9 years of bliss

In August, David and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary.

There are lots of great things I could say about David. And our marriage.

As the very over-used cliché goes, David makes me a better person. And I mean it. David is the most kindest, genuine guy, who was early on dubbed the eternal optimist. And because of his influence in my life, I'm more patient, compassionate, easy-going, adaptable, and I'm able to hold my tongue easier.

I was telling him all of this earlier in the summer - how he's changed me, helped me grow as a person, etc. So I asked him what sort of ways I've influenced his life, if he's changed at all being married to me. He naturally gave a good, but very general answer, telling me that of course I've been a good influence in his life and he was sure he'd changed too. But he couldn't give any specifics.

Not too long before our 9th anniversary, David got together with an old acquaintance of ours while I chased the kids around. We were driving home and David chatted the whole way, recapping the entire conversation down to every little "um and you know". Finally he stopped and said "this is how you've changed me! Now I talk your ear off because I need to share every single detail with you!"

First I thought, awesome, I'm a better person because of our marriage, but the only way I've changed him is that he now TALKS more??

Later I realized, awesome, I've changed him to TALK more! Because we truly share all details with each other.

And that's why we'll be BFFs for life.

A year and a half!

Oh Henry.

Hard to believe Henry is 18 months old today. It seemed like the first year and a half of Adele's life went a lot slower. And yet I look back at pictures of Henry's first year and a half and I see that we did a lot of great things...but why did it have to go so fast??

My kids are the best in the whole world. They love life, love each other, and are easy to love.

At 18 months, Henry continues to be a very active boy. He climbs on anything and everything. He won't sit still for long before trying to do a somersault off the couch, or jump off the chair, or sit on top of the kitchen table, or tackle his sister unexpectedly.

He appears to be completely fearless, but also doesn't react strongly when he gets hurt, thankfully. A simple frown and an "ow" will suffice, and then he'll move along to his next daring feat.

Henry is really into reading books, especially ones that have pictures of animals. He thinks every animal sounds like a cow, although he gets particularly excited when he actually sees a picture of a cow and won't stop mooing.

The boy also absolutely loves to be outside. He loves riding his little bike around the block and stops only for dogs barking, airplanes passing above us, and bugs he wants to stop and pick up. And as soon as I get a little away from him, he grins mischievously and turns his bike the other direction, picks his feet up, and rolls down the slope into the street.

Henry has proven to be as much of a talker as his big sister too. He will repeat everything, which Adele gets a big kick out of as she teaches him new words.

And although Henry is busy, crazy, active, adventurous, and mischievous, he is also a very sweet loving boy. His latest bedtime routine includes taking a baby doll with him into his crib, showering it with kisses, and snuggling up to it to go to sleep. He loves to give kisses to Adele, David and me, and one of his favorite phrases is "I ya yoo!" (I love you!).

Here are some pictures of Henry over the last couple of months. As you can see, he also loves saying "cheese". :)

This was when he was first learning how to
use utensils...he's much better now. :)

Probably more than anything else in life,
Henry loves his sister Adele.

Henry takes driving very seriously.

And he loves to dance...especially when
he gets to wear sister's dancing shoes.

This was how he ended up after he was
"helping" me fold laundry.

His new tricks on the swing.

Henry was thrilled when daddy brought a
frog inside...AND let him hold it!

His latest way to sleep. Precious!

Happy year and a half, Henry!

Roth Invasion

Upon our return to Oklahoma after some summer travels, we had 5 days to get our house put back in order as we were expecting guests.

Yep, 5 days after we returned from visiting family in Spokane, some of that same family - David's sister (Jordan), her husband (Rusty), and their 4 kids came to visit us. Why so soon after we visited them, you ask? And August in Oklahoma??

That begs the question, when IS the best time to drive across the country and visit Oklahoma?

2 years ago they came to visit us in November. It's true that November could arguably be one of the best months to visit Oklahoma. While much of the rest of the country is cold and often snowy, Oklahoma experiences fall with leaves changing colors and very comfortable temperatures. However, a drive across the country to get to Oklahoma brings the risk of rough driving in the snow and even closed highways. After a stressful drive home 2 years ago, they decided against November.

So winter is out. Springtime? A year and a half ago in April 2012, Jordan and 2 of her kids flew out to visit right after Henry was born. If you recall, that was when the tornado hopscotched across Norman without warning...as Jordan and I sat with 4 kids under the age of 4 watching what we later realized was the tornado knocking over our swingset in the backyard and swirling through the nearby trees.

So springtime is no fun in Oklahoma with the threat of tornadoes looming. With 3 of their kids in school, they decided on late summer before the school year began. Thus backing their trip up to ours.

The kids were thrilled. After spending every day together while we visited them in Spokane, Adele was excited to join them in sleepovers in our house.

We DID have to be creative with how we spent our time. With 6 kids in our small house, and half of them taking naps regularly, and temperatures in the upper 90s...we had lots of activities planned. Many that included water.

We went to a water park...

And to the river...

And to our favorite playground...

And to the OU pool...

And to the famous Pops on Route 66...

And to the zoo...

The girls brushed each other's teeth...

We celebrated Benjamin's 5th birthday...

We played with play-doh...

We ate shaved ice...more than once...

We braided hair...

And of course, there were plenty of snuggles.

Looking forward to the next Roth invasion!

Into the Wild

Adele has a book that she likes to read about 4 little friends who venture "into the wild"...which is the far place at the end of their yard. As they get ready for their trip they talk about the wildlife they might encounter. It's a cute book and one I've thought about recently.

At first glance, our backyard resembles nothing like the wild this book suggests. We live in a relatively new development with small yards backed up to each other. There are very few tall trees and very few landscaped yards - thus, not much habitat for wildlife, much to the dismay of my biologist husband.

However, regardless of the appearance of our yard and neighborhood, Adele still loves to attempt to catch anything that flies with her bug net - much to the delight of my biologist husband.

And this summer, with a little better observation by looking at the details of life rather than the overall appearance of our neighborhood (and yard in particular), we found ourselves with a variety of "wildlife" in our yard.

It started in the spring with the turtles. A strange sight indeed, but on several occasions we saw a turtle walking down our street or across our front lawn.

Then came the unusually wet spring/summer, combined with a bit of traveling on our part, to create more of a "jungle" feel by not keeping up with mowing our backyard. Once David began chopping down the massive growth, he found frogs. Adele was thrilled.

Later summer brought a fun surprise - kittens! We had just returned from visiting our family in Spokane, and I started pulling out some of the big lawn toys for the kids from the shed. Lo and behold, in the back of the shed was a litter of 5 teeny kittens. I did some investigating and figured out they had to be less than a week old. Sadly (for us), the little disturbance caused the mama cat to come move her babies over the next few days. But not before we got to hold a couple of them! One was left for a whole day before the mama came and got him, and he howled so loud that even Henry couldn't play outside without roaming the yard meowing! In the end I suppose it was a good thing that the mama cat moved them...because Adele and I would have tried hard to convince David to let us keep one. :)

Finally, the most entertainment of all has come from caterpillars.

Last May, David planted two passion flower plants - one in the backyard and one on the side of the house. He knew is was a host plant and they would attract a certain species of butterfly to lay their eggs on and for the caterpillars to grow. Sure enough, the caterpillars came. And they ate.

Everyone knows the book The Hungry Caterpillar, right? That was happening right before our eyes. The caterpillars were devouring the plant on the side of the house.

Interestingly enough, the passion flower plant in the back of the house seemed to be surviving. Upon closer look, David noticed an ant species that was demonstrating plant-ant mutualism. The plant provided food for the ant - the extra floral nectaries, which are little spots that are on the stem where the plant provides nectar - and the ant was protecting the passion flower plant from insects that would want to eat it. Namely, our caterpillar. Fascinating, right? (I told you, this was big excitement on a daily basis...)

So we watched the caterpillars thrive on the plant on the side of the house, form chrysalises, and emerge as butterflies. The plant in the back remained intact and well protected.

More entertainment occurred when we noticed there was a cool-looking bug called a wheel bug that was eating the caterpillars.

In an attempt to save our passion flower plan on the side of our house, we kept on the lookout for wheel bugs and transferred them to the plant to go after the caterpillars. Adele really got into this and still loves to find wheel bugs around the yard. 

Unfortunately, the amount of caterpillars was no match for wheel bugs, and eventually our plant was reduced to a skeleton. And to top it off, the butterflies launched an attack against our passion flower plant in the back of the yard and it appears they are on a mission to devour that plant as well.

Perhaps we need more passion flower plants in the future...

if for nothing else, so that Adele can venture into the wild again next summer.

Summer recap

Now that summer is almost over (at least in terms of the school year - we continue to have 90 degree weather despite more people wearing pants and scarves to fool themselves into thinking it's actually fall), it's about time to blog about our summer fun.

Because David is in grad school, we still stick to the school calendar and enjoy regular holidays, school breaks, and summer together. Granted, David still worked during the summer, but his hours were flexible and he created his own schedule. We loved having him around even more than normal!

We also think it's important to visit family when we have time off, and with our families living so far away, we take advantage of summer break to spend quality time with them. Someday we will be tied to work and won't get as much time for visiting family! (Of course, we have been saying that ever since we got married 9 years ago, so we're hoping to always spend 3-4 weeks with each family each year for...I don't know...FOREVER.)

First we spent time with my family up in Iowa over the 4th of July. Nobody does the 4th of July like Urbandale, and we enjoyed many aspects of it. And hard to believe, but it was David's first 4th of July ever in Urbandale. I loved recounting memories growing up, from the water balloon fights with our softball team before the parade, to the carnival and street dance, to the fireworks, and many fun stories about each event.

Adele and cousin Ash riding the firetruck at the carnival

Grandma and Rachel taking Ash and Adele down the big slide

Katie and Henry at the parade

The weather was beautiful in Iowa, so besides partaking in the usual 4th of July festivities, we spent a lot of time outdoors. The kids loved swimming in the kiddie pool in the backyard, eating popsicles, going on walks and wagon rides, playing at the park, doing painting crafts outdoors, and even going down a giant homemade slip and slide. It was awesome.

Henry and cousin Kennedy with their popsicles

Daddy and Henry on a wagon ride around the yard

Rachel and Robbie painting with Adele and Ash

Setting up the slip and slide

5 cutest kids ever - Ash, Henry, Adele, Kennedy, and James - 

my BFF Theresa's boy (and Adele's future spouse)

Later in the summer we drove straight to Spokane, WA, to visit David's family. (Yep, drove straight there. 25 driving hours, 30 hours in the car straight through. The true definition of "crazy".)

The kids loved having 4 cousins right down the street to play with every day. They had sleepovers, traded clothes, and did a lot of jumping on the trampoline together. We continued to love being outdoors on a daily basis and ate meals outside, went blueberry picking, and played at parks.

Cousin Hannah and Adele getting ready for bed together 

Hannah and Adele traded swimsuits

Henry loved the trampoline!

Two girls hard at work picking blueberries

Cousin Gracelyn taking Adele and Henry down the slide

One of our days in Spokane we spent at an amusement park called Silverwood. Our kids had never really been on rides (besides the carnival rides in Urbandale). I was more of a nervous mom and didn't think my kids would enjoy little rollercoasters and rides that dropped and rides that swing back and forth. Ha! Adele jumped right in line and couldn't get enough. Henry couldn't ride a lot of the rides, but he loved the waterpark there and played hard.

Adele (2nd from left) with her cousins ready for a ride 

Adele and Daddy on the small rollercoaster

Henry and me enjoying the lazy river at the waterpark