Happy Birthday Carter

Our little man is 1!

I can't believe that Carter is already 1. His first year FLEW by so much faster than Haylee's did. The theme for Carter's party was trains. I have been known to do some fun cakes for Haylee's birthday, so I couldn't not do a fun cake for Carter!

Here's a picture of his Choo-Choo Cake - Didn't Byron do a great job frosting the cake?

Carter's part of the cake he got to destroy was the caboose - he LOVED smashing it, but wasn't too interested in eating it!

We had so many family and friends over to help celebrate this special day with us.

Happy 1st Birthday Carter!

A Camping We Will Go....

We attempted to go camping at the beginning of June - that did not work out so well. It started raining on our way up to the campsite, so that was a bust. We decided when we got home that we were going to try again. So, we went camping at the beginning of August. We have been up to Carter Lake before, and because of that, and it being Carter's first camping trip, we went there again.

Our campsite was great this time. We were on the end of the drive, so we had TONS of space for the kids to run around. Also, right down from our site was a sandy beach. It was a great spot.

The kids "helping" Daddy start a fire.

Yummy S'Mores!

We went for a hike on Saturday morning, and Haylee walked the entire way! In total, she probably walked a mile and a half total!

While on our hike, Haylee found a caterpillar. She named him Harry, and kept him in her bug container.

She carried him the whole way back, and we told her that she could keep Harry until dinner, then she had to let him go so he could go back to his home for dinner. Unfortunately, it was so HOT that day, and we forgot to move Harry into the shade, that Harry went up to heaven. Haylee handled it so well saying, "oh well, Harry's dead, yep, he's dead".

Carter LOVED playing with my pony tail, and about 5 minutes into our way back to the car, he was asleep.

After nap time, we headed over to the swim beach...the water was a little chilly when we first got in, but felt GREAT after that. The kids had such a good time playing in the sand and getting all dirty!

We all had such a great time camping. Next year, we will venture out away from Carter Lake and try some more secluded camping (nothing too extreme yet! Carter isn't big enough to backpack his gear in yet.)

Adventures in the RV

My grandpa's 80th Birthday was this past July...to celebrate, we all headed out to Chicago for a week. Because there are 9 of us, financially it made more sense to rent an RV.

Here is a picture of us waiting to start our adventures....

We started out trip out in Dixon, Illinois...where Grandma and Grandpa have the farm. There were 20 of us in total at the three bedroom, 1 1/2 bath farm house. It was fantastic, and a lot of fun. We brought our slip n slides and kiddie pool with us since we had extra room on the RV, and we are so glad that we did. We all (parents included!) had fun running down and playing on the slip n slide.

We had so much fun just hanging out and talking, laughing, and enjoyi

ng each other's company.

The last time that we had everyone together like th

is was for Cori's wedding in September of 2009. So it was decided that we get a new family picture that included all of the new family members and the babies grown up slightly. Here is the family!

This was also a chance for our little family to get a good picture of the four of us. I think we have a pretty handsome family!

That's all for now, I'll write more about the trip tomorrow....

Tri Tri Again

There are some DA's at work that did a Sprint Triathlon last year. Because I was 7 months pregnant at the time of the Tri, I told them I would pass, but would definitely do it this year. Well, come January, Toni began talking to me about doing the She ROX Triathlon in Aurora. It is an all female triathlon set for the end of June. I told her yes, I was totally interested, but not completely....I was terrified of competing in a Tri.

The Sprint Tri is a 1/2 mile swim, a 12 mile bike and then a 3.1 mile run. I knew I had the run down, no concerns there, but the swim is what terrified me more.

Toni kept coming to me and asking if I had started training, if I had registered, etc. I kept telling her no, I hadn't done either and that I was scared. I kept delaying, giving her reasons as to why I couldn't/didn't want to do it. She promised me that if she could survive the Tri last year, surely I could survive and do well in the Tri.

I finally registered and competed in the Tri. My overall goal: Finish without having to stop. My goal was accomplished. It wasn't pretty before, during or after, but I finished. I did the swim in 29 minutes, the bike in 1 hour and 1 minute (ouch, I know, that is TERRIBLE!) and the run in 31 minutes. I had a GREAT time of ladies cheering me on the entire way, and I know that I couldn't have done it without them. They truly are a great bunch of women who are so strong both physically and mentally. I can't thank them enough for their support, because I really wouldn't have made it through without them.

Toni and the other girls said that I would get addicted to competing in Triathlons....they were right. There is nothing like saying that you have completed a Triathlon, and I will definitely be doing them every year from here on out. My goal for next year: improve my times...shouldn't be too hard to do!

Here is a video that Toni and her partner (and most valuable cheerleader!) Andrea put together! Enjoy.