A Typical Day

I saw this on Facebook and thought this described my daily life so perfectly. 

Even though these kids can make me crazy, I love them so much. Here's why: 

When you can't find a seat... use your "boy".

Caden cracks me up when he eats. He always manages to get food all over his mouth and hands. He even managed to get it on his eye brow this time.

The kids love to climb on the outside of the playhouse.

Who needs toys when you can play with diaper boxes?

I wanna be a cow girl...

All three kids ended up in our bed one night. Good thing Tyler didn't need to sleep.

Aww.... this just makes my heart melt.

 You're never too young to be addicted to Dr. Pepper. Whenever we go to a drive through Brynnli says, "Coke.... Peppa!"

 Makayla is days away from being a cute Kindergartner. She has been begging me to cut her hair, so we finally went in. Here's the before:

And the after... Makayla and I love how it turned out. 

 After we got her hair cut Makayla had Kindergarten testing. Makayla met with her teacher, Mrs. Kimball. She did so well and knew all of her letters and sounds and counted to 100.

 After testing we went to lunch at Makayla's favorite place, Taco Time.

 We were supposed to go shopping after, but Makayla wasn't having fun shopping and wanted to play at Grandma Kathy's, so I dropped her off and went shopping by myself. We called it a win-win!

Summer Bucket List Continues

We have had one busy summer so far. We have checked off a lot of things on our summer bucket list including: 

 Getting free Slurpees on 7-11 Day:

Going to get snow cones:

Seeing Finding Dory with our cousins and Grandpa Craig and Grandma Terry

 We took up an entire row. But how cute are these kids. They loved the show and were so cute. Brynnli screamed "Mo" (Nemo) and "Birdie" the entire show.

 We also met Daddy for lunch one day at Wheeler Farm for lunch and to feed the ducks.

 Brynnli decided to eat the bread herself instead of feeding it to the ducks.

 There were so many ducks and two cute little baby ducks.

 At one point I heard Brynn start to cry and found out that one of the ducks had taken the cracker right out of her hand and bit her finger. Brynn was pretty traumatized by that experience and has told us for days now, "Duck, finger, hurt!"

We walked around the farm and took more cute pictures.

 We went to Kids Club and played in Dino Land. Brynnli could't figure out her reflection.

 Tyler and I went with Terry and Craig to see James Taylor. Tyler really was more excited than he looks in this picture. We were probably the youngest people there.

 James Taylor was no Kenny Chesney, but I really enjoyed the concert!

 We have been camping a total of 12 days this month. All of our trips have been so much fun, but I may be camped out for a few months. Our latest trip was to Tammy and Bruce' cabin. We went on what was supposed to be a short, kid friendly hike, but turned into a really long, steep hike. Brynn fell asleep mid way through and Tyler had to carry her up the steep hill. Caden and Makayla were champs and climbed the whole thing looking for buried treasure and avoiding Captain Hook.

 We also went on a few four wheeler rides

 And spent a lot of time with our cousins.

It has been a great summer so far!

Our Little Brynnie Bear

Our Little Brynnie Bear is 22 months old!

Oh how I love and hate this age all at the same time. I love that Brynn's personality is shining through. She is so stinkin cute! She is very independent and doesn't want anybody's help. She is adventurous and thinks she can climb or do anything her brother and sister can. She still loves to dress up and wear everybody's shoes.  And she is a talker! She learns so many new words everyday. Here are some of her new words: 

She calls Makayla "Sissy" and Caden "Boy." It cracks us up every time she says some thing like "Boy, mean!" 

She loves to talk on the phone and all she says is, "Hi, Daddy! Hi Daddy!"

She loves her grandmas! If they are around she doesn't want to have a thing to do with us. When we leave Grandma's house, all she can say is, "where Nam-ma?"

She may call Grandma, "nam-ma," but both my dad and Craig are "Bob." She thinks she is so funny and has even started saying, "Daddy Bob" or "Mommy Bob!" then she does this fake little laugh after. 

A bird pooped on our car window, so every time we get in the car Brynn says, "Birdie, poo! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Brynn loves to look at pictures of herself, or look in the mirror. When she sees herself or even just a picture of a baby, she screams, "Me!"

When she sees a baby at the store she points and says, "baby!" Even if the "baby" is obviously older than her, they are still "baby."

When she gets hurt she runs up to me or Tyler and says "hurt" and insists we kiss her ouchie better. 

Brynn pretends to go to sleep and quietly snores,  and then seconds later opens her eyes and says, "morning!"

If we get mad at her, she starts crying and says, "sorry"

I tell Brynnli to say things back to me like, "Tank you, ma-ma" just so I can hear how cute she says, "ma-ma!"

She gives the best hugs and kisses. 

She says, "wov you!" in the sweetest little voice. 

But this age is also so hard. Like I mentioned, Brynn is so adventurous and she loves to run away from me at the store. I felt so bad one day when we were at the store and Brynn started to run away. I grabbed her by one arm and lifted her up so I could carry her out the store. She screamed so loud and I could tell she was hurt. I took her home and she laid on the couch and wouldn't move her arm. I called Tyler bawling because I thought I pulled her shoulder out of socket. My mom came over to watch the kids and we took Brynn to the doctor. I was certain the doctor would think I abused our baby, but he reassured me that this injury was very common. Her elbow was out of socket and all the doctor had to do was pop it back into place. She cried for about two minutes after he popped it back in, but was completely fine after that and was running around. I still feel so bad about it, though. 

Brynnli is so exhausting and has more energy than the normal almost two year old, but she is so cute, and we all just love her to pieces. 

Oneida Narrows

We took our annual trip to Oneida Narrows again this year. Darren and Meg's family couldn't join us this year, but we still had so much fun.  I complain about this trip every year because it literally takes me three days before to get ready for the trip, plus at least 2 days after cleaning up and doing laundry, and something always seems to go wrong, or a kid gets lost going down the river, or I am pregnant and yell at the neighbors. Luckily we had great neighbors this time (and I wasn't preggo), every body stayed together going down the river, and we only had a minor problem with the fridge. So all in all, it was a really great trip!!

This little cutie! I couldn't find her swim suit so at the last minute I had to run and get her a new one... isn't it so stinkin' cute? Brynn had a blast playing in the water on this trip. 

 So did everyone else. Every morning we would head down to the lake and play for hours. Ryan's boys caught fish and we played with our kids in the water. We didn't even miss the boat or water skiing.

 At first Brynn hated the life jacket, but once she realized it was the only way she could get into the water she was fine with it.

 And these two. They loved the water and spent hours just playing.

 Preston and Brayden are obviously stoked about Oneida.

 My cute parents.

 And us.

 My poor mom had to spend the entire trip with Brynnli. Brynn didn't want anyone else, she only wanted "Nam-ma." If Grandma wasn't around she would ask repetitively, "Where Nam-ma?"

 Brynnli was trying to be a frog. She would get on the log and go "Ribbit"

 Makayla and Caden loved the water. They spent all of their time floating and practicing the new tricks they learned during swimming lessons.

 This little girl was tuckered out after a long morning of swimming.

 After the lake we would float down the river,  hang out around the campfire, eat dinner together, play in the sand box, and do some crafts.

 The kids helped build their own play tent

 Mornings were my favorite because the kids would wake up early and watch a show. I loved how they snuggled together.

Then once everyone was awake we would eat breakfast together. 

On Friday we headed into town to eat at Big J's. The kids loved their hats and ice cream. 

 On the last day there we decided to try out a different lake that was close by. I love this picture because everyone looks like they are contemplating the meaning of life.

 Oh, I could just eat her up in that swim suit!

 Brynnli was so cute. Tyler would say, "one," then Brynn would follow up with, "two, fie (five)!" and then giggle so loud when Tyler would throw her up in the air.

 I have to document this story because it was so funny. On our last night Tyler had THE WORST allergies I have ever seen. He took four different allergy pills throughout the day and finally took a Benadryl before bed. Although he denies it, I think Tyler over dosed on the allergy medicine because he was passed out. There was no waking this guy up, which normally wouldn't be a problem, right? Well not this particular night.

 Everyone was asleep and I was having trouble falling asleep. I kept smelling this horrible poop smell. I finally got up and went to check in the bathroom and didn't smell anything there, so I went through and smelled each kids' bum (seriously, the things you do as a parent). I got to Brynn and realized she pooped. Not a big deal; I managed to change her without her even waking up! I got back in bed and a few minutes later smelled the poop smell again. I started to wonder if our sewage was backing up, so I got out of bed and turned on the light. I saw Caden sitting up, so I went over to him and tried to lay him back down when I realized he had peed the bed. Tyler woke up at this point, asked if I needed help, and before I could answer "yes," he had rolled over and gone back to sleep. Caden was still half asleep, so I took off his pajamas and changed all of the wet bedding. I didn't want to dig under the bed to get him new underwear, so I just put one of Brynnli's diapers on him and called it good. I crawled back in bed and tried to go to sleep. Mind you it was about 1:00 am by this point. I tried to fall asleep when I started to smell that darn poop smell again. I was about ready to shake Tyler awake when I heard him fart and then smelled the poop smell again. I don't know if it was the lack of sleep, the situation, or the time of morning, but I got the giggles so bad. Tyler woke up and asked me what was going on and I started laughing even harder. I couldn't even begin to tell him what had gone on so far. Tyler was irritated with me, but had no trouble falling back asleep. I finally managed to stop giggling and fell asleep for about an hour. Yep, an hour later I woke up to someone saying, "can you turn on the light?" Makayla was awake this time. I told her to try to go to the bathroom and walked her over to it. I turned to Caden to put a blanket on him and turned back to Makayla only to see her sitting on the toilet fully clothed. I think she was half asleep and didn't take off her pants. I started to say, "Oh no, take off your pants, when she started peeing... all over her clothes and the toilet. I couldn't even be mad at this point. Tyler was still sleeping great, and now all three kids had some sort bowel/ peeing issue. I just had to laugh again and dig for a new set of clothes for Makayla. Luckily I managed to get a few hours of sleep before everyone was up bright and early the next morning about 6 am.

Once Tyler woke up I told him about all of the fun adventures from the night that he slept through. The best part of it all was when Caden woke up and went to the bathroom only to realize he had a diaper on. He said, "Wait a minute...I don't wear DIAPERS!" then proceeded to have a complete melt down. All Tyler and I could do was laugh.

Oh the adventures of Oneida! Until next year!!