A 30th Birthday and a Rainbow Cake

Yesterday was Trevor's 30th birthday. To celebrate we bought a minivan. Ha! I don't think my dear husband expected to be doing that the day before the big 3-0! But, after 3 kids we came to the realization that it was something we needed. So Happy Birthday Honey! Thanks for the car.

For daddy's big day I decided to try and make THE Rainbow Cake. A few of my friends had made it and so I convinced myself that I could do it too. So I strapped the kid to me.

Because he of course did not want to take a nap.
And I got to work!

It was a 2 day project and in those 2 days I learned that I am not a baker. I ran out of frosting, frosting that called for 4 cups of cream cheese, 1 cup of butter and 6 cups of powdered sugar. Yeah...my diet starts today OR when the cake is gone! So it wasn't perfect looking but it was less intimidating to make then it looked.

And what did it look like inside?

And we have enough cake to feed a small army.

Happy Birthday Honey!

Happy Father's Day!

This is our daddy. Can you believe he can actually sleep like this? Mommy always gives him grief for being able to sleep anywhere and anyhow. Personally, we just thinks she's jealous of his (and our) narcoleptic ways. Our daddy is also really good at lots of other things too. And since today is Father's Day, which according to mommy means its daddy's special day and he need do whatever he wants, (I hope he wants to go swimming) Declan and I thought we would share with you why our daddy is so special.

He's the best daddy because he wrestles with us, plays airplane with us, let's us play Legos on the tv when Mommy's at work, takes us to the park, lets us help him mow the lawn, lets us help him with the basement, catches the kitties for us so we can pet them, takes me to school, builds sand castles in the sand box, takes us swimming, watches movies and cartoons with us, goes to work everyday so we can eat at Pizza Ranch and McDonalds, (and he mentioned a whole lot of other things he needs to work for but these two stuck out in our mind) lets me snuggle with him in the morning, fixes our broken toys, plays catch with us, reads us books every night and tucks us into bed every night.

Mommy said he's special because he loves us and takes care of us and brings home the bacon (I prefer sausage though!) and because he'd do anything for us.

We love you daddy! Happy Father's Day.

Love,

Carson and Declan

Exhausted but rejuvinated from a little vacation.

As parents we always seem to be exhausted. It varies from day to day just how exhausted we are but it's always there. It wasn't until after we arrived in Vegas that I realized just how exhausted we were. Once I stepped away from dirty diapers, potty breaks, cleaning up toys, making beds, making 3 meals a day plus 2 snacks, going to school and all the crying and whining that I realized how incredibly exhausted I was. I realized how much WE needed this vacation.

A vacation that almost didn't happen. We decided to use our government stimulus check for this vacation and as soon as it was deposited into the account we made our reservations. For the next 6 months we debated about whether or not this was the right thing to do with our money. That money could have gone to other things and at that time I thought they were more important things then treating ourselves to a vacation, without kids! Something that hasn't happened since we got married. So a few months back I looked into canceling the whole thing. Lucky for us the airline we booked with did not accept cancellations. We could only postpone our vacation and receive a voucher for later travel dates. I am so very thankful that we didn't cancel. This vacation was a much needed vacation for this very exhausted mommy and daddy.

We had a blast. I think we both had forgotten what it was like to be childless. How much fun you can have when your children aren't around. While we did miss them it was so nice to be without them for a few days. I was reminded why I married my husband, why I love him and why I love my life and most importantly...why we NEED vacations. Now if the government would just keep sending me stimulus checks I could do this every year!

Needless to say the vacation did wonders. I'm rejuvinated. I missed my babies and I'm glad to be home. I even spent the whole day at home yesterday playing with them.

Here are some pictures of our fun time.

We dressed up for 5 nights! Something that is very rare...especially for me. Sad thing is, we didn't get a single picture of that. Instead we have this one. Taken the day we got there when we couldn't get into our room to change our clothes. Did I mention it was almost 90 and I was wearing jeans?

The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Towe drink or as I like to call it 60 oz of daiquiri goodness.

Indiana Jones
Going to the wax museum was a highlight of the trip. They looked so incredibly real and you could touch them and take pictures with them all you wanted.

Matthew Mcconaughey

Me and the Heff.

Brangelina

Me and the Gov

Trevor and the Gov

What's he saying to Cameron Diaz? I have no idea!

Clooney and I got hitched while we were in Vegas. Isn't my dress just gorgeous? Wearing a t-shirt underneath is the new trend!

Golfing with Tiger and Greg Norman (I think that's who that is?) I might be wrong though.

And this my friends is why my husband is NOT a basketball player.

Tim McGraw

He landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong! Must have been warm on the moon.

John Wayne

Master Chief

You can never get tired of the Strip at night.

On Tuesday we rented a car and drove out to Hoover Dam. They are in the process of building an enormous bridge over the Dam. I have no idea just how high it is in the air but this picture was taken from my car on the road that is there now. It was incredibly high. I can't imagine working on that.

The bridge from the damn.

This picture was taken on our tour and is from the inside of Hoover Dam.

A crazy tunnel inside hoover dam that we got to see.

Acting like goofy kids in the Dam Store.

They're me don't you think?

Las Vegas Motor Speedway. There was absolutely no security there. We were allowed to drive through the tunnel and onto the in field. Richard Petty's driving school was going on so we couldn't go on the track but we could get next to pit road which was neat.

We were also allowed to climb some stairs to get onto the roof of some buildings in the in field. It was pretty neat to see.

And a video of one of the neatest sites in Vegas...the fountains at the Bellagio

Bees, Bikes and Chicken

Declan has started to show alot of interests in Carson's "big boy" bikes lately. He's far from reaching the pedals but he gets his little legs on the ground and tries to get going. He's pretty good on the big wheel but prefers to be pushed on the trike. It's weird to see him getting so old. It feels like I just brought him home from the hospital.

A few weeks ago we noticed a large number of bees going in and out of a crack in our foundation. It seemed like a weird spot for these little creatures to live. So we went and got some stuff to spray in there but it didn't work well. It killed a few but there was still alot of them there. Then on Friday Trevor got stung by one of them. Bees 1 Trevor 0. So last night they ventured out to get some Raid, why that wasn't purchased the first time I'm not sure. But it did the trick.
Bees 1 Trevor (at least) 25.

I grabbed a bag of our chicken nuggets at the store last week. I was surprised today when I opened them up and they were in the shape of numbers. Well isn't that cute? Back to School chicken nuggets (that's what the bag said!). Lucky for me the boys' will probably refuse to eat any chicken nugget not in the shape of a 1, 2 or 3 from now on. Because these are WAY more fun.

A list of my thoughts

I have lots of things on my mind that I want to mention on here and there isn't really any order to them so I'll just make a list. How fun!

* This morning around 1:30am. I heard Carson come out of his room and shut (er, slam) the door closed. Something he does regularly. I opened my eyes just a crack waiting for him to appear at my bedside. He didn't. I listened for a few more seconds wondering what he was doing. And the next thing I heard was the door to the garage opening. I slapped Trevor awake and told him to go see what he was doing. I'm not sure why I didn't get out of bed to go check. By the time Trevor got out of bed and down the stairs Carson had already made his way into the garage and was trying to get back in. We're not sure where he was going or what he was trying to do. One thing we do know....it gave us a good scare. This morning he said he was trying to find grandma but I'm not even sure he remembers being out there. It's a good thing he makes a habit out of closing his bedroom door when he leaves because had I not heard that I'm not sure what would have happened and I don't even want to think about it.

* It's the middle of July and BOTH of the boys have a cold. In July? Really? Those parenting Gods can be cruel people.

* The boys and I have been going to Target on the Friday that Trevor gets paid. We get all our essentials, browse through the toy isle and then have lunch at Target (mmmm...Pizza Hut). I was thinking about skipping today and going tomorrow morning when Trevor said, "You can't skip it's tradition." And he's right. This simple little errand has become a tradition for us and I love it. So do the boys because they usually get a cookie for desert!

* We've been on a stirct plan to rid Declan of his plug. When we went on vacation he had it in for the entire trip. So when we came back I vowed to not necessarily take it away but to vastly reduce the amount of time he had it. The first few days were tough and I thought I was going to lose my mind but it's gotten alot better. He only has it in his crib now! However, since its out most of the day now......he NEVER stops talking. And more then half the time its, "Mommy wook" "Mommy wook" MOMMY wook" MOMMY WOOK." All day long. And he doesn't stop until you acknowledge whatever it is that he sees. Today it was a crane and a big balloon and then McDonald's. Good thing he's so darn cute.

* Carson is going to be a car man just like his daddy. He was about to lose his mind today when we saw not 1 but 2 Chargers on our way to Target. And every car he sees has some sort of relation to a car from the movie Cars. Today we saw Ramone, Flo, Mack and Filmore. And they looked nothing like any of them but he insisted they were.

* The other day we were at the park and there was a huge rainbow filling the sky. We pointed it out to Carson and his response, "Jesus sent us that rainbow." Ahhh, good parenting moment!

* Carson's favorite phrase these days is "Sometimes they do that." It's pretty comical.

* Declan LOVES to check out the potty after Carson has gone. Regardless of what's in there his reply is always, "Big poops bruder" followed by "wittle poops too bruder."

* My garden is completely overgrown. It needs to be at least twice as big. My tomato plants are ridiculously huge. Yesterday we came home and they had all fallen over. Check out this tomato mountain.

You can almost see the humidity in these pictures. It's been like soup outside lately.

* My engineering husband rigged up some posts and they are now standing up. Sadly, we lost about 20 tomatoes because we had to cut them back. Hey, that's a lot of spaghetti sauce that we won't get! And yes, there are two shovels in the ground helping hold them up. He's resourceful!

* Declan was trying to get Tickle Me Elmo to laugh today and he couldn't get it so he just laid on him and away he went.'


* Carson starts school in a little over a month. Ack! I got a list of the school supplies he will need at Target. For a kid entering preschool that list is quite long. Kleenexes, cups, play-doh, enough glue to last a life time, markers, pencils, backpack, band aids, etc. It goes on and on. I picked up a few things today that were on sale. I know he's going to love school but a part of me is sad and still wants him to be my baby and home with me all the time. But buying all these things is exciting. Reminds me of when I was little and got all new supplies. Then I'd spend the next few weeks until schools started organizing them and putting them in my backpack. So much fun!

* I have to work tonight but we get to wear jeans. How is it that just being able to wear jeans makes going to work so much more bearable?

Our Daddy

Carson and Declan -

I hope you both realize how incredibly blessed you are to have such a special man in your life. One you can look to for strength, wisdom, love and as many hugs and kisses as you want.

He is the leader of our household, he is the provider for our family and he is our rock to lean on. He is hard-working, strong willed, compassionate, devoted, loving, a steward of God and the best daddy we could ever ask for.

He protects us and cares for us. He guides us and nutures us. He pays attention to you (and me) and he looks forward to your smiles and laughter everyday. He is so proud of you both!

So today we celebrate him and everything he brings to our family. We love him and we are so very grateful for all he has done for our family.

How blessed we are to be loved by him!