Slip N Slide

I think the pictures and videos say it all. Another fun day at the Banker house! Enjoy!

Summer

Have I said yet how much I love summer?!?!? I LOVE SUMMER!! I also love that my boys love summer and that they love to be outside all of the time. Thank goodness I have boys and that I know that boys will be boys. They get crazy dirty and I just throw them in the bath at the end of the day.

Another new love: Crayola Sidwalk Paint! Do you see how much fun the boys are having with this stuff? Love it!

Beautiful Boys

As nice as it was to get away for the weekend (see post below) I love that I get to come home to these beautiful boys with their beautiful baby blues.

Happy Anniversary!!

Engagement picture ~ Summer 2001

6th Anniversary ~ June 22, 2008

Oh, how far we have come! We have done so much and had a lot of laughs, a few tears and made lots of memories. Our good times thankfully have outweighed our bad times. We have held each other up and walked together through the triumphs and the pitfalls. I can honestly say that I love this man more today than I did the day that I married him. I never thought that that was possible but we have grown together and we have stuck together through it all.

On a side note, besides being the love of my life and the rock of our family, Chris (or Topher as I call him) is also the sweetest man that I know. This weekend for our 6th Anniversary he arranged for us to take a weekend trip (without the kids :) to St. Louis to see Chicago in concert. We heard them play the song that we danced to at our wedding (Inspiration) 6 years ago to the day, on our anniversary June 22.

To many more happy years and a lifetime of memories! I love you Toph!

Walking

Okay, so my boys are as stubborn as I am so it is just like Kayden to start to walk more than his usual 2-3 steps on Tuesday when I didn't have my camera. He literally walked across the room!! So, I got my camera back and tried my darndest to get him to walk to get it on tape today and that child just would not walk in front of the camera! Little Stinker! I finally got this.... enjoy!

Carverisms

Just a few of the totally adorable, often way smarter than he should be things that my 3 year old says:

• Listening to the Wiggles sing Where is Thumbkin in the car the other day Carver suddenly started yelling the song, I turned around and said quietly please, your brother's sleeping and he looked at me as serious as could be and said:

"But mommy, the Wiggle said to sing as loud as you want about the whole family!"

• I got upset at Kayden for knocking over the baby gate for about the millionth time and said, "I am so sick of these kids having no boundaries." Carver's reply:

"Mommy, God sent us to you, you have to love us." I just about cried!

• Asked for "Scrambioli" for dinner last night (that's Ravioli if you're wondering)
• Telling me, "Mommy, if you take a nap with us I'll give you a special treat." :)
• "Mommy, I only had 1 timeout today!!" As if that's good!
• We were riding in the car one day and Carver says,

"Mommy, there's a stranger in the car!" (Apparently a stranger is a fly, I have no idea
where he came up with that)

• Mommy, I saw God on the deck (another fly)
• Everytime that he gets sent to timeout lately he says,

"Geez, I can't do this anymore!" ( I think he got that from me:)

• Oh, and he repeats everything!!!! Especially the things you would never want him to say!
• We got him a clock for his room and told him he could not come out until after it says 7, now he sits in his room on the mornings he wakes up early urging the clock along, saying, "Go, go!"
• Sunday was Father's Day for Daddy and for Carver, so it was Carver day too. He sat at the table about twice as long as he usually does and told me, "It's Father's Day so I can."
• Took him for a run with me a couple of weeks ago and for about 2 miles he was singing,

"Run Forest, run Forest, run!"

Okay, that's all I can think of for now but I know there are more so I'm sure I'll have another installment of Carverisms soon!

Sad :(

This picture makes me sad. This is a picture of Pearl Field (0ff to the right the V shaped structure is the top of the grandstands and the press box). The University of Iowa softball complex. My home away from home for 4+ years. Unbelievable! This is just a small picture of the devestation that is upon Iowa City and Coralville. Pray that the waters receed and that the residents of Iowa City and Coralville recover quickly. We will be doing what we can to help. Just so sad right now about all of this. :(

Strawberries!

It's strawberry season again!! We went on our annual strawberry picking trip to Pride of the Wapsi in Long Grove, IA today. We have been going to pick strawberries each summer since Carver was about 15 months old. We all love it and we look forward to it each year.

Today's trip was a successful trip to the strawberry patch if you ask me. The weather was beautiful, the strawberries were big and juicy, and the kids had a great time eating more strawberries than they picked to take home.

Someone once asked us, "Why don't you just go to the store and buy strawberries like 'normal people'?" This is why........

Oh, and the strawberry pie, chocolate covered strawberries, fresh strawberries on our pancakes tomorrow morning, strawberries that I froze today so we will have some all year,and all of the fresh strawberries we will eat in the next week or so. I think these are the best strawberries I have ever tasted!

And the best part of all, the memories we have of strawberry picking each year will always last far longer than all of the yummy strawberries!

Day at the Farm

Oh the adventures we find ourselves on! On Tuesday we went up to Waterloo, IA to visit our favorite Uncle Josh (Kayden's Godfather) at his family's farm. Josh is back helping out for a couple of weeks so we thought that we would crash the party and go up and distract him from his work for a while. We had a blast and I say WE because we thought the kids would have fun but I think that Chris and I had just as much fun as they did! We learned all about growing soy beans and corn and got to check out the HUGE equipment that they use on the farm. We visited the cows which Josh's Uncle Ben was so gracious as to call in for us. It was awesome, he just started calling, "Hey Cows," and wouldn't you know it, those cows came in to visit! And you know what? Cows are loud!! I don't think I have ever been that close to a cow and that bull was a little scary. Carver climbed up in the soy bean bin with Uncle Josh and got to play in the soy beans. We even put him to work bailing hay. Oh, and Chris's favorite part, we got to ride Josh's dad's 4 wheeler around which was sooo much fun! Chris is convinced he should have one now. I can just see him riding his 4 wheeler up and down the block along side the kids in their power wheels jeep. By the time we headed out of town the kids were stinky and tuckered out, just the way they should be after a day on the farm. Wednesday morning Carver's first words out of his mouth were, "Let's go back to the farm today!" Thanks for an awesome day at the farm Uncle Josh!!

Cousins!

We spent a day at the zoo with the cousins and Aunt Sara last week and we had so much fun!! Carver is about 2 months older than Ava and Connor is about 6 weeks older than Kayden. We are so blessed to live so close to my brother and sister in law and the kids. It is so great to be able to get the cousins together fairly often and we always have a great time! Here are some pictures from our most recent zoo adventure.

Sunday Afternoon Naps

I love naps! It is one of the perks of being a SAHM if you can get both of the kids down at the same time. I often will nap with the boys, one on each arm in our bed each afternoon, I love it! Chris is always jealous of our afternoon naps, I know he, is but I must say I can't help it. It all started with Carver when he was just a baby, I would lay down with him to get him to nap (I know, I know I should have been putting him in his bed and making him sleep on his own but I just couldn't, he has always been too cute and cuddly and sleeps so well at night so I couldn't complain). I started getting him to nap on his own when he was probably 16 months or so but when I got pregnant with Kayden I was so tired all of the time that I just couldn't help cuddling up with Carver again for naps. After Kayden was born I just got really lucky and have (most of the time) been able to get them both to nap at the same time. I cuddle up with one sweet boy on each arm and away to dream land we go. I think we all love it!

The only thing better than our daily afternoon naps are our family Sunday afternoon naps. We don't always get so lucky on the weekend but when we do it is so nice. Today, after returning from church and feeding the boys lunch, we decided to take advantage of some time to just lay low so Chris had Carver on one couch and I had Kayden on the other and we turned on a movie to just relax and chill out. I don't remember falling asleep but I do remember waking up about 3 hours later to realize how cute all of my boys looked sleeping soundly. Kayden on me, and Carver on Chris. Even Riley and Capper got in on the impromptu nap time. It was one of those moments when I wished someone could have taken a picture of us because it was such a peaceful, beautiful afternoon as we all rested and spent some quiet time as a family.

Another one of those moments that Chris and I know we won't have a lot of before the boys are grown and too big to cuddle with us on the couch for a lazy afternoon. We'll enjoy it while we can! :)

Jump Right In

I took the boys to Jungle Bungle (a huge indoor playground, think McDonalds Playland times 10)this afternoon because it was crazy hot and I thought that it would be something fun to do inside. Carver always has fun, but today I did what I often try to do when we go somewhere fun and I jumped right in and crawled, crouched, slid, and jumped with him in the playground. The look on his face was absolutely priceless. He was so excited to see his old mom crawling through tunnels on her hands and knees trying to keep up with him. Everytime we got to a slide he would say, "I'll go first and catch you mom." So cute! The last time we went up I was complaining a bit about my knees hurting and he said, "Don't worry mom, I won't let your knees get hurt, I promise." My sweet boy.

Since being a mom I have really tried to put my inhibitions aside, not worry about what anyone else thinks, and just have fun for my kids. And you know what I've learned along the way? It doesn't matter what any of the adults around look like when they see you climbing around on your hands and knees being goofy, all that matters is the smile and look of absolute joy on your childs face. I know I won't remember being embarassed that I looked silly tomorrow but I will remember how excited my kids were that I actually got down and played with them and had some fun.

Tomorrow I'm taking the boys to the pool. Who cares if I'm not the best looking mom in a bathing suit there? I will be the one having the most fun!

No pictures today, I was too busy being silly. I'll try to get some new ones up this weekend.

Enjoy your kids while they're young. As much as I sometimes wish Carver weren't 3, I sure had fun with my 3 year old today!

The Innocence of Kayden

I just thought that this was adorable. Kayden can't seem to keep up with the balls or figure out where they are going. Too cute!

P.S. Aunt Katy gets a gold star for being our 1st and only responder! Comment people, let us know you're out there! :)

Oh What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday we spent the whole day outside. It was one of those perfect summer days that you look forward to all winter. We got out the pools and Carver and Kayden played in the water all day with all of the neighborhood kids. We even had a picnic lunch outside for everyone. It was such a fun day! The first couple of pictures are from yesterday.

Today, now that was a different story. We never did make it outside today because we lost track of how many timeouts Carver had by about 10 AM. The third picture posted is what Carver looked like most of the day today. It was just one of THOSE days! He didn't want to listen to us and he was just causing trouble all day long. Kayden wasn't much better. On days like today, he likes to try to keep up with his brother and cause as much trouble as he is capable of, getting into anything and everything that he is not supposed to. I asked Carver tonight when he was going to start behaving better and he said, "maybe the next day." I hope that's true because I don't think that Chris or I can either take another day like today.

Okay, I'm off to watch softball, the only thing that is keeping me going today!! Tomorrow will be better!!! It has to be right?!?!? Whoever coined the term Terrible Two's never had a 3 year old!