Photo Shoot!

 I made my boys endure a fall photoshoot after driving by the perfect piece of land over and over again on my way home from downtown. It was just an undeveloped patch of what looked like weeds to anyone who wasn't a photographer. I knew it was perfect and couldn't wait to use it!

And for 37 very frustrating minutes it was perfect! I don't know why but photographing my own kids is so more difficult than any other kid in Des Moines.... But it was definitely worth it!

Can you tell one bit we were in the middle of downtown surrounded by stores and a construction zone, fences, and even some trash!? Nope, you just need a little piece of amazing to make awesome photos! Since I began bribing them 30 seconds into the shoot we headed for ice cream right after the shoot. Oh the choices....

Happy Birthday With A Hawk Win

 Dave made a promise (to himself I guess) that any year that his birthday fell ON game day he would go to the game  no matter where it was. So luckily for us it was only in Minnesota so it was driving distance. We were all set with our tickets and hotel room. And shortly before leaving town got prepared with our warm weather gear and rain covers since the weather wasn't looking too great. The drive up was smooth until we hit an hour and half of stand still traffic. Luckily we had left earlier than I thought we needed to. Yes Dave, you were right.  Once we got settled into our awesome seats I tried to smile sweetly at those around us so we didn't get food thrown on us and beer dumped on our heads or something. Going into someone else stadium is a little intimidating! But when I looked around we definitely weren't alone. There were hawk fans everywhere. My seat neighbor was friendly until Iowa started to catch passes and make touchdowns and his team just wasn't.....

At the end of the game all the Hawk fans gathered in the corner and the team brought around the trophy for everyone close enough to touch. The stadium was packed with black and gold and still so many of them had already left!

Getting to our hotel was a bit of a challenge. Our tickets came with a parking pass in a parking garage. We sat in our car for about 45 minutes and coudn't even get out of our parking spot on the fifth level. We ditched the car, grabbed our bags and took off on feet to the hotel. It was only 3.2 miles away! About half way there we realized it was going to take longer than we thought and hailed a cab. Got ready for dinner and went to grab our car quick before we found a restaurant.

We were starving but we had to get late reservations at this point becaue of all our errand running. It worked out in our favor and were able to eat at Fogo De Chao next door to our hotel downtown Minneapolis. Such a cool restaurant! 

There was a "salad" bar with everything you could imagine and men running around with 17 different types of meat they cut directly onto your plate. When you turned your card to green side they   came to your table and offer whatever type of meat they had. Not knowing what to expect Dave turned his card over and within 30 seconds he had a fresh plate in front of him (we never ever saw the person do this it happened so fast) and he had a plate FULL of different meat. He quickly turned it back to red and we quickly realized there was a reason there was a red side of the card!

It was such a cool experience and we ate more food than we thought possible and were out of the restaurant within 50 minutes. There is no time spent not eating in there! If you are in a city they have one of these it is worth going to at least once! It isn't like any other restaurant ever.
http://www.fogodechao.com/home/

We got up early and made our way back home. We were so excited to see the boys who stayed at Mel's house. They weren't as excited to see us since they get more than spoiled there!

Letters!

 I had a dinner date with my two boys after running some errands since we weren't going to be getting home in time for dinner. We settled on noodles and Jaxson couldn't keep his hands off the chopsticks. And not to eat his food but to make letters. Letter after letter. He seems obsessed lately. I know it is because it is new and exciting with him learning all about them in Kindergarten now but of course I automatically think he is picking it up quite easily. Maybe not. He is the only person I have to compare to. And since he is my kid everything he does I think he is a prodigy. Just kidding of course but I definitely have "mom goggles"

The idea was we had to make letters and then guess what letter we had made. Here I guessed M and he was so happy because he got a point. Since I apparently got the letter wrong. I tried to correct him and explain it was an M, but he corrected me right back and showed me that he had made a B. Do you see the B?

The Wing Man's Wing Nut

 We had some errands to run the other day in Ankeny and we stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner. It was my first time checking them out. I am not much for wings so a restaurant named Buffalo Wild Wings doesn't seem like it would be up my alley.

Once we got there we learned that it was kids night so they got $2 meals and awesome hats, which made it all worth it. They seriously loved the hats. They wore them all the way home, not even liking the idea to take them off at bedtime. The next day Jaxson wore his hat all the way to school, reluctantly taking it off before going in. And as soon as school was out they both had to have their hats. They finally saw the end of their time after each getting a rip within the same hour of each other. Paper hats are not nearly durable enough for your boys to fall in love with. There were a few tears.

Even without the hats they will always be the Wing Nut, and the Wing Man.

Lucky Find

The weather was beautiful so we decided to take a walk to the park that isn't too far (in a car) from our house. It felt much further on foot. that probably had something to do with the fact that we had two kids AND two dogs with us. It was good to get out though.

Just before we got to the park we stumbled upon a garage sale. We asked to go up even though we had our dogs and I saw two old desks that were so awesome! And of course I wanted them, they were only $5 a piece! And as my luck would have it neither dave or I had ANY money. I asked the lady if I could give her something to hold them for us and she said she would hold them and that she trusted me to come back. Once we played at the park for awhile we made sure to walk back by her house and didn't see the desks! Jaxson was so bummed...

But we were relieved that she yelled to us that she had moved them into her driveway because she didn't want someone else to see them! :) I hurried back with the car right away and now each boy has one nicely in their room. It will be the perfect spot for Jaxson to do any schoolwork he may have or just a quiet space for him to have. So far it has been the paper airplane making station!

Five Years!

 Our real fifth year anniversary special gift to ourselves was our trip to Mexico in July but since it was the actual day we thought we better do something. The international food festival was in town so we got a sitter and headed out to try out all the different cuisines for dinner. It was a perfect night although the sun was setting and you couldn't see a thing! Big problems, I know.

It was awesome that each stand had $1 taste items. They had to pick one thing off their menu to give as a taste. We got several different things and liked most of them! Dave's favorite booth was the International Beer station of course. (The only booth without dollar taste items)

My favorite stop was the sweets of course. This vendor had $1 taste item of roasted homemade marshmallows. And you could choose from 8 different flavors! You know what that means, I definitely went back for more!

I should probably add something mushy being an anniversary post and all. So here goes....

In five years we have built a life that I love more than anything I could imagine. I wake up loving what I get to do because you work so hard. I get to take care of my boys, the two best things that have ever happened to me. I also get to pursue something I love to do and you support me with amazing birthday presents and encouraging me with positive words. You even cook dinner nearly every night and even do the dishes. How did I get so lucky? Really.....

He's a Big Boy Now!

 It was time for bed on Saturday night and after books it was time for him to get into bed. I told him I had to go get his blankie and once I gotten it he grabbed it from me, threw it in his crib, and announced that "he do it."

I watched him climb up into his crib using the knobs from his changing table, and sliding down into his crib. He then looked at me with a big smile and told me "I a big boy!"

He was certainly right about that. Then big brother ran into the room and said he wanted to see. So Asher quickly obliged by climbing out of his crib the same way he got in, then quickly climbed right back in. He has obviously been able to do this for awhile but just chose to stay in bed. He is a sleeper, like his mommy. And daddy. And brother.

On Sunday while we were at Jagger's birthday party Dave was busy giving Asher easier access to his comfy bed. He was shocked when he saw it and he giggled away. One of my favorite sounds.

Once it was bedtime we got in PJ's, brushed teeth, and read a book. Then it was time to climb in bed. Of course I had to snap photos of this big "first" because I am crazy like that so I had my camera by my side. I told him to go ahead and get in his big boy bed thinking I was going to snap a picture of him jumping onto his mattress. Instead he left his blankie on the bed, climbed up the changing table knobs, slid down into his bed, grabbed his blankie and smiled with his little feet dangling off the bed. I'm not sure we saved ourselves any doctor visits....

Monday he had his first nap time in his crib and luckily he went down without any issues. I was relieved and slightly shocked. I checked on him mid nap and he was laying on the floor curled up with his blanket. I resisted the urge to photograph him to not risk waking him. When it was time to wake him up and get him ready to go get brother he was back in his bed. Sort of.

Football Friday

Another date with the Jacks. (I know you are starting to see a trend here.) Adam is a defensive coach for Dowling and Channing and the girls go to every game to cheer on their new team, weather permitting. Last night they played Valley. This is the big instate rivalry as most of you reading this would know and they played it at Drake stadium this year. They should every year since it is packed and that many people just don't fit into the Valley stadium.

Our allegiance was torn this year since Dave, along with Adam and Channing, all went to high school at Valley. Adam played football there and went on to get a scholarship to play all through college. Now he is a coach for Dowling and loves his job. So he and his wife have had to fully committ to what is their natural rival. When headed to the game I asked Dave who he would be rooting for and he just wasn't so sure. He always wants his high school team to win but we want also Adam's team to do well because we want to support him.  You can't really root for your good friend to be bad at their job.

The solution. I wore orange nail polish and Jax wore a touch of orange but we clapped when Dowling had a big defensive play. Particularly the linebackers (since that is the position he specifically coaches.) But in reality, I mostly just chatted with friends and chased kids when they started to run away. :)

The coolest part of having good friends as a coach and hanging with the coaches fam is getting the perks of playing on the field after the game. The boys felt pretty special. And honestly, I did too a little. Ha...

The other boys playing on the field were those of coaches sons and other kids in the younger football leagues. They were shockingly good. It made me realize if we want to have football players (which we don't. No thanks to concussions and broken bones) we needed to start them about 4 years ago. At this point, even Asher is behind. Asher also got totally crushed by a speeding 6 year old after the ball. He was tired and scared with all these strange people looking over him as I ran downfield to get him while he was basically hyperventilating. Another coach was over him telling Asher to "just breathe buddy, just breathe." It was his first injury on the football field. Maybe even his last.... (And he really was totally fine. Just scared and his ego a little bruised.)

Playdate Thursday

 Now that Jaxson is gone during the days I need to try to keep Asher entertained. When we are just home he gets antsy not having his brother to romp around with. He loves having all the toys to himself but apparently they are not as fun when you don't have to fight for them.

We spend so much of our time with Channing and little Paisley (and Livie! We don't want to forget Livie.) They live so close to us and everyone gets to play with a friend. Channing and I tend to have just as much fun as the kids when together. If it is just chatting or jumping into foam blocks or going down waterslides. We like to get our money's worth of fun. :)

It was toddler time at sky zone so we loaded all the kids up in one car and headed to grimes to jump our little hearts out. We got dressed in our funky shoes they make you wear and got to jumping. Asher wasn't a huge fan to begin with and warmed up towards the end of our hour. Maybe next time he will get into the action a little sooner. Channing and I didn't waste anytime with Chan practicing some of her old cheerleading moves. They were actually pretty impressive. My moves were much less impressive.

 Next time we go we will both be wearing workout gear because that is EXACTLY what that place is. A workout!

Tomatoes!

This year we planted several tomato plants on the side of the house along with some peas, jalapenos, peppers, and beans. We have had plenty of luck with our tomato plants and every day after school we load up Jaxson's backpack before going in the house. After unloading our haul Jaxson asked me if he could have a snack. I agreed and have been letting him get his own snacks lately since he is old enough and capable. It hasn't always worked out for me with him not making good choices before I can stop him.

This day I came in to them hiding under the "glass" table eating the tomatoes like apples. I can't complain with this snack much at all!