Random Pictures Post

I had a few pictures from here and there that maybe didn't quite need a post of their own, but I wanted to post them somewhere. Here they are.

 Ezra got new motocross boots and elbow and knee pads. When they were brand new he wanted to wear them all the time. One day he put all his gear on but since his motorcycle is at Grandma's an hour away he decided to just ride his bike instead.

 Parks wanted to give the gear a try too.

 It took him a few tries to get the helmet on straight.

 Random painting moment where they were all happy and having fun together

 Not for the faint of heart...I got Parks up from his nap like this one day. A little surprising to say the least. He had just had a bloody nose (unfortunately that is a pretty common thing in our family) and then slept in it. Yikes!

 Grandma Becky has a picture just like this of Drew encroaching on an older brother's bath time. Both of our boys have followed in his footsteps. Clothes or no clothes, they can not resist that water!

 Playing in the field behind Grandma's house

 My grandma is one of my favorite people ever!

 We had some of our friends over for a little school's out for summer party. I got water balloons, but got some that had colored dye inside on accident. We ended up with some slightly stained kids, and water balloons never last as long as you hope they will.

 This was right before we got rid of that binky. It was so hard for me to get rid of it for some reason. It just made him seem more like a baby, and it made sleeping easier of course. He put his own hat on backwards and popped his binky in and was messing with the vacuum and it was just too cute.

 The boys recently found Drew's stash of hats and now I find them wearing them regularly. They were outside playing together wearing them so I had them pose for a couple pictures. I sure love those cute brothers!

 

 Funny faces at breakfast (and we rock those Christmas jammies all year long if they still fit)

Barton Reunion

At the end of January (we pretty much had something going on every weekend this summer) we went to the Barton family reunion in Boise. The Bartons are my Grandma Jenne's side of the family, so this was a big extended reunion. I know I knew some of those people at least a little better when I was younger, but I really didn't remember anyone this time. It was fun to get to know some of them. I was at the beginning of some serious morning (or all day) sickness so that put a bit of a damper on the trip, but I'm still glad I went. My Grandma Jenne is one of my favorite people ever and I was excited to go see a big group of people that had come from the same world as her. They were friendly, happy, hard-working, and wonderful.

 We had the biggest group there, and this wasn't even everyone.

 My dad ended up being the MC. People are always roping him into that kind of thing.

 They had my grandma stand up to tell stories, but she is starting to lose her memory here and there and she struggled to remember the stories she was telling. She is so wonderful though, she just stood up there making jokes and laughing at herself the whole time and making everyone else laugh with her.

 I loved the interaction between these two sweet ladies.

 They played a game where these four guys put shaving cream on their heads and the kids got to throw Cheetos at them.

 My grandma had a turn throwing some at Uncle Alan.

 They had these stomp rockets which Ezra absolutely loved. He stayed in there forever and was very happy about how high he could get them to go.

 They also had this funny game where they gave all the kids blind folds (which we found out later they could see through) and set them free in a roped off area filled with candy and prizes. All they had to do was walk around and get as much as they possibly could and put it in their bags. 

 Ezra came to share one of his suckers with me.

 I loved this cool little guy in his shades.

 The girl ahead of Parks in the pink swimming suit was his best friend there. Her name was Katie and you could hear him calling her name all the time. She was so sweet and just kind of started taking care of him and playing with him from the moment we got there and never seemed to get sick of him.

 Eventually they had a little jam session where the rest of us were supposed to sing along. Unfortunately even though most of us had the words we didn't really know the songs so we mostly just listened to the instruments.

Working on three suckers at a time. This may have been the beginning of my kids' summer sugar high.

Leavenworth Anniversary Trip

Drew surprised me this year and planned a little overnight trip to Leavenworth for our 11th anniversary. The kids stayed with my parents for the first half and Drew's parents for the second half, and I'm pretty sure they didn't miss us one bit. :)

We dropped the kids off and I gave Drew his anniversary present, which was the exciting news that I was pregnant with baby number four! I was trying to wait until Father's Day which was just a couple days after that, but I just can not keep that kind of secret from him especially when it's just the two of us. It seemed like it was still a fun special occasion to tell him the news. 

The first thing we did was drive into the mountains past Leavenworth to go on a hike. We were in the middle of nowhere, not a soul anywhere close, and no one had any idea where we were. If a bear got us no one would have been around to save us. I was slightly nervous about that, but it all worked out and we survived.

 This crazy hike that Drew had planned was five miles and it was straight up the whole way. I thought I was in pretty decent shape, but I had to take so many breaks it was pathetic.

 I forgot to bring something to put my hair up and it was driving me crazy. I mentioned that if I could find a little stick shaped like a pencil that I could put it up with that. Drew found a stick that was the right shape but it wasn't smooth enough to put through my hair so Drew got to work smoothing it out.

 My hero!

 We were both surprised when we eventually started seeing snow. We hadn't thought about that possibility. It got a little colder, but it really wasn't too bad.

 This beautiful lake was our destination.

 The hike back down was much easier and faster and I was happy to get back to our cute little hotel to rest for a bit.

 

We rested for a bit and then headed out to find an authentic dinner. I can't remember the name of this place, but we both liked our food. For an appetizer Drew got this sausage sample platter. Really not my cup of tea, but he loved them.

 

The next morning we planned to walk around the town and do some window shopping but it was raining a ton. So we just drove through the streets to see it, stopped to get some chocolate, and headed home.