Things that make me smile

Here's mainly a couple of pictures from the last couple of weeks along with my rambling thoughts. Grady. Well Grady is a funny kid. He loves to wear hats. He has become quite the fighter. Just the other day, Luke had something he wanted, so he climbed on top of him and bit Luke on the bottom! Things like that seem to happen all the time now. He doesn't let the fact that he is the little brother keep him down! This means that he has been spending more and more time in time out lately, which is kind of hard because I'm not sure he really understands the concept of  a "time out" very well yet. He is also getting older. Last month he was so funny. Every time you would ask him a question, and it didn't matter what sort of question it was, he would answer "No!" or "Nothing!".  For example, my cousin Jessie said to him "Grady are you going to date before you are 16?". Grady answered "No!". He hasn't done that nearly so much this month. His talking is getting better and better. Everyday he learns so much! About 3 weeks ago, I decided it was time to re-potty-train Luke (it's a long story. Email me if you are dying to know it.), and I had this crazy thought "What if I just potty-train both boys at the same time?!". I didn't have much hope for Grady since he was only 21 months old, but much to my shock and amazement he has done really really well.

A sticky Cheetos hand print on one of our doors. It honestly made me sad to wash it off, because I thought someday there won't be little sticky hand prints all over the house. I know I should be happy about that, but for some reason I just got all sentimental.

 Luke starts T-ball next month! Can you believe that! All his life I've been waiting for him to be old enough to play organized sports, and I can't believe that time is already here! We went out and got him his first glove, and we've been practicing in the backyard when it's not too windy. Grady likes T-ball too. I'm sure Grady will have a hard time not understanding why he can't play too when we go to Luke's games.

 On the 16th, Ty did Pat's Run. I know I should have tried to do it, but I lacked all motivation to train. Ty did great though!

 We stayed in the valley that whole day and went to an ASU Spring football scrimmage that afternoon. After the game they let everyone come out onto the field.This is what Luke did the second we got down there.

Afterwards, we went with Ty's brother's family to this fun little indoor kid play place. 

I have a garden! Ty even plowed it for me this year with that little tractor thingy. Now I am just crossing my fingers and hoping that things will grow, and that the wind won't kill them! Have I ever mentioned that I love working outside? So far this year I have trimmed our tree, which is twice as high as our house and planted my garden. I've started painting our back porch too. 

 Grady can make a hat out of anything!

Love that bum!

Grady "helping" dad.

Thanks again for putting up with another long post. I have a lot of cute pictures from Easter that I'll put up here sooner or later. Tomorrow is also Luke's birthday! Wahoo!

New Easter Outfit!

I probably have 1,000 other things to blog about, but I took Grady out for some photos in his new Easter clothes last night and just had to share. I'm so happy! I feel like I got so many good ones of him, and we both had a lot of fun just hanging out together just the two of us! I was kind of going for a beachy feel in some of these first ones. Can you tell I took them in Thatcher?

 I love this one for two reasons. First, I think he just looks like a tough manly model, and second this is the expression he has on his face probably 90% of the day. He is quite a bit more serious than Luke.

 His favorite part was getting to play with all the rocks and sticks!

Baby, Life, and Grandpa Dowdle

Well, I found out Friday that we are having another little boy. Crazy! Growing up I always imagined my self having little girls. Oh well, little boys really aren't that different from little girls. As far as I can tell, the only real differences are that little boys get pee everywhere in the bathroom and you're options on what to dress them in for, especially for church, are extremely limited and boring. They still need the same amount of love and support and need to be taught the same things. At least I don't have to buy anything. Ty is really happy about that part.

I promised that I was going to blog more, so here it goes. Life has been crazy lately. Last week we were all sick. Ty was the worst off with some sort of strep throat/flu/cold combo. He was sick enough to stay home from work for a few days, and that's saying something. Grady and I both got a cold and ear infections. Yes, you heard me right. I had an ear infection. I probably haven't had one of those since the '80's! I've been rehearsing for the musical Oklahoma!, playing my violin in the pit, every night these past two weeks, and let me tell you it is not an easy task to play in a musical when you can barely hear because your ears are full of fluid! I have really enjoyed playing in the musical. I've been the happiest I've been in a long time playing that music and watching the actors up on stage. It brings back lots of good memories- memories from my time at EA and memories from my childhood. My dad grew up in Oklahoma, and I lived there til I was two. I have lots of great memories of my dad singing all the songs, and acting out the parts with my mom. When I was 14 we went on a trip back to Oklahoma, and I got to watch a performance of Oklahoma! outside in an amazing open air theatre. It is fun going back to EA and watching all these "kids" perform. I remember having crushes on all the super cute leading men! I was playing in a musical there only 7 years ago as a student, but already I feel a lifetime older than all the actors. As always, there is a lot of talent up on stage, and I've recognized some of the exact same costumes that they used for performances while I was at EAC. Ah, the glory days! Even though the musical has taking up 3.5 hours of my time every night, I'm so glad I'm doing it. Tonight is the first performance, and it will run through Saturday night. I owe my husband a special thanks for allowing me to do this and picking up the slack while I'm gone!

Okay, time for catch-up. Back in February Ty's grandpa, Earl Dowdle, died. He was 90, and it was his time to go, but it is still always a little sad to see such a good man leave this earth. He lived a pretty amazing life as a test pilot for the US Air Force traveling with his family all around the world. He had 6 daughters. Ty's mom was number 4. He actually joined the church and was baptized on the same day as Ty's mom when she was 8.  Grady was adorable in his little suite, and we got lots of offers from people that wanted to take him home with them. For some strange reason though, he still ended up going home with us! :) Right after the family prayer when they were wheeling Ty's grandpa out of the room, Grady was so cute. He watched so intently and said "Bye-Bye Grandpa!" while waving goodbye too him. That was hands down the cutest thing I have ever seen him do! Well, it was great seeing a lot of family we hadn't seen for a long time. Here's a few pictures from that day.

It was raining when the funeral got out.

He was burried with full military honors. Which meant that there was a really cool firing squad. From the time they fired off the first shots until the end of the graveside service Luke had his hands like this ready to cover his ears at a moments notice! When the graveside service was over and we were driving to the luncheon Luke proclaimed "I want to play with guns!"

The service man giving Ty's grandma the flag that draped over his coffin.

That's my little niece Anne. It was so touching to see all of the little great-grandkids crying. They really loved their great-grandpa and he loved them! I actually saw a lot more little kids crying than adults.

 They let the little kids choose a flower to help them remember the day by. Grady and Luke did not want to be left out of that.

 Grady's flower.

 Luke's flower.