Into the Wild

Jerry had a day off yesterday so we decided to take the kids up to Diablo to visit his parents who are camp hosts this summer at Colonial Creek. Abby was very excited since the last time we went camping (is it called that if it's only for a day??) she was too little to remember. We had a great time, ate some hot dogs for lunch, salmon for dinner, and lots of watermelon! Trey loved being able to walk around everywhere. I think everyone took him for a "walk" at some point in the day, but it's more of a "take two steps, stop for a pinecone" kind of walk. He stopped at every single pinecone and either picked it up and threw it or smashed it with his foot. Needless to say he never made it far on his own. We also put the kids in the stroller and took a walk to the other side of the camp and while we were there three huge trees in the camp came tumbling down! Nobody was hurt but let me tell you, if three trees fall in the woods and there are people around to hear it, does it make a noise?? It sure does!! SNAP CRACKLE POP KABOOM!! Very cool. Abby had slept on the way up but wore herself out and started asking to go home in the middle of dinner so we left in the early evening and the kids both slept most of the way home and then into bed they went. A very fun day for us that we can hopefully repeat at least a couple more times this summer.

Trey man in his finest camping attire

Abby in her own Mickey chair

Cheese!

Trying out the Mickey chair

I think he likes it!

Petting the doggy with Grammy

Ready for our walk

Jer and I at the lake

Trey's only nap of the day and isn't Miss Abby cute?!

Massive rootball!

Look how big the trees were!

For the idiots

Vacation? What Vacation???

It seems like Jerry has been gone a lot this last week so we added up his hours. That guy has worked over 100 hours in the last 8 days! Plus he watched the kids Tues and Weds while I was at work. No wonder we are all exhausted. Summer vacation just isn't the same as an adult.

"Cheese"

Every time you point a camera at Trey now he says "Cheese" and smiles the cheesiest smile. I've caught it a couple of times on video but none are really very post worthy or they're on the cell phone and I have no idea how to get them off of there. So in the meantime I did catch him actually using a utensil to EAT with. Imagine that! He lasted about 15 minutes before he started dumping stuff onto his tray. He even ate the carrots, I was shocked! He's very much my fruit baby, doesn't care for the veggies at all!

Isn't she lovely?!

Rockin' the rainbow socks WITH the polka-dot jammies

Still working on the "smile" face

Showing me where her baby is.

Posing with mommy's flower

So cute!

Abby is back on track with naps now. She takes one long afternoon one almost every day. She has spent most of the last few days in her room (by choice!) playing with her princesses, puzzles and watching her cartoons. She puts her stack of puzzles on her bed and does each and every one, moving it to the other side of the bed when finished. She's so anal about that but wants her princess dolls, dresses, shoes, etc all dumped out on her bed. She's definitely her own little lady!

What do you get when you are super well behaved while running errands and eating dinner????.....

you get to share a frosty!

and Mommy gets a super tired (super cute!) little guy

lovin' sports already!

My little baseball player! And Abby too.

Happy Father's Day!

Poor Jerry, he didn't get a wink of sleep Saturday, busy night for the ambulance. He came home about 10 am and the kids were just going down for a nap. We lounged for a bit, I picked up the house, Jerry tried not to fall asleep and then we took the kids to a park for the afternoon. The kiddos had a blast, Abby is really adventurous now and Trey, being able to walk, has a much better time.

A look back........

He loved exploring the woodchips

Abby was not happy that she had to wait at the top of the slide

Going down by himself

Fiberglass = STATIC!

Such a big boy now!

Looking cool in mom's shades. Both kids LOVED that toy

Happy Father's Day!!!

little blondies

Can you say Senior Picture??

Our babies!!!

She climbed all the way up there from the left by herself

Little Buddy

Climbing the rope

She was quite the fearless little monkey

Walking up the stairs (something he spends all day doing at home!)

And lucky Dad he was back at work at 6 am this morning and he'll be home for dinner and then back to the station for drill! He works so hard for us!

Almost there!

It's the home stretch now on Jerry's 48 hour shift, he'll be home in the morning. The kids are asleep already (thanks to no naps today!) so I think I'm in for a quiet night. I'd like to give a shout out to my mom too...she came down to play with the kids for a few hours so that I could get some things done around the house. If it's just me here I don't get anything done and if Jerry's home he's either doing projects of his own, we're out and about or the kids just would rather hang around/off of/nearby/underneath me - and I don't get anything done. While she was here I managed to clean Abby's room and organize all of her books, toys, puzzles, etc. I thought she would have a meltdown that I'd moved things but she went to bed with no complaints. I went through all of Trey's clothes and took out the too small stuff and added in some new bigger things. I put all of his 24 months jammies in his drawers, I can't believe they fit already. I cleaned out and organized his closet too. Not all of his clothes fit in his dresser now so I hung up all of his shirts...it looks like so much more all hung up. It's the first time we've used the closet to hang his stuff. I remember doing that with Abby too :( I also deep cleaned the kids' bathroom and did all the dishes and cleaned off the kitchen counter. All in all it was a very productive few hours. Thanks Mom!!!

Ugh, I am SO LAME!

I have not been good at posting anything lately! It's not for lack of things to post about, or really even time, but it's definitely a lack of motivation for me. Things happen and I think "Oh, I'm going to blog this" and then next thing I know it's 2 days later, new things have happened, and guess what????...no post! So here's a little rundown of the latest Gardner family happenings, none very interesting but I'm blogging about it for posterity.

*Abby got a new package of 50 markers and she and I spend a good portion of each day coloring pages printed out by Jerry. I love to color, it's so relaxing, so this has been equally as fun for me as it is for Abby.
*Trey is walking EVERYWHERE now. He will walk all day long and now he fusses if we pick him up before he's done. I've learned that he goes from the carseat to the cart without his feet touching the ground, otherwise there is a huge fit coming my way.
*Jerry taught Abby how to hit a baseball off a tee and she does it very well. I think we have a little athlete on our hands. She throws well, hits well and plays a mean game of Wii Golf. Trey is into throwing his little baseballs and hitting things with his bat too...but mostly he enjoys putting both into his mouth.
*School is now officially out and Jerry had today off before he starts working his summer jobs. He's got a 48 hour shift with Med-1 starting tomorrow and lots of other work lined up. I guess summer vacation isn't the same thing for a teacher as it is for a student. Too bad teachers don't get paid squat and half to supplement their income!!! The good news is that he still has a job next year. The teachers are losing a few days pay and some other things but hey, a job is a job right?
*I started working my a$$ off at the gym last week - literally. I go a lot but I decided that the excuse "I just had a baby!" doesn't fly anymore when your "baby" is a year old. *sigh*
*Poor little Rusty FINALLY got a haircut. It's been a non-priority lately and it got to the super nasty point where it was a necessity to get him buzzed. He looks 10 years younger and much more puppy-ish...definitely cuter
*I've managed to keep up on laundry for an entire week now. I'm pretty good at washing and drying but always get behind on the folding/hanging part of it. We'll see how long it lasts.
*Abby is back in the land of naps now. She was just so overtired at night but was refusing to take a nap during the day but a lot of talking about it and the fact that she gets to put jammies back on for it has seemed to be the key. Most days I am lucky enough to get an overlap of naps and enjoy a quiet hour with no little people around!! Trey has been sleeping longer at night now. He goes to bed earlier and sleeps later and therefore isn't normally ready for a nap until very late morning/early afternoon. Hopefully this nap thing will continue because I look forward to a little peace and quiet to bring some sanity back into my life.
*Abby continues to say the cutest/funniest little things. The other day she told my mom that she was making her "nerbliss" (nervous) and after I told her to do something on Tuesday she said "Aye Aye Captain Mama". Really??!! Where does she get this stuff!

I'm sure there have been many other things said and done in the last while that I was going to blog about but this is plenty for now.

Trey Pics and Today's Event

I have a number of cute Trey pics so I'm throwing them in here with today's news just because I can. I had planned on taking the kids to the mall to play and we left around 10:15. It's only a few miles to the coffee stand (we all know it's a necessity) and when I got there the car was making a funny noise. I didn't know what it was so I drove to the mall and when I got there it was still making the same noise. I brought the car out to Jerry at school and he didn't see anything obvious so I was instructed to take the car in to Blade's to get it looked at. Abby fell asleep somewhere in all the driving and she was NOT thrilled about waking up at some strange place that was definitely NOT the mall! It was around 11:30 by then and the service guy said that he could get someone to look at it around 12:30. I wasn't interested in hauling the kids anywhere so we camped out in the waiting lounge and surprisingly the kiddos were SUPER well behaved. Trey decided to try out his walking skills and was doing great, even turning around to walk back to me without holding on to something. After a dozen across the room and back he finally crashed. He bumped his head on the floor, not too hard, but hard enough to leave a nasty looking mark. It's a pebble floor and the outline of the pebbles broke his capillaries but not the skin. All the ladies in there felt so bad for him but after a few minutes of cuddles he was down for some more walking. 90 minutes after we dropped it off the car was finished...and freshly washed, and we were off to the store to pick up Popsicles for Abby since she was well-mannered and didn't fuss or cry once.

the bump...looks more bruised in person

Somebody likes spaghetti

Silly kids

I have some cute Abby-isms and a video of her to post but I'm all blogged out for today!

Let's Build a Fort

Jerry built the kids a fort the other day and it was a huge hit! Abby actually let Trey play in it with her and for quite a while too. Neither one was interested in destroying it so the structure lasted most of the day. Trey liked crawling in and out and Abby enjoyed "hiding" from everyone. I love cheap entertainment.

Mister Blue Eyes