Happy 8th Birthday, Caleb!!

It is so hard to believe that 8 years ago our sweet Caleb came into this world!!  It was a scary day with many uncertainties, but God was with us and here we are 8 years later with a wonderful little boy.  

Caleb you are growing into an amazing young man.  

You are so compassionate and caring.  

You do everything whole heartedly.  

You have a great imagination and can build amazing lego creations. 

You are eager to learn.

You are one awesome kid!

We love you very much and are so glad you made us parents 8 short years ago!!

Caleb & Erika's Surgery

June 23rd was the big day!  We had to get there pretty early in the morning so Jenna had her very first sleepover at Jojo's house!  Here they are sitting in the waiting room.  Erika was proud of her nails that we had just painted.  She had said to me "mom, when you had surgery to have Jenna you painted your nails so I want mine painted for surgery too"  

 Here they are all prepped & ready to go!  Erika didn't really have to wear the hair net, but she wanted to.    Caleb's surgery was nothing in comparison to Erika's.  Caleb just got tubes put in.  Erika got tubes put in and she got her adenoids & tonsils taken out.

Caleb was running around that evening like nothing ever happened.  They told us he should have a "quiet day at home" afterwards....haha yeah right.  And really if he was feeling that good I wasn't going to stop him from running around.  He's old enough to know when he needs to rest and when he doesn't.

Erika on the other hand....well lets just say it was torture for her.  I would say the first 5 days was the worst of all.  Lots of crying, hardly any eating, lots of crying, lots of "please just take a sip of water, I promise it will help", sleeping on the couch with her, oh and did I mention, lots of crying?  She was Miserable.  With a capital M.  Seriously.  And when she's miserable, we are all miserable.  It's so hard to not be able to do anything for your daughter.
By the time she went in for her 2 week check up, she was pretty much back to her old self.  She was cautious of coughing or sneezing for quite some time because it hurt so much at first, but eventually that got better too.

Both of their hearing has improved drastically since getting the tubes.  Erika doesn't snore anymore and we are praying she doesn't get strep throat anymore, either!

Day 8 of 30!

This is pretty pathetic that I haven't completed my 30 days series and it's been MONTHS since I started it!!!
Hopefully I'll get it done this month!!

Day 8 - A place you've traveled to.

Most recently...we went to Los Angeles and San Diego.

We got to see the Hollywood Sign in person!

 We visited the beach and took awesome pictures....

 We took a trip to a few theme parks....

 Caleb was in a wedding....

And Erika got to hang out with Auntie Erika

If it ever worked out....we would most definitely move to San Diego!  We LOVE it there!  Maybe someday when we are old and our kids are grown we will own an RV and travel there during the winter!!  A girl can dream, right??

Giant Catepillar

One day this summer we went outside and the kids found this giant caterpillar in our yard!!

 I have NO clue what this was or what it turned into, 

but it was by far the largest caterpillar I have EVER seen!!

Summer 2011!!!

Wow, what a great summer we had!

We kicked off the summer a little early and took a vacation to California.  I've previously blogged a little bit about it, but I'll have to finish off the re-cap soon.
Then we spent the rest of the summer crossing fun things off our Summer To Do List!
This is the first year I've made a to-do list for summer and I am certainly glad I did it!

Here's what we did this summer:
Strawberry picking
County Fair
Lilli Putt
Lions Park
Teddy Bear Park
Try 5 new fruits or veggies (I think we ended up at 4)
Sleepover with friends
Sleepover with cousins
Vacation Bible School
Camp out in the backyard

It was certainly a great summer!  We have plenty more things that we would like to do but they are more indoor things and soon enough we'll be indoors far too much so we'll save those things for cooler weather.

Next week Caleb will turn 8 and Jenna will turn 1!
We're having some friends & family over for cake & ice cream on Sunday.
Monday we are taking Caleb out to eat for his birthday (hope he picks something good!!).
Tuesday the kids have a big Back to School bash at their school.
Wednesday David and I are headed to the Twins Game!!!  It will be our 1st time at the new stadium.
Plus, Caleb is in football so we've got a couple games & practices added into the mix!

We are busy!!  But it's all "fun" busy stuff.