Fun with the grandparent's

The grandparents have been up this week. The boys have had a lot of fun with them. They bought Tyler some new spiderman bedding and the boys really enjoyed pretending to sleep. What a fun-filled week for the two boys.

Happy Birthday, Deacon!

Deacon turned one today! What an amazing year its been and its flown by. He really enjoyed the cake and ice cream! Thanks to all our friends who came and helped celebrate with us. Joel spent a lot of time doing up a bar-b-cue for the party. The chicken was excellent. I never did get a bite of the ribs, but I think we have some left-overs. I've had his ribs before and know they are very, very good. Tyler helped me bake the cake last night. He especially liked the frosting :)

Family

Tyler enjoyed making the big truck honk!

Last week my parents came up for a visit. We went down to Illinois to visit my brother and it was the first time since we've all had kids that we were all together. Next week, it's Joel's parents!

Water Park Fun

Even though it was a bit on the chilly side, we still had a blast at the waterpark. Tyler is fearless when it comes to the rides. We rode everyone that they would allow him on. The first one we rode down, he giggled the whole way down and as soon as we landed in the splash pool, the first words out of his mouth were "Can we do that again!?" We also rode in a dark tunnel where you couldn't see anything! This one scared me a little bit, but again, he giggled the whole way down and was ready to go again! My niece, Destiny came with us as well. She loved the kiddie pools, but the slides scared her a little. The last time Tyler and I rode the slide, he started asking me "Is this freaking you out yet?"

Camping Trip

Deacon and me. I love his eyes!

Bridge to Forestville Historic Town.

Road to Campsites

Stream that Deke, Ty, and I hiked to while Daddy tore down the campsite.

On the trail

The Three Amigos. I love the look on Deke's face.

Hiking is hard work

Overlook

Mist on the River

Camping with the boys was a blast and a lot of hard work. They had so much fun. They got super filthy, but they are after all boys. After setting up camp, we went to Mystery Cave (pictures below), when we got through with that, both boys were napping so I went for a bike ride around the park. It was great to just ride around and going down the hills was really fun. (not so much coming back up) When I got back, Deacon was awake and Tyler woke up soon after. I was amazed at how entertained Deacon seemed to be. I thought he would be my problem, but he really wasn't. We brought a ball for him to play with and he really enjoyed just chasing the ball around. We brought Tyler's trike and he loved being able to go on the road with it. (only when Mommy went with him and we had to put the kabash on that when he almost ran into a tree and was up on two wheels. When he finally got it all straighted out, his words were "That was fun, can we do it again" We didn't let him go down that hill anymore after that, the little daredevil)
It did take a long time to get the boys to bed that night. That was when we really struggled with Deacon. There was just too much going on for him to really settle down, but he finally did. It wasn't too much longer after that that Tyler joined him. Tyler actually asked to be put to bed, but when I went in there at 10:30 he was still awake. Being Fourth of July weekend, some campers were shooting off fireworks which woke Deacon up and kept Tyler awake until almost midnight. I was not a happy camper during that time. Deacon did wake up again at 4 and Joel was so worried about disturbing the other campers. I was still ticked that they had shot off fireworks so I could really have cared less. He went back down about as easy as he does at home so it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Of course, both boys were up and raring to go at 6:30. Unfortunatly, the weather was not cooperating. It was raining. We stayed inside the tent until almost 8am when I finally couldn't take it anymore and brought them both outside. We had enough tree cover that we didn't get wet underneath that. We then did three hikes that day. They are both such troopers. We didn't go too far. The first one was to an overlook and it was about a mile, the next one I just did with the boys by myself while Joel tore down our campsite. It was maybe 1/4 of a mile. Then we did Big Spring and we probably did 2 miles round trip with a lot of ups and downs. The only bad thing about the trails was that you share them with horses so you have to dodge horse poop. Tyler got to pet one of the horses and now he wants one. He talked for most of the trail about this horse and how he wants one and what he'll name and what it'll eat. Since we've been home he keeps putting on his cowboy hat and saying he's waiting for his horse. He named his horse Deacon (not sure how Deacon feels about having a horse named after him)and its a nice horse that doesn't bite. He will go on and on about "his" horse and what it is like. It's really very funny.
The next time we take him to Texas, I'll take him to my aunts. They have horses that we'll be able to ride.

Happy Birthday, Joel!

Hope you day is a great one! We all love you very, very much! You are an awesome Father and an incredible husband. We have been so blessed to have someone as wonderful as you in our lives.

Mystery Cave

We went to Mystery Cave on Friday. Tyler and I really enjoyed it. Deke enjoyed hearing his echo. Joel was pretty miserable because he was the one who had Deacon. The other people in our tour group were probably wishing they had gone on another tour since Deacon pretty much babbled loudly the whole time. There was some pretty cool stuff in this cave and at the end of the tour there was this beautiful tourquise lake. It was gorgeous. I took pictures, but the pictures didn't turn out. They also have a two hour tour that is way more rugged. The kids have to be over four to go on that one but once they are old enough, I want to take them on that one.