leaves falling

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Having Fun Redneck Style!

What do you do on a Friday night in West Virginia along side hundreds of other Born in the Blue Rednecks?

Hint: Black and White Checker Flags
Outdoor racetrack- Choice of seating: Camp Chairs, Blankets, or the Mud
Burgers, Pizza, and Beer
Loud Engines
The smell of burning Clutches, Tires, and Cigarette Smoke
Huge Tires
Port-a-Johns
A Variety of Mullets and Rat tails
Beer Bellies, Cut off t-shirts and shorts

Bonus Hint: It's not NASCAR

Answer: Monster Mash (Monster Truck Racing!)
And we LOVED joining in on the Madness and getting our Redneck On!

At First I was excited; however, I didn't realize it was outside and I did not come prepared. After initially sitting in the mud and getting soaked withing seconds, Wade and Aubrey made a run for Wal-Mart and bought a blanket. I was a little negative at first, but soon, my inner country girl kicked in and I Loved it!

Daddy and Aubrey enjoying the show!
We were not sure how Aubrey would handle the show, but as soon as the engines turned on, she would not take her eyes off the cars. She loved, and I mean LOVED the whole show. She cheered and cheered! I'm pretty sure Wade was a very PROUD parent, when he realized his and Aubrey's similar interests. It's only a matter of time before he has her in Coveralls working in his shop.

The Turtle Truck was Aubrey's favorite.
Aubrey cheered: "Go Turtle Go!" over and over again
Later she began cheering: "Go Froggy Go!"
Wade: "Do you mean Turtle?"
Aubrey: "Oh yeah! Go Turtle Go!"

This truck "The Stone Crusher" was my favorite!

Aubrey screaming, "Whoaaaa!" She was very impressed.
When we got in the car she kept repeating, "I liked it, I liked it...!"

Maybe we'll do it again next year?!?!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Happy Days!

Happy Father's Day Daddy! & Happy Birthday Aubrey!

What a fun weekend! First Aubrey and I along with the help of my sister Emily and her husband surprised Wade with a weekend camping trip. There is a free campground about 1.5 hours away from us and supposedly it was really nice. Wade loves camping and would take the opportunity to go everyday if he had the chance. So Friday when he came home from work, I already had the car packed with all of our gear now we just had to wait for Emily and Chris to get ready. At one point, Wade asked if we could go camping and I said no, because I needed more time to prepare than a few hours (haha). Next, I told him we were going to eat dinner out to celebrate Aubrey's Birthday and we were going to meet Emily and Chris. Then I told him that Emily and Christ wanted to eat at a new restaurant that was about 45min. away. So we began driving. I played dumb like I had no idea where the restaurant Emily wanted go was located especially when the 45min. trip turned into 1hr 10min. trip. Soon I began to realize that the little bit of info that I grabbed off the internet was not enough to even put us remotely close to our destination. We had to stop several times and ask for directions. Wade really became suspicious when we were on a dirt road in the middle of no where with only trees,fields, lighting and fireflies around. Soon I told him we were going camping and that we needed his help finding the place. When we pulled into the campground at 1/4 till midnight it began down pouring. However, it soon stopped we found a nice little spot and camped anyways.

When we were house sitting a few weeks ago Aubrey fell in love with their daughter's pillow pet. So searched for a cute on just for her Birthday. However, I found something even better. It is an animal pillow and the stomach is Velcro with a sleeping bag rolled up inside of it. We gave it to her the first night of camping and she loved it. She actually stayed in it the whole night!

The next morning we sat around the fire for a short while until it was time to go to the Marietta Aquatic center where we were going to celebrate Aubrey and Brenton's 2'nd Birthday.

Look who's 2!
These two little munchkins couldn't have been more excited for their Birthday. These two love saying and singing Happy Birthday! When they realized we were singing it to them, they were even more thrilled.

When Aubrey and Brenton aren't trying to kill each other, they are very loving towards one another. And who could be mad on such an occasion so instead of pinching cheeks and pulling hair, they kissed.


Well as you can see, our family seems to like to kiss. Especially on such a Happy Day! I remember how excited Wade was when Aubrey was born in time for him to have his 1st Father's day with her in his arms. They have been such good buddies ever since.

Of course, what's a Birthday party without presents? They each had several fun presents to open up with the help of Aleigha who was such a good helper.

Water Park Fun!
Now that the presents were open and food was in our bellies, it was time to have FUN!

Going down the waster slide was a two man job for Aubrey and Brenton. They needed a Daddy at the top to help push them down and a Daddy at the bottom to catch them. They each did this about twice to realize they had all the waterslide fun they needed for one day.

The lazy river was a little more relaxing and warmer. Most of the time was spent in the lazy river. I even found $.75 in the water!


These girlfriends had fun walking around the pool grabbing the attention of other preschoolers and toddlers as they giggled and strutted their stuff.

After swimming, it was time to cuddle up in some warm towels with daddy! We've been having 90+ degree weather but on the day of the party it decided to storm a little bit and cool down as well. So if you weren't in the water, a towel was in need.
We decided to eat the cake during the thunder break when more of the family was there. Let's just say that the kids ate more sugar than any other food substance that day, which is totally acceptable on your Birthday! However, that night when we went back to the campground and was getting ready for bed, I almost took Aubrey to the hospital because it looked like there was blood in her stool. No worries though, it was just all the red dye she ate in her cake and other sweets. You know it was a good day when your diaper looks like that.

Once again, Happy Birthday Little Miss Sunshine and Happy Father's Day Papa!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Confucius Says: "Preggo Lady is Lazy"

There is no excuse for this late post other than the fact that since I have gotten pregnant, I have become a "tiny bit" lazy. I still view everyone's blog updates, but by the time I have read them, I am exhausted...lol. Well, this week (since I am now no longer teaching or farm sitting) I have been working on being a little less lazy. My house is a little more clean, most of my laundry is put away and I am ready to begin living my life! I have approximately 4.5 months left before Baby Boy joins our family, so I am going to be doing as much as I can to get ready for his arrival while enjoy the little time left we have with just one child. How I am going to do this post is to display a variety of pictures from the last few month and briefly explain where we are in life and what we have been up to. I hope you enjoy and forgive how long this may be.



Aubrey is growing up!

I can't believe how much Aubrey has grown up in the last few months. She is getting so smart. There is probably isn't anything that she can't communicate to us verbally now. She has become a chatter box. She talks all the time about everything. There are few words that I have a difficult time translating but for the most part she is rocking her speech. She can count to 20 with help in the teens. She knows her ABC's and most of her ABC phonics song. Her favorite phrases right now are: "Hot tamale (or Hot to carseat, Hot to oatmeal, Hot to oven, or anything else hot.)" She frequently says out of nowhere, "Mommy, I love you" or Daddy of coarse, "I missed you Daddy." These sweet little phrases can melt anyones heart. We love our baby girl and are so proud of how she is growing up. She is officially a non-binky sucker. Her words: "No more binkys, Binky's are for Ken Ken (her 5 month cousin), I'm a Big girl.!" In the above picture she put on her shirt for the first time all by herself. She sat for about 40 minutes intently working on getting it on.

And of course, we found out that Aubrey is finally going to be a Big Sister! We found out a few weeks ago that It's a Boy! We are so excited for all the fun, joy and excitement that little guy is going to bring into our home!


Hiking at Seneca Rock with Liz a Craig!
We had so much fun a few months ago when we got to go visit Liz and Craig and Carter in Elkins and go hiking up Seneca Rock. We forgot to bring Aubrey's backpack, but luckily I had the Mai-tie that I made with us. I don't really think they are made for hiking, but it did the job.

Wade, Aubrey, Craig and Carter


"When We're Bored at Home"
Aubrey and Aleigha playing with shaving cream. It was fun but sure made a mess. We were out of my shaving cream so I used Wade's instead. Our house smelled like 500 hundred clean shaven men had taken over the place.

One day when Aubrey was really tired, she feel asleep in the middle of the kitchen floor. She rarely falls asleep anywhere other than her crib soI took the opportunity to play a little prank on Wade when he got home. I sprayed Katsup on the floor and laid down next to her minutes before he arrived home. When he came home, he just started laughing as soon as he saw us. I guess that means I play too many pranks and he's too hard to get anymore. I know this was a very morbid prank, but I couldn't resist the opportunity.


"We're Going to the Circus"
Barnum and Baily were only a few hours away from us and we almost went to see them. However, for a lot less money, we went to a local Circus (which was incredibly tiny) instead. At first I was very disappointed. However, after I saw how much the kids loved it, I was thrilled we went there. It was so small that all the kids were aloud to sit around the Ring. They got great views and loved every minute of it.

Aleigha and Brenton decided to join the Circus


Aubrey and Brenton giving the clown "High Fives"


"Let's Go on a Babymoon!"
We left Aubrey for the first time for more than a night as we sailed away into the warm Caribbean for a week.
I think it was harder on me than it was on her, I felt so guilty and missed her a ton. However, it was awesome to have a little R&R time with Wade without any distractions other than morning sickness.

We paid for the cheapest cabin available; however when we checked on, they upgraded us to a room with a Balcony and couch. We were so excited that we jumped on the bed and shouted off our our Balcony.

We took advantage of every activity available this cruise as we competed in Rock Climbing and got a Gold and Silver Royal Caribbean medals. We also both got Gold medals in our adult dodgeball competition! Let's just say we rocked it!


Getting ready to practice our rock climbing so we can kick butt!

Enjoying the sunshine and warmth on the deck of the ship!

Wade spontaneously (with a lot of encouragement and pressure from me) joined the Men's Belly Flop contest. These are the men he was up against. He scored 1-3 out of 5 most of the time, but redeemed himself with a flip belly flop for the most painful flop and even received a few 5's from the crowd. Even though he didn't win, he made me proud!


"Welcome to Haiti"
Haiti was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Labadee Haiti was basically like a state park beach as in it was separated and gated off from the real Haiti. Although we didn't experience much of the culture, it was a perfect beach day!

Our Royal Caribbean "Navigator of the Seas" ship in Lebadee, Haiti

We paid to play of these awesome inflatable water toys for an hour. It was a lot of fun and wore us out. I did awesome stunts accompanied by amazing facial expressions on the trampoline.


Wade lounging in the water after jumping off a 20 foot inflatable iceberg.

An old wrecked ship on the island.

What I would give to be able to go back to this very moment. Hammock on the beach, palm trees shading us, warm weather with a refreshing breeze and in the arms of my love. Oh it was amazing

Ice skating on one of the lower decks of our ship. Our ship had so many accommodations and activities that kept us very busy.

"Welcome to Jamaica"

You can't fool us. This time around we didn't buy any excursions in advance, instead we decided to wait and try and do it more economically. We wanted to see the Dunn's River Falls , but didn't want to pay $300 to do it. Instead when we got off the ship, we immediately began searching for local transportation that would get us there cheaper. They tried charging us $130 a piece just to get to the falls and back. We said we wanted to use local transportation but they said if we did it would bee too dangerous and anything could happen to us. We decided to take our chances as we piled into a van full of 15 other Jamaican's. We paid $6 to get there. When we got there, we paid $30 to enjoy the breathtaking falls and climb them. The way back was a little more nerve racking as we were almost out of money and got into a van that only Wade and I were passengers alongside two teen drivers who wanted to charge us $50 and we only had $4 left. We explained to them but were not sure if they understood our dilemma. We kept waiting for them to turn off the maid road and beat us or worst. However, we made it back to Falmouth and they didn't mind that we only paid them $4. So instead of paying $300, we paid a total of $40 and we got to experience more of the culture. I loved every moment of it!

Dunn's River falls is over 500 feet of cascading falls that you could climb all the way up.

We took a short break from climbing and that's when I fully grasped how beautiful the falls really were. Here we were sitting in fresh cascading water with blue skies an palm trees above us. It was breathtaking


That night we were both worn out from our adventures that we decided to take a nap before dinner. Instead I woke up with the room completely dark to realize that it was 3 in the morning. At this point, we were starving and wide awake. We decided to get something to eat, sit in the hot tub and watch the sunrise. It was actually really fun to be awake while everyone else slept and the ship was quiet.


Since Wade was brave enough to be in the Belly flop contest, I decided I should be brave enough to do the pool side Olympics. I competed with 4 other girls against 5 guys. It was very fun, the guys won even though we tried to cheat they still beat us.


"Race Home to see our Baby Girl on Easter Morning!"
Easter was very fun this year as Aubrey was able to find her basket on her own with the help of a candy trail. She was excited to see all her goodies.

We then got to go on an egg hunt at Aunt Emily's house where the Bunny had to hide the eggs inside because it was rainy.

Easter pictures with some cousins and grandma

Everyone Kiss Grandma! You can tell who grandma's favorite is huh?