My boys are super great about including Brody in everything when he visits.

Even mischief. 

Busted!

"Quick give the box to the new guy!"

Look at him, so innocent.....sorry Mike and Ashley. : )

After playing in the water park all morning, we decided it was time to take our tired crew to Grammy and Poppy's for a shower and nap before Grandma's surprise party.

I didn't quite figure everything just right and we had to check out of our room before we were done playing, plus it was freezing outside.....bottomline the kids went back into their PJs for the quick trip up 435 to my parents.

One last shot on our way out.

SURPRISE!!

Completely shocked when she saw my Aunt and Uncle walk through the door with all their crew.

Why include a picture of the cake?

Well.....because there's a story of course. : ) Curt and I offered to pick up the cake at Sams for my mom. 

I received it from the cake designer and carefully (2 hands gripping box) crept to find Curt (who had both boys strapped into the tandem cart seat). I knew it would be too dangerous to place the cake in the cart, so I held it in my hands. Curt asked me to look at something - he was standing between me and boys - I stopped to listen to what he was saying and WHAM from out of nowhere Preston smacked the top of the cake box. I was so surprised and his strike was so strong that I dropped the cake and nearly fell down myself. With tail between my legs I took the cake back to the cake designer. She seemed a little ticked. I mean, the pink frosting on the left side was gone and so was all the brown "ribbon" above the picture. AGH!!

But TaDa, thank you cake designer lady!! It looked perfect!

Preston with Uncle Jonathan

My dad and his brother, Uncle Dave, who drove down from Iowa with my Aunt Cara and their daughter Meghan who just had baby.

Ashlyn with Courtney and Lily (Meghan's oldest daughter)

An old friend of Grandma's.

The whole fam.

My grandma has 2 sons.

Uncle Dave has 2 daughters.

His oldest daughter, Tiffany has 7 children.

That turns a smallish family into a crowd!

Grandma with the great-grandkids.

Well, minus brand new Iris.

It was great to see everyone. 

Maybe we'll do it again in 10 years. : )

The set up:

Each kiddo got a "birthday bag" - sort of like a stocking - from Curt and me (me, not I, right?).

And then one bag from my parents. I could see what was happening.... my parents were going to buy little gifts for both of the non-birthday children to receive along with the gifts for the birthday child. So this was a great way to just get it all out at once. : )

Sorry I didn't get any pictures of the contents of the bags, but you'll see it all in posts to come. There were several outfits for each child, shoes, and toys. Ashlyn got a doll that wets her diaper, WOO HOO!! Obviously a man invention. 

Everyone got their own special little cake.

My grandma thought this was highway robbery at $6 a piece,

but I thought it was brilliant, everyone got something special and I didn't have mountains of leftover cake.

It was also Grandma's 80th birthday last Thursday, so in addition to celebrating the kids birthdays, I had encouraged my mom (by pretending I was going to be WAY more help than I actually was) to plan a surprise party for grandma. 

Those pictures will be tomorrow.

Here she's just opened the beautiful album that mom put together at Shutterfly.

We snuck a box of old photos out of the basement without Grandma even noticing.

My mom combed through them all, selected the best and SURPRISE.....this is your life, Virginia Chapman!

It was clearly one of the best gifts she's ever received - good job, Mom!!

Not much sleeping happened in our hotel room. 

But that's what memories are made of, I think, at least that's the thought that pulled me through.

This picture was taken in complete darkness. 

Curt put all the kids in one bed and snapped it.

During the flashes Ashlyn noticed Dillon had taken his sock off his foot and put it on his hand.

Dillon is secretly our biggest goofball.

See you tomorrow night for the final installment. 

I'll start by explaining the Kaelber birthday compromise.

Curt feels that child birthday parties have gotten TOO BIG, EXPENSIVE, CRAZY and generally out of control!

I feel that child birthday parties are NECESSARY, COLORFUL, CRAZY and generally tons of fun!

Many moons ago we agreed that on odd birthdays (of course, because of the all-important-First-birthday) we would have fun friend parties, while even birthdays would be quiet, family, homemade cake kind of events.

This year all the kids turn even.

 We decided to just celebrate them all at once with a fun family outing at....

The troops are ready.

They have an area just perfect for little people.

Curt liked this picture because you can see most of the park.

Trying to catch the boys going down the slide at the same time.

(Preston would eventually have to "take a break" from this area because he refused to go down the slide on his bottom - preferring head first or even backwards.)

Preston "racing" Ashlyn.

Notice he's ticked because he wasn't on "his side". He can be a tad temperamental. 

Setting up for a family shot in front of  the dumping bucket thing.

Even when you're expecting it, it's still shocking somehow.

Ashlyn's favorite - The Lazy River.

She could touch and she loved that.

Curt and I renamed it The Lots of Work River because we were trying to keep two over confident boys from drowning.

Preston doing the back float with Poppy. 

Yep, my parents stopped in and played for a couple hours.

The most complicated part about these sort of outings is that you have to decide to either participate in the fun or photograph the fun. Being a mom is so tricky! You want great memories, but you want great experiences too. Needless to say, the photography suffers a bit when I try to do both. : )

Tomorrow we'll see the "party" in our hotel room. Ooooo!

So here's the house we moved into just over a year ago....

And pour a concrete slab in the back.

I should've known, Curt wasn't capable of taking a year off!

He's been busy, but it's looking so good.

We think we might stay! : )

(Just for the record, the fact that we almost matched the former house & trim color was a complete accident. We just picked colors that looked good with the new roof. What dorks! We did need that year off!)

I wish I had gotten some before shots of the back. 

Finishing the back of the house was this summer's project, Curt finished painting and hung all new exterior lights just a couple weekends ago.

We are loving the new huge windows, now grandma and Ashlyn can actually enjoy the view. 

And the new french doors.... WOW - they replaced an enormous (and drafty) 9 pane window.

You have to watch that second step though, it's a doosie! 

He's finally sitting down.

But not for long. 

Next week we'll have a sidewalk poured that extends this tiny porch and connects to the driveway (OOOOooo and steps in the back), then we can start on landscaping.

Hopefully this winter we'll have someone come finish the inside, I'm ready to have the insulation/exposed nails look be a distant memory.

But anyway, that's what Curt's been up to and it's looks great!

What a vision.

If you're reading this, honey, I still think we could use some time off!!!! : )

Our boys think Ashlyn is the coolest, most awesome, best sister EVER!!

Even though she makes them crazy they follow her around doing everything she does.

If we can only get her setting an example we WANT followed! : )

"Looks so fun guys, here I come!"

"Something's not right!"

Curt LOVES when the weather starts getting crisp.

It's time to light the firewood.

And roast some marshmallows.

We had the Browns and Does over.

So much fun!

Dani is never afraid to give it right back to Preston when he's a stinker!

Isn't bedtime just the best of times and worst of times?!

If you can just get those tired little stinkers to close their eyes and drift off to sleep, they are inexplicably transformed into angelic creatures. EUPHORIA. In the same moment, the house (and my mood) are also transformed.....it's quiet, peaceful and productive. Aahhh. So satisfying after a long day.

BUT

 Then comes the day when you close the door and those tired little eyes, instead of closing, dart around the room looking for escape from sleep.

For their birthdays, my parents bought both the boys a race car bed (thank you Craigslist creator!)

We set up Preston's, but were going to wait until Dillon's birthday to give him his.

First night....perfect.

Second night.....look who can climb out of his bed in complete darkness.

Curt loves to tell the story of how we discovered this little escape.

I was surprised one night after "bedtime" that I could still hear the boys up talking. I went in and OH MY, Dillon was out of his bed. So I put him back in and gave him a mini lecture about staying put. Amazed, I came out and told Curt what I had just seen. After 2 more prison breaks, Curt and I were seriously concerned about Dillon's safety. I said, "Dillon can you show Mommy how you're climbing out?" It took some coaxing, as he was nervous to show off this talent that was getting him in so much trouble, but eventually he swung his leg up and barely caught his chubby little ankle on the side of the railing. He sort of wiggled around until a good portion of his leg was over and he was able to pull his weight up to balance his body on the thin edge of his crib. About that time Preston sprung up out his bed, he grabbed the ankle dangling on the outside of the crib and pulled Dillon the rest of the way down. He was obviously trying to catch him and maybe he'd been successful in previous attempts, but when you're catching someone who weighs more than you, gravity is not on your side. They both fell, but were clearly pleased with themselves. 

I'm going to repeat that they had been doing this in complete darkness.

(Which he did again without us knowing after we left - that's how I snapped the picture.)

Are they circus people?!

Needless to say, the next day Dillon got his bed.

My dad says it looks like a used car lot. : )

Dillon could not understand to stay in his bed, so we had to put a baby gate all around it.

He likes to take all his covers and make his bed on the floor or whatever space is available.

We've also discovered that Dillon doesn't like to sleep alone. If he could, he would sleep in Preston's bed. However, bed is one place where Preston wants his space and when we hear him SCREAM shortly after we've shut the door we know that Dillon is trying to cuddle with him. I guess they've worked something out that Dillon can sleep right by his bed on the floor, we often find him there. 

Trying to help Dillon with this problem we moved their beds right next to each other. Well, that's not true. They're about a foot apart because otherwise they jump from one bed to the other......also not safe in complete darkness! BOYS!

(In case you're wondering, yes, I go in flashes blazing and snap these pictures after my boys have fallen asleep, even though I just spent this whole entry talking about how hard it is to get them to sleep. I like how Preston's face shows his disapproval. ) 

Obviously, my blog is under construction.

I've been wanting to change things around a bit and reformat so that I could use bigger pictures, but it was totally by accident that I somehow replaced our former background/layout.

Anyway, I'll get to it when I get to it. : ) 

Last Friday our homeschool group went to check out a little zoo north of Bartlesville in Caney, Kansas.

Our tour guide & park owner, Tom. 

Laying down the law with the kids - DON'T GET OFF THE SIDEWALK!

Seriously, you'll see why.

They start the tour by selling you a bag of animal cookies that they let you feed to all interested "exhibits".

Ashlyn is up close with the lemurs.  

(I realize this picture size seems huge, but it's the next size up from "large")

This baby lemur is small enough to fit right through the bars of it's cage, so they let it run free.

Super cute!

Our group.

This group got big in a hurry because in addition to being a great zoo, they offer a "creation tour" where they use Biblical information when they talk about how old the animals are and so on.

Tom handles most all the animals. This is more than a hobby, it's definitely a passion for him - don't you love listening to people who are PASSIONATE about what they do?!

Probably Ashlyn's favorite stop.

More monkeys. 

Can you see why they don't want your kids off the sidewalk? : )

Tom fed all the big cats chicken parts so you can see how aggressive and powerful they are.....

not to mention LOUD!

We were scary close. The kids loved it!

This guy is one of the now famous white tigers who were rejected by their mother and fed by Tom's golden retriever. It made national headlines. Read about it here http://www.safaripark.org.

It's a great story of how God still works miracles!

Tom is showing us how big a grizzly bear is. 

Whoa! This picture doesn't even do it justice.

The park has a vision for the future. They'd like to host creation camps and big groups, right on their grounds. They've built this 3 story tower facility. Curt took AJ up and the boys were not too happy to be staying on the ground with me.

Altogether a great time. There was a little incident when we let Preston out of his stroller and in a second he was almost in the clutches of a baboon. Who knows maybe they would've recognized him as the long lost family we suspect he is, and invited him in......but my heart nearly stopped. 

It is a unique one-of-a-kind experience and if you're in the area - it should be on your list of to do's while the weather is nice!