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!!!

Jeremy's 9th birthday weekend celebration

Jeremy turned 9 today. We had a family dinner with Jeremy's favorite entree, spaghetti!! Topped it off with ice cream and cake.

Jeremy received lots of presents from everybody and he was very thankful to all!

We got him a metal detector. He was so excited to get this present. For those of you that don't know...Jeremy is a treasure hunter...he will be searching for treasure wherever he goes now!!!

The weekend started off by taking Jeremy, 3 of his friends, Joshua, Mommy and Mama to Topeka on Friday night and staying at the Holiday Inn that has a 3 story high slide in the pool. The boys swam for a while on Friday night and then played video games and pool. We ate pizza and had birthday cake. On Saturday, they played in the pool again and then we went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. Then we came home.

The dudes after a serious pool game!!