Badge Pinning

 Zach has been a reserve firefighter for two years now. They finally had an award ceremony where he was pinned (received his badge from joining) and received his black helmet (two years of service). Austin got to pin Dad. (I had Bubba and the camera.) I didn't get any pictures of him getting the black helmet. But here are others.

 Austin pinning Dad.

 Getting a little help from Dad.

  Blogger is being difficult, so two up is right after the pinning. Austin loved it so much. And then the family shot after the ceremony. As we were walking out to our car, we asked Austin if he had fun. "Yeah, when can we do it again Dad?!" 

I'm so proud of Zach. As soon as he passed the test to join the department, I knew this was it. I have been so excited for him as he falls more and more in love with his career. He will start EMT classes soon, then on to paramedic school. I never would have thought of him as being the fire fighter/EMS type, but now that he is, I can't picture anything else.

Birthdays

The first thing I should catch up on is birthdays. I never wanted to dedicate the time to do a birthday post properly, so I didn't do any at all. Well, not that I didn't want to, it's just that I didn't feel like it at the time. er times. Anyway, here's a glossing over of our birthdays. They are in June, July, August and September.

June: Zach turned 28 on the 4th of June. 

Here he is sleeping during conference. Don't tell him I told on him. That's his parents' cat Putty on his chest. Anyway, back to the man. I love this guy. Probably a good thing since I'm married to him for-ev-ver. (I only hear that word in Squints' voice.) He keeps me grounded. I have a tendency to get a bit crazy in several different ways and he tolerates it but somehow manages to keep me from going overboard without really doing anything, just being him and being there. I also have a tendency to lose it from time to time. He helps me through , and teases me afterward (long enough after that it's ok). And he still loves me. I have no idea why. Or how. But he does, and I love him all the more for that. (And if you don't think I can lose it, just ask him about the cake. Never mind. Don't. I don't want you to know.) All I can say is, I love you Zach. Thanks for everything.

July: Austin turned 4 on the 25th.

This kid. So much to say. He is by far my biggest challenge. (That may change when Sam gets a bit older, but I doubt it.) Part of it I know comes from me. Everything has to be perfect. Perfect in his mind which may or may not make sense to anyone else. If not, he throws a hissy fit. He's always growling and whining about something. I get after him and he tells me, "I'm not mad at you!" I'm trying to get through to him that I don't care about that, he just needs to relax a bit and be happy! Kinda hard as I'm yelling grumpily at him to stop being grumpy and yelling about stuff. A characteristic that he did NOT get from me; he's not very independent about things. He can do all kinds of things for himself, but if you help him once, he expects you to keep helping every time and throws a fit if you don't. I hate to say it, but it makes me never want to help the kid. Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the kid, I'm just being honest about his personality.

Some things I LOVE about this kid. He can be so fun and goofy, when he's in the right mood. He bounces around just being a carefree kid and I can just sit and watch him or listen to him forever when he's like this. This is when Sam really gets to giggling too. He just laughs at big brother, putting on a show, which just in turn feeds Austin's antics. He has an amazing sense of humor too. He and Dad were talking about who was stronger the other day. I wasn't really listening too much but I said to Zach, "OK, tough guy, open this for me." Austin piped in and said, "Then you need me, the tougher guy!" Also, we were headed to his friend's Halloween party and were almost there when we realized we forgot something. As we turned around, he said, "Well that was a great party." It took me a second to realize he was cracking a joke. And he's smart. I know everybody thinks their kid is some kind of genius, but I am always amazed at this kid's memory. He gets it from his dad. Austin knows cars really well and remembers what kind most of his Hot Wheels are (the real kinds anyway). He also remembers all kinds of things that we see or do and will bring them up weeks and even months later, without any conversations about it in between. I usually take forever to realize what he's even talking about. When I do figure it out, he's spot on. Oh, and he loves posing for pictures. Especially making silly faces. Once again, from the Adams side. So many times, I hear "Hey Mom, take a picture!"

August: Sam turned 1 on the 28th.

This kid. He's my ace so far. Not to say one kid is better than the other, but so far Sam has been so much easier. He was a happy baby. If he was crying, something was probably wrong. He laughs a lot. Granted, he has a silly big brother to get him going. And I love his laugh. It's this crazy little giggle that you can't help but smile when you hear. He loves food, and he'll eat just about anything. His favorites right now are fruit snacks and candy (I know, virtually the same right?) especially chocolate. And you better share. If you do, he'll give you that giggle, but if not you might get to see his temper. He's got a good one. Like if he's mad and you put him down, he's kicking himself back to lying on the floor screaming. We'll see how it goes when he turns 2, 3, and even 4. But those are pretty few and far between. He loves balls. I think he may be our athlete. He also loves stuffed animals. He packs them around and snuggles on them when he's tired. I'm so excited to see his personality really bloom this coming year as he begins to talk (Yeah, still no words yet.) and can begin to do so much more. We can already tell, he's going to be the daredevil as well. Except when it comes to animals. Not a fan, except for Boomer.

September: I turned 32 on the 9th.

Not a great picture, but like most moms, I am always behind the lens. This was a self portrait with my phone when I got my first pair of glasses. Yes, I made it to 32 before I needed glasses. Well, I don't really need to talk about myself here, so I will just tell you about my birthday, namely my present. I'm not sharing this to brag, well I guess I am, but not about the present, about my amazing husband. He got me a camera. A really nice camera. A Canon EOS Rebel T3.

I was so shocked! I actually started to cry. It blew me away. He had taken the money he had saved for a car part and bought me this. He knows how much I love to take pictures. (I even took a couple photography classes in college.) I love it so far. Even the basic pictures are an improvement over my old point and shoot. Now if only I had time to sit down and learn all the controls. (My classes used film cameras. It was a few years ago. I would love to take more in digital.) See why I love this guy? He sacrifices his wants for mine. He's amazing!

So that's our birthday season. More posts to come.

Catch Up, Ketchup!

Whenever I hear (or think) "Catch up!" I always think of a book I read once in elementary. I remember the cover differently in my head and I always thought the title was the other way around. Looking for a picture for this post brought me to the light. But I digress.

I need to catch up on my blog. First, I got lazy, then we lost our internet. (Rather our neighbor canceled hers, and we had to rely on another neighbor's less reliable unsecured internet. Then that neighbor secured their wireless and we were left without internet.) Now we have become adults and got our own internet for the first time in our married lives. We have always had really nice friends that just let us use their connection. I would like to add that we are returning the favor and letting our neighbor that we bummed from the past year, bum from us now. (she rarely uses it except for Netflix, which is why she canceled when they doubled their prices.) So anyway, catching up on 6 months is a daunting task. I realize my last post wasn't that long ago, but I haven't shared my real life in probably 6 months. I will do the best I can. I will blog a thing or two when I get the notion. I will probably gloss over a few things and skip others completely. But none of you really care that much I'm sure. Besides, you wouldn't actually know if I skipped something anyway, so haha! So the jist is I'm blogging to tell you that I will blog. Sometime. Hopefully soon. Maybe I'll even have some awesome stories along the way to rival the one of the toilet overflowing. After all, I'm here to share my real life, not make it look like I have it all together.