Summer trips

I know I've said this before, but I will say it again because it is SO true...our pediatrician coined this phrase and I use it all the time to describe when we travel..."you don't take vacations with little kids...you take trips!" It is HARD work to take this circus on the road. But something we do because it's part of journey and I go stir crazy if I don't leave town for a long while at least on a yearly basis!

We (Grandpa, Nana, Mommy, cousin Cari and 3 kids, Uncle Kevin and Andrea met us there) spent 4 days in Iowa to go to the Glienke family reunion and visit the Otto family as well. Almost all of our Glienke family from Florida was able to make it, so that was especially fun to see them. The boys had fun with Tyler of course, and also enjoyed harassing Luke and Aaron along with Uncle Kevin! But it was also great to see/meet again the large Glienke family! There are lots of genuine and kind people in our family and it was so nice to connect with some of them...there were just too many to even try to meet them all. But we had such a wonderful time with everyone and huge shout out to Dorothy (Grandpa's younger sister) for letting us take over her house while we were there - she's AMAZING!!! We all had a wonderful time soaking in the wonderful Iowa country...took me until I was an adult to grasp the awesomeness of that farm land! We checked out some of the different family farms, pig farms, corn fields, hay bales, hay rides, bonfires, tractors, more animals - such fun!

Tried a consequence a friend told me about...made the boys hold hands until they made up after fighting! HA!

Noah had a funny/sad adventure...he's off roaming around some on the farm and following or being followed by one of the dogs. No one he knew was directly around (this is why when people say, "There will be so much family, we will all help" it just means no one knows who is watching who and everyone assumes the kids are being watched by someone but in reality, they also think someone else is being responsible...ok, off my soap box) and so I think he was backing up and stepped back, not seeing there was a very large hole, more like a small ditch, that was right next to the path, and fell about 4 feet! Thankfully someone was around to see him and help him out, but he wasn't too happy that the person was a stranger. So, we had a bit of an event, but he wasn't hurt, just scared! But, that pretty much ended our time at the bonfire, leaving Drew with Grandpa and Mommy, Kate and Noah back for bed!

Noah found some chapstick and painted his face and tasted it of course!

Then it was off to the Ozarks to get together with the large nuclear Thompson family. We picked up Daddy in Kansas City and made our way there. It was Beautiful, but SO hot! And yes, TX is hot, but this was horrible humid hot! So we were either in the water or inside! The boys had a great time with the cousins, and of course spent as much time with Timothy, Jake and Nick as they could!

While there, Noah managed to run outside of our condo at least twice to go and explore all on his own. This is not surprising to us, but always alarming of course. He seriously just wants to explore and go on his little adventures every now and then and we can't seem to get it through his head that he needs to be with someone when this urge strikes. He doesn't do it when he is home, it seems like it happens when we are out of town - he wants to see what this new place is all about. Any way, so to attempt to avoid another escape, I told Noah one day I would go look around with him. We explored the area and walked up and down all the boat docks. He was so full of energy! So I asked him, "Noah, where do you get all this energy from?" (it was a somewhat rhetorical question), but he answered, "From God!" I loved it, so I followed up, "Why does God give you so much energy?" Without a second thought he responds, "To fight the bad guys!" YES!!! Love it and love him!!!

So, we had a fun, busy week with the Thompson family...saw a very cool cave (and avoided an intense heat advisory while underground, whew!), putt putt golfing (which Noah lost interest about 2/3 through and then started antagonizing Drew, yay), pontoon boat with tubing - both boys rode with Mommy and had a blast! Swimming in the lake and kayaking with Grandpa. Playing with cousins in the condos and in the pool. The boys went along to see a movie with the cousins as well (Inside Out). Both boys loved riding on the Jet Skis, as did pretty much everyone else that did it. Grandpa threw Mommy off the ski ASAP of course, and Mommy returned the favor as requested - silly Grandpa! We had a great time with this wonderful family of ours!

But, it was time to get home! The kids did pretty well on the ride back. The boys stayed happy with the trip toys and movies. And Kate required Mommy's attention any time she was awake. But we powered through and made it home in one long day of driving...oh, so good to be home!

Summer time...and the livin' is...

Drew has been learning about Pokemon from some of his older friends at summer camp. It actually started last year as the kids in his class had older brothers. But now he gets to spend face to face time with said older brothers and is very enthralled with this new world. He then went to a birthday party that had a Pokemon theme and came home ready to spend his piggy bank money on Pokemon cards. The day we bought them, we heard about it the rest of the day except for when we were swimming in the pool. As we were getting close to the day's end, we had the boys tell Kate goodnight as always. Drew says "Goodnight Kate...I bet I do 50 damage against you tomorrow". Cracked us up! (Apparently each card can do so much 'damage' against the other in battle. We are learning all about something we didn't care about at all!)

Noah has 2 favorite things he likes to eat for breakfast..."hot dogs" (breakfast kolaches/pigs in a blanket) or "a PBJ sandwich" (bagel with PB and J). One morning Matthew had to wake Noah up, who is usually very groggy when this happens and doesn't talk, but more so grunts, for the first 5 minutes or so. Well, one morning, he rolled over and first thing out of his mouth: "do you smell...hot dogs?!" Laughingly Matthew had to say no, but we got a kick out of it!

The boys went to Houston with Grandpa and Nana for a week this month: "Camp Glienke"! They had a blast, no doubt about it. We enjoyed a much quieter house with just Kate. It happened that the Monday of the week was our 13th anniversary (as Kevin put it..."You're old!"). So we both took the day off, Kate went to daycare and we had a nice relaxing day together. I posted some pics of the day on FB and Nana showed them to the boys the next day. There was one of us eating ice cream and one with me kissing Matthew's cheek. Noah's response was "They never let US have ANY ice cream!" and "I don't like people kissing!" Silly Noah!

The boys had an AMAZING time with Grandpa and Nana in Houston! They were super busy every day and still had things left that they had planned to do! But the boys didn't even know the difference. There was a new adventure, or 2 or 3, every day! From Pump It Up, Children's Museum, 2 different public pools with awesome kid zones, Learning to ride bikes!, multiple train rides, Nature Center, outdoor play/theatre, Movie night, helping wash the cars, mow the grass, snow cones and learning to use different tools, you could say they all had a good time! There were no problems getting the boys to sleep at night, that's for sure!

Drew is using the word "Epic!" a lot lately. It just flat out cracks us up! No doubt he learned from an older friend at camp!

The boys get to play all sorts of silly games at camp. One day they played a jelly bean mountain game. There was a jelly bean on top of a mountain of powdered sugar for each kid. They were supposed to scoop the sugar away with a spoon until the jelly bean rolled down and then they could eat the jelly bean. Well, Noah just took the spoon and started to eat the powdered sugar! Hilarious! But really, pretty smart! :)

Every now and then Noah has a chance to take a bath by himself while Drew takes a shower. Lately when this happens, Noah just flat out swims around in the bath. He puts his head under water and wiggles and worms around in the water! It's so funny to watch, especially when he's in the big garden tub in the master bathroom! Such a funny kid! He's SO determined to swim without floaties! I guess he will practice any way he can!!!

Kate keeps smiling and giggling and lighting up our lives as always! She loves to smile and laugh and her giggles and laughing have really turned into a real, for real, laugh at times! It's so much fun! There was one night out at dinner with just Kate (the boys were in Houston) and Mommy and Kate laughed back and forth for so long! People started to stare and then started smiling themselves...she was just so funny laughing so much! Oh, she is so precious!

She is still a stinker at school and only takes 1 nap a day, and sometimes it's only about an hour. But otherwise she's been very happy at school and has adjusted to several changes in teachers, which is a big deal for her because she is slow to trust people usually. They say she does really well though. She is usually pretty clingy in the evenings after days at school, but we manage...and I'll take those snuggles!

We have enjoyed several opportunities to have neighbors and friends over to swim in the pool already this month. The boys have invited some friends over and several of our neighbors have babies close to Kate's age, so all the kids have some friends to play with. Kate absolutely LOVES the pool. She loves being outside, but will start shaking with excitement if she thinks we are walking out to the pool. She loves to sit and splash on the tanning ledge. She tolerates the baby float a little, but mostly wants to be out in the pool with everyone else like a big girl I guess!

The week the boys were in Houston, we took the opportunity to do all sorts of things! We went out to dinner almost every night just the 3 of us...no cooking, no cleaning up, no wrestling boys to stay in their seats and off the floors of the restaurant! It was great! We also used it as an opportunity to get Kate to stop waking up in the very early hours of the morning! When we've tried to let her soothe herself back to sleep at those times (AKA, cry herself back to sleep) she ends up waking up one or both of the boys. So Mommy has sacrificed herself for the cause and just goes to nurse her and everyone can stay asleep and Mommy and Kate can go back to sleep quickly. Well, with the boys gone, we didn't have to worry about that part anymore! So the first night she cried for about 45 minutes, but by the end of the 5 nights, she would wake up briefly with a slight whimper and be back asleep within minutes! Hooray!!! Oh, so glorious to not have to stumble out of bed sometime between 2-5 every morning!

New things Kate is starting to do this month: pulling up to stand, cruising, crawling/scooting, waving bye-bye and sometimes Hi, and she got her first 2 teeth, both on the bottom. She just LOVES to stand! Until late this month, I was a little curious if she'd skip crawling all together, she just wants to stand so much! She will pull up on anything and she especially likes to climb up on us if we are sitting on the floor. Then she'll move her feet, but just not go anywhere...it's so cute, it looks like she's dancing! She is doing well with lots new foods and in general loves table foods. She will mimic sounds and some movements, and has really started enjoying clapping her own hands, as well as making us clap ours together. She is making more sounds and has the sounds Nana, Dada and Mama in her repertoire, but pretty sure she doesn't know they mean anything yet.

She loves to open and close drawers, which means she's pinched her fingers a number of times. And she loves to play with her music shakers...she's so cute with them, just shaking back and forth and grinning the whole time. She is now taking her baths without any sitting support, which she loves because she gets to play in the water more!

We are a happy, tired, blessed family!