Walk this Way: Soakin up Summer!

We are enjoying summer to its fullest! Unfortunately we leave again for Cincinnati in 4 weeks so we are making each day in July count!! Tim will head back to work once we get home. I can't wrap my brain around the fact we were gone ALL last summer. The boys are growing up SO fast and I am so thankful to not miss this summer for MANY MANY reasons!

We have been adventurous and since the boys love being in the car, we road tripped to Emporia for a b-day party (my dear friend and sorority sister has twin girls close to the boys age, a 4 month old, and 4 year old- it was long overdue to pay them a visit and celebrate her oldest turning 4). It was a blast! We plan to go back for her twins 2 year b-day in a few weeks! We also took a drive to Lawrence and enjoyed an evening with one of Tim's former student's family. They invited us for dinner to their summer farm house and we got some great family pics their daughter took (she is a very talented photographer) and had a delicious dinner. The boys got to ride on a tractor and we have another visit planned to have more pics taken and maybe fish. We also drove to Pleasant Hill for the 4th of July and spent the holiday with the boys 'Auntie' Sarah and her family. Tim and Sarah went to highschool together and she is one of our dearest friends. Her folks built a house on a ton of land and they have a tractor the boys were eager to ride on. We went swimming and enjoyed fireworks. Several trips to the zoo have been fun too!

Caught this of my boys walking to see the penguins

There have been many FIRSTS occuring in the Walker household.

* The boys are potty trained. Hallelujah! Preston signs 'potty' GREAT and just needs to master pooping in the potty but is super close! I put off potty training him thinking it would be best to do it once his trache came out but he was ready and once Reid did it, he followed suit. Nothing is cuter than seeing these little bottoms running around here in little 'unders' as the boys call them. Reid is quite the encourager with Preston going potty! Pretty cute.

* We made a fire with the kids in our pit and roasted marshmallows for the 1st time. It was super fun and Preston decided after 1 roasting to just grab in the bag and eat the marshmallows raw. No time to roast according to him. :)

Once we mentioned FIRE to the boys, they immediately grabbed their fire hat. Tim and I were cracking up!

*We took both boys to the pool for the 1st time. We are SUPER cautious with P but he is a little fish so we try our best to let him 'swim.' The puddle jumper helps a TON! They ask to go swimming so much that we decided to get a giant pool for our back yard and it was the best $20 we spent all summer! SO FUN! :)

SWIM BUDDIES!

Cousins came to swim

*Preston says 'Hi' and 'Dadadadada' for 1st time!

The payoff has arrived! Preston clearly has much more room to breathe now that tonsils and adnoids are gone and aritnoid is trimmed back. His breathing is completely different these days and random noises have been happening so we capped his trache this morning with our finger for a minute to see if he could make some noise and out came "Dadadadadada!" We did it again and out came "Hi Dadadadada" Not a dry eye in sight. PTL!

We also put the speaking valve on him last night (7/5/14) and he ran around his room with it on saying Hi Dadadadada and a few giggles came out. It was awesome! I am believing with all my might that he will be spared the 2nd single stage LTR surgery! We are asking for massive prayers for this!