cousins

Maddi, Kempton & Kyla came to visit last weekend. We didn't get to see much of them since we headed to St. Louis on Saturday, but the kids did get to play a little bit Friday night.

Boo at the Zoo

Last Saturday we roadtripped to St. Louis to hang out with some of Trever's childhood friends. Our group has definately changed since I entered the picture. It wasn't so long ago we were looking for alcohol that came in plastic bottles for our float trips down the river. Now there are kids in the picture and we go to the zoo and the guys drink the cheapest beer they can find so they can afford to take their kids to the zoo!

You all know Claire....

Meet Anna Wiltz....

And Caleb May.

Anna's mommy and daddy were the subject of my photography as we waited for Boo at the zoo to start.

And Claire....I mean Minnie Mouse...ran off a lot of energy while we waited.

We took off to see the animals in the wagon.

Claire got to pet a lizard with "just ONE finger" along his tail.

And she made daddy wear her ears for a while.

But on the way home she was tuckered out. Could have had something to do with the 30 minute nap that she had that day.

Anna must have enjoyed herself too!

A trip to the punkin patch

Last weekend we went to Rader Family Farms with Grandma Marge. Claire will tell you that her favorite part of her day was the animals. She has even warmed up to the pigs!

She also enjoyed playing in the corn. They have transformed 2 government bins in to giant playbox filled with corn. They cut windows in the side so the big kids could watch from the outside.

Then she went on a catepillar ride. These were made out of plastic barrels with wheels pulled by a lawnmower.

They also have a huge slide that is made out of a huge field tile. Mommy walked up the hill with Claire but she didn't need my help to go down!

She also enjoyed the straw bale castle.

And the miniature soybean maze for the little tikes.

She also played for quite a while in the straw bale obstacle course. And LOVED jumping off the loading shoot in to the straw.

We jumped on the giant pillow. We lucked out that there were a lot of little kids and moms on with us instead of big crazy kids. But we still had a hard time staying on our feet!

Before we left we got our 2nd annual picture to see how much Claire had grown. She was exhausted by this point so it was a bit of a challenge.

And a family picture with the old blue truck.

Then, before we left, we ran in to a giant spider! Claire and daddy thought it was pretty cool!

As expected, we had a great time! We'll be back next year!

Happy 1st Birthday Baby Hunter!

We celebrated with one of our favorite families last weekend! Baby Hunter turned 1!

Hunter had a pretty cool farm animal cake and got some pretty cool presents.

And the kids at the party got presents from Hunter! Jeremiah, Andrew and Claire enjoyed decorating the driveway with their sidewalk chalk!

It took a while but Hunter finally got in to his cake! He sat like such a little angel the entire time! Unlike when Claire turned 1 and wouldn't sit still long enough to see what kind of presents she got!

Hunter shared some hugs with Claire before we headed out for the night!

A little bit of life

The past few weeks of been my "busy" season at work. All 10,372 acres that we grew this year had to be inspected prior to being harvested. I walk through the fields looking for little guys like this who don't quite look like all of the other soybean plants in the field. I have to check to make sure that there aren't too many pesky little off types out there.

I came across this interesting old crib on one of my trips to Vermillion County.

Claire re-discovered her apron that Grandma Great made for her this week. She loved cooking me dinner in it.

Of course she didn't wear it to help me make her real dinner. She loves helping make scrambled eggs and cereal.

Friday night I let Claire stay up until Trever got home. He helped brush her teeth, but since he isn't home for this most nights he didn't know that Claire HATES her Dora tooth brush. He found out though! And I laughed really hard!!!

Saturday is game day! Claire has to wear her sunglasses in the car!

She also enjoys running off with any spare change that gets left around. I'm hoping that this means she's going to end up with lots of it some day!

We had a rough week around our house this week...including Claire climbing out of her crib one night. So, yesterday her crib got transformed in to a toddler bed. She slept in it last night but was zonked when we got home. This morning she knocked on her door so we would let her out. Nap time was a bit of a challenge, but she stayed in her bed and eventually fell asleep.

After nap, Claire and daddy watched one of daddy's all time favorite movies, The Lion King. She didn't quite sit still for the whole movie and daddy wasn't quite sure how to respond when she asked "what happened to his daddy?" (when Mufasa dies)

We also have been working on going potty today. We had an accident at nap time (my fault, I should have put a diaper on her), one accident when she was outside playing with daddy, and one time she peed through her panties while sitting on the potty...but at least she was sitting on the potty....next step teach her to pull her pants down!

A special wedding

On October 1st Trever had a 1st of his own. He "officiated" his first wedding. He will tell you he was the master of ceremonies, and I guess that works, but he did put together a pretty nice service.

Kendra & Zach Monk both wanted a little bit of religion in their wedding ceremony even though neither one of them have a church family of their own. Trever can't legally marry anyone since he is not an ordained minister. Luckily, Zach and Kendra know one of the Iroquois County Judges and he made the marriage official. The county clerk played the piano so the Judge delivered the signed marriage license the same day!

Zach is the daughter of one of my best teacher friends, Barb. She picked a pretty cool mother son song for their dance and even sang along!

We enjoyed being part of Zach and Kendra's big day!

Happy Birthday, Grandma Great!

My Grandma, and Claire's Grandma Great, turne 85 this month! We had dinner at mom & dad's for her birthday. We were short a few family members but it was nice to have a Sunday dinner. They don't happen as often as they use to.

Claire was so excited to help Grandma Great blow out her candles since she couldn't help Hunter blow out his. But then she ended up falling asleep during dinner. Since Claire always gets what Claire wants, she got her own candle to blow out after her nap.
And she even got a present from her 2nd Cousin Kim.