A camping we will go!

We finally made a camping trip this summer and Waylon is ready to go again already. We went camping with Jake's parents,  their dog and our family.  This was Toni's first camping trip and I think she is in love. This blog is mostly pictures as they tell better stories than I can here.  So enjoy.

Here is where Toni was placed as we unloaded the gear.  She did not nap in the afternoon that day, nor did Waylon.  They both knew it was going to be a fun day and she was so excited to be outside in her bed!

This was one of those things I thought to bring and am so glad I did as it was a huge hit. With Toni not walking yet she was a big fan of the wagon.  The spot where we camp has a great dirt road that Waylon would just pull her back and forth on.  He was so great about it and did great pulling her a lot.

Toni also got her first quad ride on this trip with Grandpa.  She had been riding in the wagon and was getting sleepy so grandpa brought her back on the quad which kinda woke her up some because it was so cool to be on the quad. 

Rain Rain also got to come along on this trip. She is 13 years old and this was her first trip camping too.  Waylon was thrilled to have her as a playmate, well kind of. She doesn't really play that much any more but it sure was fun to poor dirt on her.  Poor dog

Because Waylon was so great about pulling Toni around Daddy pulled Waylon on longer rides in the wagon using the quad. Only a dad would think of this right?  All I thought was it was going to be dusty for him, but he was fine.

Ahh the I love being dirty pictures...don't worry he gets a lot worse a little later.

Toni the second afternoon after fighting and fighting a nap, this is how I caught her.  I placed on her back and let her have  a much more relaxing nap after I took her picture of course. :-)

Here was our set up of camp.  Another thing I brought that I was so glad I did was the gate/coral for Toni to be in. Worked out well for all of us.

Some things never change.  Two years ago I have a picture of Waylon doing this same thing kicking and kicking the dirt.  This faze of being a race car and racing in the dirt might last a lot longer than I had thought it would.

Oh gosh look at those hands.  Jake said his shower this night was so grose he had dirt in so many places and still did not get all the way clean.  Clean enough for camping though.

Here is a kind of cool shot of the dog in front of the camp fire one night as we were roasting marshmellows.

Yummy! Someone loves these!

Toni even got to stay up and hang out with Grandma by the fire this night.

One of our quad rides we had found an elk skeleton.  The boys gathered it all up and put it together and gave Waylon a little mini lesson on the parts of an Elk.  I totally thought I got a picture of the whole thing put together but I did not...rats!

Waylon did a lot of riding with Daddy and began to learn the basics of quad riding with daddy already.

The ride home! We were all soo tired...but had such a great time! Great memories on this trip.

Here are some friends we had near our camp sight. They liked one of Toni's toys that had a counting cow song on it. :-)

The closing of summer

Oh how I hate to write these blogs every year, but as with each part of the year things come and go. We officially have two weeks until I go back to work. So in closing I wanted to do a blog of some of the fun things we have been up to and some things to come as summer truly does come to an end. BOOOO!!!!!

This is our family at the Pickard's for the 4th of July.

Waylon and Toni in their festive gear for the fourth.  Yeah Toni is smiling here!

My two handsome guys. Although you can not see it well, Jake has on a super cool fighter pilot shirt and Waylon had a monster truck one on. Both all decked out in ALL AMERICAN.

This was a fun project that Jake and Waylon did at the beginning of the month. Lowe's has a cool Build and Grow program where twice a month you can sign up and go in and do a project for free.  Waylon LOVED this because it was a tow truck and he got to do it with daddy.  Jake said it was pretty crazy but they had a good time.  Waylon and I plan to go in a couple of weeks to do a back to school project together while daddy stays with Toni this time.

This is what his project looked like and it had some stickers on it. However as soon as he got home he was all about painting it. He did a great job painting it all red. Wierd though I have no pictures of it done. :-( He spent about 40 minutes carefully painting his truck.

There has been a lot of  swimming this month.  We have gone over to my Aunt and Uncles house a few times and Waylon has done great with Uncle Barney in the pool.  Which is funny because as a kid he was something to be terrified of while in the pool, but he has been amazing with Waylon in the pool. Waylon loves to swim with Uncle Barney.

My cousin was in town for a week and we went swimming twice that week too!

Aunt Courty and Toni hanging in the pool.

Ethan and Waylon eating together.

Then there have been swim lessons too.  We signed up at the Sunrise Moutain Pool near my school and Waylon goes 4 days a week for 30 minutes.  He has done really well, especially with his pre practice with Uncle Barney.  Waylon is learning how to hold his breath under water, kick on a kick board, jump into the water and swim with his arms and legs together.

We still have this week to go befor swim is over. I did not sign up Toni because I was not sure how Waylon was going to do and really wanted to watch him. I think next year we will be safe to do swim lessons at the same time and get her in the water too.

For now though her and I just watch brother in pool and sweat a lot. :-) She does love to suck on ice though and have a snack while watching him.  Daddy has been at most of the swim lessons too which has been really great.

More to come as we have just a little bit of time left before heading back to the real world. uhh Yuck!

Enjoy what is left of your summers and most importantly enjoy Family and Friends.

Up soon is Camping!

My Artist

This was one of those "activities" I had found a while back and was saving it for the right day and well, let's face it, a day Waylon was willing to do it.  He has gone into full summer mode and does not appreciate my teacher efforts to continue practicing letters and numbers..I still do though. :-)

This lesson I had found from a blog/teacher I follow (here is the blog I got this lesson from http://heidisongs.blogspot.com/2011/05/little-trip-to-fire-station-big-trip-to.html ) This was a guided drawing lesson for a firetruck.

I can not tell you how proud I am of my little artist, he did such a great job drawing it and then an even more amazing job coloring it. This is a keeper for all time in this mama's book.

In this lesson you draw out the square that is the cab of the firetruck and the rectangle that is the back of the truck and then I just followed her free download on the blog and did it step by step with Waylon.  He got mad at me at first because I had given him the paper with the square and rectangle on it and then began the drawing lesson, and he told me to wait because he had to trace the square and rectangle first. :-) When doing this lesson he did not want to do the stick person driving the firetruck yet, he had told me he was not very good at them so to just go on to the next step. I loved this lesson because it was fun first of all but the drawing directions were reinforcing things he knew already like circles, squares, rainbows and even letters too.

Things I love most about this drawing:

1) Well duh...my little man did it :-)

2) He tells you when describing the picture that the wheels are ovals and not circles because the firetruck is racing off to a fire. (Wow! that is pretty creative)

3) He colored in the lines so well and even did the light on top his favorite Scarlet Red because it shines brighter he tells me..the truck itself is what he calls Red (from Cars) red.

4) He drew in the sky and grass on his own and even added the tree.  The amazing thing is it matches and lines up behind the fire truck.

I can not believe that he turned 4 only a little over a month ago and was able to do this so well. I will be looking for more guided lessons like this to do with him.  Because right now he has me drawing out all the cars from "Cars" soon he will catch on though that I am tracing them and he can too.

This was another drawing we worked on last week for the 4th of July.  I showed him how to draw fireworks and flags.  He loved doing this and made this picture for his Uncle Travis.  He had told me that he wanted to give this to him because he (meaning Uncle Travis) said he was "his buddy"  I wrote Uncle Travis at the top for him and he traced it, but as you can see by the look on his face he was pretty proud of this picture as well. 

He made one for me that I will also forever keep in his keepsake box but I will have to admit I love Uncle Travis' picture more.  :-)

Can't wait to see what he does next. We are so proud of our Artist over here Way to Go Waylon~!

Update on Our Artist

Alright so I was excited to see what he was going to do next and boy has he done a lot! Within about 2 weeks Waylon has drawn a lot of pictures, these are some of his (and my) favorites.  I can not even begin to tell you how proud I am of him. He tells me all the time he draws like Papa Jeff because he can look at something and then draw it, and he does a pretty amazing job too, I mean really?

Here are some of his latest creations with his and my thoughts of them:

This is a drawing of one of his toys (an aircraft carrier).  He actually started this one and then got stuck on what to draw next so he grabbed the toy and brought it to the table. I could hear him talking to himself about what to draw next etc. Now he did not color this one but still did a great job.

This one makes me laugh, because I just love his stick people.  This is a picture of us in our camping trailer.  I am wearing the purple dress. (one I must wear a lot).  Toni is to the left of me and laying down sideways and then Waylon is to left of her and Daddy is the other orange headed person.  I love this one because he drew things that are actually in the trailer, like beds and sinks. Waylon says my eyes are popping out too and I have a funny face. "too cute"

This picture he worked on for I don't know how long one morning, literally.  He woke me up with this one in hand and I was amazed at what he had drawn.  I think this one is pretty clear as it is a tow truck. Some things he pointed out on this picture that are pretty great are the wheels and all the bolts in them.  Plus there is one wheel that is "not on the road" he tells us this is the spare wheel and is not supposed to be on the road.  You will also see the hook in the back and of course the cute person driving the tow truck.

This is another picture he woke me up with one morning.  We had talked about drawing me some princesses one night before he went to bed and I could tell his mind was racing with ideas as he went to bed. So of course this was the first thing he drew for me in the morning before coming in to wake me up.  This is 3 princesses and the small item that is between the two in the pink and blue dresses is the table of food for them to Feast on Waylon told me.  You can not really see the detail in this picture but he also drew eyelashes on the girls too.

This picture is of Waylon and one of his friends Brody.  They have shovels with dirt (that is the brown) on them. They are working in the backyard.  So cute I love the snowman type orange bodies and the fingers too which look like rakes. :-)

This is a race car he drew for Jake.  Love the spider arms.

This is a butterfly family he drew. He loves drawing these out and making the wings many colors.

Such an Artist I love you Waylon.

Toni's Birthday Party & Big Kids in the Truck!

I can not believe it, not only is Toni one and the party is OVER...but this is my 130th post on the blog!

This is thankfully the only TOY she got for her birthday...and it was from US.  Everyone at the party was wonderful in getting her clothes for us and I know WE appreciate it SO much! Thank you... On a side note when Jake was talking to Waylon about Toni's party...Waylon was asked if he had fun...he replied with "yeah, but I thought she would get more Toys, I wish there would have been more toys at the party..." Don't worry before we all know it everything will be toys just like it is for him... :-)

One of many of the adorable things she got from family and friends.  I love how she looks at it when Daddy is holding it..but me, not so much.  Daddy has that special touch I guess...

The crowd that came for the party..

Aunt Pat, Nancy, Mom, Uncle Travis, Gavin, Hudson, Aunt Heather and Skylar.

Grandpa Larry, Uncle Barney, Grandpa Waylon, Grandma D. Uncle Jon and Connor

Brandy and Grandma Pam

Toni and Mommy

Waylon struggled a little, because this was the first time FULL attention was not around him.  However, he loved the cousins being there and having time to play with everyone. He only had one small meltdown..which is to be expected..and did great otherwise.

Aunt Heather is 2 for 2 now...she got Toni the super cute 2 piece that she was wearing in the Tucson post, and now Toni has her second 2 piece.  I am sure pictures of this one will come very soon.  I am excited, Toni on the other hand LOVED Aunt Heather's tissue paper.

The Family photo before the cake eating EVENT.

One last shot of her cute and in her dress with her cake and then....

Here we go...starting with small bites just like she eats normally..

Then things got a little crazy...SHE LOVED the cake and became quite vocal as she ate it. She soon realized that EVERYONE was watching her every move..

I love this one, almost as if she is saying "I did it!"

Not a complete mess but plenty messy for her.

Thanks to my mom, she did have Grandma Toni's famous (at least for our birthdays) Cake. I was planning on making it, and then things happened and I found myself buying a box cake instead of all the ingredients for the other cake. I think I am a little intimidated and did not want to mess it up especially on the FIRST birthday.  So I made the cute themed one and mom provided a piece (if you will) of Grandma Toni with her cake which was a HUGE hit.

Then we went for a small swim afterwards and had a nice evening with my sister and brother in law. Thanks for dinner it was amazing!

BIG KIDS IN THE TRUCK!

Well with the first birthday also comes the transition of the car seat.  Toni was a couple of pounds and inches over the requirement..So Waylon got a super cool booster seat from Daddy..Who else but Lightning McQueen (boy I hope he like him forever) and then Toni was switched to brother's old seat.

I found it kind of ironic that today (1 year ago) was the day she came home from the hospital..and her first car ride...and now today she road facing forward for the first time too.  She talked and watched the whole ride.  She is a little farther apart from brother, which I am not sure how she feels about yet, but now we are able to pull the cup rest down in the middle which is SO Cool according to Waylon.  I can not believe it..two big kiddos are in the back of my truck now...

She is checkin' out brother as they were both very excited to go "somewhere" today.

That's ALL Folks!!!