Brody the birthday boy pics!

I was really really slow at posting these. These were taken about 2 months ago when Broad Toad turned ONE! We just had a little family party for him. He sure enjoyed his cake. I'm in Love with this sweet little boy! He marches all around here chasing Krew, and trying to be one of the big kids!

Fall 2012

I've really been enjoying the colors of the leaves this year. The kids like to play in them.

This pic was taken a little before the leaves changed. We took a little day trip down to Letchworth state park. Its called the "grand canyon of the east." It was cool. Really pretty.

Becker Farms

I somehow convinced Doug to stop studying one Sat. and go with us to Becker Farms. He didn't regret it! Even tho the weather was a little rainy it was still so. much. fun. After going here I decided that halloween time wld be the best time for visitors to come because they cld see the fall colors and visit Becker farms. It was a blast. Don't even get me started on the delicious cider and donuts. I die.

We started the day off with a nice little pony ride . . .Krew does love him a horse ride.

The dads decided it would be fun to take the kids through the haunted house. We were all trying to decide which one of our kids wld be crying when they came out. Out they came and every last one was in tears! . . . and the dads were laughing :)

We went on a tractor ride to watch the pumpkin sling.

Got to watch the pig races. Almost felt like I was home in Idaho at the Blackfoot fair!

There was a little track for kids to ride these all- terrain trikes on. Krew called it his monster trike.

It was pretty cold this day. Brody didn't even mind that his blanket was pink!

We will def. be going back next year! . . .Maybe even this year to get more Donuts :)

First day of school for Krew

Krew started school! He loves it. I think its really good for him to interact with other kids his age. Even though I miss him like crazy it makes my day when he comes home and tell me all about what he did. I'm really impressed with some of the fun things that his teachers come up with to do. Krew goes to school with his friend Carter. Carters' dad and Doug are both dental students. Before school actually started there was a "meet your teacher day" for the kids. Me and Mallory decided to take the boys to lunch before we met the teacher and make a date out of it. So we took them to Pizza at La Nova Pizzeria which was AWESOME! I'm glad they have each other at school.

Krew had to get a pic with Ray before he went to school!

Two cute little pre-schoolers!

Randoms

We haven't been up to anything exciting lately but I'm pretty far behind on my blogging so here is a few random things that have been going on with us here in NY.

This Buffalo Bills sweatshirt that you see Brody in here was givin to Krew WHEN I HAD BRODY!!! Crazy to me that Brody is now wearing clothes that Krew whore when we moved here. I think Its just nuts.

One night we wanted to go do something fun as a family. So we got take out and took the boys to the park (Delaware park) to play. There is a cute little lake in the middle of Delaware park and we noticed that there were canoes to rent so we took the boys out and O my gosh Krew thought that he died and went to heaven.

Brody got sick again. I thought it was just a bad cold. One day was especially bad so I counted his breathing and decided I better take him in. He had RSV AGAIN! :( He was such a good sport to let me do his breathing treatments. The Dr. said that because he got RSV when he was a little baby, its alot easier for just "the common cold" to turn into RSV for him. So this should be a great winter!!

While I took Brody to the Dr. late one night my neighbor Rachel watched Krew for me. I'm pretty sure he wishes that Rach was him mom. Not to mention he LOVES Ragan. Rach not only watched him for me but he came home all ready for bed! Bathed with girl panties and jamies on! woot woot! What wld I do without such an amazing neighbor??

Me and Doug got called up from Nursery! I'm teaching primary now. One day Doug said he wld come in and help me teach. That turned into you teach and I'll go ahead and take a nap:

I love all these sweet little girls listening to me so intently and then Doug and Brody just passed out!

And I had to add a "crazy picture" of me and Krew man. He has been obsessed with my camera and always wants to take pictures lately. I have been thoroughly enjoying him and Brody lately. I think they are both at THE perfect age. :) Krew is really "getting" so much! He understands when I'm stressed and he tries to help me by making Brody laugh or cleaning up the house. He's also been great about his manors recently. Not to toot my own horn or anything because trust me there are lots of things he cld do better at but it just makes me smile when he is very polite. :) Krew is such a good boy. And Brody . . . my gosh he is the boss. He has been marching around here yelling HEY! or NO! or MINE! or I WANT! at the top of his lungs. We might still have some work to do on his manors but he is the cutest bow-legged chubby one year old I have ever seen. I'm in love!

The Mighty Niagara Half Marathon!

For the past couple months I have been training for a half marathon. When I signed up for it I knew that it would be alot of work to get myself ready, and there were times that I wished that I didn't have to spend so much time running. But, Running is like a bug that you catch: it hurts so good! There is nothing like waking up sore the morning after a hard run, digging in that last mile when every joint and muscle in your legs wants you to stop. Its so rewarding!! So after weeks of going to bed early so I could get up early to run, dragging myself out of bed in the morning to go run, and packing on the miles- I did it! And I want to do it again!:) (Tho I'm just now starting to feel that way) I wanted to blog about it while it is still fresh in my memory so I won't forget. The week of the race Krew and Brody got a nasty cold. I mean nasty. Of course I had to contract this cold. Thats what being a mom is all about! I did my best to stay away but the day before my throat felt like a million knives were slicing it :) Then I got my race bib. My number was 666. I had no Idea what this meant until one of my friends informed me that it is satans' favorite number or something. Fantastic. On Friday I went to the grocery store and something caught my eye -5 hour energy drink. 5 hours of energy? This looked very promising to someone who is about to run as hard as they can for 2 hours straight. I bought it and came up with a cunning plan to drink half of it that afternoon and if I liked it I would drink the other half before the race. So, that afternoon I drank half of the magic potion. For a girl who doesn't even drink pop this 5 hour energy kinda lit me up. I started sweating profusely, I was hotter than hell and I just was shaking. I couldn't stop. I did not like it one bit. I tried to stay positive. I spent 60.00 on this dang race and Heaven knows how much time preparing for it- I was going to run it come hell or high water! The husband took me out to Olive Garden the night before and we did a little carb loading which I had been looking forward to. I tried to go to sleep early that night but it was so hard because I was so congested I literally couldn't breath! Finally sleep came. But not for long, I woke up and looked at the clock 3:15- wide awake, puking my guts out, congested, and SO NERVOUS. I got my stuff together and off I went. While I was waiting for the race to start I forced down a peanut butter and honey sandwich, grabbed a fist full of cough drops and tried to make use of the ladies room a couple times. When they told us to line up at the starting line I WAS SO EXCITED! There were pacers for people to run with and I decided I would do just that because I usually have a problem with going out of the gates fast. This race was no exception. I wanted to start with the 1:50 pacer and eventually pass him. I started running thinking that because I was sick it would be alot harder but I was feeling good so what do I do? I pass the pacer 1 mile in. . . By mile 4 I was barely in front of the pacer. I was pounding my cough drops and breathing like a horse. I didn't want the pacer to catch me so I hung on for another 3 miles. At mile 7 I was running right with the pacer. I could tell that my body was having a harder time that it should when I still had 6 miles to go. by mile 7.5 I let that pacer get in front of me. Doug met me at mile 8 to run with me. When he started running the pacer was about 100 yards in front of me and he knew that was my goal time. "Lets go chase him down!" he said. I had envisioned that at this point in the race I would just want it so bad that I would turn it on run the last few miles the fastest. All I wanted so bad was to stop! haha So, When doug said this I just started crying! I think he realized how spent I was, how tired I was, and how disappointed I was to watch that hour fifty min pacer slowly run away. He was a good coach tho. I dug deep and hung in there for the last few miles. I learned to love my husband on a whole new level that day :) I know that sounds silly but I really did. I was so grateful to him for helping me and motivating me through the last few miles. I knew that whatever time I got he was going to be proud of me. I crossed the finish line 1 hour 55 min. And I'm not kidding crossing that finish line was like getting to heaven. I seriously felt the spirit! I was absolutely exhausted. I knew that I had givin it 100%. Everyone was clapping- I ran right into my friends Denyse that I ran it with and she gave me a big hug. Best feeling in the world. Here are a couple pics pre race, feeling good.

On the way home I kept telling Doug that I was sore. He said well you did just run 13 miles. I told him no my bones hurt, my spine! He felt my head and I of course was burning up! I had the flu bug! I spent the next 2 days curled up on the couch freezing cold yet burning up and my spine ached like you wouldn't believe. (i'm sure that running for two hours in the rain didn't help the cause) So I missed out on all the post race celebrating which I was a little bummed about but my one in a million husband took good care of me. Did I mention that I love him on a different level now. I wouldn't trade him for the world! :) He's a keeper. I'm already itching a little bit to do another one . . . but then I remember how much it hurt and I think twice. lol. I'm sure its just like having a baby. Once you forget how hard it is you sign up for another one.

WaLkInG!!!

Yes, thats right- this little meat ball is walking! I can't believe he is marching around everywhere! This makes him so happy! He tries to keep up with the bid kids and sometimes ends up on the ground again but he has taken to walking surprisingly well. It took him about two days and then it just kicked in and I haven't seen him crawl since. Watching him walk makes me so happy. He's the cutest little thing I've ever seen!

Brod-toads little friends like to help him walk. It somewhat reminds me of a newborn horse trying to walk for the first time. . . A really fat horse :)

I love his guts. :)

Summer 2012

After we got back from Idaho we had 3 solid weeks of fun with Doug still around! We did quite a few fun things. We are lucky enough to have lake Erie close by providing lots of fun beaches to play on that are no more than 1 hour away!

We also went out to Palmyra and saw the church sites. We really didn't have any excuse to not go. Its only 1 hour away so we decided we better go!

The boys at the statue at the visitors center.

This is the hill Cumorah. I made Doug go stand on it so you can see how steep it is. It's seriously steep.

The Palmyra temple . . .

This is Joseph Smith's house that he lived in when he had the first vision. The sacred grove is right out the back door. While we were on the tour of it my kids were going in every which direction. I honestly wasn't getting much out of it until the sister missionary opened the back door to show us the sacred grove. When she did that she recited the first vision. My kids held still for the duration of her speech and I got goosebumps just looking out the back door listening to what happened 200ish years ago. Its amazing to think that I was standing a few hundred yards from the place that Heavenly Father and Jesus came to Joseph Smith. AMAZING! The spirit was so strong!

This is us at Joseph Smiths second house. The one he stayed in as he tried to keep the golden plates safe from the mobs.

These are the exact bricks and the exact fireplace that he hid the plates under.

We walked through the Sacred Grove. I snapped a couple pics, honestly our time in the sacred grove was less than spiritual. :) By that Point the kids were tired and sooo hot!

We also got to see the "Hill Cumorah Pageant" It was awesome! It is put on on the acctuall Hill Cumorah. It goes through the Book of Mormon story clear until the time that Moroni buries the plates and then Joseph Smith finds them again. Its pretty cool. Krew LOVED it and still asks to go back to "pageant". Anything that you get to stay up late for is pretty cool I guess when you're 3!

Krew has been doing T ball this summer and I think its been really good for him. I have been absolutely terrible at taking pics but here are a few from my phone lol.

Rounding 3rd, headed for home!

How about that nice lookin 3rd base coach!

Krew with his T-ball buddy Henry.

Another first we had this summer is Krews first highlight!! lol Daddy wasn't to happy about this so we had to do it when he wasn't home. :) I think its pretty cute tho!

Doug finished up Krews bike. Here is the finished product. What a good Daddy!

Krews Yellow Jeep died. Correction-Krew drove it into the ground. So we found another jeep on craigslist and bought it. While Doug was picking it up the guy he bought it from asked if he wanted this fourwheeler he had, for free!!!! YESS PLEASE!!!!

One day I had to do a hair apt. without Doug around to watch the boys. I didn't think it would be a big deal because it was relatively fast. Oh no, Krew found a marker and decorated himself. I caught him just as he was about to decorate his brother.

Brody wanted his picture taken to! Don't judge the immodestly of my kids! Its stinkin hot here!

This pic. was before the jeep died. Krew saw one on Tv that had a trailer so he decided that his jeep needed a trailer to! He got a shoe lace and fashioned the wagon on behind the jeep with dad overseeing the project. And what better than your little brother to haul around! Brody LOVES IT!

Doug took Krew to see a monster truck show at the fair. Krew died. and went to heaven. He loved it! Krews friend ragan and her dad went with them. They had a ball riding on the rides at the fair!

And then the fun came to an end . . .Daddy had to go back to school. Here is is first day of the second year of dental school! We sure love you daddy!

Krew cried and stared out the window for an hour after Doug left for school. It was a rough couple days with out dad :)