Who's the FAIREST of them all??? We are!

We were crazy fair-goers this summer. First we went to my town's fair. Then I won some tickets on the radio to the Winnebago county fair (where Josh works!) so we went there twice. (I had to say to Josh, "I had fun tonight... even though you took me to the carnival I was already at..." - girl on Joe Dirt)(And yes, I know I am cool for playing radio call-in games.) Then my mom bought us tickets to a THIRD fair in Milwaukee. A tractor pull, two cases of fair-food gut rot, and countless toothless carnies later, we were all faired out. Here's some of the happier moments...

Maybe this just makes ME crack up but I laugh every time. If you watch closely you can see Caleb cranking on that wheel like a madman.

The Fruits of our Labors

Here's some of our harvest. (What the rabbits and other friends let us have anyway!) We have corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, green onions, sunflowers, peas, and TONS of pumpkins!

Almost time for Preschool!

What a fun Summer it's been! And also definitely full of projects. Josh has stayed very busy! A man walking past our house with his dog yesterday saw the new front steps and said, "You've sure done alot to this house. That's a talented guy you've got there." Another man on a different day asked, "Don't you ever let that man rest?"
No, I guess I don't. It sure looks nice now though. Now we are getting excited for it to be fall and our trip to IDAHO!!! Yay! Gabe keeps talking about huckleberry picking but it might be done by Sept. 17. If y'all go, save us some! :) Josh lived off his frozen stash all year!!! He's just now running out! Gabe is also exicted to, "ride in grandpa Rhodes truck, play with cousins, and ride horses!!!" Oh, and go fishing. Hopefully he won't fall in the river this year! (Right Jenni and Jake?)

Caleb is getting so much personality. He loves to play outside and push his trucks around. His favorite is sending them rolling down the slide and flying into the bush! That makes him laugh really hard. He probably weighs 35 pounds now. I am having a pants dilemma for him. Do I find the 3T waist that fits and hem them or what? He's tall but not tall enough for a 3T! You'll all see what I mean soon.

Josh gave them both haircuts today. What a treat. They SCREAMED! I'd have pictures but we took our camera to the beach on our anniversary (5 YEARS!! Josh surprised me and took work off.) and now our camera stopped working. :( I think it got sand in it. Well, Josh is feigning helpless right now so I need to go make lunch. I'll post pics later.
Ah, the life of a stay at home mom...

Our family's newest addition

Hi everyone! As some of you may know, Josh has been wanting a dog pretty much since we got married. But that wasn't really possible till we bought a house. So when we got moved in he started talking about it again but I was like, "I really don't want a dog messing up our nice new house." But he kept talking about it and of course he didn't just want a dog, he wanted a BIG dog. Preferably a husky or a boxer. So I REALLY didn't want a big dog in the house. But the other night after looking on craigslist for about 2 weeks, I happened upon this ad with this picture:

... and I was hooked. I showed Josh when he got home and said half-jokingly, "THIS is the only kind of dog I would get!" and he said, "Call them!" I guess he just figured any dog was better than no dog. So I emailed the people and the next day we went "Just to look," but of course we couldn't leave without her. Gabe named her Molly and she is his new best friend. It is so cute to watch them together. He carries her around with her hanging there with her top legs over his arm and the rest of her body hanging. She is hopefully going to be a very kid tolerant dog. So, we've been dealing with a crying puppy at night, a teething Caleb, and a "Where's Molly? I need Molly!" three-year-old. We must be crazy. Josh has been a lot more patient with all of it than I have I think. So, wish us luck! Hopefully we won't lose our minds!

My Birthday Present - in Gabe's eyes

So, yesterday was my birthday (I am now 25 - it's a milestone!) and I got this really pretty gold, linked bracelet. I really like it especially because it doesn't have the usual clasp that's so hard to get on. It has like, the round opening and then a bar on the other end. So I had it on and Gabe came over to me and was playing with it on my wrist. I was like, "Isn't it pretty?" (I need a daughter.) But he kind of just kept looking at it, then figured out how to take it off, and ran out of the room. So after a couple minutes I went to see what he was up to and this is what I found:

You have to look past Gabe's weird, cheesy smile and past the fact that he's in his undies and look at his cars. Here's a closer look:


Yes, that is my bracelet being used as a tow cable. What a little boy I have, huh?

(Note: Pause my music on the side first.) I saw this on a blog and it made me laugh so hard I had to put it on mine too. You have to watch it till the end, that's the funniest part. For all you moms...

Our cute little Caleb officially weighs 33 pounds and is 33 inches tall! (Easy to remember.) And on Father's Day I can say he officially was walking not just two steps and falling down. Like, chair to couch then to the tv, etc. He is probably going to slim down but the doctor has me giving him 1% milk not whole! (Josh said, "Aww, his first diet." He has four teeth and more on the way and he wears 2T clothes. :)

The Garden Walk

I am posting some pics of the things we have growing around our house. I am learning a lot about gardening, which I previously knew not a single thing about. Josh was wishing Devin and his landscaping crew was here the other day when he was trying to add stepping stones to our yard. It wouldn't have been so bad if he didn't have to take out a bunch of rock and tarp. But it's done now so hopefully the grass we planted will grow. Caleb had his checkup and he is huge! And he is officially walking! I will do a separate post just on him. :)

Our fun week

Wow, three posts so far in the past couple weeks! I'm turning into a blogging fool!!! After this I probably won't post for a while because the excitement may hit a little plateau. But we had Caleb's birthday last week and this week we had two things planned for a while so I have to post some pics. The first fun thing was that we went to Wisconsin Dells. It's arguably the best waterpark city in America. Noah's Ark is there (which claims to be America's largest waterpark. Is this true? I don't really know. But it is very big.) But we stayed overnight at the Wilderness Resort which has three or four indoor waterparks and three outdoor waterparks. But having a three year old dominating your trip pretty much means going down the same slide in the kiddie are 98 times. I give you, exibit A:


So in addition to the kiddie slide, we did go down a couple bigger slides too. But most the time was spent just splashing around for two days with the boys. Here's a couple more pictures.



We also ate at Cracker Barrel, Josh's favorite restaurant. It has this big porch with all these rockers and it's set up like an old country store.

Which reminds me, on a side note, the most exciting part of the week for me (the rest was fun too but this was exciting for me) is that we finally bought a porch swing! When we bought this house the porch had been enclosed poorly and I dreamed about how nice it would be to have a big open porch with a porch swing. So it's finally ready! Here's the boys chilling on the swing.

So then after we got home from the Dells, we woke up the next morning and went to spend the day with Thomas the Tank engine - every 3 year old boy's dream. (Well, it was Gabe's at least.) He was in Green Bay and they have this engine that looks like Thomas and all these outdoor activies kids can do. They also had all these old trains with passenger cars that we looked around in. It was pretty interesting. I wish I was born in the 40's so I could be a teen in the 50's when life was more wholesome and people rode trains. (I don't know how I'd survive without a microwave but everything else would be cool.)




So that was our busy week! We had a lot of fun. Hope you're all having fun and enjoying summer too!

What a difference a year makes!