Middle Helper

We often joke about Ty being as fiery as his hair and he is most of the time but most of the time in a good way. He is funny, smart, fiesty, creative and creatively ornery but he also LOVES to help. Gabe loves to help too and Ty often times wants to do whatever Gabe is doing, however Ty also likes to do his own thing every now and again. This weekend Gabe was inside and Ty saw Daddy outside sowing grass seed and he wanted to help. He was so cute trying to do everything that Daddy did. He also likes to help me in the kitchen. He loves to dump in the ingredients but pretty sure this is his favorite part...sneaking the cookie dough, when I catch him and say HEY! he finds it hilarious. I'm so glad he has such a helpful heart.



and some random pictures for a rainy Tuesday

My girl who no longer lets me put things in her hair(tear... this lasted roughly 40 minutes before she pulled it out, let's hope it's just a phase) Please disregard her drool soaked shirt, I think she is getting another tooth.

Our 3 blessings checking out the "junk magazine" on the couch, I thought it was cute to see them all standing there and the height difference between the terrible trio:)

We Call her Grinny

It all started with her Daddy. He started calling her Callagrin instead of Callaghan. It stuck, she is now known around here as Callagrin or Grinny for short. She usually is all grins like here. However sometimes Grinny is not so full of grins. Like here(but she is still pretty cute if I do say so myself) She is our happy go lucky girl and Grinny suits her wonderfully, but if you make her mad watch out she is dramatic!

Happy Birthday Auntie Em

Happy Birthday! What a fun year you have ahead! Sorry we aren't there to celebrate with you like this time(but I'll be your place will stay much cleaner:).But we were so happy to get to see you twice this summer! We hope you have a great day and we love you very much.

Cake Pops and Waterparks

We had a busy weekend! Friday I decided I was going to experiment with cake pops. I came across this baking blog and decided the cake pops would be cute for Callie's birthday so I wanted to try them out first. I made them Cyclone cake pops since the big game was this weekend. I used yellow cake and then coated them in red with gold sprinkles. They turned out pretty well. I need to perfect my dipping method as many times I couldn't get them as smooth as I wanted or the cake pop would fall of the stick when I was trying to coat it. I haven't decided yet if I am going to do them for Callie's birthday or not but it was fun to try. The site has so many cute ideas and there is even a whole book coming out about cake pops. The kids liked them a lot(I never could get a pick of Gabe with his, he ate them too fast, Callie had one minus the red candy coating, I didn't want to deal with that mess:) Saturday I had to work bright and early at 6 and was able to get off work by shortly after 1. We then headed to the Amana's and went to the Waserbaun indoor waterpark to help celebrate Brady's birthday. The kids LOVED it and had a great time. Callie included, she is our little water baby, she loves to splash in the water. Ty loved the little fountains and was even brave enough to climb up on the play equipment they had in the little kids area. Gabe liked the little area but he spent most of his time on the two tube water slides. He was just over the height requirement so Carl took him up to see if he wanted to try it. Gabe will try anything water related once, he went right down the dark tubes no problem and then practically ran back up the stairs to do it again. He was braver then his mom. It took me awhile to gather my courage to try them, especially the red one which had quite the drop to start off and then was very twisting and turning and really dark, Gabe loved that one and did that one more often then the more gradual dropping green slide. They also had a bigger pool with a basketball hoop and the kids liked to be in there as well. Here are some of the kiddos including the birthday boy! The boys loved the water but also loved staying in a motel. They think it is pretty cool to get to sit on the bed and watch TV and sleep in the same room as Mom and Dad(Ty did NOT want his picture taken here and poor Gabe's eyes were so red probably from all that water shooting in his face going down the water slides). After we swam for quite a while we had pizza, cake and ice cream for Brady's birthday. The boys slept very well that night! Sunday we headed to Iowa City to the first service of a new church that our church helped to plant. Veritas meets downtown in the Ped Mall and had great turnout for their first service. A few of our friends moved to Iowa City as part of the church plant and it was so great to get to see them. As much as I'm a Cyclone I have to admit the downtown Iowa City area is a really cool area and the location of the new church will be great for students. After church we met Uncle Pete at Steak and Shake and waited and waited and waited and waited for our food. We had some very impatient children on our hands but they really did pretty well for having to wait 40 minutes for burgers and fries. It was nice to catch up with Pete a little and Ty added to his laundry for the week since he sat by Pete at lunch, never sit by Ty if you want to stay clean:) It was a great weekend minus the horrendous game but having so much fun otherwise made up for that!

Ty's Train Ride

Grandma and Grandpa took Ty on a special outing this week. They took him to the Boone Scenic Valley Railroad to ride the train! I heard he was a bit on the wiggly side during the ride but once he got home he was so excited to tell us about the train. I think he had a good time, even though his red hair causes some....temper issues sometimes:)

11 Months

Callie is 11 months old today! This month she has started standing on her own, no support, although not very often and when she figures out what she is doing she sits down. She loves pasta, grapes and peaches. She has started clicking her tongue, shaking her head no when we say her name(she knows she is in trouble), and dancing to music. She is getting another of her top teeth but this one is taking awhile to break the surface. She loves other babies and little kids and still crawls her way into everything. Taking her 11 month chair picture I had forgotten how difficult it gets to get one, she is a mover!
still not exactly what I had in mind but I guess I'll take it, she is kind of sitting in the chair:)

and as always the big brothers wanted in on the action, especially Ty. Today is game day so they are all wearing their gameday gear(Callie's gameday cheerleading gear is in the wash, so we went with her backup Pink Cyclone gear instead)