Down on Grandpa's Farm

I went to my first land auction while in Iowa, and learned quite a bit about current farmland prices and about how a land auction actually works. It was very informative and also a little exciting. It might have been boring if we hadn't had an emotional investment in the land being sold. One plot belonged to my cousin that her parents had farmed, about a mile from the house I grew up in. The other plot is what we all know as Grandpa's farm. It was land that had belonged to my great-grandparents and had been passed down. This area has a small creek and with a metal bridge running along the back and we spent many many days down by that bridge in the collective childhood of myself and my siblings. It has always been affectionately know as "The Creek" (or if you are my dad, The Crick).
After the auction, Caleb and I drove out to see the farm one more time. It had been pouring all night and morning and was very wet and muddy. I was dieing to walk to the creek, and luckily, some of our old neighbors drove up and must have seen the look on my face because they offered to loan us some mud boots. Much to Caleb's chagrin, I took them up on the offer and dragged him through the wet and mud to take some photos.

The Bridge.

The fabulous husband that indulged me on this little adventure that left us both blistered and water-logged.

Not sure how long this car has been here, but at least for my life time.

Proof that the corn was "knee-high before the 4th of July." Yep, that is me sticking out my knee.

We also got to hang out with these superb 2nd cousins twice removed.

What a great trip down Memory Lane... or the Lane at Grandpas. Very glad I got the chance to take part in this day and the events that seemed to be a bit like the end of an era for our family.

A Large Happy Family

We took these great pictures on one of our last days in Iowa, but in case our other adventures end up boring our readers.
All 24 of us. And we're even smiling.
The Cousins

Wyatt really loved the photos, especially after he hit his head on the jungle gym.

First Haircut

The insane humidity in Iowa finally forced us to cut off Wyatt's crazy mop of hair. I was hoping to wait until he turned 1, but it just seemed mean to leave him so sweaty. His Dad also got fed up enough to shave the homeless man beard, I think we were all a bit relieved to finally see it go.

I have grown to hate cutting my boys hair, so Papa was nice enough to do the honors. Wyatt didn't seem to mind it for most of the time, but then started brushing hair into his own mouth and got fed up.

More great looking grown up baby photos to come.

Amazing Race Cardon Style

Jeff (Papa) put together a great Amazing Race- Mount Vernon. We had to race around town for an hour looking for clues and doing challenged, that included ice cream eating and some Minute to Win It style events. I think we all had a great time. I totally luck out on my team, Rich had a natural intuition about all of the clues and we found things easily and quickly. We weren't the fastest in the challenges, but not the slowest either. We can in second, but we blame the slow couple that was ordering ice cream ahead of us and couldn't decide what to get.
Regrettably I didn't get a photo of Crystal and Ben's team before the left to start the race, but here are the other teams with our fab matching shirts.
Turns out Mara and Nathan were #1.Me and Rich- Yes I am wearing pink.Caleb and Rachel actively racing.Brennan and Stacy- the strongest team around.

And we Got Very Dirty

Today Caleb and I spent a super romantic afternoon together... We ran the Dirty Dash 5k. If you aren't familiar with the Dirty Dash, it is a race in which you convince several of your closest friends/siblings to join your team and do a trail run complete with obstacles and lots and lots of mud. In this case, we were the siblings/friends and were convince by Nathan and Stacy to join their team, which also included Stacy's brother, Jake, and his wife Hannah. Nathan is the tax guy for the guys that came up with this race, and I am quite sure they are making a killing. There were so many people and they ran the race in different heats all day long.

We had a great time. The course was tough (not sure how anyone runs the 10k) and we got super filthy, there were a lot of steep uphill climbs and just running covered in mud made it interesting. Then there were the obstacles... walls of hay bails to climb over, thick slippery mud to run uphill in, wooden walls to scamper up while being hosed down with a fire hose, and even some tubes to drop and crawl through. Somehow we were mostly just dirty from the waist down until we hit the end... the giant slip-and-slide (which served to remind us how painful a slip-and-slide can be) and the huge mud hole with mudslide at the finish line.
Here's our team a few minutes after the finish, when some of the mud had begun to dry.

The beard was perhaps not the best accessory... Caleb didn't really realize what the race entailed until I mentioned a few things about it on the drive up. He kept saying he couldn't understand what people thought he would be doing when they mentioned him getting mud in his beard, now he knows.

Stacy and Nathan- the Captains of our DBN Tax Team

Hannah and Jake, what a romantic pose.

How could you look at this handsome face and not believe that it was just a magical afternoon?

There were showers, or what you might call water hoses coming down from above with cold water for us to rinse off fully clothed. Since it was maybe 66 degrees in Midway, we got off some of the surface mud and then put on some slightly cleaner clothes to drive home. It was nice to get home and take a warm shower and wash my hair and ears and everything else about 3 times to get the rest off. It is safe to say that good times were had by all.

A Penguin and A Porcupine

Today was the day of Gavin's kindergarten class presentation. His very wonderful and creative teacher wrote an Opera from a children's book, and it was fabulous. The title was "Bessie the Messy Penguin." Our wonderfully talented friend, Lexi had the part of Bessie and she did great. There were also four other solo parts and Gavin was chosen to be the porcupine.

Now just a moment of reflection, this has been a big year for Gavin...
He started school, and happily ran off. I was happy too, knowing he would love it.
This winter he sat down and read "Green Eggs and Ham" to me, and I was amazed, and continue to be amazed, at how much he is learning and how well he is reading.
He learned to tie shoes and even became speedy at it, and I have been so proud of him.
He's grown about 3 inches since the fall. He loves foods that would be strange to most kids, and takes great care of his baby brother. I have witness him befriending people who might be viewed as being in hard situations, and plan amazing little family lessons about the life of Christ.

All of these have happened in a seemingly short time, and not once did I look at him and shed a tear. Until Today.
As I watched my adorable little porcupine come onto the stage in front of all those kids and parents and belt out his 4 lines with confidence and a clear strong voice. I just couldn't help the tears coming to my eyes. He has grown and changed so much this year and I just love the person that I am watching him become. He even looked over and returned my thumbs up as discreetly as he could. I was just so overwhelmed with love for my little baby who is now this big kid.
Luckily I am not just a huge cry baby and was able to appreciate the really amazing performance that they put on. I loved the dancing at the end of every presentation and I loved seeing Gavin trying to skip and dance around the stage in his costume. He had complained that morning about how hard it is for a porcupine to skip. What a great show.
His costume was great, all the kids loved it.

The deer, porcupine, polar bear and monkey.

A few extra penguins joined the photo.

All the penguins onstage.

Favorite crawling moment

What do you do with a baby who is so fast that he crawls right on out of his pants?
Laugh and take a picture, of course.

For quite a while this happened on a regular basis. It was quite amusing for all of us. Wyatt included. He would just keep going and leave a trail of pants behind.

Monstrously Rain Days in May

Nothing helps a rainy day in May like a good art project. I saw this idea in a magazine and the boys were even more creative than I would have imagined.

Henry had to tell me the exact location of every googlie eyeball on his monsters.
Gav is starting to suffer from Caleb's problem of never being able to keep his eyes open if there is a flash. This was one of 5 photos I tried to take.

One of Josh's monsters had a face on each side. very ingenious.

Pretty scary stuff.

Outdoor Man

This guy just really wants to be outside, all the time. He stood at the door and watched almost the whole time Caleb was working on the lawn, and yelling in hopes of being heard and allowed out.

Mother's Day Fun

Yep, a bit late, but I've been busy. My mother-in-law was still in town on Mother's Day and we spent most of it at Nathan and Stacy's house with her and Stacy's mom. It was a super rainy day, but the Cardon men made us a great dinner. Nathan was even dedicated enough to stand in the wet and wind to grill for us. We should have taken a mother picture or something, but I didn't think of it until after. Instead here are a few fun moments that we shared with the little people who have made it possible for us to be called mothers in the first place.

Lots of tickling with Grandma

Wyatt made a new friend

An intense game of Garbage with Grandma... I hope no one is cheating.
While his parents were out of town, Jaren found some time to help Caleb and I feel loved. He is such a funny little guy these days and it is always flattering when he just comes up to give you a random cuddle.

I can just imagine what their conversation entails to get a laugh like that.

There always seems to be someone on Grandma's lap.

I can't quite identify why I wanted to capture this moment, but as I watch all of my wonderful nieces grow and change so quickly, I am just amazed at the young women they are each becoming. They all have some wonderful moms to look up to, and I love to watch them together. I just wanted to remember this.

Happy Mother's Day to all of the wonderful women in my life. Your impact is astounding.

Water Fight

There are a few things that can make our day around here- Cousins and warm sunshine. We mean the kind of sunshine that makes it warm enough to play outside with cousins and get into a intense water fight. While their parent we off sunning themselves in Hawaii, we got to spend a bit of extra time with the Cardon girls and Jaren. We love any chance to play with them, especially when Grandma showed up with new water squirters for all of the kids to soak each other with.

Libbie was pretty intense and by far the toughest of the kids when it came to be squirted.
Mia takes no prisoners.
Before long it turned into an intense battle between the biggest kid we have around here... and all of the other kids. It was pretty hilarious to see them trying to distract him so that someone else could spray him, and as soon as I got out the camera they would all run to the porch knowing that Caleb would get in trouble if he got the camera wet. Pretty hilarious.

Jaren was not a fan of getting wet and retreated to Grandma after the first few drops accidentally hit him. Mals just seem to think she would wait out the worst of the action and then enjoy herself by the pool later.

Hmm... no idea why Papa was carrying a shovel in this shot, but it strikes me as funny.

Milestones

We have recently hit a few milestones.
First lost tooth- it came out while he was snacking on a granola bar in church. We had to hurry out so that it didn't bleed too much. He said he thought it was just a tough oat and was trying to bite through it until he finally realized he couldn't and spit it out to see it was his tooth. As you can tell the other one was already coming up a little behind, and several more loose.

Mr Wyatt is also a master and standing up. He's in a whole new heap of trouble around the house now. After he started to stand he also sometimes switches from his speedy seal scooting moves to what we can the "big boy crawl". He is super entertaining these days.