corn on the cob.

Mataya helped me husk some corn for dinner. She started eating hers before it got cooked. She looks so big sitting on the counter!

spencer's first day of preschool.

My little Spencer started preschool today. But not without some tears. The tears came when Spencer realized his older brother ate the last pop tart and when I picked out the wrong shirt for him to wear, but once we got that all sorted out he was excited to go to school.
Hanging up his backpack. You would think there were paparazzi at this school because of all the flash photography, but it's just a bunch of crazy parents!

He found his chair....that's my cue to leave:)

first grade.

Wearing the snake shirt for the first day of school....nice choice! I've never gotten sad sending Parker to school or watch as he struggled up the big steps of the school bus. I did get a little emotional this summer as I watched him go down the BIG slide at the aquatic center all by himself, no life jacket, and saw the excitement in his face as he ran over to make sure that I saw it all happen. It's those moments that get me a little teary when I see my little guy growing up!

And now here he is in First Grade sitting at his very own desk. Oh, I love this kid! I know he'll do great. He's most excited about playing on the bigger playground and school lunch. He has awesome teachers and lots of kids in his class that he knows.

Spencer starts preschool next Monday....I'll probably cry:)

our backyard makeover.

You can take the boy out of South Dakota, but you can't take the South Dakota out of the boy! This is a picture of our backyard taken in May. This is just downright classy. I would look at this and often wonder if I did indeed live here. Because lets be honest it's a bit embarrassing, but at least it's not in the front yard, right? My favorites are the tires on the left and the transmission on the right. The transmission belongs to my brother which he promised would only be at our house for a couple of weeks....well it's still here....it's okay it made the picture look more white trash so no hard feelings here! More backyard...just the playground. We hired 3 young men in our ward to pull up a bunch of sod in the back. It was so cold and rainy and I felt really bad, but they did in all in about 4 hours and it saved Cory and I a ton of work. Parker was the best helper of all, I wish I had a pic, but he would come in and out of the house getting drinks and candy bars for the boys and he was muddy and wet and just loving life. He was just working along side the big boys! Once we removed all the sod in the back we got a bunch of curbing done around the back and all around our house. Then we needed gravel and wood chips. We have an awesome friend who let us use his truck and trailer so we could get the wood chips for the playground area and gravel to put down in the corner for the shed to go on. This was an all day job, it was so hard shoveling all the gravel where it needed to go. We were so sore and had blistered hands the next day. The boys gladly jumped up in the trailer to help push the wood chips out for us:)Digging holes for fence posts. This was a real adventure..me and Cor with a giant auger digging holes in the ground trying not to make them too crooked and not hit any sprinklers, sweating, and swearing along the way....oh the memories! The kind of BIG projects I like the best are the one's I don't have to do! We hired a guy to come to our house and build the shed in the backyard. It took 2 of them 5 hours and they got it done! We bought paint to match our house and he painted it. Ahh, we are finally done! We put the garden in the far corner, the tomato plants are taking over. It's our first garden so we have a lot to learn, but it's been great so far. Here is the former white trash spot of our yard. We had a friend do the concrete work and it's so nice to have no more gravel on the side of our driveway for kids to throw everywhere! The kids are loving the backyard now and we are glad all the work it over!

Next up: kitchen cabinet makeover....stay tuned:)

funny and inappropriate.

You know when something funny just catches you off guard and you laugh out loud? Well, I had a moment like this a while back at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory at the Gateway and I took this pic with my phone and I was deleting some pictures today and discovered this little gem.

So, it's the picture of the chocolate and nut covered banana and the sign below it says:

"We don't touch your banana so PLEASE don't touch ours!"

Bahahaha!

more s.d.

Enjoying the fire in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard. We were enjoying the fire because it was really cold out, but we managed to eat a few popsicles as well. We noticed this huge butterfly in the tree...it was pretty cool! Don't be jealous of the flannel:)The custom smore maker.

duck..duck..duck..duck....goose!

This was taken a few months ago, but I thought it was cute.

some favorites.

These are some of my favorite pics I've taken recently. We are enjoying summer, popsicles, and fun times.

south dakota day 2

It was brought to my attention by my husband that I never posted very many pics from our S.D. trip so here are some more.

We went up to a really great park for Tucker's b-day party in Spearfish.The cute birthday boy licking the frosting off his motorcycle that was on his cake.

There was a stream and the kids went in it and I guess it was pretty cold.
There was a fish hatchery nearby and we walked over to check it out. The boys were so excited to see under the water at the big fish. It was a little gross to be honest...not like a nice clean aquarium. Okay, Spencer was giggling like crazy. He loved it! Driving back through the Black Hills....very beautiful!

spoken like a true boy.

Tonight as I was putting the boys to bed we sat on the floor to read a few books. Spencer has a tiny wart on his finger and I put some stuff on it tonight to try to get rid of it and he said,
"But I love my buddy (the wart) I don't want him to go away!"
And Parker says, "Wouldn't it be cool to make a scrapbook of all the things that come off our body like skin and fingernails and stuff like that?"

Oh boy......

sunday dinner conversation.

I thought this was so funny so I wanted to share. We sit down to have dinner tonight and it went something like this:

Spencer "Ooh, I just love milk."

Parker "Me, too."

Spencer "Milk comes from cow's butt's."

Me "No, bud, it comes from their udders."

Spencer "Oh, okay."

Cory "Spencer, what you just said was udderly disgusting!"

Cory always manages to say completely hilarious things. I was laughing at this point, but trying not to.