Summer...finally!

Wow it's been awhile, I need a new post on here...
After our very rainy, cold spring, the warm weather is finally here to stay so we have been spending lots of time outside. These pictures were from last week. All we had were these two baby pools, a sprinkler and these baby floaties, but it entertained Ashton and Gunnar for hours.

Hee hee!They would run from one pool to the next and jump in then run through the sprinklers all while wearing the floaties pretending they were in their own little ships. Love their imaginations...And their silly faces...Those little pools only held air for about half a day, so I decided it was time to get a bigger pool, so this is what we ended up with. Not loving it so far in our yard since there is no perfectly flat spot (so it's hard to keep the sides up), but they don't care. And what little boy doesn't love a good water gun? Ashton and some of his little buddies had water fights all afternoon one day. The problem was they all wanted to squirt eachother but didn't want anyone to squirt them!!

Eventually they had more fun squirting the road and seeing who could squirt the furthest...A couple weeks ago we got this new picnic table for our back patio, so we eat lots of our meals out there...This year we finally have some pretty good shade from the trees we planted about 3 years ago...so nice!

Before it actually warmed up too much (a couple weeks ago), we went down to the river trail one Sunday afternoon. The boys love to stop off at their "fort" of all of these fallen trees and play for awhile...On our way back to the car Lars caught this snake for them.

Gross.Tonight he's gone fishing, so the boys and I went up to Aurora's house for a water/pizza party.

It was a long day today, so it was fun.

I love this picture of Gunnar...he got that big bubble thing to work and I happened to catch him doing it!

I could not get him to nap today (hence our long day)...so he laid in there for about an hour crying off and on and yelling for me. Eventually when I gave up on him ever falling asleep I went in and got him out and rocked him for a few minutes. As he was sitting with me I was asking him why he didn't go to sleep and he said he was just ready to wake up. Then he said "I sang a song for you." I thought how cute...and asked him what he sang. So in this little singing voice he says "Mommy I need you, Mommy I need you ." I just thought it was so cute that after yelling for me and crying he decided "Well maybe if I sing for her...she'll come!" Cutie.

Babies, babies, babies...

This little cutie is my good friend (and backyard neighbor),

Lindee's brand new little boy Cade. I remember the day she told me she was pregnant...I was outside and she pulled over and told me and I started jumping up and down I was so excited!

I've been waiting and waiting for him to be born and I had so much fun taking these pictures of him the other night.

(I think this is my favorite!)

He's only 5 days old in these...and such a little sweetie. After we finally got him to fall asleep, he was so peaceful for the longest time.

I think I've found my new favorite thing to photograph! (well besides my own little cuties)

Gunnar lately...(and other random stuff)

Here are my most recent favorite pictures of Gunnar...This is one of the faces he makes all the time...I love it! He and Ashton were out playing with the hose (and getting drenched) the other night, so when he wanted to get dry, I put this towel on him and he just looked too cute, so I had to go grab my camera.

He warmed up for a few minutes, then went back to watering the lawn and everything else for us. Lars said he looked like a little wizard.

Since this blog has become my journal, it's time again to write down some of the things that I don't want to forget about this time in our life. So read on if you want, but this is another one of those posts that is more for me to look back on later.

Sadly Gunnar has almost completely (just this past week) given up calling Ashton "Aggie". He can say Ashton so clearly now that he rarely says Aggie anymore. Sad!

We had even started calling him that a lot of the time.

Oh well...maybe we still will!

Some of the other cute things he says lately...

Okay is always "Otay" and he says it all the time.

His G's sound like D's, so Gunnar is "Dunnar",

Where we going? is Where we "doh-ing?",

Bugs are "buds".

He is talking SO much now!

Half the day he still wants me to hold him and he comes up to me constantly saying "I need you Mommy." Or "I want you Mommy." Oh how I treasure those words and will miss them some day I know!

Lots of times he randomly comes up to me and kisses my arm, or gives me a hug.

Everything Ashton says to him, Gunnar comes up to me and says "Ashton said this, or Ashton called me that."

Like I always told Ashton, I tell Gunnar that I just want him to stay little. So yesterday after being gone to town with Lars, he gets out of the truck and wants me to hold him and has this sneaky look on his face and says "I'm gonna get BIG Mommy!" In a sort of taunting voice...little stinker.

The other half the day when he's not wanting me, he wants gum.

"Please me have dum Mommy?"...always said in the sweetest, most innocent voice with his head cocked to one side.

I'm laughing so hard right now, because no joke as I'm typing this, he just came up to me and did just that! I really try to resist, but...

He still is an early riser...and I still prefer not to be, so I've gotten in the habit of putting him in bed with me when he wakes up in the morning, turning a show on for him and that buys me another half an hour of sleep! And once in a great while he'll snuggle in and fall back asleep.

Then when Ashton wakes up he'll jump in with us.

Speaking of Ashton...

Now that it is summer (school for him has been out for almost a month), I signed him up for a fun little program that Providence City does, called Fun in the Sun. He did it last year and loved it. Well this year, not so much. He had a complete meltdown when I signed him up, then on the day it started I took him and he melted down again in complete fear of going. I literally could not get him to stop crying and to stay and have fun! I even told him that he could either stay or we'd go home and have quiet time in his room all afternoon. So that's what he chose. And that's what we did. So the second day he was supposed to go, I had him all talked into going, took him, tried to drop him off and it was the same story all over again. There was no way I was getting him to stay. Oh well...once again we came home and had quiet time and have kept up with it every day since!

So out of a very frustrating situation for me (thinking I was doing something fun for him to keep him entertained at least a couple hours a day 2 days a week, then him not going...) came some good.

Some much needed, now enforced, quiet time every day!

After being in there about the 3rd day for his hour, he came out and I asked him what he'd been doing. To which he replied...

"I mostly watched my watch." Haha!

At least we've had t-ball to keep him busy the past few weeks since we got back from Texas. He has loved it.

Oh back to Gunnar for a minute...whenever I ask him and Ashton if they want to go do something (no matter what it is), he excitedly with a big smile on his face, yells "Yeah!" And today said..."That will be so fun Mommy!" when I said we were going to the park.

I love his innocence and enthusiasm at this age.

Now that it's almost officially summer...maybe it will finally get nice and stay nice!

A tribute to Rambo...

For my Mom.

As most of you know, for years now my Mom has raised miniature horses, and a couple nights ago she lost one of the very first ones she ever owned.

His name was Rambo.

I got this email from my Mom Friday morning and it made me cry...

Some of you already know, but instead of having to send way too many individual messages I thought I'd let you all know at once that I lost my Rambo today. :(
He had seemed to be in excellent health all this winter which made me so happy.

But he had to be put down tonight.
All day today he would not eat and acted just slightly colicky. I finally decided to take him to the vet this evening and he did bloodwork and found out he was extremely dehydrated and on top of that his kidney values were terrible. His kidneys were failing horribly. I had to let him put him down or watch him die over the next few hours or days. :(
He was 22 years old in March and has been the personality that I wished all my horses were all these years. He has truly been a one in a million little horse. I am so glad I have several of his daughters and his grandson Lil Chap of Bar Bar E to carry on....... as their dispositions are very similar to Rambo. I need to train Lil Chap to drive. Over the years Rambo and I went so may places together, just him and me and his cart. I got Rambo when he was 4 months old in 1988 and thus started Hilliard Horses to Hug. I always felt Rambo and I were a team.
And I will sure miss him.

For me this is the end of an era. I just want to say I'm so sorry Mom for your loss. I know how much you loved him and how many great memories you had with him over the past 22 years.

Everyone knows that I'm not much of an animal person and all of these years I've never much been involved with the horses, but I'm always so proud to tell people that my Mom raises miniature horses.
From the time she was a little girl, my Mom remembers LOVING horses.

It has always made me so happy Mom that you got to fulfill your dreams and finally got to have all of your own little horses. And I'm always amazed at your vast knowledge about all of them and anything to do with miniature horses!I remember drawing this picture when I was 11 as we went to look at miniature horses for the very first time. (quite the artist I know!)

And back then, I do remember being excited to get some of our very own!

Anyway here are some of the pictures my Mom forwarded me of her Rambo.

Cute little Ashton feeding Rambo :)

An even smaller Ashton riding Rambo...My Mom always thought it looked like he was looking at Lars and saying "How am I doing Daddy?"
And here Rambo is pulling My Mom, Ashton and me in the cart in the parade...

Rest In Peace Rambo :)

Baby Anthony...

Today I got the opportunity to take some newborn photos of this sweet little baby boy... His name is Anthony Michael and he is the son of my good friends, Angie and Tony, (Gunnar's Godparents).

Isn't he precious???Thanks for letting me practice on him Angie.

I could have stayed and held him all day long!

"Frettles"

Gunnar's cute little face has been sprouting lots more freckles the past few weeks. One day he had his face pressed up to my bathroom mirror and said...

"I like my frettles Mommy."

More Texas highlights...

We made it home last Saturday and had another mostly uneventful flight. Gunnar coughed almost the whole flight...poor guy :( and Ashton asked over and over if we could just "please go back to Texas." He was so sad to leave. But other than that, they proved to be pretty good travelers again.
Anyway our trip was awesome and this could be a really, really long post, but I'm going to try to keep it somewhat short (even though I downloaded 375 pictures off of my camera when we got home!) Plus 100 that my Dad took off his camera and put on a disk for me!

So where did I leave off?

Oh I guess Monday-that day we went down to the Kemah Boardwalk where there are lots of restaurants, rides and the boys' favorite thing...the area where the water shoots out of the ground. So after going on a few rides...

...we put them in their suits and they ran through the water forever while we found some shade, had chocolate shakes and watched.

Then we ate at Joe's Crab Shack and headed home.
Tuesday we drove to Galveston and had our day at the beach.

It was a beautiful day & we pretty much had the beach to ourselves. Ashton spent most of his time "wave jumping" and loving it.

Gunnar followed right behind him and would have loved to do it "all by himself", but he's a little small yet! So he had fun playing in the sand and chasing birds. They both spent a long time searching for seashells with Grandpa and came home with quite a collection.It was a fun day!
Wednesday we got up and got ready and took the boys to the Children's Museum of Houston. It was an awesome museum...lots of stuff focused on science, so it was right up Ashton's alley. But there were lots of fun things for Gunnar to explore as well.
Then it was back home for more time in the backyard pool...

Love your smile Ashton...pure happiness!Yum!It's been a long day Mommy~I just need to relax...This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip (even though it's not in focus)...It makes me happy.
Here's another favorite...most days the boys were worn out after all of the stuff we did. And this night Gunnar's fever spiked again and he zonked out on the couch at about 7:30 with his beloved nigh nights
Thursday we drove back down to Galveston for the afternoon. We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. On our last trip to Texas (3 years ago!) we took Ashton there and he was terrified of the "big monkeys". He was so funny-he never cried or screamed, he just put his hands over his eyes and wouldn't move them, until we finally moved to a different table not so close to the monkeys.

This time both of them loved all of the animals!

After that we went shopping down at the little shops in Galveston. My Dad and Lars took the boys to get ice cream while Michelle and I shopped. When we met back up with the boys...they were eating chocolate covered twinkies and wearing new tie-dyed shirts.

Thanks Grandpa!

That night Uncle Michael came over to hang out for awhile. Ashton loved having his uncle there to play Mario with him on the Wii... Gunnar warmed right up to him too... We don't get to see him nearly enough...so it was great.
Friday Lars got the opportunity to hire a fly-fishing guide and go out on his boat with him and learn how to flyfish for salt water fish. He was gone all day and had a blast! Of course I wasn't with him, so no pictures.
While he was gone, we relaxed at home, then packed a lunch and took the boys to another little close by "water" park to cool off.
We ate good food every night (and every morning actually...here's Gunnar having fun helping Grandpa make waffles)It was just so nice to not have to worry about cooking, dishes, cleaning, laundry, or constantly picking up my house.

Thanks for being so good to us Dad & Michelle...It's always hard to say goodbye...We can't wait for our next trip out...If Ashton and Gunnar had their way, it would be tomorrow!

(Wow, okay I tried, but that was not short...it's hard to narrow it down, and this post took forever!)