Monster Truck

Camden was apparently a little anxious to get home this evening and said, "Mommy, if you had a monster truck you could drive over all the slow cars in front of you and we could get home faster...that's why you should have bought a monster truck."  

Can you imagine our little family driving around in one of these?!?

Awesome

After an evening of working in the backyard to build a roof on the play structure we picked up off Craigslist I reminded Jared that he was awesome.  Camden felt the need to let his daddy know just how awesome he is and chimed in with, "Daddy, you are awesomer than a guy with a hammer that kills people."  We died laughing.  He just might be THAT awesome!

Our first visitor!

We've been in Milwaukee for 3 weeks and this week we had our first visitor!  Janet stopped by for some one armed fun with Joe and Jesse on their way to Joe's family reunion.  It was so fun to see her and my boys were so excited the night before she came they had a hard time going to sleep.  Now that's cousin love! We went strawberry picking then came home and made a strawberry pie.  Since we didn't get an early enough start for it to set up in time for dinner we ate it for breakfast.  Strawberry pie for breakfast?...Yes, please!  We love this girl so much.  I remember when I was pregnant with Carter and Janet didn't have any nieces or nephews yet and asked if she could be a surrogate Aunt to my babies.  She has definitely lived up to that.  My boys love their Aunt Janet!  Can't wait to see her again in just a couple of weeks!

 Dax was a great little strawberry tester.  He would scream if I took the basket of berries away from him.  Jesse was pretty good too!  After a while he said, "My tummy hurts from picking strawberries!"  We all got our fill of berries then went home and ate even more.  It was a delicious day!

Photo Challenge - Summer Fun

I Heart Faces has a monthly photo challenge and when I saw that the theme was "summer fun" I immediately thought of this photo.  When I think of Michigan summers I think of our trips to Sleeping Bear Dunes and Lake Michigan.  This was an especially fun trip with cousins, we're going to miss these kids!

While I'm still a novice when it comes to photography this picture makes me smile, so what the heck.  If nothing else, it's a fun photo worth sharing.

Happy Summer!

Summer Lovin'

One of our favorite things to do in the summer is to spend the evening at the lake.  I love sitting out on the canoe with my family as the sun starts to go down and the sky turns a beautiful shade of pink and orange.  We found a lake just 15 minutes from our house but weren't sure if you could canoe there so we opted for an evening of swimming and hot dog grilling so we could check it out before loading up the canoe.  It was a fun evening with dad who needed a little break from studying for board exams and a much needed break from unpacking the house for the rest of us.  I love being outside!

The boys attempted a sand castle but baby Godzilla got the best of them.

I'm not sure I would want to see what's beneath the surface of the lake.  Ignorance is bliss, right?

Mischief is a brewing!

Neighborhood Kids

We had a tearful good-bye when it was time to say our final good-bye to our Royal Oak neighborhood.  I tried to hold it together as best I could but when we picked up the boys from the Mauger's house and said good-bye on our way out of town they started to flow.  We absolutely loved our neighbors there.  Hopefully one day we'll feel the same kind of love in our new neighborhood as we did there.  

We're off to a good start.  There were several kids on our street that were just waiting for us to move in.  They've been super friendly to the boys and come over often to ask them to come out and play.  Just one week in and they were all out having a lemonade stand together.  Here's to new beginnings...again :)

      

Gage-ism

I don't want to forget this one!

At dinner the other night we were chatting as usual and somehow the conversation turned to money and Carter asked Jared, "Dad, how do you make money?"  Jared responded, "I stick needles in peoples bums*." Gage's eye's got HUGE and he exclaimed. "And money pops out!"  We laughed so hard we cried.  I love my boys... rarely a dull moment!

(*For reference one of the treatments of prostate cancer involves needles in the bum.)

Snow day!...or should I say slush day!?

A phone call at 5:30am is a welcome one when it's telling me to go back to bed, there's no school today.  As I lay in bed trying to fall back to sleep my mind drifted to a day full of sledding and snow man building with my boys.  I was excited to get out and play in the snow!  Imagine my disappointment when I looked out the window at 8:30 and saw sleet coming down and several inches of slush on the ground where freshly fallen snow had laid the night before.  "What am I going to do with 4 boys all day who are taking a week off of screen time this week!?"  Go sledding in the slush?... Why not!  The slush packed into ice pretty quick which made for some quick moving sleds!...  Although, not much fun when we wiped out, especially with Dax strapped to the front of me.  I'm pretty sure I threw my back out contorting my body in ways I never knew possible to avoid planting him face first in the snow with me on top of him.  We all came out smiling in the end!

Brick Challenge Game Show at The Henry Ford

Last week our membership to The Henry Ford expired so we decided to make one last trip.  They have a Lego Architecture exhibit that I have been anxious to see (I was in line for the boys to see Santa when Jared took them to see it last month).

As we headed to the Lego exhibit we passed an area where a stage was being assembled with a sign that read, "Brick Challenge Game Show."  Carter's face immediately lit up and he marched over to the man setting up the stage to find out how he could play.  He was informed that the game show would start at 11:30 and he could come back at 11:15 to sign up to be put in a lottery to play.  All morning long Carter kept asking if it was 11:15 yet.  At 11:10 we headed over so he could be one of the first ones to sign up.  As we were waiting for the contestants to be called Carter kept talking about being in the game show.  Being a realist, I tried to set him up for disappointment and explained to him that the odds of him getting chosen weren't that great since there were 30-40 kids hoping too be chosen to play.  His response, "I'll get chosen!  I'm lucky, I always get chosen for stuff!"  Apparently my pep talk didn't phase him.

At 11:30  the game show host "Nick Brickly" read the names of the lucky contestants...first name called...Carter Robbins!  I couldn't believe it!  He was ecstatic!  The game show consisted of 3 rounds of  questions followed by a building challenge.   Questions varied from which state has a Lego-land to which line of Lego replaced the Pirates of the Caribbean line and what is the new line of Lego targeted at girls.  Did you know that Lego fans have their own social network?  Neither did I and I certainly didn't know the name of it.  There were 3 building challenges.  Carter and his partner lost the first one which was to build the tallest Lego building in 3 minutes.  But they won the following challenge which was to build as many Lego planes with a pin protruding out the front as you can in 2 minutes and then use the airplanes as darts to pop balloons.  The last challenge was to build a house for a lego dragon and then explain your creation to the audience who then voted on which structure they like best.  Well, luck was definitely in Carter's favor, they won! (Big thanks to Gage who was cheering EXTRA loud for his brother.) And the prize?  A $150 Lego set!  I couldn't believe it.  To say that he was on cloud 9 is an understatement!

 

Now that looks like a delicious hot dog!

How Do Babies Come Out?

When I was pregnant with Dax Gage asked me how the baby was going to get out of my belly.  I tried the simple, "The doctor takes him out."  When he demanded to know HOW I decided to tell him.  I thought it was well received and braced myself for the question "how did he get in there?" and was grateful when it never came.  This was probably a year ago and to be honest I haven't thought much of it since.

I went out to breakfast with some girlfriends this week, one of whom has twin boys Gage's age.  She told me they were eating dinner when out of the blue one of her boys exclaimed, "Did you know babies are born with poop all over them!"  She about fell off her chair with laughter and asked where he had heard that.  He proceeded to tell her that Gage had told him that "babies are born with poop all over them because they come out the poop hole!"  

...apparently there was a breakdown in communication during that talk!  I wonder how many 1st grade boys are going around thinking babies come out the poop hole?!?

Ice Skating at Campus Martius

On New Year's Day we headed down to Campus Martius to go ice skating.  They have a beautiful rink in downtown Detroit with Christmas lights and the city's Christmas tree.  Ice skating with Camden was back breaking but I think he enjoyed it...the first few times around the rink before he got cold.  When we started Gage could barely stand on the ice but he was cruising round and round all by himself by the time we left.  Daddy and Dax were the cheerleaders from the sideline.  Next time we'll have to get a sitter for the little guys so daddy can skate too.  

Carter showing off his mad xylophone skills!

The best cheerleaders around!

Happy New Year!

We rang in the New Year at home this year, which is just how I like it!  We spent the evening together and reminisced about the fun times had in 2012 over tacos.  We ate popcorn, orange slices, watched Madagascar 3 and played games and of course we also made party hats!  My nephew, Tate, joined the festivities.  Cam was wearing down as the clock neared 11, so we rang in the new year early with him, went outside for sparklers then tucked him into bed.  Gage nearly fell asleep at 11:55 but we nudged him to wakefulness, gave him a champagne flute filled with chocolate milk and watched the ball drop together.  I'm pretty sure he was asleep by 12:01.  Happy New Year!!