A Trip to Joe's House

A few weekends ago, we (along with my parents) took a trip up to visit my brother Joe and his family. We had a blast! While we were there we went to the fair, let the cousins play, and spent a lot of time on the lake. We went swimming, tubing, and water skiing.

Easton and Brady competed in a pedal car race at the fair. It was really fun and the cars were really cool. Easton won two heats and got second in the championship race. It was fun to see him be a little competitive!

Brady's legs weren't quite long enough to reach the pedals, so Riley had to help him quite a bit. He was still really excited that he did it.

The boys were really excited that they won medals!

We arrived at my brother's house the first night with enough time to take an evening boat ride. It was pretty relaxing, and Joe was a good captain.

The next day we were able to enjoy the water. This picture is of Easton and I going tubing. Easton enjoyed it, but Brady was a little scared and only went once.

Pretty cute baby...

Easton liked splashing around on this little beach near Joe's house. Easton has been wanting to go to a beach all summer. This isn't quite the beach that you would find next to an ocean, but it was close enough!

This is Riley skiing. Neither of us have really been skiing before, so we spent the whole weekend just trying to get up (I never made it). On our last day, Riley watched the kids while I went out on the boat and he came later to try again. Once he got there we headed out into the middle of the lake and the boat ran out of gas (maybe Joe wasn't such a good captain after all)! Joe was pretty embarrassed, but luckily we found another boat that offered to tow us to the dock near the gas station. It was pretty funny! Once we finally had a full gas tank we headed back out to the large lake for Riley to try skiing again. As soon as we started heading out, we saw huge black clouds rolling in. Joe checked his weather radar and a level 4 thunderstorm was about twenty minutes away! We decided to have Riley try a few more times to get up on his skis before we had to head in. Riley tried a few times with no real luck, meanwhile it had started sprinkling. The next thing we saw was lightning in the distance and the water was eerily calm. Joe said, "he's got one more shot and then we have to get him out of the water." Well, Riley made it up on that try and Joe took off toward the dock with Riley skiing behind. By this point the sky was dark, it was raining a little more, and there was lots of lightning about a mile away. Riley didn't fall and made it all the way to the dock! It started pouring down rain while we were loading the boat onto the trailer, but I was just happy that Riley didn't get electrocuted while he was in the water! This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hm83FKsheQ is a link so see Riley skiing. The whole thing was pretty funny, and we were glad that we went up to Joe's to visit.

Even More Stuff I've Grown

Riley and I spent an evening making pickles with all of our cucumbers. We made around 2 dozen jars of dill pickles!

Some of our sunflowers are finally ready to harvest. I have never harvested sunflowers before so I had to look up how to do it. This is Easton holding our biggest sunflower. As you can see it is huge and heavy!

First we had to get out each individual seed and let them soak in a saltwater solution all night. After that I had to let them dry out and roast them in the oven for 30 minutes.

This was the end result, roasted sunflower seeds! They did taste pretty good. It was actually a lot of tedious work, so it is probably just cheaper and better to buy them from the store. I still have lots of sunflowers in the garden that need harvested if anyone wants some. (I was really missing my sister-in-law, Emily, while I was sorting through the good and bad seeds and leftover flower particles. Emily enjoys sorting through stuff like that!)

Well, we grew sweet corn in our garden and some of it wasn't too bad. However, these are the only two ears that we had to show for it, because the damn raccoons (or some other pest) ate them all! They literally husked them, ate them, and left the empty cobs on the stalk in one night! Chewy is not a very good guard dog I guess.

Random Shots from the Past Few Weeks

The other day I walked into the bathroom and found this... a pair of underwear sitting in the toilet. Nobody in this house seems to know how they got there, and the boys were blaming Jaylee for it. Jaylee could have done it, but I think the boys are starting to get a little too comfortable blaming things on her. Also, since no one knew how they got there, I was the one who had to reach down and take them out!

Papa has started telling the boys to, "Look over there!" and then smacking them on the head when they look away. Of course the boys think it is hilarious, and have started playing the "joke" on each other. This picture of Brady is what happened the other day when they thought that they were playing papa's "joke" with each other. Somehow I get to be the one to deal with the tears, thanks Tim!

Tired Baby

Papa and Brady playing iPad together.

Riley was watching the boys for the day and texted me this picture. Apparently, Brady refused to wear anything but his underwear all morning. He said that he couldn't get dressed because he was "Wrestle Man!" It was lunch time before Riley was able to get him dressed.

Brady has lots of energy and fearlessness. This is him climbing up our house! As you can see, the lack of clothing is also becoming a thing with Brady. It actually kind of suits his personality, though! I need to ask my mom if my brother used to run around in just shorts, because I always think he looks like Jared when he is dressed like this.

Back to School

The boys headed back to school this week! They are both still in pre-school. Easton is in the pre-kindergarten class and Brady is in his first year of pre-school. Both boys were excited for their first day and ran right into their classrooms!

A tractor driving down the road distracted them from taking their back to school pictures.

Showing off their backpacks...

Heading into school...

It was so weird having just one kid! Jaylee and I made the best of it by going to story time at the library and running. I just hope she starts talking soon, it was too quiet!