It's so stinking hot and humid!  We've been out to the pool every day this week and I am actually enjoying it this year.  My whole life I've not really liked water at all- but I figured it isn't fair to keep my kids from it just because I hate it! Luckily it appears the humidity is curing me of my dislike.
 Ike hated it the first day- but now he screams and tries to run for the pool every time we drive into the parking lot and head into our place!
We're headed out again today, too. I am so glad that we have a pool :)

 

I wish I would have taken the pic earlier.

Had I not been trying to clear his airways- I would have snapped a picture immediately when I found the little rugrat. 

 The mud was completely covering his eyes, mouth, and nose. I ended up ripping off his shirt to use the inside to help wipe off his eyes.  The kid got stuck in some mud (there was a big mud puddle underneath the slide behind him in the pic) and must have just fallen face first.  The mud was seriously up to his knees.  He was pretty good to only cry for a minute while I was pouring water all over his face to clean him up!

And then he just ran around with his shirt off and his shorts sopping wet. They were totally covered in mud too- so I just rinsed them in the water fountain.

I must start out this post by saying that my husband is the Incredible Hulk. Or Superman. Or SOMEthing.

Exhibit A:  He broke down a wooden door this weekend.
Exhibit B: He snapped steel in half this weekend.

We decided to take a spur of the moment trip to New York this weekend to see my mum who was visiting Laney and Taylor (she made a pit stop on her way to NYC for work).  We couldn't resist going see Nannie Annie when she was only four and a half hours away! and whenever we get together as a family (or even when we don't) some sort of adventure MUST occur.  Our family is attracted to chaos and drama and exciting events.

Friday night we went to bed after some late chatting and ran into a problem. laney's place is an old Brick house built in the 20's or 30's.  Ike was sleeping in the guest room in his pack n play- and when we went to go to sleep in the same room- I couldn't get the door open. Kent tried- he couldn't either. My mom tried and then Laney and then Taylor- to no avail.  It was midnight.  The door knob was just turning and turning.  We decided we'd have to remove the knob- but finding a tool that would work was ridiculous.  Plus- Ike was sleeping in the room so we were trying to keep quiet.  Finally (now 12:30) we removed the ancient (glass, super heavy) doorknob on our side.  The other side of the knob went crashing to the wood floor. Ike still slept.  And the door still wouldn't budge. The little tongue (?) of the mechanism was jammed in the wall.  We tried carding it, more screwdriver jamming, etc- but still no avail- now almost one AM. Plus- Laney and I have already had a few giggle fits. Kent and Taylor tried  a few times to just knock the door in but it was THICK and HUGE and not budging.  I thought we should either A) take a sledge hammer to it or B) call the fire dept.  Kent and Taylor decided going through the window was a better idea.  The ladder wouldn't reach (2.5 stories up) but their office juts out of the house out back and they decided to go from one window to the other.  Here's a visual from the next day.

It's high up.  The board they initially found was extremely wobbly and dangerous so I forbid Kent from scaling over.  NO WAY was I going to be taking care of a paraplegic the rest of my life.  Luckily Taylor found an old bedframe to stabilize it.  After ripping out the screen Kent shimmied over and made it inside.

Once he made it over (now 1:30) our fears were cemented. He couldn't open it from that way either.  Luckily the hinges were in the room. Taylor grabbed more tools and shimmied over. After MUCH pounding through thick painted and rusted over hinges- they got them off. Unfortunately the door was still stuck TIGHT.  Now 2:00 AM and Ike STILL SLEEPS!  Kent came back into the house and (thanks to some pointers from a call to my dad) just started ramming the door as Taylor tried jamming it upward from the other side.  After MANY heaves and hits, the door crashed open (and splintered in a few spots). And then Ike let out a little scream and decided to wake up- now 2:30.  It was ridiculous.
The rest of the weekend In Buffalo was less eventful. We shopped and ate and rested.  We even got a babysitter on Saturday night and went to Panos- a fun Greek restaurant.  It was wonderful with no kiddos. Thanks so much for everything, Mum!!

The kiddos loved playing together and loved seeing Nannie Annie. Henry and Zeb especially loved the birthday presents (they both have bdays next week!).

These three little rugrats definitely look like cousins!

Henry talked about "the zoo! the zoo!" nonstop.  He and Zeb did really well together and I can't wait until they are a little older and even better friends!

Zeb LOVED this little car Henry has. Laney found it for FIVE BUCKS at a yard sale.  I was so jealous.

We decided to come back to Toledo Sunday after church and dinner.  Crazy adventure and Incredible Hulk exhibit 2 begins here.  Things were nice and uneventful with two sleeping children on the drive home until our tire EXPLODED while we were going 75.  Kent made it safely to the side of the road and we began changing the tire.  It was HOT and MUGGY and the kids were starting to cry while Kent and I were on the side of the Pennsylvania freeway.  Things were fine until the last lugnut on the tire. It would NOT come off. It would turn a little both ways but was totally stuck on the bolt. Kent pulled and pushed and tugged and I was no help at all.  I was starting to figure out who we was going to call for help.  After a quick prayer Kent gave it another hard pull and tug and the lugnut easily popped off. Or so we thought. Upon examination we realized that Kent had full on broken the bolt (that secures the tire to the car) off the wheel!    I called my dad (he has all of the answers about everything) and he said it was safe to drive home with the four remaining bolts securing the new tire.
Unfortunately monkey #2 got really crabby and the only thing to calm him down was a sucker. It was disgusting and worth every bit of stickiness.  He stole Zeb's, too.

We finally got home- later than planned- but all is well today. The trip was great and worth the drama! And the next time we see Laney she'll have her rugrat #2. We can't wait to see what it is!

I like when Kent gets all of his worst shifts over with at the beginning of a rotation because then things just get easier.  It's great when things start hard and then move to easy.

He had late call last night and he has all night call tonight- and then a three day weekend!  Let's hope he gets some sleep at the hospital tonight so tomorrow day isn't spent sleeping.

Here are some goofy pictures of Ike and Zeb.  This is what our days are full of.  Funny looks, eating toys, and standing around.

Ike still carries things around in his mouth all the time. And he's still never swallowed anything.  He did come out from his room the other day with puffy cheeks, though. I put my hand under his mouth and told him to spit.  Out came SEVEN hungry hungry hippo balls.  Really.

Ignore the gunk all over his face that makes him look like a ragamuffin.  My kids look a lot like orphans quite frequently.

And Zebbo. I can't resist a rugrat in pajamas. What is it about pjs?

Here's the monkey Zeb with his "car city" that we made today.  He designed and directed construction while I did the actual building.  Lately he asks all day if we can do "crafts".  We painted and flew jetplanes the other day.  We also drew out a big airport and runways on a cardboard box.  I need more ideas!!  Any fun (and SIMPLE) stuff any of you make or do with your kiddos?  Quiet time is getting boring and I don't just want it to be tv time while Ike sleeps!

Best dang salad EVER.

This is so stinking good.  Seriously unreal.  It's delicious.

•  Spinach
• Romaine lettuce
• cut strawberries
• diced tomatoes
• grilled chicken with lemon pepper
• br sugar toasted walnuts
• chopped red onion

you can also add:

• bacon
• mozarella cheese

and add this amazing dressing.  I love Brianna's Blush wine vinaigrette!

or make your own:
2/3 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp dry mustard

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1.5 Tb any type sweet onion, chopped

1 cups oil

 Mix the first 5 ingredients in a blender, then slowly add the oil, blending until thick

And I had to add a pic of my favorite six AM people in the world. Today was our last day of early morning seminary. Oh how I'll miss these lovely teenagers.  I won't be missing my alarm clock every morning, though.

Today Zeb went to the dentist. He was unreal. Amazing. No cries. No whines. No whimpers.  They did x-rays. They did a thorough cleaning. They even did some scraping.  I was über impressed with the kid-as was the dentist.  I used to have to be medicated before I went and got my teeth cleaned!  He obviously doesn't have my dentist anxiety.  Here are some poor quality cell phone pics.  He was so excited to tell the dentist that he has twenty teeth.

 Ike, on the other hand, threw an all out screaming banshee fit with his medical visit.  Yesterday the little rascal took a head dive off the bench in church and fell smack onto the edge of the bench in front of us. It was deep and looked very painful. He wailed and wailed. Kent snatched him up and took him to urgent care to get stitches (they actually gave him the glue since apparently stitches are a thing of the past) and I took Zeb to sit with our friend, Wendy, so that I could go up and give my talk!  Zeb did great during church but Kent says Ike was FREAKING out while they fixed him up.

Here's the monkey later that day. We went to another new park (Secor park is also incredibly beautiful!) to check it out. We did run into a few swampy situations but enjoyed our outing nonetheless.  I think Ike had fun- but who knows with him. He's got this look on his face frequently.

Zeb has always been in to STOP signs. He knows that they are octagons and he knows that all octagons have eight sides- but he still insisted on stopping and making sure all eight sides were present and accounted for.

We ended up walking a little longer than we had anticipated and the only thing we could do to get Zeb moving faster was scare him. We are baaad baaad parents. He's now convinced that crocodiles and bears live in the Toledo woods and that the woods are extra creepy.

what a splendid saturday.

 Have I mentioned that I love this place in May? It's beautiful.  I was meant to live in Ohio.  

Today was such a perfect day.  The most fabulous weather, lots of fun, and the best company.

We started the day with a trip to the zoo. At seven AM.  We checked out a bunch of the animals- and then ran one my favorite toledo races- The Dart Frog Dash. It's our third time running it.  I don't know how I've been so lucky to have Kent able run it with me every year thus far!

I forgot my camera so this is a cell pic that kent took. Despite the fact that zeb kept yelling at us to run faster through the whole race and that Ike kept chucking things out of the stroller - it was my fastest stroller 5K to date!  Kent did help me push up the final big hill so that we could keep our pace :)

Late this afternoon we decided to go and enjoy the weather outdoors a little more. I found a fabulous new place (this city is FULL of hidden treasures) called the W.W. Knight Nature Preserve.  They've got a little library, a big kids room where you can play with LIVE tadpoles!, and a great nature/board walk.

The kiddos loved checking out the pond.  I thought FOR SURE that Ike was going to jump in. The kid has no fear.  He was making me crazy.

I just can't believe how many parks and nature preserves and trails that Toledo has to offer. 

Kent tried to teach Ike how to blow on the dandelions- but the monkey has only managed to grasp the idea of eating them. Can you imagine anything worse than all of that fluff in your mouth?!  Blech.

To finish off our night we went to Bass Pro shops. I can't believe in the three years that we've been in Toledo that this was our first time going. It's just like Cabela's basically. I feel like this place was a little bigger and had zillions more dead animals.  The kids LOVED it.  Zeb cried as we left; "I just want to see more big animals, pleeeease!!".  We stopped by the little cafe inside for treats. The boys shared an ice cream cone and I got fudge. I have a ridiculous love for fudge.  Here's another phone shot of Zeb and me. 

I LOVE great weekends with Kent. He starts Ob/Gyn on Monday and I'm sure his schedule will be a tad (A TON!) crazier then psych was the past six weeks.

I have a problem.

I really really love yard sales.  Last weekend I made my biggest purchase yet.  We bought new beds for the kiddos. We've been talking about a new bunkbed for awhile now (we were using Kent's old futon bunkbed from highschool and it was big and rickety- and ugly metal, too) and I've looked around on craigslist and at furniture stores over the past year.  Last weekend I went to the world's best neighborhood yard sale and found the perfect beds for an unreasonably good price. I found the exact bunks online for 800 dollars- mattresses NOT included.  We payed FAAAAAAR less and even got mattresses.  I am such a happy girl.

We also have two very happy boys.  Zeb says the bed is "supercool".

 And both kids LOVE climbing all over it.

Zeb wants us to always keep the ladder up so that he can get up top, but we've already run into some problems.

 Apparently Ike is preparing to scale Everest.  I was getting dinner ready and heard some intense giggling from the back room. I went to check it out and found THIS. Ike had scaled to the top rung and decided to sit and hang out. He is such a climber.

Here's the full view.  Ike was running laps around the top bunk until Kent dragged him down kicking and screaming.

Thanks, Kent! for taking apart the old bunks and putting together the new ones!!  Oh- and did I mention we sold the old bunk and futon mattress on craigslist in just one day?!  Kent wanted to throw it away but I assured him that even though it was old and ratchety that I could sell it if I asked the right price.

oh- and p.s.  Ike is still in his crib. We set up the top bunk because we don't have any storage space in which to keep an undone bed!

 Ike is so funny.  I can't believe how many words he's started saying in the past week.  He FINALLY figured out the 'b' sound. He's been saying "doll" for the word ball for four months now! He's also saying lots of food words like banana and beans and cheese.  His favorite word is still shoe.

He had his fifteen month check up last Friday and he passed with flying colors.  The kid is AMAZING with shots. I was out with Zeb in the waiting room and the kid came running out all smile and giggles with kent.  The desk nurse was even shocked.  He's between the 50th and 75th percentile for everything size wise.  He's been walking for five months now! and he's got all of his age appropriate teeth.

My favorite thing about this munchkin is his chubby face.  He's just a little guy- but when he squishes up his face he's got the cutest cheeks and chin.

the campout!

The first thing that Zeb said to me when he walked in the door from the campout was: "there were NO MOMS, mom! Only dads! my dad was there and cohen's dad and matthew's dad and Caden's dad..." and he went on and on and on.  You'd think he was excited about the fact that his mom wasn't there :)

 

 The second bit of information he relayed to me was: "we drove on a grass road mom. It was very dangerous". Apparently they had to drive on grass to get to the campsite and Zeb was mortified. He thought they were going to die for sure and repeatedly told Kent to "Stop the car right now!!". Other than that, I think he loved every second. It was so funny to talk to him. He'd remember little bits and pieces of what they did and he was so excited to tell me every little detail of those strange tidbits.

Kent's story:

The weather was supposed to be awful and many people called to see if the campout was canceled.  Since I was partially in charge of dinner I was planning on going rain or shine.  The weather was surprisingly perfect while we set up camp, ate dinner and got ready for bed.  Zeb played and played.  Their were quite a few boys his age and they ran around together all night.  They explored each and every tent.  Zeb was excited to show all of his friends his "super-duper cool tent".  Zeb was sad that we didn't bring our own chairs, but was quite content to try all the other camp chairs around the fire.

 

 There was a fireside that night close to our campsite.  The weather started changing as the opening prayer was said.  It started to rain and there was lots of thunder and lightning.  Zeb leaned over to me and whispered, "Kent, let's get outta here and go to our tent".  It was sound advice.  As we were making our way to the tent the heavens opened.  We made it back just in time; it started raining HARD and continued all night long.  I tried to distract Zeb from the loud thunder with Diego on my iTouch.  He really wasn't concerned, and told me he was tired and wanted to turn Diego off.  I sat up to organize my stuff and he grabbed my hand and said, "Kent! Don't go out there".  He laid back down, closed his eyes and slept all night!!

Zeb thought our rain guard pole was a fishing rod.  Hmmm... Maybe that's why my sleeping bag was a little wet in the morning. 

 I think the highlight of the campout was the fact that he got his own donuts. He sat and ate them to his heart's content.

 

He came home to mom in one piece and with a favorable impression of camping.  He wasn't the youngest camper there either.  Ike would have had a camping buddy his age had I had the guts to bring both of them.  However, I'm not sure either of them would have made it back in one piece or had a favorable impression of camping if I had taken both of them.  Maybe next year!

ode to my mum.

I've always been surrounded by many wonderful moms. I have the most amazing aunts, the greatest grandmas, the superest sister moms, and the best mother in law.   But I have to say that it's my mum- the real deal- Nannie Annie- who is my very very favorite.  She is the very very best.  She is the most amazing. She is super mom.  She's better than all the rest of the moms in the world.

And here's the proof!  :)  Her four amazing, beautiful, and wonderful daughters. We are who she has made us.  We are who she has taught us to be. We are great because of her example, her love, and her leadership.

Thanks, mum for your friendship and your "momness".  It is unique and perfect.  Just take a look at all you've done!!

 Off they go!  too bad there are tornado watches and other "severe weather warnings" for the camp out area. 

Did I mention that Zeb was so excited to go?!  He couldn't stop talking about it ALL day.

Pringles, donuts, and cookies. Those were Zeb's requests at the grocery store tonight. Kent told him he could choose whatever he wanted for their camping trip tomorrow night.  He definitely has Kent's taste in snacks.   I would have chosen licorice, trail mix, and something chocolate if I was going along.

They've got the Father and Sons campout tomorrow and Zeb is BEYOND excited.

He's been waking up every morning asking if it's Friday yet. I only wish that Ike could go so that I could have a night to myself!  But, I can't imagine taking that rugrat camping- especially since it's supposed to rain the entire time.

I'm sending our finicky camera with Kent and I hope he comes back with pictures of some sort!  but- no promises.  I'll get a pic of them on their way out, though.

Zeb is growing up more and more every day.  When I buckled him into his car seat this morning and gave him a kiss he informed me: "Mom, I don't like kisses anymore. They're gross. Just hugs, please".

Our playgroup of duck feeding at the botanical gardens today was actually Canada Geese attacking little children at the botanical gardens.  I'm not sure where are all the ducks were, but those geese had NO fear.  They were nibbling at the little kidlets' grubby fingers.  Ike thought it was very amusing.  He loved the honking of geese and squealing of children.  At one point, two of the geese got really violent over a piece of bread and I actually got nervous.

Zeb loved running around the place with Matthew.  I think the running around with the combination of the heat exhausted him. He zonked at seven tonight.

Ike was a little grumpy because he wanted to get out and run all over like Zeb- but he couldn't keep up.  There were quite a few tears and nasty faces coming from him by the end.

I love the botanical gardens!  It's definitely one of Toledo's greatest spots.