Happy 4th Sweet Sweet Connor

When I asked Connor last week what kind of cake he wanted he said chocolate. Then I asked what shape he would like his cake, and he said a triangle. I laughed so hard. So yesterday, I was getting ready to make his triangle chocolate cake and he asked me when we were going to pick his cake up. I asked him what he meant and he said, "you know, like daddy's cake. The ice cream kind. So we went to Dairy Queen today and Connor picked out this cake. I was kind of happy, I got out of making one!

Connor and Brenden both got this pool with a slide and shooting water. They love to play in the water all summer. We had a blast playing in it today!

Connor, Happy 4th Birthday! We love you so much. We feel so blessed to have you in our family. We love your laugh, your zest for life, your funny jokes, your imagination, your determination, and so much more. You are such a good brother and son! We love you!

My Favorite 4 Year Olds!

One of the funniest things that happened today, Connor's 4th Birthday, happened this morning as soon as Brenden and Connor woke up. They ran into my room and we were cuddling in bed talking about Connor's brithday. Brenden asked, "Connor are you 4 already?" Connor responds, "Yes, so are you 5 then?" Brenden says, "No, I'm still 4." Then Connor says, "No, I'm 4 you're 5." "No, my birthday is July 30th. Then I will be 5." Brenden says. Then there was silence. I think they were trying with all their might to process this. They knew they were both 4, but it didn't quite make sense to them how. I was dying laughing on the inside, I didn't let them know it. They truly are my favorite 4 year olds!

Happy 4th of July-Kind of

We started the day off great!! We had flag pancakes and we loved them! They were delicious.

Then we were off to the beach! The 4th of July has to include water sports. We decided to stop at Walmart for a cooler with wheels and some sand toys. While we were there Brenden tripped and fell, but didn't catch himself. So his smile went from this:

To this:

Can you tell Brenden is taking the picture of himself. I think it is hilarious. Also, I didn't take a picture of his "accident" on purpose, but as I was going through the pictures I found this. You can tell that his teeth are totally in the wrong place. This is after we tried for hours to get a hold of our dentist or a dentist. So the doctor in the ER repositioned his teeth to this position. It is so sad.

So after a trip to the ER and finally one to his Dentist. His new smile looks like this:

Because I am a dentist's daughter, this has been a fear of mine. I saw so many people bring their little kids in with similar situations; but I thought it would never happen to one of my kids. One of the things that made me most sad through all of this was that Brenden made the comment that he would probably not want to smile any more. That made me so sad. I, of course, explained to him that his smile is just as cute as it was before. Luckily, he has been doing plenty of smiling since this all happened. And we ended up having a pretty ok 4th of July after all that.

We still had a BBQ:

We still played in the water:

We played with friends. Thanks Cheryl for coming all the way to get Connor and Noah from me in the ER. Yes, I had 3 kids in the ER. It would have stayed that way, except when they put the IV in Brenden, Connor fainted. So that is when I broke down and asked for help.

We were still able to make homemade ice cream:

I am grateful for the 4th of July. Even this 4th of July. I learned a lot about myself and life. I am grateful to live in the United States of America. I have lived outside of the USA and I know what a blessing it is to live here. I am truly grateful for our freedoms. I am also truly grateful that Brenden didn't have his permanent teeth in yet!

Sticky Situation

I was taping a book that got ripped and Noah got some tape on his hand. Is it bad that I just thought this was so funny?

We have a Fence!!

For the past 3 years, I have wished for a fence and we finally have one! With the pond and the road, I have had to be super vigilant. We have been enjoying it so much over the past couple of days and I am left asking myself, why didn't we do this 3 years ago?

Cousins at the cabin

We were able to spend some time with family at my parent's cabin near in the Sawtooth National Forest. My boys had a blast playing outside with their cousins. It made me so happy to see them enjoy the same things that I did when I was young. I am so glad that the cabin will be a part of their childhood memories, becuase it is a huge part of mine.

Mom's On the Run!

4 of my sisters, our friend Ginger, and I ran the Sawtooth Relay on June 13th. We had a blast! We are thinking this is going to have to be tradition. I already looked next year's is on June 12th, so team memebers put that on your calendars. We ran 61.9 miles from Stanley, Idaho to Ketchum, Idaho. We each ran 2 legs for a total of 12 legs. I have yet to get copies of the pictures (hint, hint Lori). I stole these off of Cara's blog (thanks Cara). I am super sad, my favorite picture is not on Cara's blog, but I will say thank you to Lisa for giving me one of the best laughs of my entire life, love ya! Also many thanks to Dad, Mom and Kendra for watching my sweet boys so that I could run, and bringing them to watch my second leg so that I could hear them cheer me on.

Here we are at the starting line at 6 am. It was 34 degrees. We were freezing! Ginger was in the car with her 4 month old baby.

It rained both of my legs, but I actually enjoyed running in the rain.

Lori ran up Galena. It was 1331 feet up to the summit of 8701 feet! Way to go Lori, you seriously impressed me!

Erin was the reason we did this race. Thanks so much for all of your hard work getting everything organized and seriously sister, you ran awesome!

Cheesy picture, but there couldn't have been a better place to run! It was gorgeous.

Here I am celebrating finishing my second leg. I was super happy to be done!

Here we are at the finish line. It really was so much fun to run this relay. It felt so good to finish and celebrate!

As for the results: we finished 2 hours and 10 minutes faster than we were projecting. I think we were being a little pessimistic!!