Gee, I seem to have the hardest time lately managing to sit down uninterrupted to compile a blog post. Case in point, this is now the fourth time that I have sat down at the computer in an effort to add words to all these pictures. Pictures that I felt were necessary to make up for leaving the grandparents hanging pictureless in the last post. So hopefully I will make it through to the end. Boys are down for a nap and Kyle just offered to make my trip to the grocery store for me. I'm thinking I have about 1 hour of peace and quiet (as long as I block out the noise of the pressure washer cleaning the roof of the house next door) in which to finish this post and relax for a brief moment before Kyle gets back with groceries to be unloaded and put away.
So, here we go...
This was my "happy" flower that bloomed in the backyard this week. Yes, we still have flowers blooming away here in Washington and I love it. One day soon I will try to do a post showing you all the pretty flowers we've managed to grow at our house this year. It has been so much fun and I enjoy taking pictures of them. And I think this week as I was getting a shot of this pretty little yellow flower and a few others I realized just why it is that I have grown fond of photographing our flowers. They are still subjects!! I don't have to chase them around in hopes of catching them in a quick glance at the camera. I never have to call their names or even attempt to get them to pose. And in case you don't get what I'm saying, I'm pretty much just telling you that they are the complete opposite of my children.
But I still try to get pictures of those crazy boys. Mostly just for the sake of recording their lives because I've not been so good at putting down all that stuff in their baby books like I should have. Woops! Another Mom of the Year award down the drain there.
Anyway, getting over that and moving on, here is what I've recorded lately...
The boys and I planned a trip to get frozen yogurt one afternoon after nap time and invited Dad to come with us. We think he really liked it! Cheered us all up enough that we decided to stop and visit a park on the way home. This is a park that we spotted quite a while back and have been waiting for just the right time to give it a try. It is not in our city, but only about 10 or 15 minutes away. We should've checked it out sooner....
Kade and Ryne both had a blast at this park. If you couldn't tell from the pictures, it is a pretty big park with all kinds of cool things to play on. I'm sure we will have to visit there again soon.
Remember our new friends, The Jenkins', who just moved to town?
Well, their baby girl, Ainsley just turned 1 and we got to have her birthday party at our place.
Just look at all that pink and purple!
A girl explosion at the Lewallen house. It was good for us.
Something not so pirate-y was nice for a change.
Ainsley enjoyed her cake.
This is Ryne checking out what everyone has on their plate at the table to eat. I think he begged everyone that he could out of their cheese slices if he saw them on their plate.
Kade seemed to think the purple cupcake was not only yummy, but also good for a little extra decoration on his face.
Then it was present time. It was all Kade could do to just stand and watch and not get to rip into any of the gifts. Oh, he did ask a few times to help but took the gentle reminder that it was not his birthday and stepped back.
Ryne on the other hand just waited for the gifts to be opened and passed his direction so he could check them out. Smart kid!
And for the grand finale...a cupcake pinata that exploded to send candy flying everywhere. Here are all the little people filling up their loot bags. Alissa is being so kind to help Ryne out. At one point he wandered into the middle of all the kids and candy, picked up one tootsie roll, and came out holding it in the air with a smile on his face and exclaimed, "I got it!" Then he put it in his bag and was done. We had a fun time celebrating Ainsley's first birthday.
Okay, I'm not sure some of you are going to believe this but "summer" finally came to western Washington this past week. We had three or four days in which the temps reached the nineties.
Oh, don't worry, it didn't last long. Summer came and went quickly for us. We are back to needing jackets in the mornings and evenings.
But while it was here we thought the boys might enjoy playing in the water to cool off.
Kyle set up the water hose to spray across the back yard and we even put the slide under the sprinkle so that they could enjoy their very own "water slide."
Kade slid one time just to appease me so I could get a picture.
But this is what they chose to do instead....
Play in the mud!
I'm telling you these boys of mine are ALL BOY!
What, Mom? You got a problem with us getting dirty or something?
Ryne is assisting Kade here to be sure that he gets his full dose of mud on the head.
And Kade in turn did the same for Ryne. All was good until Kade decided it might be okay to find out how Ryne responded to mud in his eyes. Not so well. That ended our joyous summer fun in the backyard on that particular day.
And on another particular day we missed out on any summer fun because we spent the day at the doctor's office and hospital trying to get Ryne checked up on. After our crazy episode last week of some wild reaction with the poor little guy, he was scheduled to go back to the doctor for follow up this week. She wanted to do some allergy tests that required him having his blood drawn. So we went to the lab at the doctor's office. I'll spare you the details, but will tell you that it was not a good experience for the poor guy and they did not get enough blood drawn from him. Therefore, they had to send us to the hospital and have blood drawn at the lab there.
Yep, I said hospital. You know what that means. We did the whole hospital routine. Check in. Wait for your name to be called. Get your name called to go through the registration process. Go back to the waiting area to wait some more until they call your name again.
Have someone from the lab come out and tell you that they can't read your doctor's handwriting and they are trying to get in touch with her before they can call you back to the lab. Wait some more.
Color.
Pretend to like the color that your brother has so that you can take it away from him only to NOT color with it but be happy that you got what he had.
Snack!
Get fed up with the place and take the bag in an attempt to leave this silly waiting place that is not made for children.
Have Mom veto the escape plan, so set up for snacks at a new location.
And then finally get your name called just before all three of us have major meltdowns from the extended waiting time.
Took all of four and a half minutes to get in the lab blood drawn and back out of the lab headed to the car.
I have to say, the boys were troopers and all three of us survived...Ryne was the super trooper because he is the one who endured the most that day. Poor baby! But like I said, I'm sparing you the details. I'll just say, ice cream rewards were definitely on for that day! And we didn't even find out anything....it was a test that had to be "sent off." So we are waiting to see what it said.
And to make up for our not so fun day we decided to take the next day and go to the park for a picnic with our friends Dawn and Aaron.
Oh, capturing all three of them in one picture wasn't easy. But there they are.
Kade and Aaron were good and actually sat down to eat lunch. Ryne didn't want to stop for food. He is probably somewhere on the playground that you can see behind the other boys.
He did, however, stop briefly to read a book. Random, I know, but that is pretty much a good word to describe our Ryn-0.
Kade did finish lunch and head to the playground. Only to get stuck there like this and have to be rescued. Silly boy!
Oh, did you notice the jackets they were wearing? I told you "summer" didn't last long.
Our next big excitement? We have friends here to stay with us. When I started this post last night here is what was going on:
Kyle, the boys, and I were hanging out with Janna and Ryan while their Mom and Dad went to the airport to pick up our guests and take them to Seattle. Babysitters are hard to come by for us sometims so we are trading out with the Knights this week....otherwise we would have gone to get them, too. I only tell you that because I don't want you to think that we are so excited about our friends coming that we sent someone else to get them. That just sounds bizarre. But Russell and Belinda are friends with them as well and wanted to spend some time hanging out with them. And since we get to have them at our house....I guess we would be kind of "friend hogs" if we didn't let them take a turn.
Oh, you want to know who is here don't you?
It's Jonathan and Mandi!
They are friends of ours from AR. Kyle and Jonathan were both doing ministry in West Memphis for a while and were friends way before I even knew Kyle. Johnny J, as we like to refer to him, was actually in our wedding. Anyway, we are excited that they are here and you know I will take pictures of the stuff we do and tell you all about it.
So much for that hour of peace...Ryne is already awake up there. Better go get him!
I'll leave you with a little video of a ditty he played at the park for us:
On an end note, the doctor just called and said all the allergy tests came back negative. So we still have no idea what was wrong with him. It may always be a mystery. I'm okay with that as long as it means it doesn't ever happen again.
So, here we go...
This was my "happy" flower that bloomed in the backyard this week. Yes, we still have flowers blooming away here in Washington and I love it. One day soon I will try to do a post showing you all the pretty flowers we've managed to grow at our house this year. It has been so much fun and I enjoy taking pictures of them. And I think this week as I was getting a shot of this pretty little yellow flower and a few others I realized just why it is that I have grown fond of photographing our flowers. They are still subjects!! I don't have to chase them around in hopes of catching them in a quick glance at the camera. I never have to call their names or even attempt to get them to pose. And in case you don't get what I'm saying, I'm pretty much just telling you that they are the complete opposite of my children.
But I still try to get pictures of those crazy boys. Mostly just for the sake of recording their lives because I've not been so good at putting down all that stuff in their baby books like I should have. Woops! Another Mom of the Year award down the drain there.
Anyway, getting over that and moving on, here is what I've recorded lately...
The boys and I planned a trip to get frozen yogurt one afternoon after nap time and invited Dad to come with us. We think he really liked it! Cheered us all up enough that we decided to stop and visit a park on the way home. This is a park that we spotted quite a while back and have been waiting for just the right time to give it a try. It is not in our city, but only about 10 or 15 minutes away. We should've checked it out sooner....
Kade and Ryne both had a blast at this park. If you couldn't tell from the pictures, it is a pretty big park with all kinds of cool things to play on. I'm sure we will have to visit there again soon.
Remember our new friends, The Jenkins', who just moved to town?
Well, their baby girl, Ainsley just turned 1 and we got to have her birthday party at our place.
Just look at all that pink and purple!
A girl explosion at the Lewallen house. It was good for us.
Something not so pirate-y was nice for a change.
Ainsley enjoyed her cake.
This is Ryne checking out what everyone has on their plate at the table to eat. I think he begged everyone that he could out of their cheese slices if he saw them on their plate.
Kade seemed to think the purple cupcake was not only yummy, but also good for a little extra decoration on his face.
Then it was present time. It was all Kade could do to just stand and watch and not get to rip into any of the gifts. Oh, he did ask a few times to help but took the gentle reminder that it was not his birthday and stepped back.
Ryne on the other hand just waited for the gifts to be opened and passed his direction so he could check them out. Smart kid!
And for the grand finale...a cupcake pinata that exploded to send candy flying everywhere. Here are all the little people filling up their loot bags. Alissa is being so kind to help Ryne out. At one point he wandered into the middle of all the kids and candy, picked up one tootsie roll, and came out holding it in the air with a smile on his face and exclaimed, "I got it!" Then he put it in his bag and was done. We had a fun time celebrating Ainsley's first birthday.
Okay, I'm not sure some of you are going to believe this but "summer" finally came to western Washington this past week. We had three or four days in which the temps reached the nineties.
Oh, don't worry, it didn't last long. Summer came and went quickly for us. We are back to needing jackets in the mornings and evenings.
But while it was here we thought the boys might enjoy playing in the water to cool off.
Kyle set up the water hose to spray across the back yard and we even put the slide under the sprinkle so that they could enjoy their very own "water slide."
Kade slid one time just to appease me so I could get a picture.
But this is what they chose to do instead....
Play in the mud!
I'm telling you these boys of mine are ALL BOY!
What, Mom? You got a problem with us getting dirty or something?
Ryne is assisting Kade here to be sure that he gets his full dose of mud on the head.
And Kade in turn did the same for Ryne. All was good until Kade decided it might be okay to find out how Ryne responded to mud in his eyes. Not so well. That ended our joyous summer fun in the backyard on that particular day.
And on another particular day we missed out on any summer fun because we spent the day at the doctor's office and hospital trying to get Ryne checked up on. After our crazy episode last week of some wild reaction with the poor little guy, he was scheduled to go back to the doctor for follow up this week. She wanted to do some allergy tests that required him having his blood drawn. So we went to the lab at the doctor's office. I'll spare you the details, but will tell you that it was not a good experience for the poor guy and they did not get enough blood drawn from him. Therefore, they had to send us to the hospital and have blood drawn at the lab there.
Yep, I said hospital. You know what that means. We did the whole hospital routine. Check in. Wait for your name to be called. Get your name called to go through the registration process. Go back to the waiting area to wait some more until they call your name again.
Have someone from the lab come out and tell you that they can't read your doctor's handwriting and they are trying to get in touch with her before they can call you back to the lab. Wait some more.
Color.
Pretend to like the color that your brother has so that you can take it away from him only to NOT color with it but be happy that you got what he had.
Snack!
Get fed up with the place and take the bag in an attempt to leave this silly waiting place that is not made for children.
Have Mom veto the escape plan, so set up for snacks at a new location.
And then finally get your name called just before all three of us have major meltdowns from the extended waiting time.
Took all of four and a half minutes to get in the lab blood drawn and back out of the lab headed to the car.
I have to say, the boys were troopers and all three of us survived...Ryne was the super trooper because he is the one who endured the most that day. Poor baby! But like I said, I'm sparing you the details. I'll just say, ice cream rewards were definitely on for that day! And we didn't even find out anything....it was a test that had to be "sent off." So we are waiting to see what it said.
And to make up for our not so fun day we decided to take the next day and go to the park for a picnic with our friends Dawn and Aaron.
Oh, capturing all three of them in one picture wasn't easy. But there they are.
Kade and Aaron were good and actually sat down to eat lunch. Ryne didn't want to stop for food. He is probably somewhere on the playground that you can see behind the other boys.
He did, however, stop briefly to read a book. Random, I know, but that is pretty much a good word to describe our Ryn-0.
Kade did finish lunch and head to the playground. Only to get stuck there like this and have to be rescued. Silly boy!
Oh, did you notice the jackets they were wearing? I told you "summer" didn't last long.
Our next big excitement? We have friends here to stay with us. When I started this post last night here is what was going on:
Kyle, the boys, and I were hanging out with Janna and Ryan while their Mom and Dad went to the airport to pick up our guests and take them to Seattle. Babysitters are hard to come by for us sometims so we are trading out with the Knights this week....otherwise we would have gone to get them, too. I only tell you that because I don't want you to think that we are so excited about our friends coming that we sent someone else to get them. That just sounds bizarre. But Russell and Belinda are friends with them as well and wanted to spend some time hanging out with them. And since we get to have them at our house....I guess we would be kind of "friend hogs" if we didn't let them take a turn.
Oh, you want to know who is here don't you?
It's Jonathan and Mandi!
They are friends of ours from AR. Kyle and Jonathan were both doing ministry in West Memphis for a while and were friends way before I even knew Kyle. Johnny J, as we like to refer to him, was actually in our wedding. Anyway, we are excited that they are here and you know I will take pictures of the stuff we do and tell you all about it.
So much for that hour of peace...Ryne is already awake up there. Better go get him!
I'll leave you with a little video of a ditty he played at the park for us:
On an end note, the doctor just called and said all the allergy tests came back negative. So we still have no idea what was wrong with him. It may always be a mystery. I'm okay with that as long as it means it doesn't ever happen again.
1 comment:
LOVE all the pictures and your boys are scrumptious!!! Keep us posted about the swollen allergy situation! Love to you!!!
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