Happy 4th!

Can you believe all the partying we've done this weekend?  Birthdays, family, Independence Day... Whew!  We're going to need a family vacation from our vacation!

 Tradition:  A boys picture taken on the stairs...

After this it was off to church, and then home for some MUCH needed naps.  From everyone.  Even the big people!  :-)  By late afternoon Wayne and I made a quick trip to town, and then it was back home, load everyone up, and head to my parents for fun, food, and FIREWORKS!  We have entered a new season... Wayne LOVES blowing stuff up, making loud noises, and watching other people blow stuff up. 

Hmm..  I can't imagine where he gets it from!!!

This "hand over the ears" pose was not invented because of some "safe and sane" snap-crackle-pop.  No, it was not.  It's in response to the noise you heard around 6pm if you were this side of Canada or Seattle. 

Wyatt as it turns out, does NOT like fireworks.  At all.  As soon as he hears a sound, he buries his head in your chest and barely comes up for air!

Trev, he likes fireworks.  No surprise there.

Here's Weston, "assuming the position."

One of my favorite shots from the night is below.... So perfect.  Poor Wy-Wy is crying, Weston is "all ears" and Treven is holding Wyatt's hand, consoling him.

The one and only picture taken of me, 1 out of 334 taken on July 4, 2010.  Thanks to my own mom for documenting that my kids actually DO have a mom of their own.

Scaryness in action.  Tyler let Wayne light his own tanks.  Lovely.  If he's doing this at 4, what will happen by 14? 

Who's happier in this shot?  You decide, because I think it's a toss up!

Weston and fireworks.  This was his first year in action, and I neglected to tell him that the single pop-it I handed him was to be THROWN on the GROUND.  NOT put in his MOUTH.  My fault buddy.  Next time I'll be more proactive.

Cute story about Madelyn... Sometimes she just runs up to me, and screams "CHEESE!" in my face.  She likes it when I take her picture!  :-)  Well trained child, who loves the camera.  The apple doesn't fall far from that tree, does it!?!

Funny story about Treven...  This is how he likes to have his binkie!

Funny story about Todd and Tyson and Joe... this is the same picture that could have been taken in 1990, 2000, and 2010.  The boys love themselves some fireworks.

Future Pyro in Training.  Look at the mesmerized look on his face!

Seriously, who gives a four year old a 4 ft sparkler?  Uncles.....  Dads...

At this point it was getting a little harried, keeping tabs on everyone, so Weston and Madelyn took a break and watched a move (and ran the Denali battery dead) in the car.  It gave me just enough time to setup my camera to try and catch some fireworks on film.  Cool technique, and I thought that I got some good shots!

This picture belongs in a book titled, "Which of these things doesn't belong?"

Utter destruction was left in the aftemath of July 4, 2010.

Thanks brothers for the show!

First Annual BBQ' st Deryl and Shari's

And yes, by "first annual" I mean that there will be a "second annual" and so on... It was THAT much fun!  Deryl and Shari (Tyler's Uncle and Aunt) recently built a craftsman style home in a picturesque neighborhood in E-town.  Part urban area, part country back woods, it's beautiful!  And with the new home came a new fish pond.  Four times (or more!) bigger than their last one!  Our boys, Wayne in particular, were drooling over the edge of the pond.  Wayne was convinced that if he had his fishing pole he could fish and eat it!

 

I won't confess how many pictures I took to get just this one...

The Groen family (Tyler's mom's family) is such a fun mix of people.  This girl (below) is one of my faves....  I work with her, and we both married cousins!  We have a lot in common, but one area we differ is babies.  I am VERY used to holding them, and Jennie... not so much!  I had been telling her for the last week that I was going to put her in charge of Wyatt, because he is the easiest baby that ever lived, and within minutes of getting to the party, I plunked him in her arms.  He of course leaned in for a snuggle, and he had Jennie wrapped around his little finger from that point on!

The man behind the mitt... Uncle Deryl!  The woman behind the man... Aunt Shari!  Love these guys.  And they love us.  And we ALL love our boys.  What more could I ask for?

It got a little interesting, keeping the kids entertained and out of the pond and away from the stairs leading to the basement (a bit of a drop off.)  But in between all of the kid chasing, we ate FABULOUS food, visited, changed a few diapers, fed a bottle, and made smores.  PERFECT!  It was Ethan's 5th birthday too, which was fun to get to spend more time with him.  Here Wayne is, going in for a hug!

Later on I tricked Ethan into standing on a chair, then announced that he was FIVE and had everyone sing to him.  HILARIOUS.  I'm not going to get away with that one too many more times, but I will gladly embarrass my nephew at will for as long as possible. 

And my baby Paige is not a baby any more.  She's a full blown toddler.  Can you believe we used to call her "peanut?"  Hah!  Look at those sparkly eyes... she was pretty excited about her mom's burning marshmallow! 

When you are at a family party, with a full stomach, and you are exhausted, finally there is nothing left to do but lay in the grass, eat a smore, and take a break!  (I enjoyed the break too.  It lasted 30.3 seconds!)

 

We enjoyed ourselves so much, and couldn't believe how well the boys did, and how late they stayed up!  Such a fun time, I already can't wait for next year!

My nephew turned FIVE and we paaaar-tayed!

It's 10:18pm on Saturday night, and I am TIRED.  I have TONS of pictures to share, and a sense of urgency to share them before I take tons more on the 4th of July!  I love capturing moments, and we've had a lot of fun ones this weekend.  

First off...  Friday we all had coffee at Beppe's to celebrate Pake's birthday.  He turned NINETY years old, pretty impressive!  I didn't take my camera (shocking, I know) but I took Wyatt and left the big boys with a sitter (my niece Brenna watched them for the first time!!!  They had to stay in Ethan's room, but Brenna watched them while Tanya got ready for Ethan's party.)  I was able to spend over an hour just sitting with Pake, and I will remember that time always.  

Later that night, we all headed to the Scheib's to celebrate their "baby" turning FIVE.  Crazyness!  Here is is with family friend Nathan, who hooked him up with a pirate ship.  (Ha-ha... did you get that?  "Hooked?")  It's getting late, and I guess I'm a little rummy....

I don't know how it started, but the night quickly deteriorated into a wrestling match between Wayne, Weston and Ethan vs. Tyler.  Hysterical doesn't begin to cover it.  Five years from now, Tyler is in big trouble!

Trisha took advantage of the Wyatt snuggles.

Seriously, what kind of a niece does this to me?  Does she not like my camera?  Unbelievable!!!  Paigers.... You better get that tongue inside... your 18 month pictures are coming!"

The caption for this next picture is, "How many Silves boys does it take to convince a girl to throw her ball?"

Back to wrestling...

I LOVE this shot.  It captures the moment!  Chaos on the right, Wyatt down in front, army crawling his way over to the wildness, and the audience in the background, taking it all in.  Classic!

Watch out Paige...  your crazy Uncle and cousin are coming!!!

I have no idea how this happened, but I know this.  My shutterspeed was SUPER fast, and Wayne is okay. 

Aunt Pat made this GORGEOUS tablecloth/quilt.  Beautiful!

Happy Birthday Ethan-monster!  Your 5th birthday was a blast, and I am so glad you were born in the summer!!!

It's July and I'm feel *crabby*

It being July 2, and Tyler's weekend off...  He took full advantage and left early this morning with Todd to head down to Cornet Bay for "the deadliest catch."  Okay, maybe it's not the most dangerous job on earth when you are catching it in the Pacific Northwest instead of the Bering Sea, but either way, it tastes FANTASTIC.  Growing up, our vacations were more of a stay-cation, but crabbing is one of those things that we did and that I love.  The first taste each year just brings me back to all the fun we had on that little boat with my dad, and how fabulous it is that as a grown girl I can still eat it, but I don't have to go out on the boat and get seasick to get it!  :-)  They had great "crabbing" and were back in pretty short order, with their limit. 

Wayne didn't go, but he was beyond excited when they got back, and he got to check them out in the cooler, picking which one he was eating.

Uncle Todd put him to work, hauling the cooker frame and pot, and cleaning it out.  Weston actually ended up doing most of the work, and did it very well!

Uncle Todd was teaching Wayne how to hold the crab from the back so that they couldn't pinch him.  This is a very important lesson.  (Ask Tyler how he was reminded of this lesson this morning.)

Yes, we love crab this much!

 

And if it is good enough for Uncle Todd to do...

....you know that Wayne isn't far behind!

 

I know what I'm having for dinner tonight...  The biggest one!

P.S.  Please, please, pretty please, with a cherry on top, I BEG of you, if you read this blog, and you know my brother, DON'T TELL HIM there are pictures of him on here!  I'll be in BIG trouble!  :-)

What's up?

How's your week going?  Are you ready for sunshine?  Our week is going great, and we are DEFINITELY ready for some sun!  The snippets that we've gotten are great, but we're ready for the day after day grind of opening the windows in the evening to cool things down, and skipping getting dressed in the morning to go straight to putting on swim trunks.  Even at the expense of some oddly shaped discolored areas of our lawn, I am ready for sunshine.  Our backyard looks like crop circles in the summer, since the pools, picnic table and other kid paraphernalia are strewn about the backyard for days on end, and the grass  gets funky colored from the lack of sunshine.  It would be well worth the lack of pretty to have SUN!  :-)


The boys are settling into quite a nice routine, and compared to last summer, our days are pretty mellow.  We still have our wild and crazy moments, but for the most part, life with the three precious punks is pretty good.  Wyatt continues to knock my socks off with his crawling.  He's getting FAST and CURIOUS and he is still QUIET, which is not a good combination.  I am always worried that one of the big boys is going to step on him, by accident, because they don't know he's crawled behind them.  He also makes a beeline for the toy room.  At 11 months old, he's got a pretty good road map in his head!  :-) 

So today is Thursday, 59 degrees and raining.  July 1.  Great.  Our day has been very MELLOW so far.  Just a few things to do to finish the weekly cleaning list, which I did before 7am this morning.  We've watched "Shrek," made peanut butter/chocolate chip cookies, had coffee, and I finished sorting and piling all of our card into separate boxes for each of us.  Each of the boys have their own box, and there is a "family" box for miscellaneous cards to us.  It was fun to ready through a few of Wayne's first birthday cards, Weston's "birth" cards, and then Wyatt's too.  The years are going by too quickly.  Wayne had four years worth of birthdays in his box!  I made him promise me this morning, that even when he's big like daddy, he will always give me kisses and love his mama.  I absolutely ADORE that each and every one of our boys are HUGE snugglers.  They can't get enough!  Sometimes we spend hours each day snuggling and talking and reading books or watching a show.  As their little bodies tuck into mine, I can't imagine the day when they won't fit on my lap.  I don't want to!  I had a friend for coffee a while back, and at one point all three were snuggled on my lap, and she said, "Tanya, all I can see is your head!  You are COVERED in boys!"  True-er words were never spoken!  :-)  In these early days of their childhood, I feel like our lives are COVERED in BOYS.  And I love it.  All to soon there will be school, sports, and other things that come with getting older.  But that's later, and I'm not going to worry about it today.  Today I am just going to snuggle them all, love them all.  Help them make a fort.  Read a book.  Or two.  Or the same book twice.  Make cookies when I'm asked to, and cut their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into train shapes, because they like them that way.  That's what I'm going to do today.  How about you?