Making me proud....

I was a very proud mom and wife this last weekend. On Saturday Cody decided to spend his whole life savings($80)on a new bike. He had been wanting a new bike for a while now and we were proud that it was important enough to him to spend all his money on it. He was so excited and really likes it, he enjoys riding it every day now.

And on Sunday morning Robert got Baptized and publicly accepted God into his life. It has been so neat watching him become a man of God. It is so important that our family is finally on the same page when it comes to our religion, it has been a long time coming and i am so happy with his decision to be baptized. Our faith as a family has grown so much over the last 2 and a half years and I am grateful that we are now active members of this wonderful church family. It is so important to be fully committed to Jesus and to really live for him in every way, we are still growing in a lot of ways but i know that we are on the right path.

I love this picture....

Deanna Rose July 2011

Yesterday we met our friends at Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead. It's a fun interactive farmstead where there is a lot of fun things to do. Jake took his first pony ride there yesterday, he was so excited. He has a new found love of horses after the Dixie Stampede we went to in Branson so I knew he would love getting to ride a pony. Here are some pictures from our afternoon at the farm....

 

Feeding the baby goats...

The whole clan. We love hanging out with the girls. Between me and my friend we have a 2,3,4,5 and 6yr old. It's pretty fun when we are all together, they all get along really well and always look forward to 

seeing each other.

It was a fun day at the farm!

Branson trip 2011

Last week we took our first official family vacation. We went to Branson, MO. My parents were kind enough to let us take advantage of their time share, and one of the locations was Branson so we thought it sounded perfect.

There were so many fun things to do in Branson as a family. We started off the trip with a ride on the famous Duck Boats. It's a land/water vehicle that takes you out on Lake Taneycomo. It was very fun, the boys had a blast, Jake had fun the rest of the time in Branson spotting duck boats all over town.

One of the fun things on the duck boat is the opportunity the passengers get to drive the boat. Our whole family got to drive the boat, there isn't a picture of me because while the captain was trying to take my picture i was turning the wheel a little too hard so he didn't get a good picture because he was more worried about his boat, woops.

 

Next up that day was Silver Dollar City. It is a amusement park set in the old west. It was really fun, it was really hot that day but we still had fun. The lines were not too bad and the boys had fun on the rides.

The next day we went Go-Carting. This was something that Cody especially was really looking forward to. Me and Jake were riding buddies and Robert and Cody, of course because they were sure to go faster. They did go faster than us but not by much. It was fun and if you can tell by the look on Jake's face he was super excited to be "driving" the go-cart.

After we got done on the big track Cody got to drive by himself on the rookie track, he said that was his favorite part of the whole vacation.

 

After go-carting we went and did a little shopping. While shopping we came upon a little water fountain show with Lake Taneycomo in the background.

My families Harley shop.... he, he, just kidding but I was pretty excited about it, even spelled right, that's pretty rare.

Lake Taneycomo

That evening we went to the Dixie Stampede Dinner Show. It was a blast. I would give it 4 stars and highly recommend it to anyone traveling in the area. It started with a pre show of a juggling father and son, Jake was in awe of them, he didn't move the whole time. They were great. Then we went into the arena and were seated. The show was fabulous and the animals were beautiful. Jake loved the horsies and yelled for them to come back every time they left. The meal was great too, i got Jake to eat a lot because he was so into the show and i just kept putting food in his mouth. It was mu favorite part of the vacation because i could see how much everyone was enjoying themselves.

On Saturday we went to the Dinosaur museum, it was pretty cheesy and no where close to as good as other one's we have been to in the past but that's OK. Below is a picture of Robert and Jake with the Utahraptor.

We went to the fish hatchery on Saturday too and Table Rock Dam was right near there. And you all should know of Robert's love for a good Dam so we had to get some pictures...

Here is a pic of Cody at the Hatchery. It was very interesting to see how they raise the rainbow and brown trout. There were so many fish there and the boys had fun feeding them.

Saturday we also went on a tour through the Titanic museum. I was very interesting. It may have been more fun without the boys, they didn't love it so much but they hung in there with us.

All vacation we had a lot of pool time. We tried to go everyday. Cody has turned into quite the little fish lately. He loves to be in the water and has really come a long way in getting over his fear of going under the water. We are very proud of him and the progress he has made this summer. Below is a pic of Robert throwing him into the pool, he loved it.

Hand stand...

Sunday came too fast and it was time for us to head home. We did have a couple of fun stops along the way though. First we stopped at Bass Pro Shops headquarters in Springfield, MO. It was huge. There was so much to look at there, we didn't spend as much time there as we could have, we will have to go back and explore more.

Our final stop on our trip was at Fantastic Caverns. It was really neat. It's a series of caves that you drive through in a jeep that pulls a tram. I think caves are so cool and the boys seemed have a good time too. It gave Robert a few flashbacks from his days underground but he liked it too.

We had a very fun trip and made lots of memories that we will never forget.

4th of July 2011

We had a really fun 4th of July again this year. We went swimming during the day and had friends over for a BBQ that evening. At the end of the night we had a big crowd of neighbors and friends on our lawn to watch the fireworks show we put on and the one the city put on. We have a great view of the city fireworks from our front lawn and are always grateful that we don't have to fight the traffic on the 4th of July.

We are so lucky to have our freedom and are able to worship God publicly. We are thankful for all those who make our freedom possible and we are in deed proud to be Americans!

End Of Season Blues

Our season as the Pirates has come to a end. While I am dealing with the new found freedom quite well Robert is a bit more sentimental about it ending. He really had fun with the boys and hopefully taught them a lot. He is a bit at a lose as to what to do with himself now that the season is over. They were a crazy bunch and some practices seemed more mentally exhausting then fun but all in all it was a great season. A lot of the boys improved by leaps and bounds and we have high hopes for next year. 

Our last practice we had our annual water balloon practice, it was even better than last year, the boys had a blast and we had a blast watching them. Here's a pic of Cody batting and making a good splash.

Cody finally got to play catcher the last game..

Pirates Coach Pitch 2011

Jake's 3yr photo shoot

I need to play catch up for a minute here. We have been having such a fun summer that i have neglected the blog a bit.

In May I took Jake's 3yr pictures. He is such a sweet spirit in our home and we are thankful for him every day...or almost every day, he he. I want to talk just a little bit more about Jake. I know that i wrote about him on his birthday post but i wanted to give you a run down of a few things we love about our Jakey...

10. I secretly love that when i come in to get him in the morning he is dressed,even if it's in a sweat shirt when it's 100 degrees out, blinds wide open and a smile on his face.

9. I LOVE that he prefers to order broccoli over fries as his side dish at a restaurant.

8. We love the comic relief he brings to every day life, he is a seriously funny kid.

7. We love his independence. He loves to play outside and he could literally spend hours in his sandbox.

6. I love watching him grow and learn. He is really a problem solver and is very proud of himself when he figures it out on his own.

5. We love how he talks. He started talking a little late but he talks almost nonstop now, there are a lot of words i should correct him on but I'm letting him be my baby just a little bit longer.

4. We love that he potty trained himself at 2yrs old. I bless him every day for that.

3. We love that he has no fear, that one is sometimes very frightening but i think it is a good trait and he will try a lot of things that most kids his age would be too scared to do.

2. We love his ability to go, go, go. He really has endless energy. He very rarely gets too cranky to deal with. He goes with the punches and is very laid back.

1. Most of all we just love that Jake is Jake. He is such a fun kid to be around and we love him very much!