Tanner's July Update

Grayson gets the majority of the face time on this blog, so today you are going to get to see the rest of his family.

Here is Max as he tries to pop the water balloons we made for Grayson. We didn't put him in the pool. He jumped in after the balloons and stayed in for about twenty minutes.
I have no idea what the story is behind this picture, sorry.
You may not be able to see, but he has a police hat and radio in his hand.

Did you read the book Marley and Me? This is my Marley. He is about 7 years old. We picked him up at an animal shelter after the flood of 08'.

Trina, Grayson and I celebrated the MLB All-Star game by supporting the Cubs the best way we know how. Although the Cubs are terrible at best, we love watching them play.

Max is Trina's dog when he is being a pain in the butt. He is about 4 years old. Trina had him when we met. Max convinced me that I was a dog person not a cat person. Good Boy!I had a huge list of things to do this summer. My list kept me going for a while, then I decided to just relax and play with Grayson. I only have about two weeks left before I am headed back to work. Here you can see me fixing our closet. One day we were putting our stuff on hangers and the entire shelving unit fell down.

I was teaching Grayson how to signal a touchdown. Let's go HAWKS!

We spent a little time helping Mike and Trilby finish their house. Nate enjoyed helping paint his room John Deere green and yellow. I think Peyton is going to end up with International Harvester red and black in his room.

Summertime update

Why haven't we posted in so long, you ask? Well, to be honest, we've been enjoying the summer too much to put time toward the blog. Here's what we've been up to for the past month:

• Tanner spent 3 days in MN at a conference for school, which meant Grayson and I got a lot of quality time together (no daycare means I took work off and spent 3 straight days and 2 nights just me and him). Grayson said "Daddy?" probably 50 times a day while Tanner was gone. He also learned to ask for Mommy too instead of just Daddy all the time. Tasha and Clara stayed over night with us one night and we spent some time walking around some stores the next day. It's fun to get some sister time and so cool that we now have our kids to play with (beside) each other.
  


• We spent an afternoon at the sandbox mentioned in our last post. Tanner tried to make a daddy friend while we were there. Have we mentioned how difficult it is to make friends in CR?? Grayson was the cool kid that day when we were smart enough to bring a bunch of toys all the kids could play with in the sand.
  


• TV has become our entertainment outlet via Netflix and online episodes. Besides parks and bike rides, it's one of the only regular things we can do for free/cheap entertainment. We have grown to enjoy the show Spartacus and Grayson has fallen in love with Yo Gabba Gabba (it's hilarious to hear him ask for "gabagabaga-BA!") after a recommendation from a friend who's daughter loves it.
  


• This week we introduced Grayson to water balloons. They must have been quality balloons because whenever Grayson threw them, they just bounced. For most of the time they floated in the pool. Little did we know that Max would be most entertained with them! Max jumped right in the pool to bat at them with his paw and watch them float. Entertaining for us too.
  



• Last night we went to Kmart and found some good toy sales. It was the first time in a couple months we've gotten to enjoy our most preferred form of entertainment (bargain shopping) in a while due to our self imposed tight budget (attempting to pay of student loans).
  


• Family: We've spent a couple of days helping Trilby finish building their house, mostly with painting (Tanner's expertise) and installing insulation. I enjoy learning those new skills but hate sweating that much. We'll be spending time with Tanner's family this weekend, celebrating Noelle's first birthday! We're trying to find ways to spend some time just Tanner and I but are finding that very difficult with the cost of babysitting, and lack of creativity on what to do (not cost) if we were alone.

We are looking ahead to enjoying our last couple weeks of summer! Hopefully taking a bit of time visiting Adam, Julie and new baby Ruby Sychra (1 week old).

Fun in the Sun

Grayson is learning about sand in the huge sandbox at Thomas Park in Marion. He didn't like to walk in the sand so he just stood there for about five minutes before independently talking his only five steps in the sand. Next time we will bring some sand toys and see if he has more fun filing buckets and raking the sand. Tanner and I brought Grayson to the park across from Hiawatha Elementary School. There is a splash pad there that Grayson enjoys playing at. This was the second time we visited the splash pad this summer. Guess who was there?

Evan and Dakota!!