Dylen Came Home!

On Wednesday, the 18th, Vanessa invited us over to make signs for the kids to hold at the airport when Dylen came home that Friday morning.  Right when we got there the kids got at it and had their signs made in no time.  

 Kolton wrote "Love You Dylen" on his and then drew a picture of Dylen, a Book of Mormon, and a road and a couple houses.  

 We got to the airport Friday morning at 9:30.  Dylen's flight was supposed to come in at 9:55.  The kids were so excited and were jumping off the walls and going crazy.  :) 

 Someone that Dylen knew in Paraguay went to the airport to say good-bye to him and took some pictures and put them on Facebook, so Brady showed them to his family as we were waiting.  

 Here's a couple of the pictures that they were looking at.  

Here he is in Asuncion at the airport checking in.  

I just included this picture because it makes me laugh.  :) 

Dylen came walking through at about 10:00 and his mom gave him the first hug.  

 His dad was next and was pretty emotional about it.  Everyone kept teasing him.  :)

 Kolton wasn't ready to give him a hug upstairs but after Dylen got his luggage then he warmed up a little and gave him a hug.  He then wanted to help Dylen with his suitcase just like he did Shawn, and then wanted to ride home with him as well.  He likes returned missionaries.  ;) 

 We went to the Brammers from the airport and at lunch and then Dylen showed us stuff from Paraguay and then President Keyes came over and released him as a missionary.  We then went home at about 4:00 or so.  

Saturday night they had a homecoming party for Dylen so his friends could come see him.  Brady had a work party that night as well, so we went to that first and then came a little late to Dylen's party.  Kolton had a blast at Brady's work party.  It was at someone's house and they had a bounce house set up.  I guess the kids were sticking on the slide as they were going down so they wet it a little bit and then left the hose.  Well, one of the kids saw an opportunity to have a little more fun :) and completely soaked the bounce house and so by the time Kolton was done playing on it he was SOAKED.  Like water dripping off of him soaked.  We then got to eat some yummy food and then we had to go home to get Kolton some clean, dry clothes.  I had taken his clothes off of him (except for his underwear) so he didn't get the car soaking wet.  When we got home our neighbors were outside in their front yard so he ran from the car to the porch as fast as he could with his hands covering his crotch (even though he had underwear on).  It was hilarious to watch! We actually just bought Kolton some new underwear.  We decided to get him boxer briefs.  As we were on our way home he opened the package to look at them and pulled one out and got all excited as he stuck his hand through the hole and said "Look guys! It has pockets!"  Haha.  It was funny.  :) 

We got to Dylen's party around 7:30 or so.  It seemed like he had a good time catching up with his friends.  

He put on some clothes he brought home from Paraguay and everyone made fun of him.  Haha.  

 Kolton ran around and played with his cousins most of the time but after they left he just hung around Dylen and his friends and listened to them talk and he'd try and pipe in every once in a while to say something funny. :) He loves to hang around the older kids! Its funny!

Its good to have Dylen back! I can't really believe its been two years.  Crazy how time sure can go quickly sometimes! I feel like I just did this post! Man, how the kids have grown since then! Its just crazy! 

Dogs

Here are just a couple quick pictures of Kolton and his cousins playing the Wii.  We've been able to go over to their house twice recently for them to play and they've loved playing together.  Gotta love the summer! 

 So, for the past 2 1/2 months our lives have revolved around puppies.  It really is SO much work to take care of them, but this litter was most definitely my favorite litter to take care of.  It was way easier with only 8 puppies (instead of 12-14) and then also only having one adult dog instead of 4.  We never once had to bottle feed a single puppy! It was great! They all always gained weight! Usually on the first day they'll lose weight (just like newborns) but with this litter none of them did! It was awesome! So much less stress involved with this litter because of that.  Every puppy could eat all at the same time if they wanted to.  We had 6 of them sold by the time they were 5 weeks old and then we sold the last 2 before they were 9 weeks old.  We had 4 of them fly to other states (one in Washington, one in Pennsylvania, one is Mississippi, one in Colorado).  We then had one go to Amarillo, TX.  Then we had one up at Tinker AFB, one in Choctaw, OK, and one in Moore, OK.  

We try and take pictures of the puppies every 1-2 weeks as they are growing up.  It is SO hard to get pictures of them! It seriously takes me HOURS to get 2 or 3 good pictures of each puppy.  Its just crazy! 

 Purple was my favorite puppy, personality wise.  Oddly enough, she was one of the last two to sell.  She actually ended up going to one of my friends from work, so it turned out great! 

 Like I said before, we went on July 13th to go look at Xara up in Stillwater.  We brought a dvd player for Kolton to watch on our way so he wouldn't get so bored.  

 He noticed I was taking a picture so he had to pull a funny face.  :) He kept talking really loud to us since he had the headphones on.  It was funny! 

The puppies loved playing with him! Xara still favors him over us! 

 She's so droopy!! Look at all those wrinkles! :)

 At first Missy was really jealous so we had to make sure and give her extra love and attention.  Every time we'd pet Xara Missy would come and try and squeeze her head in between and just look at you like "aren't you going to pet me?" Now, though, she's fine and doesn't really seem to care who gets what and when.  Missy seriously is the sweetest dog! We hope Xara learns from her.  She's been a tiring puppy to say the least! :) If she doesn't want to be in her kennel she will bark/whine for hours.  So, night time is kind of hard.  Hopefully she grows out of it sooner than later! :) She is sweet, though, and we do like having her as part of our family.  

mainly the 4th of July

Before the 4th of July, we celebrated Brady's birthday at the end of June.  He had to work in the morning, but then was able to have his half day for the afternoon.  Brady's parents took us out for lunch to BJs for his birthday and then we went home.  Kolton was excited to give him his gift to him.  We had made it that morning, as well as Brady's cake (as you can tell by Kolton's face).  Then that evening the Foys came over and we sang happy birthday to him and we ate cake.  I made him an oreo pudding cake--a lot like a jello cake but instead of jello mix you use an oreo pudding mix.  I don't have any pictures of Brady on his birthday because he hates to have his picture taken so I said he could have one day out of the year that I wouldn't force him to take pictures.  :) 

I love taking pictures of Kolton.  :)

 Every week or two weeks or so we try and take new pictures of the puppies to document how they grow and also to put up on the ads so they pictures can be current.  It seriously takes hours to do because they move so much and are so crazy! One morning Kolton was trying to help me but all he was really doing was playing with them.  ;) 

 Missy hates fireworks and thunderstorms.  She gets extremely anxious and actually made herself sick with a fever one time from it.  SO, the 4th of July is like her worst nightmare come true.  Haha.  We came home on the 4th, though, to her bed totally ripped apart.  She does NOT do stuff like this so we know it was because she was stressed from the fireworks going off.  Poor girl.  

 The morning of the 4th we went to Krispy Kreme as a treat for breakfast.  As we were walking in we saw Jeff and Vanessa and their kids sitting at a table in there.  It was totally random (Krispy Kreme is about 10 minutes from our house and about 30 from their house so its not like its near either of us) but it was fun to see them and the kids had fun playing with each other.  We were there for quite some time so they were able to do lots of playing.  Jeff and Vanessa had just bought a new van a day or two before and so we got to check it out.  It was fun! 

The Foys came over for dinner on the 4th.  Brittney went and bought all the food for it and then we split the cost and then she made it all :) so i definitely got the easier part of the deal.  We had pretty much the same food as last year (steak and chicken skewers, corn on the cob, grilled pineapple, pasta salad, and watermelon).  Brittney also found these drinks online where you can separate the different colors of the drinks so we did red, white, and blue.  It was pretty cool! We had strawberry soda on the bottom, blue gatorade in the middle, and sprite zero on top (you put the most sugary drink on the bottom and work your way up to the least sugary drink on top).  

 The kids loved the food!!

 Brittney also made a flag cake! It was yummy! 

She took it home on her lap and it totally fell all over her! :( 

We went to the Foys after dinner to do fireworks.  We had the food at our house since we have a grill and then we went over there since they have a better driveway.  :) 

 Like always, we had to stop their playing to take some pictures of them.  ;)

 Such good friends! Kolton now says all the time that Kade is his best friend.  

 The kids went through a box of pop rocks in minutes! 

Brady is such a pyro and loved lighting everything.  :)

 Kolton liked doing the roman candles and did quite a few of them until Brady did one and one shot out the bottom and hit him in the side.  Then Kolton was done with those, for fear that that would happen to him too.  

 We had fun setting them all off! Sterling had a few left over from last year that we were setting off until one didn't go up in the air and just went off right on the ground and sent stuff everywhere.  :) Fireworks are so dangerous and yet we can't help but do them! 

This is totally out of place, but all well.  We got a new puppy! On Friday, July 13th.  We drove to Stillwater to pick her out.  There were two females left and so we went up there to see if we liked either of them and to then pick one out.  She is 1 day older than our puppies that Missy had.  We named her Xara.  She is 100% European Great Dane and comes from great lines.  Her grandpa is High Resolution.  He was the 5 time Grand Champion for all of Europe.  He's a pretty big deal in the dane world.  :) In fact, when they announced that he was having his last litter, each puppy sold for $30,000.  That's crazy! Then, her dad came from the number one rated breeder in France for the past 28 years.  So, she should be a really good looking! She has a very calm personality and absolutely LOVES Kolton.  He's really the only one she'll play with.  Its fun! I'll be posting more pictures of her in my next post (since really this shouldn't be in here anyway).  

 On Tuesday, the 17th, we went to the movies with the Foys to see KungFu Panda 2 at the Warren as one of their summer movies.  Kolton and Emery are so cute together! :) He loves taking care of her! 

 On Tuesday, the 17th, we also went to Chick fil a for dinner.  One of Brady's clients at the bank has a daughter that has chiari disease.  They were doing a fundraiser for her at Chick fil a, with a portion of your meal proceeds going to her.  They had a bounce house there and firetrucks the kids could play in.  It was PACKED but it was fun! 

 This is a picture of the 4 puppies we had left on the 9th of July.  It was so weird to have so few puppies! 

 Sweet sleeping boy.  :)

Madison came over one night to stay the night while we had to take a puppy to the airport.  We had to go at 4 in the morning (the puppy had a 6:30 am flight) and so she came so we didn't have to wake Kolton up and take him.  

 One week the boys' t-ball game got rained out so they shared an umbrella and walked back to the cars having a good ol' time.  They made sure they walked through as many puddles as they could.  :)  

One morning I took Kade swimming with us.  The boys had a blast together! Kade was tall enough to go down the slide so they did that 6 or 7 times.  Unfortunately they weren't strong enough to carry their own tube so I had to carry it for them.  They would run up the stairs and so I'd have to run to keep up (there's about 50 or so stairs) and then run down to meet them at the bottom.  My legs were seriously shaking afterwards.  It was ridiculous! Haha.  

Its been so stinking hot so we had to stop at 7-Eleven afterwards and get some icees to cool down.  It was a fun summer morning! :) 

This post is seriously a mess and so out of whack, but I really don't want to take the time to fix it all so it'll just have to do.