Can you say OCD!!!

So Noah has always been a little obsessive compulsive about things in his life, but his shoe issue is about to send me ver the top. I think White grandma understands now what I go through on a daily basis, several times a day!! While she was here, she bought the boys some school shoes. I told them that they couldn't wear them before school, but grandma said it would be ok to wear them from the store to our house. Little did she know how much drama she was about to cause. Grandma helped him put his shoes on, but he has to have 4 knots in EACH shoe and they have to be EXACTLY the same on each side. She got them all done and he did a test walk. NO GOOD. His foot was moving in the shoe, or something. So grandma untied all the knots, retied, test walk, no good. After several tries, grandma finally got it right. We still aren't sure what she did different, but hurray that she figured it out. We went to a couple of other stores and I wanted him to try some pants on. He threw a fit and didn't want to take his shoes off. I won of course, but when I put his shoes on, I couldn't tie them right so he had to go find grandma to tie them. That was the first pair of shoes she bought him. She didn't have quite enough fun with those so she bought him another pair of Nikes, WITH TIES. He wanted to wear them and gave me every excuse in the book why he needed to wear them, but my favorite was " i keep forgetting what they look like so I need to put them on to remember." Ryan told him we would take a picture so he could remember so he got his Nike clothes on to match his Nike shoes. We went through the whole 4 knot thing a couple of times and then he was ready. It was like we were at a model's photoshoot or something. He was posing for every shot. Running in place, jumping, etc. to show how fast and cool his shoes are. Here are a few pictures from our photoshoot. Thanks again grandma for making my little boys happy and for making me crazy!! Ü As crazy as it makes me, I wouldn't trade him for the world.....I would just maybe trade his shoes..

Notice the 4 knots!!

I'm a big boy now!!!

So Cole decided that he didn't want to be the only memeber of the neighborhood posse that couldn't ride a bike, so he decided to teach himself. I tried to help him and he said "don't help me mom." I was talking to a friend outside and all of a sudden, here comes Cole, riding his bike. He taught himself how to start and ride in about 1/2 hour. My sister said that it shouldn't suprise me because he is such a stubborn, independant little fart, but he is only 3 1/2. Now he thinks there are no boundries and that he can go anywhere that little bike will take him.

I can't believe he is riding a bike. It seems like yesterday that Noah learned. How time flies!!!

It's that time.....BABY FOOD!!

So I have held out as long as I can, but Emery was wanting to eat every 2 hours so I thought it was time.....I hate the whole baby food thing. It is messy and have you ever tasted that nasty stuff? No wonder more gets on her than in her mouth. I want to just skip to the french fries stage. Here are a few pictures from her first rice cereal feeding.

More Cali

After a long, but very fun day at the lake, we headed to White Grandma's for the rest of the week. We went to the beach twice where I thought my boys would be a little scared. Noah wouldn't stay out of the water and Cole wanted to play in it but would run as soon as the waves came near him. He told grandma that he wanted the water to quit waving. As nervous as he was, he just couldn't let Noah have all the fun. Emery also really liked the beach. For the most part, she just sat in her bumbo and watched the waves and the boys. You couldn't ask for better, cheaper entertainment. It was a great time.

After all the swimming at the hotel, Jodi's, and the beach, and eating at all the places that you HAVE to eat at in CA (I only ate at In-n-Out 3 times) it was time to come home. Ryan flew back on Tuesday morning so somehow grandma got roped into driving back with us. It was pretty uneventful All I had to do was drive and grandma had to put up with the kids and the chaos. Now I know why Ryan doesn't mind driving to California!!! Doing the driving isn't the hard part. Thank you White Grandma and Grandpa for letting us come and stay. We really appreciate all you do and for all the memories you create with our kids. We love you!!!

California

We went to California for Ryan's sister's baby blessing. It was a lot of driving, but well worth it. The boys had a blast. I think they were in some kind of water more than on land. We stayed in a hotel on Saturday and Sunday nights so the boys played in the pool every chance they got. The hotel was really nice....except for the fact that the fire alarm went off at 1:00 am one night, which by the way is no way to be woken up out of a very deep sleep. Neither Ryan nor I could figure out what was going on. I was more worried about my kids waking up than the fact that there might actually be a fire. Everything was fine and thanks to Ryan's quick thinking with a pillow to the alarm, the boys stayed asleep. What a night!!

On Monday we went to the lake

with Ryan's family....Thanks Uncle Christian and Heather for taking us...Noah & Cole learned how to "surf" on a killer lake wave and Emery just enjoyed basking in the sun. We had a great time spending the day with Jodi, Regan, Sally and fam.