the ice cream man

Aedan usually wakes up before Josiah from naps and today he got a special treat! Josiah wouldn't have minded, though, since he doesn't like ice cream or most things that are sweet. The first time Joisah tried milk chocolate (a Hershy kiss, I think) he spit it out on our friends' new carpet. Aedan, on the other hand, is our chocolate lover!! He likes Reese cups and also chocolate ice cream:)

CVSing ~May 24th

All this for just under $19.00!

Today was a great day at CVS! Here's a list of what I got: 3 boxes of Tampax tampons (40 ct), 12 rolls of Cottonelle tiolet paper, Clearasil daily wash, Playtex tampons (18 ct), 2 tubes of toothpaste, 2 boxes of bandaids, and a bottle of revelon nail polish. This may seem like a lot compared to my usual spending there, but I decided to take advantage of some of their other sales going on and not just the ECB deals. To put it in perspective, one box of the Tampax tampons at Walmart costs around $7.00. They were on sale for $4.99. I got the tiolet paper on sale as well, and used a $1.00 off coupon. The completely free items of the day were the Playtex tampons, the toothpaste, the clearasil, the bandaids, and well, the nail polish was $1.00. (For most of the items I had to use my coupons to make them free.) I have $3.00 in ECBs for next time, and I found another tiolet paper coupon since I've been home, so I may use that and my $3.00 in ECBS to get more tiolet paper. That will make getting 12 rolls for $1.50:) I told Ryan that CVSing is my job...haha! Hopefully, I'm saving us money in the long run.

turn the button!!

Josiah accidently locked himself in the bathroom on Saturday when Ryan was outside mowing the lawn. We kept saying to him, "turn the botton in the middle of the door knob." He never was able to do it, but Ryan finally got the door open from our side! Yay! (on a side note: Josiah did poop and pee in the potty on this trip to the bathroom.)

Here's Ryan and Aedan talking to Josiah inside the bathroom.

the best big boy EVER!

Summer Retreat Location Visit

On Friday, Ryan, the boys, and I went to Townsend, TN (south of Knoxville) to check out the summer retreat location for the teenagers. The retreat has a great view, pool and ping pong table, a pool, decent meeting space, and a kitchen area. Overall, we think that the location will be pretty good for us. The retreat is a four day retreat the first week in August. (Arrive Monday afternoon and leave Thursday morning) I was planning on bringing the boys, but there is really no where to go outside to play (other then the pool). The retreat center is on the side of a mountain, so I'd be stuck in side with them a lot...which wouldn't be easy. Here are some pictures:

up and down!

outside fun

It's been really nice the past two days. We've been able to get outside with the water table. It's been a couple weeks since we've played with it because of the cooler weather and tons of rain. Josiah and Aedan have been really good this week. Josiah has been sleeping later, which always helps, and his eye feels better. (Last week with his eye hurting, he was irritable.) We had an appointment scheduled this week, but his eye seemed better, so we cancelled it. It's been several days now, and his eye is still normal...yay! Here are some pictures and a video:

We have these HUGE pretty flowers blooming in our yard right now.

Persecution Night

Last night we went to Cedar Lake Camp (about 20 minutes north of town) to play 'Persecution' with the teenagers. Persecution is a game that is a cross between 'underground church' and 'capture the flag'. We brought the boys with us and they enjoyed it! They liked running in the fields and playing on the playground. Overall, they did very well. I put them down to bed and waited for them to go to sleep, which took Josiah about 45 minutes! I think he was excited to be in a new place. I waited outside the room, and at one point I heard Josiah saying, "ahh...the little, little baby...he's so cute." I figured that he was out of his bed, and talking about Aedan. Well, he was in the pack n play with Aedan, and woke him up. I thought it was kind of cute and funny (even though he'd been disobedient by getting out of bed). I put him back in his bed, and just laid on the other bed until he was asleep. I played 'Persecution' until around 11:30 or so. It's very different to play at this camp (then where we used to play)...it's much more open and less woodsy. I was harder to hide and creep around. The boys seemed to cry a lot during the night, which kept me awake. I think Aedan was crying about a tooth coming through, and maybe Josiah was crying about dinosaurs...who knows? In the morning, we played outside more with the boys, and then headed back to Cookeville. Here are some pictures. These were all taken the next morning. (I didn't have my camara on hand Friday night).

Josiah and Ryan at breakfast.

gotta love powdered doughnuts:)

Josiah climbing up the big ladder...and, he went down the curvy enclosed slide, too. We are proud of him! Sometimes he is fearful of the slides that aren't open.

Aedan on the rings

Some of our guys in field. I don't have any pictures of the girls that were there...they were all asleep still at this point.

Aedan had a hard fall off the slide.

Josiah on the rings

Petting the dogs. You can see Josiah holding onto Ryan's legs. He liked the dogs, but was a little nervous about their jumpiness.

Aedan loves the dogs.

He was very gentle.

Cool, look at the tail.

Come here, doggie:)

Thursday Night Visitors

This past Thursday night, Wesley and Nathan came over to hang out while Shane and Cathy went out for their anniversary. Josiah really likes Wesley and Nathan, and looks up to them a lot. That is a good thing since they are sweet boys:) Josiah prays for them every night when we get to the "friends" portion of his prayer time. He is definitely thankful for them! We mostly played outside, and then watched a little 'Wally".

playing ball on the hill

Aedan

Nathan and Wesley in the tree

Aedan in the tree

Another great shot of Wes and Nathan

Josiah in the tree
Here's Nathan WAY up high!!! He was making me a little nervous with his "monkey-like" abilities!:)
Josiah was often doing his own thing...running to check the mail!

My favorite show...starting soon!

My favorite show, So You Think You Can Dance, starts next week...yay! It only comes on in the summer, so I'm ready for it to begin. Here are just a couple of routines. All of the dancers are so talented! (Just so you know, none of the dancers you see below won the competition.)


Heidi and Travis


Chelsea and Mark

happy mother's day!

Happy Mother's Day everyone!!! We just had a relaxing day at home for the most part. Ryan and the boys got me a massage gift certificate, and we ate some Chili's for lunch. (Ryan went to pick it up 'to go' when the boys went down for a nap.) After naptime, Josiah's eye started to bother him. We were backing up the car to head to church Sunday night, and we looked back at him again, and it looked worse. So, I stayed home with the boys. Today he went to the doctor, and he said it was an allergy thing, but I'm not sure about that...I guess we'll wait and see.

happy birthday ryan!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband!! We love you!! Love, Catherine, Josiah, and Aedan:)

Permanent Marker in the hands of a three year old...

After nap today I was in the living room and Josiah was in the kitchen. I thought he was working on his puzzles, but he had gotten his hands on our big black permanent marker!! (It was accidently left on the table from getting Mother's Day packages together.) I was in complete shock when I saw it, and Josiah immediately knew that he was in trouble. I sent him to his room and frantically called Ryan to see what to do with the table. Ryan found online that toothpaste takes permanent marker off tables. The picture above is with toothpaste on the table, and you can also see some of the marker marks. (I almost forgot to take this picture.) Josiah stayed in his room until Ryan came home...good thing I've gotten so much free toothpaste from CVS...it came in handy:)

catch-up!

Yikes!!! I'm behind in blogging! It's already May, and I still have April posts. This past week was a hard week. I came down with strep throat on Sunday:( I hadn't had it since I was in middle school so I had forgotten how it felt....not fun: fever, achiness, sore throat (major pain when swallowing), sore lymph nodes in my neck, and my voice faded in a way that's hard to describe. Ryan stayed home from work on Monday so I could go to the doctor, and then stay banished away in our bedroom. I mostly rested all day, and watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, of course. Thankfully, no one else got strep...yay!! I felt better by Wednesday, I think, but we were in waiting to see if the boys would come down with it.

A big part of the month of April for us was the Cookeville Passion Play, aka "Jesus Shall Reign". Our church put on five performances of it this year, and every night was very full or packed out. Ryan was a disciple, and I lead the dance/hand motions with my friend, Tera. Tera and I always have fun working together. We made up the dance together on Wednesday nights after church at her house, and then we taught it to girls 5th grade and up. It is amazing to see how everything comes together...God is good!

Here are the girls:)

Ryan is in his disciple outfit...pretty stylish, huh?

The last weekend in April my mom and sister came to visit. We went to the park one morning, and also to Burgess Falls south of town. The kids did really well, and enjoyed seeing their "Gigi" and Aunt CaroLion:) For Easter, Ryan's parents gave us some money to get the boys something and we got a water table. While in Charlestion with my dad at the Childrens' Museum, Josiah LOVED the water table that was there, so I thought it would be a good gift for them. They LOVE it! We also played with the water table with my mom and sister, and had fun laughing wathcing them play in the water.

Pictures at the waterfall:

Water Table Fun!!