Our Temporary Pets......

On one of Josh's trips out of town for the day, he ran across these two turtles and decided to pick them up for the boys. He had been looking for some for weeks. The boys were soooo excited to see them. Collin decided he wanted to name the girl "Coat" and the boy "Dan". Yes, we do know they were a boy and a girl, but I don't want to get into the details of why we know that if you know what I mean. :-) Collin loved carrying them around. Carter loved watching them at first too, but as you can tell from the 2nd picture here, he freaked out a little after he stuck his finger out at the turtle and it went back into his shell rather quickly. I think it's sudden movement scared poor Carter to death. Collin decided he wanted to let them go in our backyard. They both stayed back there for about a day and then we were unable to find them again. Oh well, I guess they just had better places to go!

Coat and Dan

A Busy Couple of Days.....

We had a busy couple of days last weekend. Luckily, Josh's parents watched the boys for us so we could do our running around.

The first thing I had to do was go pay respect to my sweet Great-Aunt Lou who passed away on May 14th. Mom and I traveled to Neosho, MO for her service. She was such an awesome lady and I have some of the greatest stories to remember her by. She lived in Tulsa, OK and when we would go to visit her, she always took us to the Picadilly Cafeteria to eat and then we would always go shopping at Stein Mart. We always had so much fun with her because she had just as much energy as us, if not more! I could literally sit and listen to her stories for hours and enjoy every minute of it.
My favorite story of hers was when she was about when she was a young girl living in Neosho with her parents. She and some friends had gone to some local hangout and there were a lot of boys from the local Air Force Base there. She spent most of the evening talking to one boy who eventually took her home that night. He asked for her picture and she obliged. A few weeks later while she was away from home, a big black limo pulled up to my great-grandparents' house and they asked to speak to my great-grandparents. The men introduced themselves as the Warner Brothers from Hollywood, California....yes, the actual Warner brothers from the production company! They said that one of their clients had given them a picture of their daughter and they wanted her to come out to Hollywood to possibly do some work with them! They told them no way were they going to send their daughter out there where nothing but bad things happened. My Aunt Lou was so mad once she found out about this some time later. Come to find out, the Warner brothers' client who had given them the picture and had taken my Aunt Lou home that night was none other than Clarke Gable!! Pretty awesome story! Who knows what might have happened had my Aunt Lou been home that day when the Warner brothers came to visit.......
Love you Lou! Thanks for all the wonderful memories that I'll always hold dear to my heart!

After returning from the funeral, we went to my cousin Mallory's high school graduation in Berryville. She is such an amazing young lady who lets the light of Christ shine through her life so unashamedly. We were so proud to watch her give her Salutatorian speech.
Courtney, Mallory & Me

Finally, on Saturday, Josh and I decided to travel up to Branson since we were kid-free for the weekend. We ran into some of our friends who were going to watch their son in a fishing tournament on Table Rock Lake. We made a short detour to Kimberling City to watch the big weigh-in. Aaron did great! He placed 5th overall and won for the biggest bass caught which weighed in at 5 lbs 14 oz! It was pretty exciting. Definitely makes me want to go fishing! I told Josh that maybe fishing tournaments would be something we could take up when we retire.....he laughed....oh well, a girl can dream, right?

Josh, Andy & Aaron

Aaron and his prize winning bass!

Fun with the Grandparents!

Last weekend we headed over to Green Forest. Thursday night we spent the night with my parents, and the boys enjoyed building a fort with Pa-Pa. While they watched t.v. in the fort, Me-ma brought them some hot dogs and chips to snack on. Pa-Pa asked Collin, "Hey Collin, can I have one of those chips?". Collin, being the funny guy he is, said, "Not tonight old man!". We all just cracked up! You never know what he is going to say next.....

The next day, Josh's parents watched the boys and even kept them overnight so we got a much needed break. They had all kinds of activities awaiting for them. Thanks Mimi and Papa!

Riding in the Ford

Making a "garden"

Climbing trees

Playing with cars

And of course, every little boy has to dig up and play with worms! EEK!

Elmo's World

Carter is in love with Elmo. He gets so excited when he sees him! We have this Elmo doll that talks and tells jokes. He also sings the theme song to Elmo's World and Carter has totally caught on to it and tries to sing the "na na na na" part to it. It's so funny. Here is a video of him with Elmo. It kind of sounds like he might be trying to say "Melmo" for Elmo in a couple of spots. Not sure about that yet. Anyways, hope you all get a kick out of this like we do. Enjoy!

Carter Evan-13 months

I just love this little guy! This is his new funny face. We call it his pucker face. We just crack up whenever he does it, which makes him want to do it even more. I just love to watch his personality develop more and more everyday.
Carter is walking all over the place now. He loves chasing Collin around. He is also quite the dancer. As soon as he hears music, he starts moving. He has also been trying to feed himself with a spoon and does a pretty good job. He has several new words recently. He has been saying momma, da-da & bye-bye, but he has added to his vocabulary.....uh oh!, more, bubbles, eyes & ball. He even does sign language for the word more....especially when he wants more food. ha! There are a few words that we think he might be saying, but don't want to call those just yet. I think he might have said "Melmo" for Elmo and "Nana" for Banana.......not too sure just yet. He does love Elmo though. We have an Elmo that sings and tells jokes and Carter loves that thing! He will sit there and try to sing along with it. Still trying to get a good video of that to post.
We are having a blast with you Carter and love you soooo much!!

Mother's Day

I love being a mother, and I am so thankful and blessed that God placed these two little boys in my life. I am so honored to be their mother. I am so thankful that I get to spend my days at home with them now.
I love you so much Collin and Carter!

Family Week

First of all, I want to warn you that this is the longest post ever....
Josh took off work all last week, so we decided to make it a full fun packed week. We had a great time, but were sure tired after all this fun. Here is a rundown of our week.....

Monday
We decided to go to my parents' farm at the creek and have a cookout. Josh's parents joined us and we had a great time of playing at the creek, fishing, building a fire, having a cookout and of course....making smores! Such a fun night!

Tuesday/Wednesday
We decided to go on a family camping trip since we got a new tent recently....just the 4 of us. We went down to Ponca to the Steel Creek campground on the Buffalo River. Such a beautiful and serene place to be. Not sure if it was a good idea to take a 1 year old, but it was definitely a memorable experience. Poor Carter tried to get into everything he shouldn't, so we spent most of our time just chasing him around. Collin was so excited about sleeping in a tent and using all his flashlights. He had a blast and is still talking about the Buffalo River on a daily basis.

We saw these adorable little goats on one of our drives around the Buffalo River area.
Aren't they the cutest?!!!

Josh was really wanting to find a turtle for Collin to take home and we happened to run across this little guy on the road. We decided not to keep him though because we wanted one that was a little smaller. We went ahead and gave him the name Modus though....after Josh's architecture firm since he had the Modus orange color. :-)

Thursday
For the last month or so, we have been going to the Bentonville Library for storytime on Thursdays. The boys absolutely love it and Collin loves the sweet librarian Miss Sue Ann. He talks to her so much while we are there and is always so sweet to thank her for reading to us. I think the boys' favorite part is when Miss Sue Ann blows bubbles and then sings songs.
Daddy was lucky enough to get to experience storytime with us. I think he got a kick out of watching the boys' reactions.

Friday
We have been wanting to see this movie for quite a while. We took both boys and they did great! Collin was super excited. Carter was a little restless at first, but once the movie started, his eyed were glued to it. He actually fell asleep during most of it! I would definitely recommend seeing this movie.....so cute!

Saturday
To end out our week we made a trip out to Gentry to the Wilderness Safari drive through zoo.
Our friends Walter & Eileen and their little girl Scout joined us and we had a great time at the zoo and even enjoyed a little picnic in the chilly weather. Before you go through the drive through zoo part, there is a petting zoo at the front. The boys and Scout loved getting up close with the animals, although I'm not sure the animals felt the same way. :-)

Collin and I even got to ride a camel!

An attempt at a group photo. :-)

Collin's favorite....the Rhino

Saturday evening we had a pre-Mother's Day cookout with our families at Courtney and Josh's house. We had a lot of great food and got in a few games of ladderball.

Hudson and Carter mowing

My mom and her 2 girls and 3 boys

Josh and his mom with the boys

See....told you it was a long post.....but it was a long week! Very fun though.
Wish every week was that eventful!