Summer Zoomed By!

Oh my! Here it is nearly August and I haven't blogged since April! Well, it's been a little busy, though, with what I sort of forget!
In May, we celebrated Clayton's 2nd birthday with a tractor themed party...still have to get pics from my sister for that one. We did Mother's Day stepping stones, which I need to make a few for my own garden, and Dennis traveled quite a bit for work.
June and July, we've spent playing. Really, we've been to the zoo a few times, the Tulsa Air & Space Museum, Muskogee Water Park, a movie, visiting my grandparents at their cabin, Fourth of July cookout, Dennis's birthday, visiting friends, and I can't even remember what else other than lots of outdoors time. The weather has been fantastic this summer with pretty mild summer temps and rain...yes, rain...in late July!
Our garden continues to make all sorts of great produce for us, so this summer, I have cut our grocery expense quite a bit on the produce part. The kids enjoy getting out in the yard with me and helping out a little.

That about wraps up May, June, and July for us. Clayton starts Kids' Day Out on Monday and Cooper starts homeschool Kindergarten with me the same day. We are super excited (and a little nervous) to start this new adventure but it will be amazing!

Playing Catch Up!

Wow! I hadn't realized it'd been sooooo long since the last time I blogged!

Well, here are some highlights:
1. We went to Grandma Harper's for Thanksgiving and Did a 2nd with More Family!
     We do this every single year. Dennis's grandma lives on a farm in the huge town of Mulhall, Oklahoma and we love to go visit and it's tradition for all her family to come up for Thanksgiving every year. She is 92 years old and going strong! Hope I'm that energetic at 92! We also had a Thanksgiving meal with Dennis's mom's side of the family at David and Kristine's house...always great to get together!

2. We had a GREAT Christmas! 
    The boys were so much fun this year! We had to say goodbye to our beloved Harry dog in October, which was very sad for all of us. We knew we wanted another dog and we'd find one at the right time. After Cooper praying every night for another dog for a little over a month, a friend of mine, called me the week before Christmas and had found one she knew would be great for us and we suprised the boys with Snoopy (aka Snoop Dog) on Christmas day!
   We got to do Christmas train this year and we celebrated Christmas about four different times!

Waiting to get on the Christmas Train

Cooper with his oldest cousin, Taylor

Clayton tearing it up!

Dennis is ready for hunting!

Cooper and Clayton on Christmas day

Clayton and Mommy

Dennis carving our fried turkey...it was yummy!

Cousins...Chloe, Cooper, and Clayton

Cooper and his Papaw

Cooper and his Grandpa

3. Hello 2013!
    I've been trying new recipes on my family and we've been waiting on some great snow...never happened, but we hoped it would. Actually, we would have loved a really good blizzard like we had a couple years ago. January, February, and March flew by! I had another birthday...32 in March. I have to say, it doesn't feel much different. I was surprised by my dear sweet Dennis who invited my family to join us for birthday dinner without me knowing it!


4. Early Spring fun & Spring Break & Easter!
    So, my cousin Rose, moved back to Okie land after living in California for about 10 years and we've had the chance to have some fun with her! We took Chloe and Cooper to the aquarium in February when they were both off school and kids day out. On Spring Break, I took Chloe, Cooper, and Clayton to the zoo and met up with a friend and her daughter. NEVER do the zoo at Spring break...crazy!! Still lots of fun, though!

Party Barn

So, since we've moved to our big shop, we've hosted a couple of Cooper's birthdays, Nana's surprise luau birthday last January, and this January, we turned the shop into the Princess Party Barn complete with princess bouncy house with slide!

My sweet little niece Chloe actually turned 5 on December 29th, but my sister decided to do a party after the holidays (wise choice). She is adorable and I think she enjoyed her princess party!

Happy 5th Birthday, Chloe!!

Happy Thanksgiving

We have Thanksgiving pretty much all weekend, it seems. Yesterday, we hosted Dennis's mom's side of the family and this weekend, we get to visit Grandma and celebrate her 90th birthday, too! Cooper was so excited to have guests that he was wound up....but, after everyone left and it was just the three of us left to relax, it didn't take him long to unwind. He got comfy watching a movie with Daddy and we were all in bed well before 9:00!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Cooper!!

We celebrated Cooper's third birthday on Saturday with a cowboy theme party! I can't believe he's 3 already!! Today is actually his birthday, so happy birthday, baby boy!

Vacation Time

Well, it's been quite a week! We haven't been gone a week straight, but it feels like it! Cooper and I went to Edmond for David and Grace's 3rd birthday party on Thursday, the 8th and came home Sunday. They all had so much fun playing and it was great ti visit with our friends! Happy Birthday, David and Grace!! I can't believe they're three!!
We weren't sure if we were going to go anywhere, since Cooper was up Tuesday night really sick, but thankfully it was just a 24 hour stomach virus and he was great by Wednesday evening.
We were home a few days and decided to go ahead and take a few days for a family trip starting Thursday. Guess who got Cooper's stomach bug on the way? That's right, that was the longest trip to Branson, EVER!! But, I was over it and back to myself Friday. Darian's kids were out of school, so they all went with Grandma Rains to Branson, and since we had the camper, we camped near and all went to Silver Dollar City together on Friday. Saturday, we headed to Roaring River, Missouri and camped Saturday and Sunday night. We had so much fun, just hanging out. It was kind of sad to come home, but then it's always nice to take a really hot shower without running out of hot water in 2 minutes and sleep in our beds!

Happy Independence Day!

Pops! in Arcadia is a really cool place to stop on Route 66- We took the long way home




We took a long weekend for the fourth and hauled our fifth wheel camper to OKC to visit our friends there (Happy Birthday, Morgan!). We had so much fun and I think David and Grace really like playing with Cooper in the camper and at their house. They all had a blast together and all three were totally off schedule for the entire weekend, but they had so much fun. Needless to say, Cooper was ready for bed tonight! Here are a few pics I took with my camera, I'll probably have more to post later.