one of those random, annoying, funny moments

Lincoln was sitting on the counter and helping with dinner. He grabbed a box of toothpicks, and as he started to say, "What's this?" they all fell out of the bottom of the box. We all just looked at each other and started laughing. Well, Lincoln actually wondered if he was in trouble at first. What was annoying about this moment?? Cleaning up all of those toothpicks!!!! They were everywhere!

flat

That moment when you walk outside and see that one of your tires in completely flat. Awesome.

FHE games

Lincoln has had fun helping us plan our FHE activities. This night, we asked him what game he'd like to play after the lesson. He said he wanted bowling and immediately went to find our little set of pins and "bowling ball." He had such a blast. I love how he loves simple things.

Five years!!!!

Derick and celebrated our five year anniversary on Saturday! I can't believe it has already been that long. They have been the best years of my life!

Derick took Lincoln to the football game (previous post) and sent me to get a pedicure at a new little place in town. I must mention that it was my first pedi EVER! It was really nice! Afterwards, I was able to do a little shopping. We then all met up and got ready for the evening. We dropped Lincoln off at our friends' house and headed out. The plan was to go out to dinner, but we decided that we were going to get a grill (we left ours in AZ) and grill something instead, so we went grill shopping. We ended up getting a good deal on one that Derick had been eyeing for a while and we were excited. We then headed to the store to get some steak and fixings. We also went to a new cupcake shop in town to get some dessert. We then picked up Lincoln. By this point, it was getting pretty late to grill, so we just ended up ordering our favorite pizza and saving the steak for the next day. We were so excited for our cupcakes, but unfortunately, they weren't near as good as they looked. Bummer, but it was still fun to try them. We had a fun evening together. I love how simple we keep our holidays and celebrations.

I love you, Babe! Thank you so much for all that you do for us and our family. It has been the best 5 years and I'm so excited for the future!

father, son, and hokie time

Derick took Lincoln to his first V Tech football game on Saturday! Derick said that Lincoln was so good and that he really enjoyed it! Lincoln has always wanted to go in the stadium and gets so excited every time we drive by it. When we told him he would be able to go, he was thrilled. He took a good nap before the game to get ready for it.

Every time Lincoln sees a picture of a football stadium, he talks about how he got to go. This is something that he and Derick will cherish for a long time.

visitors!

Derick's niece, Deja, and her husband, Josh, recently adopted a baby girl, Alaya. We hadn't met little Alaya yet and were dying to. Well, Josh works for an airline, and so he gets free flights! They were able to come out and see us last week and it was so fun!! They got in Wednesday (Sept. 5) and stayed until Saturday morning. We didn't do a whole lot while they were here, but we had fun relaxing and just hanging out together.

On Thursday, Deja, Josh and I took Lincoln and Alaya to the duck pond on campus while Derick had to get some work done. The kiddos were so funny with the ducks! Alaya grabbed one, and others were chasing Lincoln while he was walking around with his snack (cashews). We had fun feeding the ducks, having a little picnic, and enjoying the beautiful weather.

On Friday afternoon, we all headed over to the Cascades. We didn't do the full 5-mile hike, but hiked in about 1/4 mile or so and found a good little spot to splash in the water. The water was freezing, but it was so fun and the scenery can't be beat. Lincoln LOVES going here. He loves the water, and throwing rocks.

Lincoln and Alaya playing together.

We had such a fun time, you guys! Thank you SO MUCH for coming to see us!

riding mower

We bought a riding lawn mower. We had to. I SO did not want to spend the money, but it was SO necessary. Our yard is huge, and Derick had spent over 4 hours one Saturday mowing and didn't even do it all. We couldn't have him spend our precious Saturdays doing that! And of course, he didn't want to do that. So we looked on Craigslist and found a good deal on a riding mower. The first time Derick used it, it only took him between 1 and 1.5 hours to do the entire yard. What a difference!! So worth the money.
Lincoln always sees our neighbor's mower in his yard and had always wanted to ride on it. When Derick brought ours home, Lincoln was excited to climb on it and Derick took him for a ride. He hasn't wanted to get on it since, however. I don't know why he is now scared of it, but he is. We sure thought he would love it. Hopefully he'll change his mind.

Splash Valley

August 17
We had gotten a Groupon for tickets to a splash park/pool in Roanoke and decided to check it out! The water was FREEZING, which made it a little less enjoyable than it could have been, but it was still fun. The so-called kid area was actually quite overwhelming with water spraying everywhere, buckets dumping on you, etc. Lincoln didn't like it. I didn't blame him, because it was even overwhelming for me when I was up there trying to get him to like it. He mostly just wanted to splash around in the pool while we were there, and even though we were cold, we had a good time.

Claytor Lake

August 12

My friend Cari text me and asked if we wanted to go to the lake with them. Derick couldn't go (he was out of town) but Lincoln had just gotten over his hives and was basically begging to go somewhere. So I decided to go. This lake was awesome because it was just like a little beach. There was tons of sand, and a large shallow area that the kids could play in. Lincoln was so excited because he was missing the beach after our fun vacation and he just loved playing in the sand and water again.

Carter, Taylor and Lincoln.

just some cute pics of my boy