A Busy Week, But The Adults Hit the Town!

We like to try out new parks and last weekend Ryan took the boys to one of the elementary schools in the area to play.

Spencer is actually pretty good at the monkey bars. He can usually get all the way across.

Spencer also got a care package in the mail from Grandpa John and Grandma Julie for after his surgery.

Dress up in our house looks like this...

Ryan took off to Michigan for a few days for work. That meant I was in charge of getting all the boys up in the morning and off to school. Let's just say I do not like doing this on my own and two drop offs is a pain! We were happy to have Ryan back home.

Every night at bedtime was when the boys missed Ryan the most. I couldn't really be in one room with out the other one coming in so I told the boys I would sit outside both of their rooms and fold laundry. I told them they could have their doors open. They both decided that sleeping on the floor by their door was the best option. At that point I thought "whatever will work to get you to sleep."

This is where I found him in the AM after I had put him in his bed.

Mornings can be rough. They are tired and not very motivated!

Thankfully one night they had a grill out at Easton and Nolan's school. Spencer was excited to go back to see all of his old friends and teachers.

 While Ryan was gone his fathers day gift was installed. I selfishly decided we needed new garage cabinets. Our garage had gotten a bit out of control. I would call Ryan on a daily basis when the  boys and I were home looking for things. Ryan now claims this is the best father's day gift ever. I don't think he realized at the time how bad the garage had gotten until he started going through it all.

The boys also have fun hiding in the big cabinets.

I treated the boys to an ice cream...

This was a big week for Spencer. We got to go pick up the letter that said who his kindergarten teacher was going to be. We also got his school supply list. He was so excited to go pick it up and see his new school. I'm glad he is excited about school and can't wait to start. I know this feeling will fade over the years. We had a picnic lunch at his school after we picked up the letter.

The boys were not being very good listeners that day so I thought going for a walk would kill some time and energy. They were having fun walking along the path and looking at everything.

The walk ended after giving into Spencer (even though I said no I don't think it's a good idea 2 times) and allowed him to give Nolan a piggy back ride. He lost his balance and went face down into the path. Nolan wasn't harmed. That's why you always listen to your gut feeling!

We had to celebrate! Easton made it to pink on Friday! That means he had over the top great behavior. I was so proud of him!

Friday was also movie night in the garage (it was too cold for the back yard) at our neighbors. First we went in to see his puppy Milo.

The boys played on the trampoline. Nolan LOVES it, he makes me nervous on it.

Grandma and Grandpa entertained the boys on Saturday during the day. Hadley and Finley were also staying over that night so they all got to play together. Grandma reported that it was wild because they were all stuck inside for most of the day due to bad weather.

But things got better once they could be outside playing and eating s'mores. 

We've started a tradition with our neighbors to go boating with no kids one weekend a summer. Well this year it was windy, raining and the high was 60 degrees. So we did what you are supposed to do in Wisconsin, we went bar hopping instead.

This picture was taken when the ladies were being smart. We drank mostly water in between a few cocktails. 

These guys.... well let's just say they are all paying for it today!

My first pull tab!

Sunrise view out our bedroom window.

Onto life with boys...

They don't have fun ponies to put in their hair so they are forced to use chip bag clips.

Someone stole a Reese's cup from the diaper bag and forgot to get rid of the evidence. This was after I told all of them 3 times that no one was going to eat it because I didn't have enough. Any guesses on who?

Yup Easton!

I went upstairs for 5 minutes to put some laundry away and came back to find this.

Apparently bath tablets also work in toilets.

Look No Hands! This is how Nolan held his milk while watching his morning cartoon.

Why do they have to be such dare devils? Spencer practicing for the luge event in the Olympics!

It's Finally Summer!

Make sure if you haven't already to check out Nolan's birthday post that I posted below.

We just can't get enough time outside in the summer. We haven't been in our basement (where all the toys are) since the weather started getting nicer. 

Another reason why I love summer. They finally burn off all of their energy and just crash at the end of the day.

Well Spencer had his last surgery this week. I've been a bit more mum about this one because I'm sure he will be thrilled when he get's older that I'm talking about it. Basically Spencer has what's called urethral stenosis. Or narrowing of his urethra. I noticed early on (when he was just a few months old) that when he peed it wasn't always straight. I was told to just keep an eye on it. Well, it never corrected and I asked again at his 5 year check up. We were then sent to the pediatric urologist. We also discovered at this time that Spencer's right testicle (Sorry Spencer if you reading this when you are 20!) had a tendency to go back up. So they wanted to fix that also. I felt so bad for him having to go through another procedure and I didn't even really know how to explain this one. Thankfully we had it done and Children's and they were all great. I can't say enough good things about our experience. He's recovering and doing great. He took pain meds for the first day and complained of peeing for the first day but other then that you would never know he had anything done. We are so proud of our brave boy and we celebrated that all of his surgeries are DONE! Now he can enjoy summer.

They had toys on the bed and a Wii ready to go when he got in the room.

Our sweet brave boy!

He requested that I sit in the back of the van with him.

Of course we had a little gift for him when we got home. I had to find stuff that would entertain him that could be done while sitting or resting.

We built his LEGO fire fighter set.

The hospital sent home doctor stuff for them to play with.

Towards the end of the first night Spencer started getting tired and this is the spot he picked to sleep. Don't worry we moved him to his bed eventually.

Spencer and I went to grandma's for a few days. He got to spend some time with Finley. They played Wii, got out Heather's old kitchen set and did a lot of tractor riding. Grandma also took them to a movie and they had dinner on the pontoon.

The boys also talked Grandpa into taking them fishing the next morning.

 This is the weekend I look forward to almost all year. It's when I get to spend some time with my summer family listening to country music and having fun. I was excited when Jenny and Luke were able to come home early from their year long adventure to China.

Even my sister came this year!

Ryan had the two little boys. He took this picture one morning when the drop off didn't go as smooth. They look tired.

But he also spoiled them with dinner at Target after getting Easton's prescription for swimmer's ear. Ryan said, "taking the easy way out tonight."

Easton got invited to another friend's birthday party. It was at the Giggle Factory so Ryan took Nolan along to play while Easton was at the party. I don't fully trust Easton to go to a party by himself yet. Maybe in a year or so....

The mom was nice and let Nolan crash in on the party fun!

We said goodbye to one of our old neighbors Terryl and Jake. They are the ones that have the twin girls in Easton's classroom that he's been in love with for a while now. It's sad to see them go but hopefully we can visit them in Colorado. 

They had a ton of water slides and bounce houses for the kids. It was perfect!

My worst fear is to ever have to do CPR on one of my kids or a kid in general. Thankfully this story has a good ending but reminds me how quickly something can go wrong. One of our friend's little boy fell from the top of the water slide pictured above and hit his back when he landed in the pool below. He got the wind knocked out of him we think. By the time he got over to us he was upset and unable to catch his breath. He went pale and his lips started turning blue. We got him to the ground and he wasn't responding. After what seemed like 5 minutes he was able to catch his breath and I didn't have to start CPR. It scared all of us and the paramedics were already on their way. They brought him to the ER and he checked out fine. They even brought him back in the ambulance. It was also a great lesson for our kids to see why we have to be careful playing on those slides.

Don't worry the party carried on and while the little girls wanted to be waitresses and serve everyone food. My kids wanted to learn how to pour beer from the kegs.

My Boy Pictures.... and you could certainly start with the few above!

He's totally ok with dirty hands and these are from eating a chocolate chip cookie. Does it need to be that messy? Those dirty hands were later wiped clean on his white shirt and now I'm trying to get the stains out.

Anything and everything is an obstacle course in our house.

Proud mom! Spencer's back pack is the only one hanging in this mess.

A bubble beard.