August 31

These are the pictures that Emma had made on Friday for her half birthday. It is so hard to believe that she is 6 months old already. Time sure flies.

Yes, it is Sunday night and Mommy is just now getting around to updating the blog and it hasn't been done in about a week. We have really had a trying week. Ever since school started back, we have had something, at least one thing going on everyday. Even school days we have something every evening. I am ready for things to slow down a little. Monday Mommy stayed home from work but had to go to the doctor with Trystan. Tuesday night Mommy had to go to the funeral home. Wednesday we had church, Thursday night was a game, and then Friday, Emma had a picture appointment. After Emma's pictures, Mommy went out for some much needed adult time. Saturday, Trystan had another game and it was an hour and a half away. Sunday we went to church and then went to Papaw Butch's to watch that awful UK game. We are U of L fans but your really can't call that a U of L game because unfortunately, it was UK's game, we just watched. Hopefully this week will be a little easier. The videos are of Ethan and Emma both laughing. Emma loves watching him and thinks that he is the greatest thing ever. The one of Ethan was him playing with a balloon.

August 19-23

This week was busy as usual but hopefully things are starting to slow down a little. Monday was Trystan's birthday and we went out to eat. Tuesday night Trystan had a soccer game. He is playing for his school this year. Wednesday we went to the fair. Thursday we had a Sunday School meeting, Friday Trystan had another game and then we went to the drive in movie at church, Saturday Trystan had 2 games (They won their first game of the season!), and Sunday we had church and then went to Nana's for lunch for Uncle Griffin's birthday.

The above picture is of Trystan showing off his new lap top.

Wednesday night we went to the fair with Tracy and Benjamin. Ethan liked driving the police car.
Benjamin and Ethan driving the tractor.

The boys had fun doing the tricycle safety city course. They even got driver's licenses.
Daddy and Ethan going down the big slide.
Ethan and Benjamin driving the "race cars." Ethan will make anything a race car in his mind.
Trystan riding the hang glider ride.

Ethan on the kiddie bumper cars.
Benjamin's favorite ride was the motorcycles. He and Ethan rode that one twice.
Emma had her first pineapple whip ice cream. It was really her first ice cream. We had to start her off with the best.
Emma ready for bed with her "exit." How appropriate.

Mommy will try to do better this week at updating this. Going back to work is just hard and we haven't had a free night since before we left for vacation which was a month ago now. I think we may have a least one free night this week.

August 18

These pictures are actually from last night at Benjamin's birthday party. I know, today is Trystan's birthday and I will have more pictures later. We had not been to Chuck E Cheese for a few months, literally just a few, and there has been a lot of changes. Many new things there, including this Ken Chuck E Derby. This was a big hit.
Another new addition which was Ethan's favorite was this jet pack thing. I heard that they also have this at Incredible Dave's but we have never been there.
Ethan posing with Chuck E. This is the best pose he will do now. He is too busy for pictures.

Benjamin opening his presents.
Here is Ethan crying because he can't figure out how to get down. This climber is easy to get lost in. He always gets to the outside circle and then can't get back to the middle, which is the only way down. He just cries and sits and waits for someone to come get him. Daddy and Trystan were at Best Buy getting his lap top and Mommy had Emma so Tracy, Benjamin's Mommy, climbed up to save him.
She is really just a kid at heart. Thanks Tracy for saving Ethan.

Ethan and Benjamin playing air hockey. This seemed to be Benjamin's favorite thing.
Here is Tyler, Benjamin's oldest (16 years to be exact) brother also enjoying the Ken Chuck E Derby.
And as always, Ethan will spot out the race cars and stay with that for as long as you will let him.

Week of August 11

I know, this is week of August 11 and we haven't updated since last weekend. Well, Mommy went back to work. Enough said. These are some of the highlights of our week. The first pictures are of Friday night when we took the kiddos to Ohio Valley Raceway. Ethan thought that it was the greatest thing in the world. He was in awe. He woke up Saturday morning and wanted to go back. We didn't know but apparently the third Friday of every month is underground racing. I don't know a lot about that but I now know that it means really really loud. Much louder than normal according to Uncle Griffin who goes there a lot. Hence the "man muffs" as they have been named.
Emma didn't mind the noise. Apparently her man muffs did the trick. They are adult sized ear muffs for things like shooting ranges. We picked them up at Walmart on our way to the track. Yes, we sound like the ultimate redneck family now. We were getting some strange looks. Some people thought that kids were really cute and others probably thought that we were crazy and ready to call CPS on us for having our kids at underground racing at 10:30 at night.
Clearly the noise was not a factor for Emma. Sometimes when a really loud car would go past she would startle a little, but never so much as open one lid or make a peep.
Jamie enjoyed the races also. He had been before but we were all newbies.

On Wednesday we went to church for the back to school ice cream social. Didn't know that equalled water play. Yes, Ethan is wearing his tennis shoes because he is in his clothes.
His first slip and slide. He did good but still hasn't mastered the whole standing in line concept.
Saturday we had a surprise birthday party for Trystan. He has been asking for one for years. I told him that it doesn't quite work like that. This year when Joey got one, he wanted to know why Joey got one and he never did, so...he was very exicted. At first he thought that it was just for his family and then he saw all of his friends in the pool.

Happy 12th birthday Trystan.
Ethan actually ate something sweet. He ate all the icing off the top of the cupcake.
Trystan was also very excited when he opened his gifts. He used all his money to go buy his very own lap top. He is so proud and so are we.

Emma once again being a party pooper. This child will sleep ANYWHERE!
Trystan, Cameron, and Kasie doing some kind of gymnastic move. Papaw said that this was a new record for the number of kids in the hot tub. We had a good weekend and tomorrow is Trystan's actual birthday so I will try to update again tomorrow. Ya never know, it may actually happen.

We're Back

We haven't updated in quite some time because we were out of town for 9 days. We left last Wednesday morning (3am) and went to Atlanta. We spend the night at Grand-dad's and then got up Thursday morning and headed to Savannah to spend the night with Aunt Kat on our way to Daytona Beach. The boys were very excited to get to the beach as you can see in the picture above. Kyle went with us and they had a really great time. The drive there wasn't that bad because it was so broke up. 6 hours, 4 hours, then 2 and a half hours. That is good because Emma hates the car. She did really well though because we timed our travel around sleeping times.
Ethan took right to the water. He had an eventful week though. He ended up with swimmer's ear in both ears because he liked the water so much. He also decided that he is a big boy now and pee pees and poo poos the potty. On a bad note, he got a big boo boo while on our trip. One night he was really tired from going to the beach to the pool to the beach to the indoor pool, and back and forth again. He wanted one last trip to the hot tub in the indoor pool before hitting the elevator for our room. Mommy was opening the big heavy metal door for him and opened it on top of his foot. It ripped his big toe nail off and he cried, although not near as much as Mommy did. He had to go the doctor when we got back home yesterday and they said that it will grow back fine but Mommy still feels really awful. The trip was great other than that though. Ethan woke up this morning and wanted to go back to the beach. Don't we all?

In the background is our condo. The view from our room was great. It was nice to wake up every morning and see the ocean.
Ci Ci brought a tent like thing for shade for Emma. She loved sitting in it and playing on the beach.

Monday we went to Daytona International Speedway to do the Daytona 500 Experience. Here is Trystan with Dale Jr's handprints.
Ethan thought he has in heaven.
Sarah, our niece, went with us. People thought that Mommy and Daddy were crazy with all 5 kids there. That is the top of Ethan's head in the bottom right corner of the picture. He wouldn't sit still, imagine that, too much to look at.
The whole crew in Victory Lane where the winning car goes after the race. Pretty cool.

Aren't the 3D glasses a new fashion statement. The movie was really neat and Mommy learned a lot about Nascar. Emma slept through most of it and it was really loud, it was IMAX. It even scared Ethan at first. It went totally dark and the loud noise of a race engine came on and Ethan started crying really loud and said "I don't want to do this!" He calmed down and loved it. He sat still and watched the whole movie and it must have been 30-45 minutes.
This is with the winning car of the last Daytona 500. They drive the car straight in the museum after the race, in it's exact condition.
This is showing how steep the side banks are on the track as the cars go around the curves. It is 31 degrees of curves. Ethan couldn't even stand on it.
Ethan couldn't get enough of the race cars.

Trystan entered the 16 second pit crew challenge.

Emma on the beach, sand on her face and all. She had a big time on vacation also. She cut 2 teeth. Last Friday she had no teeth. Mommy knows this because Emma chews on her fingers every day. Saturday she had 2 teeth. Mommy found that out really quick as she chomped down.
Beach beauty!

Daddy and Ethan flying a kite on the beach.

Emma thought she would help her brother with the kite.
Ethan has another new love in his life. Putt putt. Our condo had free putt putt and Mommy probably logged about 6 plus hours in just a few short days. He didn't discover the putt putt until half way through the week.

He also enjoyed shuffle board, but not as much as putt putt.
Love the concentration tongue.
Trystan and Kyle met a girl named Savannah and hung out with her all week.
Ethan and Sarah blowing bubbles with Aunt Kat. Ethan taught them his trick of letting the AC unit blow the bubbles and it makes a lot. The people on the balcony above us were waiting to hear "Dancing Queen." If you look at the top of the picture really close you will get an idea of how many bubbles it was making.

The resort had many activities for the kids. One was scuba diving. Trystan and Kyle got to try their hand at scuba in the pool.

Emma napping on the beach. She did that a lot.
Ethan also discovered his love for boogie boarding.

We went to the board walk our last day there.