The boys, Starscream, Goodbye Cookout

A couple of weeks ago, Eric's aunt told us about burying a St. Joseph statue to assist in helping sell your house.. I hurried up to the local Catholic store and bought a small one, burying him first like this & then re-reading what she had written & re-burying him the way she had.. but still nothing. We had a lady we thought was interested, but we haven't heard anything. I need to get my daycare income back soon, so I think we'll be taking it off the market in a couple of weeks.

Last weekend, we went swimming at my Dad's for the first time this summer. This is a picture of Aeson's teeth while we were there. They're out far enough that you can clearly see them now. The two on the sides of the front two are starting to come through as well. My poor teething boy.. getting them all at once! Anyway, Aeson was scared of the pool at first but quickly warmed up to it & really did well!

Westen's been especially funny lately. He's been calling the movie theater the "movie peter." He also got a strawberry kiwi slushie at DQ the other night and said it tasted like strawberry & seaweed! Chelsea asked him if he meant kiwi, and that is in fact what he meant. :) I may have written about his knock knock jokes before, but just in case I didn't, this is how they go... "Knock Knock," "Who's there?" "Westen," "Westen who?" "Westen Behymer!" He doesn't quite get the concept... :) He gets so angry when we say them to him and try to be food.. He says we CAN'T be food! He continues to draw all the time and lately has started drawing angels and Toy Story characters. His drawings are so unbelievably good for a 4 year old! I would love to get him started in some art classes or something.

This past week, Westen said out of nowhere that he's ugly. I continually told him he wasn't (that he is, in fact, beautiful! :)) but he remained persistent that he is ugly. I have no idea where he even got this from. When I tried asking him, he said he just looked in the mirror and he is. :( I told him good things about all his features, but he remained certain. He said it for several days, so I finally asked him who else is ugly. (I'm not sure that he even knows really what it means) He said nobody, so I asked who he thought was pretty & he said me.. I told him that he looks like me, so he must be pretty too then! Since then, he hasn't said anything again. I'm hoping that no one said this to him, but it also makes me much more careful about what I may be saying about myself or other adults may be saying around him.

Aeson's been standing for longer and longer periods of time. The other day, he stood in the living room looking at a book for at least 30 seconds. He's started pushing his play table around the room, walking behind it. I'm pretty sure he will be walking in no time! It makes me sad! He's getting so big! We're busy planning his first birthday party and I can hardly believe it.
Yesterday, we had a very, very busy day. After Farmer's Market, we went to the pet store to get our fish some feeder fish and while we were there, we saw a couple of cute kittens. Westen begged me for one, so when we got out to the car, I called Daddy to see what he thought. We ended up going out to the shelter to look, and I'm glad we did. They now have TWO rooms FULL of cats and kittens. There were a couple of older cats whose time was about up, and it just broke my heart not to take them! We really wanted a kitten, though.. One whose habits aren't already formed and one who could grow up with the kids. We already have outdoor cats, and I had considered bringing one of them inside.. but they're so used to being outside now and show no interest in being inside. So, we got this little black and white one you see. Westen named him Starscream (a Transformer). He LOVES him. He's been really good with him too. Aeson even has as well. He giggles at him and touches him with his fingertip. Last night, he was curling his fist around some fur but the kitten didn't seem to mind. Our dog doesn't care less about him.. and while he was afraid of the dog at first, he now couldn't care less either!
After all the errands of the morning, we had Amber's baby shower to go to. She was one of my bridesmaids, and she's expecting her baby girl the first part of October. Another of my bridesmaids is also pregnant now (with her third boy!) and due in September. I got to go visit her last week too.
And finally, last night we had a cookout at our house for my mom's side of the family. My sister and her family (above) are moving to Chicago next weekend. We had a good time with everyone, and the food was delicious! We spent most of our time indoors, because it was SO hot and humid.. but we did go outside for a while, and the kiddos got to play with water balloons. We're going to miss all three of them so very, very much!

4th of July Getaway

We spent the 4th of July weekend in Burlington, IA with my sister, her hubby, and their baby. We left Saturday afternoon. We realized we'd made a BIG mistake when we got to the hotel we'd booked. It was close to Fun City, where we were going to be spending most of our time, and much cheaper, so we'd booked it online. The whole place looked rather shady and when we got in the room, there were dead bugs ALL over the carpet. Every little thing was definitely less than clean! It had sounded nice online and there were even photos, but it definitely was not what we thought! They offered to change our room but then the lady was being less than friendly and even the 'nicer' area looked iffy, so we ended up getting a refund and checking into the hotel across the street! Thank goodness they had a room available. The extra money was definitely worth it!!!

After that whole ordeal, we finally went to dinner, where I realized I had forgotten my ID! No gambling for me! :( We went to Fun City that evening. Westen LOVED it all. Laser tag was probably one of his favorite things. He wouldn't ride the go-carts with Eric, but they had little kiddy ones that he drove himself! It was so funny to watch him. He went sooo slow! :) He was quite concerned about wrecking too, after seeing the adults do it!

When we got back to the hotel, we tried to take the kids swimming. Westen's stayed in lots of hotels when I've had to travel for work, and he LOVES the pool and hot tub. The pool was really too cool for the babies, though, and Aeson was a little bit scared! He started shaking and then clung to me the entire time we were in the pool area.. and we only put his toes in!

On the 4th, we started out swimming again and then went to Big Muddy's for lunch. It was yummy! We headed to their fair afterwards. Westen got to climb up in a fire truck, he won some silly prizes, and he got to ride on a pony! It was rainy, but we braved it! We headed back to Fun City that evening for more games and watched the fireworks at night. While we were waiting for them to begin, Aeson pulled himself up using me to hold onto and then really wasn't putting any weight on me at all... Then he took his hand off completely and stood for several seconds! After he plopped down, he even joined in in clapping for himself and then he did it again a few minutes later! He doesn't seem nervous or scared at all. I think he's going to be walking before we know it! I am SO not ready for that yet! I can't believe his birthday is in less than a month too.

Oh! One more thing I forgot to write about was that on our first night there, my camera died and I had forgotten to check it or bring the charger before we left. I still had my phone to take some pictures, but I was disappointed! It's charging now, so I'll add some photos when I have the time!

Oh, and as for the fireworks.. Aeson watched them but wasn't bothered at all! It was a fun little getaway, and Westen had a blast the whole time. It was good spending the time with my sister and her family too, since they'll be leaving us soon!