1st B-day on the road!

Carson celebrated his first birthday buckled down to his car-seat for a majority of the day, but we found a couple ways to have some fun while we drove the 7 hours north to our lake side cabins for the week. For a boy who likes to move, he did fairly well considering the circumstances. He got a couple birthday gifts as we drove and the new toys entertained for awhile. He mostly liked holding onto his football and eating/throwing cheerios. By the time we arrived to our location he was eager to crawl around and stretch those busy legs!

 Breakfast for the birthday boy while we pack around him.

 Staying entertained in the van...

 We stopped at Chutes & Ladders Park in the cities half way...he loved it! This is one awesome playground/park area for all ages and our newly 1 year old had a bunch of fun exploring the grounds! We will definitely come back.

 Love this smile. He is so easy to play with and get these!

 Dad took him through the water misters and it was so fun to hear a ripple of giggles as he ran through with his Dada.

 Rare pic...Dad actually smiling :)

 Climbing all the high spots of course.

Busy, busy, busy boy! Once we pulled in he hit the ground cruising!

 The cousins were so sweet and had hung a Happy Birthday banner for Carson in our cabin. 

                                                
 And the party began and ended in about 10 minutes :) This boy was so tired, the bugs were biting, and the kids were anxious to eat... we sang to our 1 year old and let him dive into his cake. I couldn't resist and make him a dirt cake since he loves to eat sand and dirt so much!!! :)

 As you can see... he loved it :)

Happy 1st Birthday to our boy who is full of life and ready to go! We love your cute little crabby self that has the best smiles for your mama and dada!!!

Another First

Celebrating another first birthday in this house today. Well, actually, we will be celebrating in our van as we drive to a lake in Minnesota, but none the less we are celebrating this boy. He arrived loud and ready to go. He has begged me to twist and change more then anything else ever has and together we have arrived at his first birthday with stretch marks from growing so much...his you can see in the way he laughs and walks and chases footballs and claps and holds onto your fingers as he cruises. Mine you maybe can't see physically, but the evidence is on my heart. It's been one heck of a year. Happy Birthday to my Carson baby who we all love so very, very much.

better late then never

Our fourth of July celebrating was kind of dull this year and we never even got around to sparklers on the actual day! Austin couldn't remember ever actually doing sparklers, so we had to do some this year because it very well may have been his first time. He was a little nervous, but Jaxon was so helpful in showing him how and inviting him to make designs with him. Turns out these things are like 75% off the day AFTER July 4th. Heck, maybe we will just do them late every year :) Better late then never!

shingles!

I write this today smiling because these are OLD pictures! The shingles AND gutters are all ON!!! Once the shingle process started, it went fairly smooth. I wish the weather would have cooled off a few degrees for these guys, but every single one of them has been such a trooper. The new roof is looking rain proof and pretty. Happy! I think we were the only people in Black Hawk County praying for no rain while our house stood with tarps over it for so many days. I'm happy to say we are now on that rain train...come on rain, already!

 Hard workers!

 Dave's folks have been here around the clock in all this awful heat. If I could, I would send them on a mini vacation weekend away some place cool and relaxing!

 Some time in all the roofing days we discovered Carson LOVES a football. He found this one one night while I was getting a meal ready for the crew and he just grinned and did his spin move around the ball. He's gone to bed a few times with it still in hand because he won't put it down and if you have a ball in yours arms you better be out of sight because he will steal it!

 Austin begs to get up on the roof and a few times we have entertained the idea and let him go up. He's braver then me!

And if you want an idea of how hot is has been...look at my husband's shirt!

 Watching Dad closely...keeping him company.

 Don't the new shingles look nice?

 We closed down the day on top of the roof many times these past few weeks. It's nice to have our feet on the lower level of the house these days when the sun goes down :)

bikin' baby

Usually, we get a bunch of bike rides in during the spring/summer months. I wish I could say the same for this year, but honestly we have gone on a total of two family bike rides this year. The first attempt we let Austin ride his bike with training wheels and we just couldn't get enough of a flow to go very far. The second time we put both little boys in the bike trailer with Dad pulling and we wheeled around town for a longer route. Now its just plain too hot to trek with these kids, but I am hoping to get some more use out of our wheeled accessories come this fall. I knew Carson would be a wild card so I entertained him with some food and making goofy faces to him as I rode behind. Feels like yesterday that Austin and his little buddies Avery & Jacob were riding in this thing together. Now he looks so big and soon will be cruising on his own bike while Carson stretches out and enjoys the easy life!

 Double passengers!

 Going solo!

PS Just ignore the pile of stuff in the old garage... it was the start of a garage sale pile that had to find its way back into my house when construction started on the garage. Now we just have to finish the new garage so we can have the sale :)