Happy Birthday Tyler!

Tyler is 4.  I feel way more than 4 years older than the day he was born!  We have had a crazy last 4 years and have so many memories and pictures of adventures!  I am just overflowed with joy Tyler has brought to our life and our family. 

We are in Iowa to celebrate, 2 years ago we celbrated here as well.  God has really blessed us with 2 wonderful families that all get to share in watching our kids grow up so closely!  My mom and grandma helped get the kids and I here for Thanksgiving and Tyler's birthday and it has been so much fun so far!

Today for Tyler's birthday my cousin Jimmy took him bowling....3 games!  He also got 2 strikes!!!  Then to Cici's for lunch.  Then Aunt Jenny took 4 year old pictures outside and they didn't even need me to help!  We attempted some Christmas photo's of the kids...only 4 were even remotely useable and those 4 will be our Christmas card this year...kind of comical, it was Grandma's vision. 

Then came the highly anticipated Birthday Party!  Tyler knew all about what was going to happen, cake and presents!  The cake was specially made by Great Grandma Suesy, highly decorated with fish and a #4!  He blew out the candle and soon after was ready for presents!  After reading one of the cards he really gave a funny face and sincere laugh, something about banana's.  Gifts galore were so awesome and so appreciated!  Tyler has been looking forward to this day since Myla's birthday 6 months ago...it has been a long countdown, but he has been so patient. 

 An Iowa and a Georgia magnet!

Before we left for Iowa, Tyler had a birthday party at his school classroom with Krispy Kreme doughnuts as the class treat and also a McDonald's Playland party with his cousins, with cake and ice cream at our house.  So many birthday celebrations for Tyler this year and all were so much fun!  He is really enjoyed the build up to becoming 4....it's official, today!

Tyler you are so loved, and may God continue to bless you.  Thank you Lord for my precious boy!

School and Soccer for Tyler

It's been an exciting week with Tyler going to school and his first soccer practice.  He really loves school and his teacher.  He enjoyed his first soccer practice. 

more elaborate posting later....

The Way Home!

On the way home from Iowa, we stopped just outside of St.Louis to visit with Marie and Brian Jobe who are family friends. Brian was the pastor at the East Campus before following God's call to a church in St. Peters, MO. It was great to see them and here how God is working in their lives. They live in a beautiful home and have a nice pool in the backyard! We got to enjoy some pool time in the morning to wear the kids out before we set off for our next unknown adventure. They were so hospitable, it was like we've been friends for years. Marie and I talked a lot during my pregnancy with Myla as I was taking hormone shots and trying to figure out if it was God's plan for us. She is so sweet and has such a caring and prayerful heart. It was nice to see Brian's passion for their new church. They are planning a huge event on Sept 11th, I'm praying that it goes smoothly for him and that it's a huge success for God's Kingdom!

We left their house on the road to an unknown destination as we only wanted to drive 5-6 hours and possibly stay at a campsite. We found one on the road...via hot spot internet...how did we ever live without it? It was a nice KOA campsite and they had cabins, floating restaurant, dock, fishing, swimming, putt putt, bike cars, bouncy pad...all fun stuff for kids. We had a blast, this is after a Wal-mart stop to get sheets, food, and drinks. I can see this place being a fun stop in years to come as the kids get older and we have our annual/bi-annual/tri-annual? 3 week road trip across the midwest! While we were there Tyler caught a monster trout off the dock of the restaurant with quite the audience. Everyone was really impressed and called him an angler. When Scott came in and asked "Any questions?" the guy said, "well, if we do, we'll ask him!" It was really funny. At one point someone said they ate Tyler's fish but Tyler said, no he let him go!

After a little putt putt, swimming, and bouncy pad, we headed toward Atlanta to stay with Clete and Jan. Jan made us chicken and broccoli pasta for dinner and we made up Myla and Tyler's bed upstairs. Chloe loved having some friends to play with and Myla LOVED all of Chloe's toys! Thursday we headed into downtown Atlanta all of us piled in the mini van. We let Tyler play in the Centennial fountain for awhile and then waited to watch the music fountain show. It was exactly what I wanted to see. After that we ate lunch at the CNN building and then walked over to The Children's Museum where the kids all had a blast! That night we met Ron for Mexican...a tradition now!

And this brings our trip to a close as we packed the whole van back up and headed home to Savannah! It didn't seem like 3 weeks to us! And when we pulled back into our house we had a brand new carport almost finished! It took me about a week to get everything unpacked and put away and took Tyler about a week of learning to play independently again!

I sure hope we can do this again, and I also hope that we spend a whole summer in Iowa one year! When we visit it always feels like such a whirlwind because I want to spend so much time with so many people. It would be nice to just have some lazy days, more date nights with my parents babysitting, getting away without the kids to sleep in, plus now Johnny and Jenny moved back.

pictures later...does anyone know how to install the slideshow pictures?

Whirlwind Week in Iowa

Myla pushing Tyler at Iowa :). This is the phrase Tyler used to describe grandma and grandpa's house...Iowa...not they live in Iowa...their house is called Iowa.

Iowa! Oh so good to be home! It was a whirlwind week with activity after activity and visiting family and friends we had a blast! The evening we arrived the kids were so excited to see Grandma and Granddad they didn't want to go to bed! Tyler got presents to open from Grandma, but he reminded her that it wasn't Christmas! LOL! He got a mini dart gun, slip in slide, water colors and paper...etc. Activities for the week...he was pretty excited! Myla was taking steps and showing off, even climbing on top of the kiddie chair! I have a feeling she is going to be my dare devil!

Myla! You don't even know how to walk yet!

Presents...dart guns!

Sunday morning was breakfast at Wimbledon, tradition of Scott cooking breakfast while I watch the mens finals (my mom and grandma were present this year) The first year Scott got roped into this was when we were still dating in 2004, probably trying to impress me and my family! It was a good match and Nadal was upset by Djokovic in 4 sets.

Chris' 50th Birthday party.
Then it was off to the farm to celebrate Aunt Chris' 50th bday. We got to hang out with Perri and Ari, and the two new kittens. Tyler showed off his golfing skills to Uncle Tony and Uncle Chuck. It was a short stay, but with a planned visit to spend the night later in the week! We headed home to get Granddad and then to the I-Cubs game. Myla lasted 1/2 an inning in the stands and then wanted to go practice her walking around the stadium.

I-Cubs game with the grandparents!

Myla at her first baseball game, where she ate her first hot dog!
Tyler had a blast sitting with Grandma, who bought him a boxing I-Cub toy, but kept getting nervous about it getting dark and the fireworks. So Scott semi-volunteered to take the kids back home so I could stay with mom and dad to watch fireworks at the end. At one time the kiss camera was going around and both my dad and I were hoping it wouldn't land on us....scary! Anyways, cool fireworks for 4th of July.

Pancake Breakfast on the 4th!

The next morning Aunt Debbie treated us to a pancake breakfast with Jimmy and Ginny and then the Norwalk parade! It was so much fun seeing Tyler running for candy and sharing candy with the girl next to him...by then end they started getting picky and not picking up the yucky candy...lol! then we were off to the pool for the Echo Pool Party! They had such great activities for Tyler...the blow up rat race was his favorite. He also dove for money in the baby pool...didn't really go under, but it was fun. Myla enjoyed a lot of watermelon...and then Great Grandma helped when Myla went home for naptime. I probably had a little too much fun, I can't believe it had been 6 years since we were back for the 4th!

Fishing with Granddad!
Tuesday my dad and Scott took Tyler fishing and he caught the first fish, love the pictures of Tyler and Granddad fishing together! bonding!

Tyler and Granddad catch count!
Great Grandma then took us to the zoo, Myla only lasted a few exhibits before she broke down and had a screaming temper tantrum because she didn't want to be in the stroller, so I took her home.

Zoo with Grandma Suesy!
Tyler enjoyed the zoo very much, except the special dinosaur exhibit! too real life for him! That night Scott took the kids to Kohl's and I had a girls night with Jill.

Wednesday morning Scott and dad went golfing and the kids and I had a playdate at Jill's with Stacy too.

Playdate at Jill's with Stacy and all the kiddos! Karly, Brooke, John, Charlie, Myla, and Tyler!
The kids played in the kiddie pool and slip n slide...well, not Tyler! And then we were off to spend the night at the farm! We went to Carla and Chuck's friends pool, and then they took us to Tojo's for my birthday present,

Tojo's in Jamaica!
Carla and I split THE famous tenderloin sandwich, and Myla ate her 3rd hot dog in 3 days! That girl loves meat! On the way home, mysteriously Tyler fell asleep...for the night! Myla was a different story but we got to chill on the porch and watch the thousands of lighting bugs in the fields and talk simple talk on simple serenity farm...so peaceful. The next morning I simply ran 4 miles on the bike trail...not really...but it was peaceful!

Swinging at the farm!
Carla made fantastic egg mcmuffins and then we got a blanket and hung out under a shade tree and watched Tyler play with the kittens, golf, and drank homemade lemonade. And then it was time to move on to our next adventure! I went golfing with my dad and shot my first under 100 score of 95! It was so much fun...especially because I was with my dad! After golf we had burgers with mom and dad and then Scott, the kids and I went to see Tricia and her two boys for an hour or so.

Gavin teaching Tyler how to drive.
It was neat seeing her oldest son Gavin teach Tyler how to drive the JEEP! It was really good seeing her!

Friday (is it Friday already?) my mom and I spent the morning shopping garage sales, while we took the van to get the front alignment checked. It's always entertaining to look at other peoples junk...we bought a 30-50lb size life jacket $3, SLOW kids at play sign $3, an egg slicer, and soft cooler on wheels, crocs for Myla, and 3 swimsuits for me, 1 for Myla....it was fun! Cousin Jimmy came and took Tyler fishing for the whole morning! Tyler must of thought he'd died and gone to heaven...lots of fishing this trip....and LOTS of fish, such a difference compared to fishing off our dock! Later that day, the grandparents had the kids all day while Scott and I played golf with Jimmy and then went out to eat at Cosi Cocina's! aHHHH no kids for like 18 hours! I ate WAY too much and was pretty miserable, but it was oh so good!

Saturday my mom and I played golf with her friends, I shot ok...a 99! woohoo! then we went to LaPizza House...Scott went out with Jimmy to a Iowa Barnstormers Arena football game,

Swimming at Echo, seeing Aunt Debbie at work :)
my mom and I took the kids to the pool and saw Aunt Debbie...it for just an hour but it was peaceful and wore the kids out! That night I read my book (pretty much the first time since the trip started!).

Sunday morning we went to church with Aunt Debbie and Jimmy and Ginny cooked us waffles and eggs for breakfast. They got Myla some new jammies for her birthday...that are so so cute and were much needed! I spent the afternoon with Jill again and helped her take pictures of her house to sell, she's going through a divorce and it's tough being away from her when she is going through such a hard time.

Headed down to Grandma Suesy's house!
Sunday night my grandma made us dinner at her place and of course it involved Iowa Sweet Corn! Scott couldn't get enough! Grandma showed her great grand children off to all of her neighbors...they were all so sweet and loving. Myla pushed Tyler on the little push toy and they all thought that was pretty funny! My Aunt Karen also made dinner, so we pretty much got to see all my family and spend some quality time with everyone while we were back!

Monday began the daunting task of packing and fitting everything back into the van...wow, we tore up my parents house...things were everywhere, but looking back I'm glad i didn't waste precious moments because I was always organizing our stuff. It just made packing that much more overwhelming! And of course I was sad to be leaving, it seemed we just got there. I look forward to a time where we can spend and month or two there without the hustle and bustle. Maybe summers in Iowa? With Scott's job, that is a possibility, he had more transactions in his office than anyone...by like 8 and he wasn't even in Savannah!

Anyways, we left around 1 and headed onto our next stop in St. Louis!

Road Trip Continued...4 more stops :)

Fish at Elisa and Greg's...it was like 2 inches...trick photography.

We rolled into Cinci around 7:45pm and met Greg and Elisa at a Mexican Restaurant for dinner. It was so good to see them and here how they are doing. Dinner was crazy, as it always is with the kids but we got through. Once we got back to their house Elisa gave Tyler a new Cars watch and Myla a mini Pillow pet dolphin. Tyler LOVED playing with Elisa, airplane and tickling. Elisa is so good with kids! It melts my heart to see her love on mine :). They both had to work the next morning, so we hung around and fished in their complexes catch and release pond and then we packed up and headed out to Aunt Cris and Uncle Jeff's!

Next Stop: Spencerville.

First stop rolling into town was Kuwpee! Tyler was so excited to get to Aunt Cris's that he wouldn't let us eat inside. We got to see their new house! It is really beautiful and very well built, the grass and the yard was perfect for some practice golf! Tyler really enjoyed playing with real golf balls and clubs, hitting them towards the field.
Matt let Scott and Tyler take a ride on the four wheeler, I'm a little surprised at Scott. Tyler wanted to swing on Jeremy's new swing set, so we headed over to Grandma's and hung out under the shade tree. Jeremy showed us all he has done with the house, everything looked really nice. After everyone got off work we all met at Packer's for dinner. Both Tyler and Myla had anxiety attacks with all the new people. It took awhile, but by the end they were having a great time with the cousins. It was great seeing Aunt Wilma and Uncle Duane (Duane was the hero with Tyler and brought out skeeball game on his phone!). Misty and Adam did their best with Myla. Raven tried so hard to be nice to Tyler, but all Tyler did was kick her :(. Josh and Angel and their sweet boys were there and they were teaching Tyler new tricks and all the kids were running around having a blast. It was a perfect warm up to Thursday nights grill out (bbq). Myla fell asleep on the way home and she slept in Halle's crib, Tyler stayed up and showed Tanner and Hunter how to hit a golf ball. I'm sure we kept Jeff and Cris up way too late, but we had so much fun hanging out. Thursday we went to WApackeneta to go swimming with Angel and the boys. We showed up at 11, but weren't allowed in until 12, it was adults only from 10-12. So we headed to McD's for lunch first :). The pool was really nice and really cold! The water was freezing! Not like Savannah's bath water! There was a whole zero entry side for Myla, but we spent most of the time in the deeper pool in the floaties.

Pool Funtime.
Myla was a constant motor boat and I pulled Tyler along in a train. Every so often they would blow the whistles and make all the kids aged 6-18 get out for 15 minutes of adult and baby time. It was really nice not having a bunch of crazy hyped up kids all around. We stayed until about 2,

Passed out with sucker in mouth.
Myla fell asleep on the way home with a sucker in her mouth! I decided it would be a good time for a run...so I ran what Uncle Jeff later called the 3K run, with only 1 participant. Uncle Jeff took Tyler fishing and they did catch one and one got away at the last second. They had a blast.

Farm Family Picture. (Not photoshopped at all :)).

Everyone came over to the farm and we were treated to a fabulous cookout and Jeremy and his girlfriend wandered over from Grandma's house with their daughters. The kids had a blast with a water balloon fight Water Balloon Assembly Line
(i filled up the first 100 or so, with quite the assembly line of helpers). And lots of golf, tennis, bubbles, a colorful fire.

Kids table...cookout Thursday night.
We stayed up late again, Tyler too! In the morning we packed up and headed in town to Waffle house with Josh, Angel, kids, Matt, and Halle. It was a good send off, kids acting the usual. And then we were off to Michigan.

Made it to Michigan. Wagon.

It was fun telling Tyler where we were going each short trip, no, not Iowa yet, this time it's Michigan to the Barn. Then we looked at all the barns on the way. So much fun. We also saw a few Amish families and they had little girls in their homemade long dresses...so cute. Mainly we saw the men in there horse drawn carriages.

When we got to Uncle Leonard's the first thing Tyler wanted to do was fish. So that's what we did, pretty much before we ever went inside! Tyler had them golfing, playing basketball, fishing..etc. I'm pretty sure we got there around 3:15 and it stayed 3:15 the whole time we were there...that was weird! It's the only clock I saw in the house. Anyways, they are always such a delight and the house is filled with laughter all the time. Such a great example on how to keep a fun marriage! We ordered pizza, bread sticks and chocolate sticks for dinner...yummy! Right before dinner Tyler fell asleep on Debbie's lap watching a movie. We woke him up with the word, pizza :). They took us on a Gator adventure around the acreage before I was able to get Myla to bed at 7:30pm! We hung out in the living room talking, skyping, printing (Scott hooked up their new wireless printer, did the same thing for Uncle John). I got a huge night sleep, the kids slept until 8:30 this morning! It's Aunt Debbie's Birthday, either 40th or 50th or something close! We had a fantastic breakfast thanks to Uncle Leonard whipping up some farm fresh scrambled eggs, some ewwy gooey hot Cinnamon rolls, and crispy bacon. Yum! I love breakfast! Tyler kept begging for more golf and fishing, then it was getting hot, so we took a dip in their freezing pool.

Family shot at Uncle Leonard's and Aunt Debbie's.

Swimming with Aunt Debbie.

Myla couldn't get used to it, but Tyler had a blast playing with Aunt Debbie. I just was amazed with the energy she had with Tyler, wore me out just watching her! After we saw the bill for our stay, we took off in the car as fast as we could...we heard Scott's parents would be there soon, hopefully they will cover the balance :).

And now we are headed to Iowa City. The kids have napped and we have a little over an hour to go before we stop to stretch our legs and have a bite to eat. And see where Steff and Chris and their two boys live, I've never been to their home in Iowa City. Everything is going smoother than I ever could have imagined! We are having a blast and the pictures and this blog will hopefully bring back many memories for years to come!