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!

Wild West Wyoming Road Trip

Clayton enjoying the garden at Lions Park in Cheyenne

 We kicked of September with a road trip....a rather long road trip...to Wyoming! Dennis's work had him in Casper for nearly three weeks and since we knew ahead that he was going to be there, we decided to make a trip to see him and do a little sight seeing, too.
 Nana & Poppy (my dad and stepmom) were up for the trip and we left out to pick up Nana in Colorado and we got to have lunch with some cousins in Monument, Colorado on the way. Then off the Wyoming. I was a little worried about the little one traveling so far, but he did great! We made lots of stops and I packed a picnic box which we found to be indispensable! We had a picnic lunch nearly every single day!

Fort Caspar Museum

 We spent a couple days in Casper with Dennis (hoping that he'd get to go to Yellowstone with us but that didn't work out). While in Casper, we visited the Fort Caspar Museum, drove to Independence Rock (a 27 acre granite rock in the middle of nowhere...it was pretty cool!), and looked around town.
  Then we headed to Cody to be closer to Yellowstone. On the way, we stopped at the Wyoming Dinosaur Museum in Thermopolis which was awesome! We went to Yellowstone two days in a row and probably could have easily spent a week there, it was so beautiful! The weather was great and we saw all kinds of animals. Nana and I helped Cooper do his activities and list to get his Junior Ranger patch, too! (:
   We spent one more night in Casper so we could see Dennis before coming home. We stopped in Cheyenne at Lions Park, which was a really neat place...a great garden and a children's garden that was amazing!

Cooper taking Nana for a ride on the stage coach...his first hat from our trip was this Union soldier hat

Nana, Poppy, me and the boys at Independence Rock outside Casper

My little ranger...another hat...he loves hats

At Old Faithful Geyser

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone...this was my favorite spot of all!

We saw lots and lots of buffalo!

Official Junior Ranger

Can you see the elk just hanging out at Fort Yellowstone??

The Post Office at Fort Yellowstone...I just loved the bear statues

Summertime 2012

Oh my goodness! The summer has been a whirlwind, but we've had lots of fun! The boys and I joined a Mommy & Me group and joined some fun outings every week. We went to Blue Hole, once with our group, and once when we camped over the July 4th. We went to the zoo, Bounce U, Gentry Drive thru zoo, and swimming.

Dennis started a new contract job in Tulsa so it's been great because he has normal hours!! That's a big deal if you know anything about his schedule and having your own business!

Coop helping me cook (:

 It's been a gazillion degrees most of the summer! Pretty sure we broke the record and hit something like 117! The garden didn't do as well as I'd have liked because of the heat, but fall will be here soon and we'll be cleaning out the old and getting ready for the next year.

I love this picture- garlic and carrots from my garden

purple hull peas from the garden

Clayton hanging out in the washtub reading nook

All these toys and he plays with a box!

First day of KDO for the boys

Clayton is full out walking and getting into everything and they are both growing like weeds! This is Cooper's last year in the preschool program/ Kid's Day out and Clayton's first year in KDO. Next year, Cooper will start Kindergarten at what I refer to as "Mommy School" (aka homeschool) so I am looking forward to that and getting myself prepared this year.

We are ready for fall and ready for some camping and our trip to Wyoming!

Summertime Bucket List- Zoo & More

The summer is in full swing! We've been having lots of fun adventures at home and out and about. Our garden is growing, our kids are growing, and we're enjoying the summer.

We found a nest of baby rabbits in one of our raised beds....they didn't stay long after we discovered them, but we had fun peeking in on them.

First sunflower of the summer along with orange poppies from the garden

This is the view from our yard looking out the front of our property across the road during wheat harvest....pretty cool to watch them.

Homemade popsicles

Mommy and the boys

Cooper at the Tulsa Zoo

Cooper Monkey!!

My little zoo rider...he did great riding around and taking it all in!

Ok, this was just funny....first of all the lion is usually not out when it's hot, but we were early enough to see him, second, he was out and playing, then look to right and notice the keg....think he might've had a crazy night!? (: