Mega Post

June has been totally crazy so far, but we're having fun. We're about to head off on new adventure so before I get too behind I thought I'd put up a catch up post. I'm finally posting about Luke's birthday, and I also tried to include some pictures of my kid's grandparents. They are so lucky to have such awesome grandparents that are very involved in their lives, and I really need to document it better! I should also do a whole post about Jer and how awesome he is in honor of Father's Day, but this is as good as it's going to get!


The weekend before Luke's birthday Jer and the big boys headed up to celebrate an early birthday with a little fishing in the rain. They fished at a friend's place from a boat and struck out, but they caught some big ones at grandma and grandpa's house.


The kids each caught a big one. Seth didn't want to touch his. When you ask Luke about the fish he caught he underexaggerates its size which is kind of funny.


They also took the four wheeler and the Razor for a ride. The boys ended the day with a trip to Big J's and came home totally exhausted and happy. Luke also got some fun presents and had a great early birthday before grandpa headed to New Zealand on his big hunting adventure.

We kept the boys' birthdays pretty small and simple this year, but I think they had fun. During the day we played at the park and had a friend over to play and go for ice cream. That night Grandma Carolyn, Grandpa Steve, and Grandma Cid enjoyed birthday dinner at Cafe Rio with us. That was followed up by presents including some awesome explorer stuff.

We gave Luke a new bike. He couldn't wait to try it out so he headed out in the rain. He has been in need of a bigger bike for quite a while. Seth felt like it was his birthday too because we put the training wheels back on the yellow bike, and he inherited it. They both had fun riding around in the rain.

Just a cute one of Ian and Grandpa Steve.

Blowing out candles on the ice cream cake.

Luke loves animals and wanted to go to the zoo, so the next day we headed down with TJ and Amy and thier kids. We had a great day complete with tiger paw cupcakes with cousins.

The only low spot of the day was when Luke got lost. Yep, he didn't follow us to the elephants and when I went back for him about one minute later he had run off in the other direction looking for us. Jer, TJ, and I looked for a good 6 or 7 minutes, and I was starting to get quite nervous. We had been laughing all day about all the weirdos there but that wasn't quite so funny once Luke was gone! Finally this guy saw my panicked face and asked me if I was looking for a little lost boy. He had seen him by the monkeys but didn't want to scare him by approaching him (he had a lot of tattoos). I ran down there and found him with a mom and her kids. She had approached him because he was starting to cry. He told her his phone number and had her call us so that was great, but it was our home phone number! After my heart rate returned to normal we finished off a great day and had a good chance to talk about safety with the kids. Yikes!

My mom is the ultimate grandma. My boys love her to death. She is such a big help to me right now as I'm working on my project for my master's degree. She has made it possible for me to do it by helping out about once a week. My kids love every minute they get to spend with her and are always stoked for a trip to grandma's house. She's the best. Thanks mom!

My parents have this new totally awesome nature trail behind their house. Once you get in there it's like being in a jungle. There goes the whole gang on a Sunday afternoon. My mom would like Bert to play in traffic most days, but my kids sure do love him.

The trip is not complete without playing king of the mountain on the gravel pile. Thanks Jer for being the best dad and husband. He works so hard for us everyday, and we all love him so much.

We headed up to Deer Cliff Inn for Grandma Cid's birthday and had a great time. We attempted to get a picture of the grandkids and this is the best we could do. I feel bad I didn't even get a picture of Cid.

Boyd finally shaved that crazy mustache off after bagging his trophies and now Ian likes him a lot more!

I'm not sure exactly what to say about this picture. The kids came out of grandpa's shed sporting these, and it seemed like a picture worthy moment.

Luke

Our summer started off great last week but took a definite turn for the worse this week with a little visit from the stomach flu. It has hit Luke the hardest. As I type he is making his 5th trip to the bathroom since he has been trying to go to bed. The pukes started on Monday, and the fun just keeps on coming for him. He has lost weight after keeping nothing down and having bad stomach pain for days. I feel bad for him. We woke up to Seth puking everywhere this morning, but his case seems to be much milder. I'm just hoping the rest of us can somehow escape without getting sick.

Now on a brighter note: Luke celebrated his 6th birthday last week. It's bittersweet to see the kid who first made you a mom growing up so fast. He's a great kid, and I'm so proud of him. We had a great birthday week, and I'll post about that once we all get over this mess! I thought I'd just quickly throw up (no pun intended) a few baby pics of Luke. It's fun (for me) to take a stroll down memory lane and look at how far he's come.

At age 6, Luke:

• Loves his family. He is such a fun, loving kid, and he lets all of us know how much we mean to him.
• Loves to play outside--riding bikes (his new bike will be featured in the next post), jumping on the tramp, playing basketball or just about any other sport.
• Loves goldfish crackers. They're still his favorite after all of these years.
• Loves playing with friends. Luke is quite social and has a fun personality. He kills me with his sarcasm and sometimes quite advanced sense of humor.
• Loves to learn about animals and knows lots of random facts.
• Loves learning and has become a great little reader, speller, and writer. His handwriting is probably neater than mine when he tries.
• Loves to tease. Seth is usually the recipient of this. Although they fight they also spend hours playing together and are great friends.

Awww... love this kid. He really doesn't change too much from year to year now. He just gets a little taller and a little skinnier. I'll upload those new 6-year-old pics when I'm not so tired. Here's to hoping Luke can start enjoying his summer vacation soon!