HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY! Kinley turned one on Friday! We spent the day with the Butters' and they made cupcakes for her. She thoroughly enjoyed them and the audience she had while devouring it. (The video is at the bottom of the page)

Friday night we had our neighbor Miss Betty over for dinner because she and Kinley share the same birthday. As you can tell by Kinley's face we had spaghetti for dinner and healthy banana cupcakes with no icing for desert (she will get a real cake in July at the family party!)

Her first present was from Miss Betty is was a new set of water play cups.

Saturday we went to Grand Lake with Josh's networking group. James loved the long boat ride we took but was a little nervous about swiming in a lake. Their favorite was the pool on the deck. It was just deep enough that Kinley could barely crawl - she kind of floated on top taking in a gallons of water- but she loved it. At one point I said I think God messed up and gave me fish instead of children!

She was excited that she didn't just drown on that last trek across the pool!

This is a shamelss plea to the grand parents that James is ready and begging for a motorized riding toy. He has decided that he would like the John Deer Gator that holds two kids but can still pull a load. He tried out these two single rider toys this weekend.

Someday maybe family pics will work out for us?! We went to Kansas City last weekend for Edward Jones Summer Regional. The meetings were really informative and encouraging for Josh. He won the second tier production award - YAY JOSH! We had a great time but told Gigi that she has plans the 3rd weekend in June for the next 10 yrs and that we will be getting a suite from now on

This was us cooling off in a fountain near The Plaza. We spent the day with Jason and Kati Sims. They are an Edward Jones couple who have an office in Broken Arrow. Josh and Jason are really close and encourage each other a lot.

The little seal was gift for James from us for being such a great boy. He had to always be quiet because it seemed like Kinley was always sleeping when he wanted to play in the room. One morning he and I spent two hours in the bathroom while Kinley napped and he never complained. Then we went shopping but forgot our wallets. He found this seal and just fell in love with it. We told him that he couldn't buy it and he just hugged it and put it back without a fuss. He was almost perfectly obedient and considerate of others the whole time. While he was sleeping I went back to the store and got if for him and let him wake up to it on his pillow. He was so excited because now Sammy (the big seal that looks exactly like it at home) has a baby. His name is Long John Silver but we call him Long John????

James is becoming very comfortable in water and is showing a lot of interest in learning to swim. Maybe next summer he'll get it down! Today we were the poor little family at the pool that took rubber coasters to dive for - but James loved it he pretended he was a dog and played fetch with them. Kinley also loved the water. The pool we were at had a beach entry and she would crawl through the water at a break neck pace until it was so deep she was flailing and drowning. I let her do it a couple of times thinking it would scare her from doing it again - nope. She is a stinker.

Tristan (my sisters son) turned 4 on Sunday so we celebrated with Red Lobster and cake. We just let them dig into the cake with forks and they loved it of course.

Last weekend my parents switched houses with us. They watched our kids and we enjoyed their house - what a deal! They took the kids to a Wild West show about Pawnee Bill on Saturday and James has been talking about horses and good cowboys beating bad cowboys ever since. Josh and I did absolutely nothing the whole weekend, it was great. I didn't realize how tired my brain was of listening to James' intelligence grow. This was Kinley having fun at the birthday party. She will be one next week. I just can't believe it. She gave up bottles about two weeks ago and drinks out of sippys and big girl cups! She is sleeping great, she isn't the best eater right now. She doesn't like fruits and veggies but a lot of meat and bread, she really likes crap and salmon?? She has also taken to being fussy when in nursery at church or the Y. That is sad but I guess she just has to grow out of it - I feel bad for the workers.

This is James and Kinley riding Bop's Harley.

Today we went to the splash park with some friends. This is James and Ezra being wilderness men. While we were there James walked out from behind a tree with his swim suit around his ankles and yelled "I pooped, I need something to wipe with" The park was really crowded and the tree was right by where everyone was sitting! I was of course mortified but quickly decided not to care what people think and just got it cleaned up. I asked James why he did it and he said "well, I had to poop and they don't have a bathroom here" like duh mom what was my other option. He is right we didn't have one - the park needs to get a bathroom. It was the first time I actually thought I wish he would have pooped in his pants. This used to be one of my worst nightmares and now I'm living it over and over it just keeps getting more public.

Friday was our five year anniversary! We just put the kids to bed a little early and had a date on the deck, we ate our new favorite dinner - grilled pizza - and had some wine. It was fun but Josh scored major brownie points by surprising me with an iPhone!! He had gotten one on Wednesday without telling me first and I was a little disappointed that he got one before me. He told me I could get one in January when my contract runs out. I was fine with it all. Right before dinner we were talking about listening to music on the deck and we wanted to try using his new phone so he asked me to go get it off the night stand. When I did I saw two laying side by side with a note that said "don't our phones look cute together?" He is so fun! Totally made me feel special because he surprised me. We also had a little photo shoot in the back yard here are some samples.

I forgot a couple of stories in the last post. Kinley said "mama" to me for the first time while we were camping. She also said "hi da" when Josh walked in the kitchen the other day. She is walking around furniture, pulling up on everything, and walks while holding our hands.

Kinley having spaghetti for the first time

We babysat Jacob and Jefferson Roby tonight and after dinner they decided they wanted to swim in the freezing pool naked. They had a blast and Kinley loved watching them. They were going down the slides at insane speeds and she would belly laugh and clap for them each time. She also ended up drenched. At one point all three boys ran to the fence and peed on it. It was the cutest picture - three little tushies lined up on the fence.

As you'll see in the video below uncle James moved back from Atlanta and picked James up from school in the big yellow truck. Little James was in heaven!

Hey good lookin!

Sorry it is sideways - thought I could turn it?? James' clothes do not match because he had an accident at school and at the end of the video you'll notice he has another accident. Our theory is that while we were camping he got accustomed to peeing wherever he wanted to and now he is having trouble taking it to the potty again!

We met our permanent foster parent case worker last Wednesday. It was a disaster but in hindsight kind of funny so I thought I would share. A little background on her - her name is CaSandra (she is African American) and was a foster child herself. She sees her job as a ministry and takes it as her personal mission to make sure every foster family is awesome. So she comes to the door and she finds our spare house key laying right on the ledge by the door handle. She says "is this supposed to be out?" Josh had a 102 fever that day and came across mildly retarted. He barely said two words and when he did is was slurred. James of course acted out for her and we had to have several conversations. We sat down to talk and she said "well the big red flag for me about your case is that you use corpral punishment on your own children." She went on to share that she doesn't think any children should be spanked and that since we do that to our own we have a good chance of mistreating foster children. Then she went around the house looking at safety. When she checked the smoke detectors there were no batteries in them because when they go off in the night I just take them out and forget about it. Then CaSandra found Kinley chewing on a stack of very strong swallowable magnets. James had gottent them off the top of the fridge then left them in a toy basket. Then CaSandra caught Kinley chewing on something else. It was the nipple to our African American baby doll Shiniqua's bottle - also a chokeable - James yelled "oh that is Shiniqua's nipple". So now the Af Am case worker believes us to be racist and stereotypical. When she left we said well not only are they not going to let us help other children they are going to take ours away! When we got back from camping there was an envelope in the mail from her and I figured it was a refusal letter but it was a print out on alternatives to spanking! So please keep us and our foster situation in your prayers.

A lot to catch up on! We welcomed cousin Kate Elizabeth Morris May 22nd. She was 9lbs 1oz (I think) and 21 1/2 in long (I think). Emily was so strong and pushed through a lot of labor with no pain medicine then brought us a 9 lb baby! James was absolutely in love with Kate. He wanted to hold her constantly. He asked to see her baby fingers and toes and he went crazy every time she squeaked.

Last weekend we went camping at Ft. Gibson lake with our friends the Henslee's. We had a great time the kids were amazing and they loved every second of it.

Kinley is at a difficult stage for camping since she can get around but not walk. She ate a ton of dirt tried to choke on rocks and ate her first cigarette butt.

Kinley loved her boat and James his floaty

James thoroughly enjoyed the mud puddle. We had to bathe him naked at the water pump several times.

We took the potty chair but he had trouble remembering to go to it so we would hear him yell "I just pooped in the grass and it's green" or "There are fly's eating my poop" it was lovely.

Kinley took several naps in the swing - she loves to sleep with her hand behind her head

We have had several animal friends around our house this spring. This dove was sitting on her eggs in the tree right by our deck. Isn't Josh a good photographer! This is the turtle that likes to eat our peony plant. I will say that turtle is abnormally fast. We also had a mouse (obviously a victim of our D Con) laid out in the middle of our garage. DISGUSTING! but fasinating for James. Oh yeah, and don't forget the frogs that make me jump out of my skin everytime I walk by and they jump over my path.

Is there even a caption for this - crazy three year old boys - that is a pull up if you couldn't tell

Kinley had her first (or maybe third??) pancake - she loved it

James and his best school friend Lee swinging at the park on their field trip

James and Billy and Jayden swinging on the playground the last day of school.