Here are some pictures - no time to give details as Carter "NEEDS ME" so I'll just post pictures now and hopefully will remember to write later!

Father's Day fun!

This is our mad face - made because he had to get off Carter's bike - he pouted all the way home

He only got into the pond once or twice, during our trip

We really let him leave the house like this...

Scuba Steve's little brother

Ready for the Ozarks & Icaria

So I am playing with my new camera and took about 75 pictures today so I thought I'd share - plus my Grandma Sims (that is Yellow Grandma to you, Katie) is starving for blog writing and pictures of the boys! We took Sean out for breakfast this morning - even though we went at 9 and had to wait the boys did pretty well - I had some Sweet Potato Pancakes that were so called YUMM-O! If they had marshmallows on them I'd have to take Grandma Dandy for some on her next visit, I'll have to see if she wants to try them without since marshmallow topping wasn't an option but otherwise they have all the makings of sweet potato casserole (sweet potato, brown sugar & butter). We then took a trip downtown to Bass Pro - not on our normal shopping circuit but something fun for the boys - they climbed in a few boats and looked at the fish & Carter convinced Sean to buy him a fishing pole - let's just say that Carter is going to have to rely on Papa & Uncle Timmy to take him fishing because I heard Sean say many times today - "this is why I hate fishing, always have, always will" when Carter got the line twisted. We did venture down to the pond and Carter practiced casting with the little anchor type thing on there (he said he needed the hook but Sean thought he needed some practice before having one especially with little brother around). Linc had a great day of painting - as the pictures will show, we have one clean artist and one who eats paint! Sean says he has a future of glue sniffing ahead of him due to his love of product testing including the pink and blue paints today. It was in his hair, on his back, on the floor - guess we won't be painting again soon. That is about all for our day - hope all of you father's out there had a great day!

Back to Blogging!

Carter's first swim lesson

Carter's first movie - UP!

We've had a busy, busy week - yet again! Last week I got a major surprise with the arrival of Katie & Kara - thanks so much for coming girls, it was great to see you. I think I've been speechless surprised twice in my life now - once when my dad arrived in San Antonio in September of 2001 - we'd moved there in May and if I wasn't homesick enough 9/11 hit and made me want to move back into my parents basement & then waalaa - my dad arrived at Hills & Dales! Well K & K being here last Friday was about as shocking - as I turned to say hello to Sean and had friends too! We had a great weekend of doing mostly girl stuff & went out and stayed at Bricktown on Sat. night - such a nice treat for us to get out & leave the boys with their Mimi, and Sunday brought pedicures. Thanks, Mimi!

They were spoiled by Mimi - we went to Toys R Us (enough said, right?) we took Carter to his first movie - we saw UP! - he was a bit frightened and said a few times that he was scared and that we should leave but once he sat down on my lap he seemed a little better - I think the noise and the dogs in the movie were a bit much for him. He told Sean yesterday that he wants to go see Ice Age with him - so I think we will be sending them on that adventure soon. Carter also started swimming lessons last week - I'm not sure why his class isn't called something like "getting into the water" because that is most of what they do but I guess it is a start. He did wonderfully on Monday, horribly on Tuesday and better on Wednesday and Thursday - we will see what next week brings.

Linc of course would really like to be in swimming lessons as well - it is a bit of a challenge to keep him out of the water so I've been the mean mommy and put him in the stroller to keep him contained. He has recently figured out how to hide in our bathroom cabinets - he and Carter thought this was amazingly fun last week and spent a lot of time in and out of them - which is fine when my makeup isn't in there but is strictly prohibited when it is - because Mr. Helpful (Lincoln) has a tendency to make a mess with makeup - he's tried on mascara many times, loves to get his hands in lipstick and my personal fav - opens the mineral blush and spills it all over (we had a jammie fatality this week due to that little move). They boys were also helpful enough yesterday to turn on the lights in my car & now I have a dead battery so we are STUCK at home this morning! Really, stuck. They were also up at 5:30 so we are going to have a long morning.

Yesterday the boys painted alligators for daddy for Father's day - Linc got more paint on himself than the actual gator but Carter was meticulous in getting every inch (except the belly, which I had to convince him was supposed to be white) painted red. We then wrapped them up to give to daddy - when Sean got home, however, Carter opened the package and took his alligator back to play with so of course Linc did the same - guess they aren't yet schooled in the art of gift giving? That is about all from here, just your typical busy raising boys kind of week with some unexpected visitors & a Mimi!

We are still here!

Linc's slam dunk - with a tennis ball of course Foosball

First time on roller skates

First time being the driver (watch out Grandpa's truck!)

My handy-girl skills - putting together shelving for C's closet, I did have to take it apart 1 time but it is together the right way now!

I guess we've been busy - it has been 2 weeks since I've blogged or even blog surfed! We've been keeping plenty busy with lots of trips to the park, some swim dates and playing outside of course. The boys are LOVING having Grandpa's truck in our driveway and go to check on it from time to time, Carter told Sean last week that maybe Grandpa would want to just leave it here and use it from time to time, I think Sean would be ok with that too! Carter is also quick to tell everyone that his Grandpa needed a new truck because his old one is DISGUSTING or sometimes he says 'sgusting.

We had a fun birthday party to attend last night, they had all sorts of fun toys for the boys (and Sean) to enjoy, Carter tried to skate for the first time, I of course had to tell Sean how I used to be so good and he of course had to doubt this - but really I was good - I had a whole basement to skate in when I was younger and spent many, many hours skating around listening to music. Happy 5th Birthday to Carson!

I've nearly wrapped up my MOMS Club presidency, and have been spending lots of time trying to make sure everything is in order to turn over the the new board. It feels good to be almost done (all except the finishing touches on the annual report) and thus may have more time to blog soon!

This week with the Hogans

Boating with daddy (Sean thinking can this boat turn into a real one?)

At the pond

Linc trying out the potty

Watching the turtle poop opened up the poop talk again

We've had a relatively uneventful week. Carter's last day of school was this week so we are officially in summer mode! Should be interesting to not have that day break each week but we missed 1/2 of the weeks last year so it just wasn't worth it - I will be ready for fall no doubt to send them both back to school - Carter to preschool 2 days a week and Lincoln to one day a week of Mother's Day Out.

Our biggest news is that the bird in our front tree-bush - Carter bird, has babies! Of course, they have been named Carter and Lincoln by Carter. It is kind of fun to watch them - maybe I'll become a bird watcher after all. We saw a cardinal feed the baby birds last night but they birds can't be cardinals as they are brown with orange beaks so I thought that was interesting. The baby birds eat just as Animal Baby (a book that Carter used to get) says that they do - they stretch their little necks open and squawk for food!

The boys have been busy playing - Lincoln is starting to use the hammer - on everything in site so I'm putting the hammers away when I can! He's also followed Carter's lead and learned how to climb from the back of the couch on to our counter - not a good habit for sure! So if you come to our house and the love seat is pulled out into the middle of the living room - Lincoln is the reason. Carter is testing us with some naughty words this week - he's favorite saying right now are poopy anything, kick butt & Sh*t! He's getting his babies taken away for such talk and I'm hoping we are starting to be done with the naughty mouth - I did get the soap out last week and it scared him so I guess that might have to be done again. He's also decided to call his babies his brothers - so Lukey, Deer & Cow are now his brothers? He also decided yesterday he didn't like his real brother - I think it was because he was sitting on Sean's lap on the golf course that he wanted to disown him. It's always something...

Touchin' some trucks

Carter the crane operator

Linc driving the car transporter

Carter being transported

OU Life flight (not sure it is called Life Flight here but that is my Iowa name for it!)

Ready for the Ozarks - will Scott let him drive his boat?

Linc is an Oliver boy - Carter a John Deere one?

We had Touch a Truck today for the MOMS Club of Edmond - we were so lucky that the weather cooperated, all week it has been like 70% chance of rain in the morning and we missed it - it was 60's and blue skies (much better that sweltering hot in my opinion). I'm guessing we had more than 2,000 people today and made at least that much money in addition to the money that was already raised - those moms are amazing and many kids in the Food 4 Kids program will eat well this school year because of their work - truly a win-win for all.

The boys enjoyed this years event much more than last year - as I recall last year Linc was frightened by the noise but this year he jumped in. It took a few trucks to decide how much fun it was but they got excited, some of the highlights were the tractors (they even had an Oliver which I think pleased Sean a great deal), the Milk truck & the truck that gave away the ice cream (thanks to Borden), we saw the flight helicopter (and wondered if Aunt Lindsey's is as small?), got to get on a few boats. I think the highlights (and also later in the process) were probably getting in the crane - like the big one 110 feet crane & the car transporter that they got to walk on. We could have stayed even longer, it was great here are a few pictures of the boys.