I am trying to get caught up on my posting. I've been slacking off this summer and figured it was time to post some pics. I've lost my camera, so now is a good time to get caught up--lol!

Mother's Day

Ben in the church fellowship hall after service on Sunday morning. Braden and Ben love to play ball "together" Mother's Day photos with the boys. This was one of the last days before we cut Ben's hair off that he'd taken so long to grow. He didn't want to get it cut, but I told him at Christmas that he could grow it until school was out. The sweet cards Ben made me for Mother's Day

Nah, he's not a bit ornery--ha!

Flowers for Grandma

Flowers for great Grandma

Ben made me a t-shirt for Mother's Day that said, "Happy Mother's Day.....this is the best Mom ever" (not in that exact order)~Absolutely priceless!

Day Out with Thomas (The tank engine)

Well, the time for Day out with Thomas came around again this year and we knew that we had to take our little "choo-choo" fanatic to see the real Thomas. We thought he would absolutely love seeing him in person. When we got there, we first went to the big train tent where you can watch and play with all the trains they have on display. Braden especially liked this one! Ben, who said he didn't care a thing about going to see Thomas this year, was actually a little more impressed than he thought he'd be once we got there.

We decided to take Braden around the front of the station house to let him see Thomas up close. Well, we were just fine walking around the corner, he got a glimpse of him and about that time, the real train blew his whistle--nice and LOUD!!!!!!!!! Braden, being a boy that LOATHES noise, needless to say, was DONE with the whole excitement of seeing Thomas. He began to go into a panic attack and began crying and running in the opposite direction of me and Andy and was saying "That way!" and trying to get in any door of the shops on the left that he could. I have never seen such a panic attack out of a 2 year old before. We were hollering and hollering at him to come to us, and he was just insistent that we needed to get away from the train in the opposite direction. (it was actually hilarious how histerical he got) We just had to laugh--I mean, what else can you do? Finally I got a hold of him and picked him up and tried to comfort him and show him Thomas, but for nearly an hour, he refused to look in the direction of where Thomas was, no matter what we tried. In the meantime, Ben went over and checked out the firetruck...

Day Out with Thomas cont...

Then we went over and let Ben slide on the big slide, which he did about 20 times. Turns out, he had more fun that day than Braden did. Here Braden is in line with Ben, but he didn't actually ever make it all the way up to slide down. He kept falling and having trouble getting up the ladder. We did, however get him to smile at least for a little while while he jumped in this bouncing thing (forgot what they're called) He LOVED that!!!! It was a very hot day and we were all very ready to go after spending about 3 hours there. Braden was pooped! Before we left, Ben went over to wave bye to Thomas. Pretty cute for someone who didn't want to go in the first place--huh! When we got in the car, Braden was still refusing to look in the direction of Thomas. He didn't want ANY part of it!!! Ben was trying and trying to pursuade him to look at Thomas and tell him goodbye, but Braden refused vehemently! The perfect topper of a hilarious performance by our stubborn 2nd born came though when we pulled away from the station and headed down the block to go home, we got about 2 blocks away and Braden said in a very quiet voice, "b bye choo-choo." Andy, Ben and I burst into laughter! Braden didn't crack a smile and was asleep within 60 seconds. What a day!

Summer Fun

Last year I picked up this little pool on clearance. I thought it would be a great sized pool for Braden when this summer rolled around. Well, since I hadn't put our big pool up yet, the older kids decided to play in it. It was hilarious b/c they begged me for a week to put it up b/c it looked about 3 times this big on the box. They were all saying "Is that IT????" over and over after we got it blown up. When they realized that was all they were getting until the weather got nicer, they all began to enjoy it, surprise, surprise! One of the cutest of my boys this year! Agua!

Awana Ceremony

This past year, Braden got to be involved in Awanas in a new class we started called--Puggles. It is for 3 year olds. He absolutely loved it! I don't think I got any pics of him in his classroom, but this is of the ceremony when they got their certificates. Braden was not too whoopy about being up on stage, so he sat in Miss Lori's lap the whole time. When Braden gets nervous, he chews on his hands (ie. above--lol) Braden learned some very cute things while in Puggles. He came home one night in Jan. or Feb and was picking up a Bible and saying "BIBLE." And then every book he picked up he thought was a bible and would proclaim it to be. He would get so excited to go to church so he could see his friends in Puggles. And never threw cried when I'd leave him in there. This is Ben and his crew saying a memory verse that they had learned. I opted to work in Sparks this year b/c of Ben going off to Kindergarten. I felt like I didn't get to see him that much, so I began working in his class so I could see him interact with other kids his own age. Even though I wasn't a leader at his table, we enjoyed being in the same classroom together. He worked his way all the way through his book this year and even got through the review. We were so proud of him! He is very good at memorizing and puts Mommy to shame. He can say all the books of the Bible in less than 15 seconds. He learned songs that had them all on there, and he can go through them so fast that you can hardly understand him. We had about 25 kids in Sparks, so gametime was quite chaos.