John Deere Green

For Charlie's 3rd Birthday we celebrated John Deere style. It was a lot of fun. Ben "happily" decorated the entire downstairs in green and yellow streamers. (with a little encouragement from me) He did a great job! We also had an "Amish Haystack" dinner. Ben thought it went well with our theme. They serve these a lot in our area. (Ben teaches at a school that has quite a few Amish kids.)



Charlie was adorable on Sunday. He came down the stairs after his "nap" (He never went to sleep. He was too excited about everyone coming over.) As soon as he saw all the decorations he said, "My birthday is coming!" I said, "No, it's here." His face just lit up. It was adorable. I think he couldn't believe that it was finally here.

We also had green and yellow balloons tied to about 10 different tractors. Our present to Charlie was giving him many of the antique tractors that my dad had given me when I was little. Some of them are still in their original boxes and date at least 20 years old. Ben's favorite is the International and mine is the Allis Chalmers.

Charlie told me that all he wanted for his birthday was cupcakes and tractors. So... that is what he got! I made him this tractor cake and these pathetic looking cupcakes. They were supposed to look like round hay bales but you would have to use your imagination a whole lot to really see that! Sorry Charlie I tried!

Charlie got lots of fun presents: tractors, tractors and more tractors, his first GI Joe from Joel and Mal-Mal, a new guitar from Brickers, dinosaurs and clothes (weird but he LOVES clothes) from Aunt Sharen and Bob, his own cornhole set from Greg, Amy, Troy and Megan, a scooter and rocket set from his Nana and Papa Hughie.

I handed my cameras off to Joel and Troy so I could enjoy the party. I thought they were taking pictures of the birthday boy but apparently they were just catching others making funny faces.
Notice Joel is playing with the GI Joe that he got Charlie. Hhhmmm... maybe Joel actually would like that for his birthday. Just a thought Mal. :)

Here are our attempts at a family picture. Ugh... never seems to look like I was hoping.

Charlie loved playing with his big cousin Kobe.

Our guests were such good sports. They indulged me and say "Happy Birthday" to Charlie twice because we missed getting it on tape the first time. I knew he was looking super cute singing it to himself and I wanted to be able to look at the tape later. Thanks everyone. The crazy mom appreciates your willingness to work with me. :)

Happy Birthday Charlie we love you! Thank you to all of our guests. We appreciated you spending the evening with us. We had a blast!

Happy Birthday Charlie!

Happy Third Birthday Charles Grady!

We love you bunches!

Charlie's birthday- February 25, 2006- Goshen General Hospital

Charlie's 1st birthday- Pirate party

Charlie's 2nd birthday- Cowboy party

Charlie's 3rd birthday- John Deere Green! More pictures to come soon.

Two Suckers

Thank you Megan and Troy for giving the boys two suckers this time! We did not want a repeat of the last time a sucker entered our household! See here for a recap- http://tonagelfamily.blogspot.com/2008/09/two-lollipops-please.html

I just love those little faces!

Thank you also guys for giving Ben and I a few hours of adult time. Hacienda! Yum!

We had a great time with you guys last weekend!

peace out,

a

All for LOVE

Here are my lame attempts at somewhat celebrating Valentine's Day. We didn't do anything special this year. Unless you consider me forgetting it was Valentine's Day and saying, "Oh... Happy Valentine's Day. Love you." to Ben as I am changing an extremely NASTY diaper this morning.

I made our pizzas in heart shapes and made these adorable little cupies (except they really look more like bugs) out of pictures of the boys. I got the idea from http://foreverflamingo.blogspot.com/ and http://whoopsiedaisiesdays.blogspot.com/ I just finished them at 10pm tonight. So... I guess I will just have them ready for next year.

I also wanted to share what all I do for LOVE. Thursday night Ben got home from being out of town for 2 days. He could only stay home for about 2 hours and then had to go back to school for another 2 hours of P/T conferences. While he was gone in a matter of an hour and a half here is what happened (short version)

- The boys covered themselves in chocolate pudding.

- Charlie threw a temper tantrum in the dinning room and then puked from crying so hard.

- While I was cleaning up the puke, Sawyer emptied out all of my tupperware all over the kitchen.

- Charlie peed his pants and then climbed up in my lap.

- I put both of them in the bath tub assuming the worst was over and then I hear Sawyer say, "Poo Poo!" Yes, I then had the pleasure of scooping poop out of the tub with my hands.

In that short amount of time I ended up with puke, pee and poop on me. When Ben walked in the door I said, "You are on duty. I am off!"

Fast forward to Saturday morning... I wake up to go get Sawyer out of bed and realize that his jammies are all wet. I go to change him and he is COVERED in poop from his neck to his feet. It was of course all over his bedding as well. I took him straight to the bath tub. Fun Fun!
About two hours later... Charlie says, "Uh oh... I peed." I take him running into the bathroom and pull his pants down and discover that he has also pooped and not told us. It gets all over my shirt and his clothes. I throw his underwear in the toilet in frustration and tell him to just sit there for a minute so I can go get some clean clothes for all of us. While I am gone, he flushes his underwear down the toilet!!!!!

All for LOVE people. All for LOVE.

a

It seemed like such a good idea...

This afternoon when the boys woke up from their naps we took advantage of the semi warm weather. We got all bundled up and headed out. I told the boys, "We need to wear our snow boots because the ground might be kind of muddy." Well that was the understatement of the year! They immediately spotted all of the huge mud puddles out by the grain bins and went running. I thought, "How bad can it be?!?! I should just let them have a little fun. They need baths anyway. So go on guys, enjoy the mud a bit!" Oh my... I obviously know nothing about raising two young boys!

It started with just a little mud on the hands. Notice Charlie's shirt. How appropriate!

Then it was full blown jumping and running through the mud!

Charlie then decided to try kneeling down in the mud! NOOO!!!!!
I turned to hear Sawyer saying, "Uh oh..." He was officially stuck. I tried to pull him out of the mud and here is what happened...

Then I had to just go ahead and set him down in the mud because Charlie had managed to get himself stuck as well. At that point I said, "We are going in. NOW!" I hauled Charlie up to the house screaming and then put them both in the bathtub fully dressed. I couldn't think of any other option since they were both completely covered.

Guess I will be cleaning the tub later.

Here they are getting squeaky clean at last.

Mmmhhh... now they look and smell better!

Next time I will think twice or at least plan ahead when I see a few mud puddles in the back.
peace out,

a

Richards' Family Party

Sorry I am so behind on these pictures but I wanted to post them so Ben's family could enjoy them.
After the holidays we enjoyed an evening at Cumming's Lodge in good ole LP with the Richards' Family.

Here is a picture of all the new babies in the family.
Burke (and Laurie)Penziol, Meredith (and Courtney)Richards, Jace (and Amy)Tonagel and Gavin (and Donny) Spoor.

We added the older kiddos to this picture.
Charlie and Sawyer (Charlie is holding his cousin, Nolan's hand in front), Bailey Hardesty, and Scottie and Allison Hardesty.

We had a great time visiting with family that we don't see often enough. Charlie LOVED playing with his cousin Nolan who lives in Italy.

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I just entered to win a fab camera slip cover! I asked for one for Christmas but didn't get it. Boo Hoo... Hopefully I will win!
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