Tanner's Farm

Tyler and I baked cookies last week. He was so proud!
Austin LOVES to play with balls. He can already throw the ball to me.

We went to Tanner's orchard today. Here is Tyler playing with the controls on a CAT machine (what else would they have in Peoria?)

Here's our little Austie playing in the hay.

Tyler's friend Abby loves to hold Austin.

Some of Tyler's best buddies making faces (Austin is even in the picture)

We had a great time at the orchard today. They have a huge, fantastic playground, and the weather was actually okay. The only problem is that we were being eaten alive by bugs. Tyler sure didn't carre! Tyler and Mike are going to a father/son campout tonight. Tyler has been beside himself with excitement all week. The campout has served as a convenient little bribe for me this week. Austin and I are going out to dinner with some girl friends. Austin is FINALLY feeling better and the King household is once again sleeping at night, HALLELUJAH! (did I spell that right?)

Established Sep. 25, 1999

Today is our 8th wedding anniversary. It has been a great 8 years! Today I am grateful for such a wonderful husband. He is a GREAT man who always goes above & beyond his responsiblities. He is the best father to my kids I could ever ask for. And with me, he is completely unselfish! I don't tell him enough, but he is the best!

Here he comes to save the day!

Last night Austin's ear infection decided to rear its ugly head once again (let's just get over the inevitable & put tubes in already Mr. ENT). My poor husband is such a sucker for sick crying babies that he held Austin a majority of the night. Austin could not sleep at all because he couldn't lay down flat. I think the urgent care Dr. last week mis-dosed him, and that is why we are all human zombies today. I got Austin in to the Dr. and he has an inner & outer ear infection. No wonder the poor babe couldn't sleep. Then a couple of minutes later, Tyler had an apoointment for HIS malfunctioning ears across town at the ENT. I left my wallet at the first Dr. because Austin wouldn't let me put him down to even go to the bathroom . (The wallet was found on the back of the toilet by a kind nurse). SO it's just been one of those days...
Then I remembered something, THE BACHELOR premeires tonight!!!!! This means I get to lay in bed with a carbonated beverage and chocolate and watch crazy girls go gaga over the new, hot, publicity hungry bachelor. My day is saved!

The Amazing Race

I was in the car yesterday when Tyler informed me that boys can run faster than girls. I said, "That's not true, who said that?" "Yes, it is true, Daddy said so." I had to call Mike and tell him he was in trouble because Tyler would be announcing this in pre-school, and Mike would look like a big, fat, male gorilla. Mike suggested I have a race with Tyler to show him that a girl could be faster. We got home and went to the backyard to race. I saw the neighbors on their deck and relayed what naughty thing Daddy had said to Tyler (so they wouldn't think I was mean for smoking my 4 year old in a race). We started racing and I accidently tripped Tyler. He started screaming that my foot kicked him SO hard. It was hilarious! I sure taught Tyler a lesson; girls can kick harder too! (We did race again and I made sure to win)

Austin has been feeling a lot better. He is such a happy boy most of the time. He LOVES to play with balls. He will chase a soccer ball aorund in the basement for half an hour. He also loves to wave. He will stand on the couch (with someone there in case he falls) and wave away. It is so cute.

A September day

A Child's Prayer

We have a babysitter who comes over every Tuesday afternoon so I can do errands without kids. Her name is Sam, and she is absolutely adorable. Tyler loves Sam with all of his little heart because she plays with him the entire time. She's like his best friend except she lets him win games, and go first, and she doesn't fight with him. Well, Sam called last night and told me she hadn't been feeling well and might not be able to make it today. I told Tyler Sam was sick and might not be coming over this week. Tyler got a sad look and then said, "I have an idea. Can I say a prayer for Sam to get better?" Of course this just melted my heart. Tyler said his prayer for Sam.

Later that night.... Tyler had lost a missile from his transformer in the car. All of the little parts on his toys are driving me crazy because HE loses them and then wants ME to find them. When Mike got home he went out in the car to look for the stinkin missile. They were out there forever! Mike came in and I asked why he looked for the missile for so long (I would have given up after 3 or 4 minutes). He said he had to because Tyler was in the front seat praying over and over, "Please help me find my missile, please help me find my missile." Hopefully our car isn't bugged by the FBI.

Bend it like Tyler

Poor Mike and Austin were up for about 3 hours in the middle of the night. We have another ear-infection kid on our hands!

Today was the first game of the new soccer season. Tyler played last year and it was an interesting season. My friends and I thought it would be fun to put all of our kids on the same team. We stacked our team (and not in a good way). The kids had lots of fun climbing the goal post, playing power rangers, fighting, playing tag and crying. The moms thought it was cute and funny, but the dads were angry! We had the worst team in the league. We thought soccer might need to stay on the backburner for a couple of years. All of the sudden Tyler started talking about soccer again, so I signed him up. He did so much better today! He actually went for the ball and got some kicks in. Tyler is best at defense. He is not a great goalie. The yellow team scored on him 3 times while he was goalie. Tyler said he hates the yellow team! Well I guess a year of bulking up on pop-tarts and chicken nuggets really helped Tyler's game.

Austin may be rotting out his first 2 teeth

Mike wanted a peaceful dinner so he put some root beer in Austin's bottle. We actually didn't have to hold him while we ate.

Update: 2nd day of pre-school

After many talks about how we act at pre-school, I dropped Tyler off. I told him he could have a friend over if he was perfect (What he didn't already know was that we are sharing a babysitter tonight with our friends, so he WILL have a friend over. It was great leverage without me going to any extra effort.) I picked him up, and lo and behold, we are great parents! All the talks worked- Mrs. Oberman said he was perfect! On our way home Iasked about his day. He said that him and some friends were playing on the playground, "and don't worry mom, we were only fighting very softly!".

Bye-Bye Summer

The weather will soon be turning colder. We will probably have one day of pleasant fall weather in between the unrelenting heat of Summer and the bitter cold of Winter. We had a great summer. We didn't do anything big, just hung out at the pool a lot. Tyler was ADDICTED to his waterwings the first half of the Summer. We finally traded his water wings for a Transformer DVD, and he hasn't looked back. He swims so well now! He even went off the high dive. It was so cute. Austin just liked to splash in the water, or hang out in his raft. He did pretty well at the pool. I just wanted to post some pictures of our Summer...

Austin swinging in the backyard

Tyler and buddy Aiden


Tyler , Austin and Aiden at the pool
Tyler Fishing in Utah

Tyler at Summer Camp



Mike Austin and Tyler at Bridalveil Falls

First day of pre-school

Since every one and their dog has a blog now, I feel the need to jump on the bandwagon. I imagine this will mostly be about the kids because that's all we really live for these days...

So, it was Tyler's first day of "big boy" preschool today. I switched pre-schools from last year, where he had pretty perfect behavior. I think it was because he hung out with his friend Abby all the time; she's a good influence on him. So upon arriving at the new pre-school, I noticed that his new class had an abudence of boys. I knew it was going to be trouble. When I picked him up I asked the teacher how it went. She says, "Oh, he's a very social boy." Or code for, "can you please get your kid to shut up!" Then I'm taking Tyler to the car, and he tells me that he gave another boy a bloody nose. But, the OTHER boy started it. The teacher didn't even mention this gem. So we are trying to drill into Tyler's head that you don't wrestle at school, even if somebody else starts it.