Christmas 2010

Whew!! We made it through Christmas without anybody getting sick and the weather cooperated! Jeremy and Momma (Jackie) now have colds but seem to be getting better. Joshua is doing good. Dec. 19th we finally got to have the "family" birthday party for Joshua. Jeremy was sick on the 5th when we were supposed to have had it. The birthday party ended up being part of Christmas too, since Uncle Kelly, Aunt Roxie, their family and Brad and Sara couldn't be with us on Christmas Day. We all had a great time!! Josh got lots of presents and had fun with his cousins.

Christmas Eve was spent with Grandma H at her house. Grandma T. went with us, too. We went to Christmas Eve service at her church and Santa made his visit early and had left the kids their presents when we got home from church. Jeremy got an electric scooter and Joshua got a "manual" scooter!! Of course when they walked in the door, Josh went right to Jeremy's scooter and wanted to ride it!!! After that, we opened presents and played with gifts.

Christmas Day we ate dinner and then headed back home to host Momma's side of the family minus those mentioned above, for an evening meal and celebration. We had a great time with all of the kids, Joe, John, Cayden, Joshua and Jeremy. They all make Christmas so much fun!! We opened presents and played games until the little ones needed to go to bed. What a great day!!

Sunday was spent recuperating!!!!!!!! We shopped a little. Watched a little football and installed or put together some of our Christmas presents!! It was a great weekend!

Now Jeremy is home with Mommy (Di) who is busy with her online class she is teaching for intersession at KSU. Joshua is going to the sitter and Momma is back to work. We will all be home on Friday and then it's New Year's Eve and time to PARTY!!!

We will post pictures later. They haven't been downloaded yet. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and 2011 will be a wonderful year for you!!!

Dear Santa I want a.....

Yesterday I took the boys to see Santa while Jackie worked on cheesecakes. I was very happy that Joshua wasn't the least bit scared of Santa. Jeremy was thinking he was too big to go see Santa but since he is such a good big brother, he agreed to go so he could help Josh tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas. Yes Joshua is missing a shoe and sock. Josh doesn't really think that shoes and socks are necessary so anytime he is forced to sit in the car or stroller for longer than 2 minutes he removes his right shoe and sock...then begins on the left one. We've considered duck tape but haven't resorted to that yet. On this outing we managed to keep the shoe but the sock was lost.

Other randon photos

Can you see the orneriness in this smile? He may be an angel, but he defininately has an extra heaping spoonful of orneriness added!!

He loves his 4 wheeler!

He can drive it on his own, but there are things in our backyard that are paying the price, ie the shed, the slide, the steps!! He's hit them all!! He thinks the object is to run into objects rather than avoid them. He may be a demolition derby driver someday!!

It's hard to believe that Joshua is 2. Our baby is a toddler now. The terrible twos are here!! But he's our angel!! We love him very much! We are so fortunate to have 2 wonderful sons!

Joshua turns 2

Joshua turned 2 on December 2nd. We let him open presents and had cake. He really liked blowing out the candles. He did it 10 times!! We got him this electric 4 wheeler.

Here's Joshua eating his cake.

Jeremy got Joshua an airplane and some Little People DVDs.

Picture taking time!!

The above picture is of Jeremy when he was around 2 years old. The picture below is of Joshua when he is almost 2 years old and wearing the same clothes and boots that Jeremy wore.


We went to Sears and got the annual Christmas pictures taken, plus Joshua's second birthday pictures. We had a blast! The photographer took over 90 pictures!! Joshua was a hoot!! The photographer was laughing so much I don't know how she actually got any pictures taken!!

Joshua 2010 Christmas

Joshua 2nd birthday next Thursday!!

Here's the fam!

Here's the boys!

Here's big bro!!

Hope everyone has a very nice Thanksgiving. We will go to Grandma T's on Thursday and Grandma H's on Saturday and Sunday. In between, Momma will put up Christmas decorations and Mommy will study for her prelims the next week.

Joshua has been a trooper attending almost all of Jeremy's football games. Mommy and Moma get to watch the game the most when Josh decides to nap...or when we can keep in contained in the stroller. Although next year I look for him to be mixed in with the other "little brothers" playing football.

Halloween 2010 and Josh is 23 months today!

Here's Jeremy, Joshua and Mommie (Di) getting ready to go trick or treating. They went out with about 8 others and hit the neighborhood. Everyone came back with loads of candy!!! Momma stayed behind to hand out candy to our trick or treaters.

Can't believe that Joshua will be 2 in a month!! My how time flies!! He is putting several words together now. And most of the time you can understand what he is saying. He continues to be very lovable and caring. If he does something to hurt you, he will say "sorry". He has the concept down of saying please and thank you at the appropriate times. He won't let us feed him anymore. Unless he's mooching off of our plate!! He will eat his meal, say he is done, then come over and mooch food from us!! We have the same thing he had, but I guess it tastes better off of our plate!

He has grown quite a bit this Fall. He is in 3T shirts and pj's and 2T pants. We just sent his 18 month clothes off to Zeke last week.

Jeremy's football is about over. They had some good games at the end of the season. He is getting ready to start basketball this week. They have 3 practices!! First tournament might be in 2 weeks so they have a lot to do before then. He is doing great in school. 4th grade is the first year they get letter grades and he got all A's and 1 A+ this first quarter. We are so proud of him!!

Mommie is getting ready for prelims this month so she is studying a lot. After this semester she will be ABD ( all but dissertation). Once her dissertation is done, then it's Dr. Di!!!

The lawn business is winding down and Momma is happy about that. It has been nice to have some free evenings. We spend a lot of time on the sun porch. It's so nice having the windows in and being able to control the temp on the porch. Joshua will especially love having the area to play in this winter.

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

October 2 Joshua turned 22 months

Joshua is 22 months old! He is talking a lot now. He can just about repeat any word you say. He's funny...we put him in time out when he's not behaving...when he thinks he's been there long enough, he looks up at you and says in a soft gentle voice "have". ( his version of behave). He seems to be starting to understand what he can and can't do. He still does what he isn't supposed to do, but then runs:-) So we know he gets it! Now it's just getting him to not do it!!

Camping season is over except for winterizing the boat and camper. We are all sad!! But with Jeremy's football, we are busy every weekend. And they will be turning off the water in a couple of weeks. It's not near as much fun to camp when you don't have running water!!

This Saturday we are going to KC to the Renaissance Festival. It will be our first time. I'm sure we will have a blast! There will be llama rides and elephant rides for Joshua. And jousting for Jeremy!

Labor Day

Zeph and Josh went on a scooter ride together. Josh loved it. Not sure what the cops thought :-)

Joshua was hamming it up for the camera. We are on the deck of the USS North Carolina in Wilmington, NC.

Joshua got a break from all of the traveling to go to a playground and have some fun.

Joshua had a blast at Kure Beach in North Carolina. We went there for vacation from Aug 4 to Aug. 10. This was his first experience at the ocean!!

Joshua and Aunt Laura were playing in the sand at Kure Beach.

We vacationed in North Carolina the first part of August. We had a very good time at the beach with Laura and visiting a couple of days with Linda and Kim. All pics of vacation are on Jackie's facebook.

Jeremy started football this month. His first game is this Saturday. He's pumped!!!! Jeremy and Mommy (Di) started back to school this week. Joshua is going to Grandma H's so we can get some mowing, etc. done this week. Had to take the camper in for some repairs and it's finally done so we will go get it this week and get it set back up. Also, having boat issues this week. It caught on fire last Sunday!! The mechanic thinks it was the voltage regulator that went bad and caused the fire. Thank goodness Mommy (Di) got it put out quickly!! But It should be ready this week. Expensive week!!

Can't believe Joshua will be 21 months in a week or so. He is talking a lot now. He uses sentences, but sometimes some of it is still mumble jumble!:-) He does say quite a few things that we can make out. He loves for us to read to him. We put storm windows on our screened in back porch to make it an all season room and Josh just loves to play out there. He's about 1" from riding his tricycle. He has the concept down, just not long enough legs!! He did very well on vacation. Jeremy and Josh both were very good for Jackie. She was a bit skeptical, but it ended up very good! But we decided we prefer to vacation with Di, rather than without her!!

Catch you all later!

Joshua has several "firsts" this weekend!!

The tubers!! Josh after his first ride. He almost fell asleep! I guess we were moving to slow........!

Zeph and Jeremy tubing!!

Joshua, Jeremy, Zeph and us went to the Riley Co. Fair last night. Joshua rode on the cars, motorcycles and the merry go round. It was his first time to ride the rides at the fair.

Jeremy and Zeph took Joshua on the merry go round.

Joshua also got to ride a pony for the first time!! He started slipping off, so then Mommy walked beside him. He wouldn't hold on!! What a cowboy!!

Joshua liked driving the cars! He layed on the horn the entire time!! Beep, beep, beep!! Oh what fun the fair is. All of the boys had a blast!! Mommy and Momma were tired!!!:-)

Earlier in the weekend we had a garage sale of some of our stuff and Mom's stuff that was left in her old house. Had a good sale. We only had to take a few things to Good Will. Her house has sold and they are closing this week. It's sad to have that part of her life gone, but we are happy to have her in a smaller place that she can manage for years to come, if she wants to. Have a good week!!

We have been very busy since our last post. Grandma T's house has sold so we have spent several days moving the things she didn't want out of her house and taking them down to our house for a garage sale this Saturday. Now we have a full living room and a full garage. We will spend this week marking items and trying to get our mowing done too.

We spent the weekend at the lake. We did go to Grandma T's to get the last load out. Then we went back to lake and put the boat in. The boys tubed, Jeremy and Jace (not Josh) and we all swam. Kelly and Roxie joined us. We had lots of fun.

Jeremy started practice for tackle football on Sunday. He had a blast!! While he and Diane went to that, Josh and Jackie went to a surprise 50th birthday party for our friend Mary Kay. It was at her sister's house, northeast of Salina. It was a good time and lots of kids for Josh to play with. He even got to pet a horse!! Debbie and Greg have a very nice place. Thanks to them for a lovely party and great food.

Oh, almost forgot, Jeremy got glasses on Friday! We'll have to get a pic and post it.

Jeremy's baseball is over and he's very happy. He says he doesn't want to play traveling anymore. We'll see!!

Josh continues to broaden his vocabulary everyday. He's starting to repeat what we say, so now we have to watch it!! Other than that, he hasn't changed much in the last 2 weeks. Still gets in to everything!!

Everyone have a great week!

Joshua is 19 months old today

Another month has gone by.....and they just keep flying!!! Joshua is 19 months old today. He is very smart. He will pick up his toys if you ask him to. The other day I asked him to pick up a piece of paper he had thrown on the floor and put it in the trash can. He did it!! Now, he likes playing in the trash can so that may have had something to do with it!!:-)

He has started to put two and three words together. He said "Man mow" the other day at Grandma T's. He has said "all done" for quite awhile. He jabbers about a lot of things, but most of that conversation is one sided because we don't understand his lingo yet!! One thing that is great is, he will tell us when he wants something to eat. Jeremy never did. Even as Jeremy got older, he wouldn't tell us he was hungry. Boy he does now, though!!!!

Jeremy has been at basketball camp this week at Washburn University where Di works. He enjoyed it a lot. He has next week off and then 3 weeks of Helen Hocker Theater camp in Topeka.

We are going to the lake this weekend. Hopefully the water isn't up too much more. They are talking about letting some out starting on the 5th. We know we won't have electricity but our friends have a generator so we may have everything except AC. Jackie's family will join us on Sunday for Dinner and fireworks. It will be a fun day. Hope it doesn't rain!!

Everybody have a safe 4th!

A lot of fun photos

Well summer is officially in full swing. Between sports camps, baseball, camping, birthdays and mowing we are usually busy every night and find ourselves going to bed too late and wishing the alarm wasn't going off so early. Despite this hectic schedule we have taken time to appreciate the growth and changes that have occured not only is Joshua but in Jeremy as well.

Beginning with Joshua, he continues to grow and mature in a multitude of ways with each passing day. Examples of this the fact that we can tell he usually knows what we want him to do and actually on occasion is beginning to do it. For those of you around on a regular basis don't think I'm giving you my rose colored glasses version...Joshua still spends plenty of time ignoring our requests but he at least is beginning to humor us once in a while and do as we ask. Seems like a step in the right direction to me. We also continued to be thrilled and amazed at Joshua's physical agility and ability to do things. For example, Josh can jump up in the air, come down and do a somersault and still come up smiling. He has figured out how to climb up our play set and slide down the slipper slide all by himself and he acts like he could peddle a bike if his feet would only touch. Other skills Josh possesses is the abilty to seek out and find water any place we go. Be it a dog dish or mud puddle Joshua will find it, sit in it, stand in it and come out soaking wet in a matter of minutes.

Jeremy has been involved in a lot of camps and has several more to go. We've been proud of him because while so far he has known at least one person at the camp he was attending there are a couple camps where he probably won't begin by knowing anyone. We think it take a lot for a kid his age to go into a situation like that so we are very impressed with his willingness to put himself out there. He has been busy playing baseball. Jeremy pitches and plays center field. His pitching continues to come along and improves every game. He really likes pitching but mostly likes being a part of the team. He is very fortunate to be on a team where everyone seems to get along well and all of the boys do a great job of encouraging each other.

Memorial Weekend

Here is Jeremy, Tyler (his cousin) and Larry ( Jackie's cousin) at Larry's farm getting ready to ride on Larry's tractor. Larry gave tractor rides and Di and Jackie gave Gator rides with Larry's Gator. Needless to say, the kids had a blast!!

Jeremy and Tyler riding the tube. This was Tyler's first experience on a tube!! He did a great job.

Tyler and Jeremy are playing at the swimming beach.

Di, Joshua and Jeremy swimming.

Josh getting ready for a swim!! Fun was had by all at the lake and at Larry and Diane's for the family reunion.

Joshua turns 18 months tomorrow

Hi All!

Joshua will turn 18 months tomorrow! Can't believe it's been since April that we blogged. April was swimming lesson month. Josh did parent-tot and Jeremy did private lessons. They both did very well.

Jeremy had his class music presentation in late April. It was a very nice program. Right before school got out, he and two other boys lipsynced a song from Owl City for their talent show. We asked Jeremy how it went. He said "We got the most applause". We later spoke with his music teacher and she thought they did a wonderful job.

Jeremy started his baseball games in May. They have won some and lost some. Jeremy is getting to pitch some games. He does pretty good and seems to like it. He was warming up for a game a few weeks ago and missed the throw from his coach and ended up with a broken nose. Nothing too major. Joshua likes going to baseball games because he gets to run around and one of his parents chases after him!!

Joshua has had an ear infection most of the spring, but when we got him in to see the specialist, the ears were all cleared up. So everyone is in hopes that he'll make it through the summer with no infections and then he won't need tubes put in.

Grandma T. had to have her gall bladder taken out a couple of weeks ago, so she stayed with us for a few days till she got to feeling better.

On Memorial weekend we went camping. Also, Jackie's aunt Mary, cousin Tori and son Tyler came to Manhattan to visit and attend Mary's class reunion. They stayed at our house. On Saturday they came out to the lake and spent the day. Grandma T. came too!! We took Tyler and Tori out on the lake. Tyler tried tubing, but didn't think much of it!! Then Sunday we had a reunion of sorts at Larry and Diane's (Jackie's cousins). Jackie's other aunt, Clara and her daughter Rosemary were there. It was good to see everybody. And Diane and Larry had a wonderful meal!!

Jeremy is busy this week and next with basketball camps. Then it's football camp. Then he goes to Grandma H's for a week to attend her church's VBS. Then there's another basketball camp and 3 weeks of theater camp to round out the summer!! He is going to be very busy!! But it's all fun stuff!! He has a baseball tournament in Salina this weekend. The last tournament they had, they won their first game and then got rained out!! So we will see how they do this weekend.

Joshua will be going to games and camping most of the summer. We have found a gal to do some babysitting, so that will help out on the weeks we get behind in our mowing schedule. The mowing business has been going fairly well. It's keeps us and 2 others fairly busy!! The weekend before Memorial weekend, we didn't go camping and we did landscaping and mowing. On Friday night we put out 130 bags of mulch. On Saturday, Jackie mowed 4 lawns and then we went up to Mom's to talk about an offer she had gotten for the house. Then on Sunday, Jackie finished a couple of more hours mowing and then built a small deck for one of our customers. She was tuckered out that weekend. Di and the boys went to Emporia because a good friend of ours was graduating from Emporia High. So they attended the party!! Also, Di had to work on Sunday, so her Mom watched the kids for her. They got back in Manhattan in time for Di to screw in the last two boards and clean up!!

As you can see, we have a very busy summer planned. But we hope to spend a lot of weekends at the lake where it's stress free and lots of fun. We will post pictures in the next few days. Have to get them downloaded!! Don't think we'll get to it tonight. It's billing night for the lawn company. Take care and have a safe summer!!

Camping season

We have started camping and this is our "Tikki Dude" that watches over us throughout the summer!!! Isn't he cute?

Here's our camper with our last year's deck and this year's new addition. We now have a deck that is the length of our camper!! It sure is nice to sit out on the deck in the morning.

Here's the bunk beds that we made for the boys. The bottom bunk is a futon that will lay out or the back folds up and we have a couch that people can sit on. Jeremy has the upper bunk and Spiderman is his sleeping buddy!! We found the colorful body pillows at Wal-Mart and they work very well to keep Josh out of the cracks!!

Mary Kay's sister, Debbie was giving me a hard time today because we hadn't updated the blog lately. So I stole this picture of Josh off of Mary Kay's blog because it's a) Cute, b) Very recent and c) Cute!!!!

Joshua is a typical almost 17 month toddler. He is in to everything and still doesn't want to listen to "no". We do believe he understands it now, because he will run the moment you go after him. He loves being outside! He will have a blast this summer when we are camping every weekend and the outdoors is his home. We did go camping last weekend. What beautiful weather! We added on to our deck at the camper and did a few other jobs we needed to do. This weekend we are painting Jeremy's room downstairs and going out to the camper on Sat evening.

Josh has started talking in multiple words now. His most used phrase is "Ut oh!" He now tells us when he wants to eat and drink. Which is helpful, because then we don't have to guess what his problem is!!! He also does pretty good at feeding himself with utensils.

Josh and Jeremy spent an evening with Mary Kay and Nancy this week while Jackie had PTA and Di had class. The kids had a blast and I think the adults did too!! Josh is with Grandma H. since Wed. evening. We will go get him tomorrow. I guess he's been quite the terror...something about a broken nose piece on Grandma's glasses and he slammed two baby food jars together and broke them and got baby food all over Grandma's carpet!! That would have been a good picture!! Gotta love him!!! He's too darn cute not to love!!!

Random shots of Joshua this weekend

Mommy and Josh are playing video games at the hotel.

Josh was pleased with himself...he is really starting to ham it up in front of the camera!!!

See what I mean!!!

He decided his toy drawer was a "sit in" drawer!!!

This is the face I got when I told him he shouldn't be in there. No, just kidding...actually it's the face he made hamming it up for the camera. He had a big weekend, swimming, video games, playing with his cousins today and tonight we started our fire pit and cooked hot dogs, gearing up for camping season!! We sure are enjoying this nicer weather. It does make it seem like camping season may finally be here!!!