Thatchy Beau Jangles {First Birthday}

Yesterday {June 29th} marked Thatchy Beau Jangles FIRST birthday.
He is one wild and crazy puppy. Whom I love with my whole heart.
He brought love and joy back into my heart after losing Tobias. 
Losing Toby was gut wrenching. I loved that dog so much and I never thought another one would ever compare. Some may think I am silly and that "it's just a dog," but to us they are family, our children. God knew my broken heart and blessed me with Toby's kindred spirit--Thatcher.

Thatcher is probably the most loving and loyal dog I have ever owned. He loves each one of us dearly. Sometimes I find him eqi-distance from each person in the house because he doesn't know who to be with. {Although, usually me or sass is his first choice. ;)}

Happy Birthday to our crazy, quirky, loyal, and wild puppy. The one we were told would be no more than #5; instead took our love and grew and grew. The one we find on the table eating leftover breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks---or really anything he can find to put in his mouth. The one I am pretty sure is potty trained, but prefers the indoor bathroom. The one who has destroyed every kid toy we own, along with 7 pairs of undies, and 4 pairs of shoes. But we wouldn't trade you {most days} for anything!!

Although Tucker is less than thrilled.

His 2nd favorite person, right after his momma.

She was so excited for his birthday that she made him cards, presents and PB covered dog biscuits. He is one lucky doggy.

iPod Photo drop

Look at me 2 posts in 2 days.

Today I finally took the 3 minutes needed to load my iPod photos on my computer. Why? Because today we said good-bye to our "Zach Morris" phones and joined the technology age and got our first smart phones...evah. This is all made possible by my wonderful parents who added us to their plan, which some how made it affordable for us otherwise it could have been another 6 years. HA!

{Taken today. Lo picked out my color}

So without further ado the iPod dump. Apparently this goes clear back to May.

At the end of May I took my level 2s to districts to compete! It was a super fun weekend and we took home 3rd. Not too bad.

Unfortunately while I was gone we got the news that Chad's grandfather had passed away. We are so thankful for his life and that he is now pain free and living life with Jesus in heaven. It is such a blessing to us to know we will all be re-united again one day.
These photos are from the funeral we had some time to waste between the service and graveside. So why not got to the park in your Sunday best?!

It was a tad unseasonably hot for early May here, which required early swim suits wear and water fun.

Rainbow toes! Yes, those are my son's feet at the end. I know people think I am nuts for painting his toes, but in his 3yo mind it is just fun to paint things...I am sure as the sun rises in the East that one day he will realize that only girls paint their nails and will run screaming from our nail brushes.

 Let me show you my level of lazy...somehow these loaded upside down...not even going back to fix it. Um, once again my son in princess dress up. What can I say he loves to dress up.

Went to a friend's birthday and her son apparently needed all the ice pops! HA!

Our little neighborhood garden. It is out of control now...we shall see what we produce.

More dress up. See they can dress gender appropriate sometimes. HA!

Ah, a little craft project for me. So I heart instagram and have all these cute photos I want out, but let's face it not really frame worthy. So I came up with a way to display my IG photos. I loved how it turned out.

Summer sprinkler romp that lasted what 2-3 minutes?!?! Sounds about right.

Meg and I getting our sweat on. We are trying hard to get back into shape. Trying being the operative word...HA! What can I say we like chocolate too much.

First pool swim of the summer. Now that it is June you would think we would go more, but now it's all rainy every other day...boo.

Whilst preparing for my garage sale, Lo stumbled upon a boxed up collector's edition Olympic Kid gymnastic doll. Her eyes lit up. This doll was given to me on my 15th birthday. I love cabbage patches and it was during the 1996 Magnificent Seven's run {getting us the GOLD!} Gosh, I still get goosebumps remembering that moment. This doll hasn't been outside that box for 16 years! When Lo saw her I just knew she had found a home. I am sort of all toy story when it comes to toys and dolls and I literally felt bad that this cabbage patch had never been loved until today. {yes, I am a weirdo}. So my little pre-teamer for working so hard to move up she is now yours. {I actually have no idea what she named her...I should ask. HA!}

More "vintage" toy finds. Daddy's bat mobile from his childhood!

During the garage sale they made rainbow loom bracelets and sold hand-drawn pictures and made $4. $4 people. All for just being freakin' cute. They decided to donate their monies to their churches. Super cool.

Garage Sale helper...

My creative thinker. Car port for her cars.

Here is Lo's finished dresser! I went with the tiffany blue and white with krylon gold handles.
I was leaning that way anyway, but when I walked down the aisle of Ace and found a gallon of mis-tint tiffany blue for $5 I took it as a sign.

I think her room is nearly complete...for today. HA!

This boy is my love bear. He snuggles and snuggles...even if it is all night in my bed. {Whole other story} MW just can't get enough momma loves. Who am I kidding I can't get enough of this boy.

Table Rock 2014

Can I just preface this post and future posts with I miss blogging. I love to write my memories down. I have always loved keeping a journal--it was my favorite part of class--creative writing. However, I am tired. Like I don't know if I have a disease, condition or just plain lazy, but girl I am tired. And tired does NOT yield itself to creative writing. It barely yields itself to a coherent sentence. Point. I have a 100 things I would like to post on from this month and no brain power. Blah. Thus, why you don't hear from me too often.

ANYWAY.
Last week we left for Table Rock Lake. It's a 4ish hour trip with maybe one-ish stop. It took us nearly 6 hours. 5 adults, 6 kids, 2 vans and 1 boat will do that I suppose. Here we are locked and loaded and ready to go. I got the luxury of riding down with my two precious angels. Chad got to ride in an adult car. Lucky! Micah wanted a snack every 2 minutes and asked 118 times if we were there yet. Lo was fantastic. She was super quiet and kept herself entertained.

This is Day 1 on the boat. Life jacket-ed up and ready to set sail.

The entire group consisted of 7 adults, 10 kids and 3 tubes, 2 boats and a partridge in a pear tree...

Micah had a huge "fear" of the water this year. We couldn't get him off the boat to swim or tube. I finally went out on Big Mabel with him and sat. He seemed to  like that as long as we weren't moving.

Now for my sass the master water skier. She is just so freakin' cute out there.

Hiding from the wind.

So on day 1 MW and his friend came back for naps and I opted to be the babysitter---I may or may not have wanted to nap too. By 4 they were up. I had zero cell service so we walked to the dock. It was probably .25 mile but up and down steep hills in extreme humidity with two 4 year olds sucked.

So we waited on the dock hoping they would be coming in soon since dinner time was approaching. We waited...and waited and waited through a rain shower and waited some more. No signs of them. Boo. The kids were so disappointed. They wanted to go out on the boat.

So we walked back and as soon as we got back they came in. Of course. So they did their best pouty faces and con-ed a daddy to take them back out all by themselves {and me of course.} It was a beautiful sunset ride.

Cuddle time!!

Day 2

So here he got on Big Mable by himself and then the big boys tipped it over. I thought he would freak out, but when it go flipped back, there he was just laughing and laughing. (I did convince him to tube with me and he loved it. Silly boy.)

More skiing. This time she was able to get up all by herself. Normally I would get in and push her up. Now she is rocking it.

Lo water skiing 2014 from Michele Keethler on Vimeo.
Um, more cuddle time?!

This is MW form of "tubing." He is a hoot.

After a bad incident skiing. She let go wrong and bit the board. :(

Daddy's turn at skiing. He sort of got the hang of it...maybe next year?!?

chad skiing 2014 from Michele Keethler on Vimeo.

Me skiing. I haven't skied since I was 10-13. I did so well until the driver swerved the boat to toss me out when I wasn't ready and I bit it hard. :(

Micah and his homie. He had all the big boys wrapped around his fingers. Nice babysitting for this mommy.

Chad knee boarding.

And I shall end with this sweet pics of my babies. Sleeping peaceful on the last day. We all shared a Queen sized bed. Yeah, that was fun. But so worth it to have a fun, mostly relaxing vacation out on the water thanks to wonder friends we share life with! Until next year.