Sweet baby Joey

I can't believe how big my baby boy is getting. He is growing so fast its hard to keep up. He has now started crawling and trying to pull himself up to standing. I'm having a hard time excepting my now mobile baby, mostly because I know he will be my last one. He is also working on getting his two upper teeth in which is making for a very fussy baby. See picture below:)

Yet even through all the tears and pain, he is still my cute little boy. Here is a couple of cute little cowboy picture we got.

Peach and blueberry picking

On Monday we decided to head out to go peach picking, mainly because they were supposed to have blackberry picking that day also. However, by the time we got there (only 1 1/2 hours after opening) they were already done blackberry picking so we chose to blueberry pick again. We also met up with a friend, Christine, and her two kids, Gabriel and Lilly. The kids all had a great time.Here is Adriana picking a peach off the tree.

Adriana picking more peaches. We had 16 lbs of peaches all together between her and Andrew picking.

Here is Andrew showing me one of the peaches he had picked.

Here is Adriana picking blueberries.

Here is Andrew feeding Gabriel the blueberries he picked. I think he had more fun feeding Gabriel than he did actually picking.

Andrew picking blueberries.

Happy 50th wedding Anniversary Uncle Richie and Aunt Jean!!!

Sunday we celebrated my Aunt and Uncle's 50th Wedding Anniversary. Wow what an accomplishment to make it 50 years together. They had a nice celebration along with renewing their wedding vowes. Here is a few pictures of the event.

Uncle Richie and Aunt Jean renewing their wedding vowes.

The happy couple doing a dance for everyone!

This was a wedding gift they received from their kids and grandkids. They had a platter made up that says Happy Anniversary and had each of the grandkids make a flower on it. Then they had each of the guests sign it.


Here is the kids enjoying their cake. They had so much fun playing with all their cousins and dancing the night away!

Winners at the fair!!!

All I have to say is my horrible frog hunting night was well worth it. The kids frogs did great, even though the kids would not touch them. Andrew's age group went first and he scored third place and got a trophy. Adriana's age group went next and she scored second place and got a trophy. The kids were so excited about their trophy's and had to show them off to everyone. Unfortunately I missed the whole thing because I was in the next tent over doing the cutest baby contest with Joey. Joey scored a ribbon for honorable mention. Here is a picture of the kids with their trophy's. I didn't notice it was blurry until down loading the picture though.

Here is a picture of Joey and his ribbon he won. After the contest we went to see all the animals. Here is a picture of Andrew trying to scope out whats under the rabbits.

We met up with my friend Tiffany and her son Justin. Here is a picture of Justin and a baby cow. Adriana was too scared to go see them.

Here is Adriana pointing to one of her favorite bunnies.
Here is a picture of the kids going down the bounce house.


Here is Adriana riding one of the many rides there.

Here is a picture of Andrew on the fire truck. Luckily a couple of the fireman knew the kids Uncle Dan who is a captain at St. Charles City fire department so they got the royal treatment with these guys.

Other than battling the heat it was a really fun day at the County Fair. We just might have to make it an annual event, but I will be out getting frogs and turtles much before the night before.

What a day!

Well it started off like any typical day, until I had to take my dog Sunny into the vet for her yearly exam and also to see if she had an ear infection which we were suspecting she had. I dropped off the kids at my moms house (I would be crazy if I attempted to take my crazy dog and kids into the vet by myself). Sunny and I arrived at the vet. We went into the exam room and the doctor comes in. I told him I thought she might have an ear infection. He looks in her ears and advises me one is bad but the other one is alright. Then he continues to exam her body. He asked me if she likes her feet a lot, I actually have no idea. Keeping up with the three kids all day, unfortunately I really don't pay much attention to what shes doing unless its eating up one of the kids toys. He continues looking over her body. Now I'm really getting worried. What is wrong with my poor dog. I finally can't take it anymore and ask. It looks like she has allergies, he advises me. What? Allergies? Do dogs really get those. He gave me a pamplet on a dermatologist I can take her to. What? A dog dermatologist? All I can see is $$$$$$ flashing before me. So I ask him what else can we do. Well I have to give my dog benadryl pills 3X a day along with fish oil pills. Apparently dogs allergies effect them differently than they do adults. So she has a yeast infection in her left ear along with on her paws. So we have medication to drop in her ears and rub on her feet. Oh yeah, and when we give her a bath she has to have special drops to keep her ears dry. Man, I thought my kids were high maintenance.
So now comes to my second entertaining story. Well tomorrow we are taking the kids to the St. Charles County Fair where they have a bull frog and turtle race. My kids are really excited about this. So it is Friday night and I have no bull frog or turtle. So I started driving all over the place trying to find some box turtles for them. I can't find one anywhere. OK so lets move onto the bull frogs. At least I know where to find them. So its 11:30 at night and I'm out bull frog hunting. I don't want to touch the slimy suckers so I brought my bucket and shovel to help me catch them. Well I'm walking around the pond with my flashlight and come across one right away. Whoo hoo!!!! This won't take long at all. So I blind him with my flashlight and put my bucket over top of him. Yeah, I caught him. Now what do I do? So I put my shovel underneath the bucket and try to pick it up. Well as I'm picking it up and trying to walk I slip and drop the little bugger. He takes off into the pond. Alright well I'll find another one. I'm walking and looking and still walking and looking......nothing. Well I'm almost back to where I started from when I find a huge, and I mean huge frog. So I blind him, put the bucket over him and pick him up. Yeah I got one! So I walk him over to the empty bucket I have for him and put a bunch of grass in it and some water. I place the frog in it and place the lid on top. I'm off to find another one so each kid has one. So I find another one pretty quick and bring it over to the bucket, but wait the lids off it and the frogs gone. Holy cow that bugger can lift the lid off? So I place this one in the bucket and I'm off to find another one. They seem to be in this one area so I stay near there. I find another one. So I place the bucket on top of him and begin picking him up and I fall on my butt in the mud. The frog then jumps out of the bucket and onto my lap then off into the pond. So now I'm a muddy mess and ready to give up. Well as I'm walking back I see another frog so I decide to give it one more chance. I do manage to catch it and head back to the bucket where thankfully the other frog still is. So now I have the two frogs to go frog racing with. I just hope my kids appreciate the night mommy went out in the rain in the middle of the night to go frog catching for them! I will let you know how the races go tomorrow.

Blueberry picking

Chris and I took the kids blueberry picking in Wentzville last Sunday. It was actually my first time blueberry picking. We all had a great time. Adriana had a lot of fun picking with Daddy and they both picked a huge bag full. Andrew was having a hard time picking the right ones and kept getting all the green ones. Joey was happy picking all the leaves off if mommy got to close to the bush with him. It was great and the prices were really cheap. We got a huge bag of blueberries for very little money plus Andrew ate a whole belly full of them while we were picking. I had pictures of all the fun but I lost my camera in Branson so if by some miracle it shows up I will post the pictures if not I guess we will have to go back so I can get some more pictures:)

Our trip to Branson

So we had our trip to Branson this weekend and had an awesome time. We went down there with my parents, sister, and niece and nephew. We got down there Thursday afternoon then went to Celebration City that night. The kids had a great time. Adriana got her hair done up in a cute updo. They got to ride lots of rides and Andrew even braved up enough to ride a few of the bigger rides. We came home and crashed out that night.

The next day we went to Silver Dollar City. Thank God the place is really shaded with a lot of trees because it was HOT! But of course fun:) It was kids fest so they had a lot of activities for the kids to do. They got to play lots of games and win a bunch more stuffed animals (not that we don't already have too many!) They also got to ride a lot of rides and Adriana is really starting to get brave and riding a lot of the bigger rides. She is still too little for the big roller coasters but believe me as soon as she is tall enough she will be on them. They also got to make a lot of crafts including a tiedye shirt and sand sculptures. We also watched a circus on ice show while we cooled off. Then we headed over to the water area which is a huge area full of water guns to spray at each other and other fun activities to make sure the kids are good and wet. They all had a ball there. We finished off the day there with a singing and dancing show at the end. We then headed back to the hotel and went swimming then headed to the ice cream social they had there. The kids definitely had no problems heading to sleep that night:)
On Saturday we were going to go to White Waters but opted to head back to Silver Dollar City since we didn't get a chance to do everything the day before. This time we started off getting an old time picture done of all the kids. It actually turned out really cute, which was really hard work with all 5 of the kids. Then we headed to the other kids area where they have a huge barn full of kids activities. The girls got to make all kinds of girly stuff including lip gloss, lotion, bath beads and more. The boys made a frisby and played some other crafts there. All the kids got to make some glob stuff that is good and messy. After we left there we rode some more rides and mom got to get a little shopping done too. We once again ended the night swimming and eating at the ice cream social.
The kids were very sad to have to come home but were excited to unpack all their new treasures and put them in their rooms.
My camera got lost somewhere in Branson (which other than losing all my pictures wasn't that big of a deal because I'm getting a new one this week). I will try to add some as soon as I get prints from my mom and sister.

Even daddy's have a bad night!

Poor Chris, even daddy's have bad nights. I left for work on Thursday evening as Adriana was going in the backyard to play. Well about an hour and a half I called to check in on him and he said he was having a bad night. I asked him what happened and he said "well whats under the deck?" I said "spiders?" because I hate them and they like to live under our deck. He said "no, mud". Apparently Adriana was playing in the mud and so was our dog Sunny. So now he has a very muddy 4 year old and dog. So he gave Adriana a bath and was going to wait to give Sunny one until I came home for my dinner break. Well I came home for my dinner break and Adriana was already in her pajamas. I asked her why she was in her jammies so early and she said "because I'm never aloud to go outside again!" I started laughing and said "did Daddy tell you that?", she said yes. I went into the bathroom where I heard the bath water running thinking Chris had the dog in the bathtub. No, it was Andrew. Andrew looked at me and said "Mommy, I have diarrhea! Chris told me to go look up in their bathroom upstairs. I walked up there and sure enough, he had diarrhea all over the floor. What a mess! So I helped him clean it up and get all the baths done. Poor Chris, he was just having a really hard night. I think those are the times he really appreciates it when I'm home :)

St. Charles Riverfront fair

After watching the parade, we went down to the riverfront to see what they had. They had all kinds of rides, but the prices were rediculous. They wanted between $2-$4 a person for one ride. So my kids were a little disappoined when I told them we couldn't ride all the rides. So we continued on. I did let Adriana do the rock climbing wall, that girl has very little fear. She did get pretty far up on it, especially for doing it with heels on! She's such a girly girl.....hehehe!


They also got to play a few games and win some prizes so they were excited about that. This is pictures of them playing a fishing game.

And of course you can never leave a fair without having a funnel cake. So we had a little picnic and had a snack.

Then MeMaw and PePaw took them to see the flood and the ducks swimming in the water. Then it was time to go home.

St. Charles 4th of July parade

For 4th of July we took the kids down to see the St. Charles parade. Andrew was so excited to get his "cannies"! We met my mother and father in law and sister in law down there. The kids all loved watching the parade and getting lots of candies. Here is a few pictures. I also was told I had to take a picture of some of their favorite floats so those are on here as well.

Here is a picture of all the kids, Chris, my in-laws, and Chris' grandma.

Here is a picture of all the kids. We had 6 kids all under 5 years old! Thats always and interesting challenge! But they all had so much fun!

Here is Adriana and Andrew watching the floats come down the street.
Here is my niece, Angeline, watching the parade. I have to admire her cute outfit she is wearing (it was Adriana's when she was a baby!)

Here is my nephew, Mikey, watching the parade.

Alright so here is the kids choice winners on the floats. They loved the dog float and cracked up laughing at the "walking dog".

Of couse a birthday cake is always a favorite. But they did ask why they weren't giving out any cake.
And here is another birthday cake! Happy Birthday USA!
And Daddy has to get a picture of his favorite! The jeeps were climbing all over each other. He took the picture too late and the back two jeeps were already down but they had been on the rear tires of the middle jeep.

Thats it for the parade, but the belly aches from eating all the candy last all night!!!!!!hehehe