New earrings!!!

I pierced Araleigh's ears!! Well, okay, I didn't do it, the doctor's office did, but anyway, doesn't she look adorable?? I am really excited, I have been wanting to do this for such a long time! She has been just fine, they don't seem to bother her at all, so I am really glad I did it!

So I know it has been almost a month since my last post (as I keep being reminded) and I apologize! I don't have a whole lot of computer time now that I can only use the computer that's in Araleigh's room and when she's awake she is not exactly cooperative... as I am typing right now she is emptying the cabinet next to me...oh the price I pay to keep you people updated!!! She is getting more mischievous by the minute, I swear. Oh, here's a fun memory: Araleigh emptying the wipes. She seems to like to empty things... It's a good thing she's cute, I tell ya what! She is picking up on more words and getting more attitude, so that's fun. She is really good at telling me NO! In a loud, authoritative voice. I don't know where she gets it. Well she is getting mad at me now, I guess I had better turn this blasted thing off before she does it for me!

Where's Araleigh...?

I turn my back for one second.... well I guess she's not such a perfect child after all...!! I realize that I haven't really given any updates on my adorable girl lately, so I had better add some stuff about her! She is sooooo busy!!! I can't believe she is the same baby who used to be so happy lying on her back and playing for HOURS... now she can not sit still for 2 seconds! She is up the stairs, down the stairs, up the stairs, down the stairs, in the cupboards, taking the magnets off the refrigerator, emptying off the shelves, splashing in the toilet (uuugghhhh!!!), climbing on the furniture, and, well you know what I mean! She is so much fun! I love watching her explore and figure things out! She has recently acquired more teeth, a little easier this time thank goodness! She has a couple of words, although I don't know if anyone would understand them besides me! She says "more", "juice" ("joo"), "food" ("oofd"), "mom" ("mam" - like she was born in Chicago or something!), "dad", "Traeden" ("day-duh"), "Jaxon" ("jah-uh"), and when she's stinky she waves her little arm and says "pew". It's really cute. She gets REALLY excited when she's getting food, the girl loves to eat! She will squeal and shout and wave her arms in the air and bounce up and down for a simple grape. Yeah, she's pretty easy to please. She also has finally figured out what to do with baby dolls (oh there's another word - "buh-buh") and she loves to give them hugs as she says ahhhhh. She doesn't leave out her stuffed animals, they get plenty of love too! She loves to look at books and pretend to read them, especially cool books that do stuff!She also loves a thrill, especially when dad throws her up in the air or if we "drop" her in our arms! Sometimes she will pretend she's falling and say "ahhhhhhh!", just for fun. It's pretty funny to see her leaning sideways, squealing, with that look that says "look what I'm doing....!". She is really funny, she has such a sense of humor! She always knows what to do to make us laugh. She is super ticklish and loves to be tickled, although it is not easy to get an actual laugh out of her. Well I could go on about her all night, and I'm sure you can all relate to the statement "this doesn't even touch how cute and fun she is! I wish you could all just spend the day with her like I do to see what I'm talking about!" But she is such a joy, I am so incredibly blessed to have her!! Oh, and also, GO BUCKEYES!!!

1st Day of School!!

Yes, I realize that I am a week and a half late, but here are the boys on their first days of school! They have had so much fun! Jaxon is really excited about kindergarten! He loves having his own back-pack and lunchbox, he thinks he is so grown up! It's fun to see them jump off the bus each day, excited to tell me that they had a great day at school (although when I ask them what their favorite thing was, all they say is "I can't remember"...) I have loved the time to myself too - I forgot how easy it is to have only one kid all day! (Sorry all you moms with only one, one kid is really a breeze...hope that doesn't stop you from having more!) I get so much done and it STAYS DONE! I just have to block off the stairs and the cupboards and Araleigh is free to roam while I clean up. Of course, we get plenty of play time in, like I could resist a happy little baby tugging on my leg! And then when the boys get home, they are happy to play together and don't fight quite as much, so that's nice, too! It's great to see them having fun, and I love how eager they are to learn! Yay for school!

FINALLY!

Well Traeden finally joined the 99% of kids his age who have lost a tooth! It's about time!! He has had a really loose one for about 2 weeks, and we finally convinced him to let us yank it out. So, about 2 hours and 1 package of dental floss later... He was pretty excited to put it under his pillow, and the tooth fairy suprised him with 4 shiny quarters!! Man, that's way more than the tooth fairy ever gave me... anyway, it's an exciting time for Trae, now Jax is wishing he had a loose tooth. I told him to give it a couple of years, knowing our genes.

We're Baa-aack...!

Well we have returned to Columbus for another school year, here we go! It is good to be back, although I think we are really going to miss Michigan! It was such a wonderful place! I think we made the most of our summer, and who knows, we could be returning there... I guess we'll see when the time comes! Anyway, we got back a week ago and then headed out to Florida for a quick trip with the Smiths!! We had a great week in Florida! It was a lot of fun, we stayed in a condo, a really nice condo, right on the beach and basically we did nothing but swim and boogie-board for 3 days. It was great! Traeden has become a pro boogie-boarder, he was riding the waves with the best of 'em! Jax rode with me a couple of times, but the large waves made him nervous. He preferred playing in the sand and collecting seashells and sand-dollars! They also had a great time burying dad in the sand, and then once they saw how fun it looked they had to be burried also! Araleigh loved the sand, luckily we were able to keep her from eating too much of it, and she really loved the water! She had a fun time splashing us in the waves and crying "woooo-ooooo" as we would go up with them, it was pretty funny!

And as if the gorgeous beach wasn't enough, we had a huge pool to play in when we got sick of swallowing salt water. The boys had such a blast jumping in and diving for toys. They have become really good swimmers, although I don't credit the swimming lessons that I paid way too much for... They also had to do more dangerous jumps, such as jumping over dad's head...So we had a really great time, it was so good to have a family vacation before we start this busy year!

Only 2 more weeks...

Well we are almost done with our summer hiatus, so we are determined to make the most of our last days...! The boys participated in the summer reading program at the library and they had a big pizza party for all the kids who finished. The local firefighters and police officers brought their fire engine and police cruiser for the kids to explore. They had such a fun time pretending to drive the fire engine, pushing on the air brakes was cool because it made a loud noise! And you know my boys are all about noise! Plus it scared all the moms because they thought the truck was going to start moving...that was cool! They liked "driving" the police car and flashing around the spotlight, especially in mom's eyes... The police officer showed them his hand cuffs and taser gun, it was pretty cool to see how those worked.

Then they got to check out the front-loader, and pretend they were dirt, so that was fun, too.

After that we had to go get ice cream cones, because it was HOT! Yeah, it actually got hot here for a few days. And humid. That's fun. So there is a ton going on this weekend, I will keep up the posting!!

Snowbird

I just wanted to share some fun pictures of the second-to-last day of our Utah trip where we went up the canyon to Snowbird to enjoy a day of fun and thrills! The boys had a great time on the bungee trampoline and the large inflatable park, then we hopped over to the alpine slide! We had a great time racing each other down the mountain! I think it was against the rules, but I even took Araleigh on it! She totally hated it!!! The boys had so much fun! Then Traeden decided to be brave and test his cowboy skills on the mechanical bull!!! He will boast about how cool he is because he didn't fall off, but the reality is that it started storming and as soon as we heard thunder everything shut down, something about being under a large metal tent frame??? I don't know... so the rains came down for like the first time in Utah in over a month, ruining our perfect day, go figure. But we still had a great time, followed by some great ice cream, and some great family time!!! Don't ya dig the "tough guy" bandana? Thanks uncle Danny...!