60th Anniversary

On June 6, Bartletts from all over the country gathered to celebrate Jerry & Shirley's 60th anniversary! We met at Ron's church in Hudson, as the weather spoiled our outdoor picnic plans. We had dinner, took family photos, and had a great time catching up with family. The Bartletts are blessed. Here's the happy couple....Luke had fun playing horse with Freddy... and dodging all the little ones while doing so. Joel showing off his amazing defensive skills against Ben. (here you go, sally!)

Boaz mooching cake off his grandma.

We got to spend time with a bunch of relatives that we don't get to see very often. This is Luke's cousin Chad and his wife Jamie- from Florida.

The four Bartlett brothers all at the same table with their mom & dad. When they all laugh simultaneously, it's a sight to behold... surround sound Bartlett laughs.

Boaz & Jack playing under the tables. I think we need to plan a trip to FL so these two can play together again soon!

surprises, picnics, and talking

We've had a busy busy few weeks around here! This will be another long post, but wanted to get semi-caught up! May 23 we hosted a big surprise party for our friend, Shelby. She just graduated from PT school after 3 LONG years of commuting to Des Moines. Our small group and friends helped us pull this surprise off for her. I think we counted almost 50 people here throughout the night!

Shelby took Boaz on a walk down to the lake to look at the ducks along with his friends Addelyn & Quinnlyn! The surprise party motivated us to get a bunch of work done around the house. After Luke was done with the mowing, he let Boaz hop on with him for a little cruise around the lawn. Boaz was in heaven. We scrubbed the house from top to bottom....

Luke even rented a carpet cleaner and we FINALLY got that done! We've been wanting to clean our carpets for over a year. Boaz enjoyed watching daddy work hard. Memorial Day was also a fun day for us. The weather was beautiful, so Luke went golfing. Boaz & I had a fun day around the house. We played hide-and-go-seek... can you find Boaz in this picture?? :)Then we went outside for a picnic. Picnics have become a regular part of our summer routine. Whenever I pull this blue tupperware out of the cupboard, Boaz gets really excited. He was also very excited to have his own mini bottle of water. He's often jealous of my water bottle. I decided to let him handle the mini-bottle on his own, without my help, this time. What a special day!! It's so funny to see him get excited about these little things. The video below shows how he did!

A couple weeks ago, we took a road trip to Emily's house. (My sister) Boaz enjoyed playing with his cousins and I got to paint these cattails on Zach's wall. Emily's turning his room into a frog/swamp theme. I got a picture of the cattails, but didn't get one of all the cousins! You'll have to read Emily's blog for that one, I guess.

Summer brings garage sales!! Our neighborhood had their garage sales in the middle of May and I scored a couple great finds while previewing at some friend's houses. I found my double stroller for next summer already... for $35!! And this toy below is one of Boaz's new favorites!! He greats very excited when he turns on the saw or runs the drill... "NO WAY!" Great entertainment for $5!! (thanks, misty & holly!)

As you can see in the video above, Boaz is getting VERY talkative. It's so stinking funny! He will walk around the house and have huge long conversations with himself (seen in the video below). He also LOVES to say 'hi' to people wherever we are. In Walmart yesterday, I had a lady come up and tell me what a great set of lungs he has... she said she heard him talking a few aisles away. Was that a compliment?? At least it wasn't screaming- it's mostly always 'happy talking.'

What's been interesting is hearing the new phrases he's putting together. His main phrase lately is "oh my!" He mostly will say that when he's crying or hurt... really whiny-like. Or the other day, I had to wake him up from a nap to go meet Luke's boss for dinner. He looked up at me and the first thing he said was 'Oh my!' - and then he plopped his head back down on the mattress.

I always wondered where he heard "oh my" from, until I caught myself saying it twice the other day!! So I've been paying attention to when I say it now. I mostly say it when he's whining... "oh my, boaz." He's heard it a lot lately, and I didn't even realize it. I can see already how your kids pick up on every little thing you do! Now I need to figure out where he got "Oh, Baby!!!" Luke, have you had him listening to Gary Rima???

A day at the park with friends...

I'm a bit behind in blogging all the fun things we've been doing lately! On May 21, we met my friends Kathy & Mindy at Pine Lake for a walk on the trails and a picnic lunch. We also took the kids to Twister park and Gma Glace stopped in to say hello. Here she is entertaining all the kids on the swings. His recent favorite activity- Running...

And more running...
We got this new hat for summer and he'll only wear it backwards.

Boaz fell asleep in the car on the way home in about 5 minutes... it was a fun and exhausting day!! Boaz is working on getting some more teeth in...

And with new teeth, comes the addition of brushing to our routine! Boaz loves to brush his 'tths' and looks forward to it everyday.

Elephant?

A quick story...

Tonight, Luke's softball game was rained out so we decided to use up a giftcard and head to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Boaz sat in a real booster seat at the table (not a highchair) for the first time and had his very own beverage (water) that mommy didn't help with once! He did a great job with the straw and holding it all by himself. He just looked so grown up!

The Roadhouse has all kinds of stuff on the walls. Boaz's seat was facing a stuffed ram's head. For some reason he thought it was an elephant and spent the entire meal yelling 'hi' and speaking 'elephant' to it. He's getting very good at the elephant noise. It was quite entertaining. We even had a contest to see who does the best elephant impression... Boaz won, of course! Daddy was a close second. We love this little boy to pieces!!

Finally another blog with pictures! My computer is back in commission, after we got a new hard drive installed. Still looks like we lost everything on the old computer... what a bummer. But we're back up and running now, so here's a look at what's been going on here the last few weeks!

Here's our little man in his Easter outfit! What a handsome guy, huh? I sang in church Saturday night and all morning Sunday. 3 special musics in every service!! It was a LONG run, but really fun... a great service. After church on Sunday, we went to Ron & Carol's for dinner. Our family...

Here's Boaz with Great Grandma Shirley & Great Grandpa Jerry.

One of Boaz's favorite things to do at Gma & Gpa Bartlett's house is to play their keyboard. He turns into a little Stevie Wonder when he's at the keys...

Boaz & I got to go back to Eldora for a day to see Mom & Dad. It was one of the first really nice spring days, so we spent a lot of time outside. Boaz's new fascination is rocks!!! He's holding one in this picture with Gpa... And digging them up with Gma in this picture!!

Luke got a few 'groceries' at Walmart... and came home with a new toy for Boaz! He LOVES this little basketball hoop. Check out the video just below of him getting pumped about his slam dunks!

Boaz gets really excited when we tell him he's going to see a relative. When we say Justin's name, he just lets out a scream. Boaz loves his uncle justin... so does Ozzie.

A brother for Boaz...

That's right!!! Boaz is going to have a little BROTHER in October!! We're pretty excited to be adding another boy to the family. :)

Yeah!

A quick story for you all...
Boaz has started answering all of our questions lately with a "yeah" or "no." And most always he gives the right answer!

Boaz, did you sleep good last night? Yeah!
Were you a good boy for daddy? Yeah!
Did you get into trouble? No!
Do you like this food? Yeah!
Is Ozzie your buddy? Yeah!
Are you a genius? Yeah!!

We went to Eldora to see my parents yesterday. At one point, dad asked Boaz if he had stinky pants. His response was yelling... YEAH!!! It was perfect timing and we got quite a laugh. This little boy never ceases to entertain us.

Another couple updates...
- I am finally starting to feel a bit better this week! I'm into the second trimester now (I think i'm 14 weeks??) and not feeling nautious all day. Hooray!!

- The weather is beautiful today! We have been outside cleaning up our creek area-raking, raking, and more raking! Boaz & Ozzie have been great helpers.

- My computer crashed this week. The hard drive is officially dead and the computer fix-it place couldn't get anything off of it. We are hoping to send it somewhere that specializes in that stuff. Not only did I lose all my Papa Murphy's work stuff, personal journals, and a couple months worth of pictures... but I lost ALL my videos of Boaz from the last 14 months!! :( Being the pregnant hormonal woman I am, I bawled for a whole afternoon about that one. I had to keep reminding myself that they are just videos.... I still have a son!! I do have a few videos on this blog, so I'm thankful for that. We'll see if we can recover any others. This has been a month of everything breaking around here :: my computer, my wedding ring, our TV- twice, my mixer, and we both need new tires in the next month or two!! Gotta love those financial cruches!! Good thing I still shop at Aldi! :)