad needed to take a break on the horse.

Jason came down to spend Father's Day with Dad. Peyton loves having him around!

I got Ryan a survival strap for Father's Day. It arrived on Saturday and I was so excited I had to give it to him that night!

On Sunday morning Peyton painted her toes (and other things, including the carpet and my bench) with mascara...but she's SO cute! It's her saving grace!

At my parents on Father's Day. She tried on my Mom's glasses-upside down- and struck a pose!

My friend, Jamie came to town for a week! She came swimming at Mom and Dad's on Saturday. Monday afternoon we met her at the mall, then that night her and I went to the Cardinal's game! There was a huge storm before the game which delayed it 2 hours but everything went great after it started! It was so much fun to spend time with each other! On Tuesday she came swimming again and we went to lunch together yesterday before her plane left!



She got these cute Cardinals face stickers!!! It went great with my poncho!

We got a package from Great Grandma! Peyton was trying on her new clothes!!

I love the owls!

 

Today we went to a picnic on base. The kids got face paint on their legs. Peyton loved her flower!



Garrison got a baseball

So did Colin

It was SOOOOO hot outside. We only lasted at the picnic about an hour and a half--about half that time was spent sitting under a tree to eat our lunch! We decided we needed to hit up the pool afterwards to cool ourselves off.

 

While we were at my parents Colin tried on Ryan's football equipment. 

 

These summer days are going by way too fast!

This Day.

This day started off with breakfast at Eckert's.

Where I learned I apparently don't like crepes!

Afterwards we walked around the country store and the kids enjoyed pushing their own carts all around!



This day was spent monkeying around!

By some more than others!

{She had just put lip gloss on and kept saying "pretty."}

It was on this day that Peyton learned the dryer spins!

She was quite enjoying her time in there until she tried to sit on the "seat" and it spun around. Her eyes got huge and she said "fall."

 

This day was spent hanging out outside. Ryan taught Colin how to ride his bike without training wheels!

Clearly it's time for a bigger bike! He got this one as his potty training prize 2 years ago!

We also practiced our golf swings in the backyard!

 

This was a good day!

I love my family!!!

All In a Hard Day's Work!!

It's amazing what some plants can do for curb appeal!! I've thought about adding plants before and my mom and I have even gone to the store and scoped out which bushes, etc. I liked but I couldn't ever fully commit to it. Not because I didn't want the end result but because I didn't want to deal with the "during."

 

But, with the house being on the market I decided that now was definitely the time for curb appeal! And if it doesn't sell it's kind of a win-win for me because I'll get to enjoy all my hard work longer!

 

So, last Thursday I dragged my mom to Lowe's with me so we could actually purchase plants! And what do you know, they were half off! Procrastination does have it's benefits! It was supposed to rain from Thursday through Saturday so I knew planting wasn't going to happen for a few days. I'm pretty sure Ryan thought I was crazy because I kept worrying about my plants being outside in the thunderstorms and I was worried about the one's I'd stored in the garage not getting enough sun. They all survived though!

 

Monday turned out to be the perfect planting day! It was a high of 72...definitely not the norm for June, but I'm not complaining. Once again I asked my mom to come over and help me--we don't even own a shovel. This was definitely not a project I could do on my own! I got started digging up grass before she got here but things went a lot quicker once she was here!

 

It was great being able to have Colin and Peyton outside with us. They had a lot of fun. It sometimes slowed things down because we had to stop what we were doing to chase Peyton down but that's okay! It did take forever. I was out there from about 9:30 until 5:45!!! There was about a 2 hour break when we made a Home Depot run and had lunch but other than that we were outside the whole time!

 

I love it! It looks so great and it's pretty exciting to drive up and see all of our hard work on display!

{And it was hard! My poor body is so sore today- but it's worth it!}

 

What we ended up planting:

-4 Boxwood's

-1 Burning bush---they are my absolute favorite! I love how they turn red in the fall! They get really big though so I chose to only do one on the corner of the house

-3 Hostas- love those too!

-Red geraniums

-White flowers. I can' remember what they're called

 

Before:

 

Thursday: laying them out to get an idea of what it would look like

All done! We still had some grass to dispose of though

So pretty!

Our Lives {According to Pictures}

I feel like I haven't taken pictures on my camera in forever. I pretty much do them on my phone all the time now. It translates into me taking about 100 pictures a day, or so it seems! That being said, it's becoming pretty overwhelming to get them on the blog!

 

So here are some pictures of our lives from the last month!!

 

We loved having grandma here to visit! The kids had so much fun reading with her, playing outside, and hanging out!



Peyton wore herself out one day during nap time..suffice it to say she ended up falling asleep about 30 minutes before I had to wake her to get Colin from school.



The Saturday Grandma was here me, Mom, Dad, Peyton, Grandma, and Jason went to the Cardinals game. Dad's a little bit obsessed with the free things the Cards are giving out at the games. That day they were giving out pink Mike Matheny jerseys..apparently Mom has a little crush on him! It was worth it, I love my jersey! Ryan and Colin decided to have some boy time so they went to Iron Man 3 that day while we were at the game.

When we got home that night Dad tried one of the jerseys on...no words!

Jason's graduation was on Mother's Day. We were originally planning on going up for it but decided it would be too long of a day for the kids (and it would have!) so we ended up having dinner with the Mohlman's. Mike suggested that the boys cook dinner, much to Ryan's chagrin! They did a great job though! Everything was delicious and we had so much fun hanging out with our favorite people! Kim always loves and excuse to play with Peyton's hair!



 

I was so lucky to have Grandma here for my birthday this year! Especially since I share it with Uncle Jim! We went out to lunch after we dropped Colin off at school.

Funny story about this: The night before my mom asked me where I wanted to have lunch. I told her Long Horn Steak House. She made me tell here where it was because she gets all the steak houses confused. I said it was in front of Kohl's. We were supposed to meet there at 12:30. I figured I'd be about 5 minutes late because I had to drop Colin off at school. Grandma McDonald was with me because we had gone to the mall in the morning. We got to the restaurant and Grandma Grodeon was there but I didn't see my moms car. They went ahead and sat us and Mom and Jason still weren't there. It was about 12:40 at this point so I decided to call her because I was sure she'd beat us there! She answered her phone and I said "Where are you?"

Mom: "The restaurant. Where are you?"
Me: "We're at the restaurant too. We got a seat in the back."

Mom: "Oh, they just sat us too."

Me: "Where are you sitting?...are you at the right restaurant?"

Mom: "I think so. I'm at Lone Star...I'm at Chili's."

 

Oh my goodness it was so funny! Jason didn't know where we were eating, he was just along for the ride. When  mom was trying to figure out which restaurant they were at he was like "Chili's" and pointed out the big chili on the menu.

It's practically next door to Long Horn. She turned in there because she saw the Long Horn sign and then didn't pay attention. It was hilarious!



I drew Spiderman for Colin one day, like the one on his shirt



Ryan had to dress up like Ferris Bueller for school one day and my mom made his vest for him! The shirt started out as a polo and she cut it like a vest, added the trim, and buttons. Then she DREW the design on with a sharpie!!! It looked great!

As if our trip to Florida wasn't enough of a celebration for our anniversary, we went out to dinner the night before it! It was delicious and so much fun!



Peyton loves wearing my mom's reading glasses. However I'm afraid they'll hurt her eyes so I tried to entice her with my sunglasses!



The night we went out for our anniversary we went to Dairy Haven afterwards. So good!

Peyton loves this beanie! She puts it on at random times! It cracks me up!



We went over to Mom and Dad's for Memorial Day..wasn't warm enough to swim but we sure did have some patriotic spirit! Go USA!!!

Last night we went to a performance by the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble. I used to babysit for Lisa's family every Friday night when I was in middle school! It was so great to see her again! She just got married a week after Rachel- can't believe we're all getting so old!

Peyton was helping my mom make icing today...mainly she was just eating it!