What a great weekend at Richera!  For those outside of the Cooper family, “Richera” is the family farm named for Kate’s great-grandparents, “Richards” and Vera, located in the fertile plains west of Wichita.

We arrived Friday night in time to watch the sunset and climb fences. Saturday we woke to breakfast by the lake and a chilly dip in the inflatable pool. We fed our pet cow “Number 61″ apples, toured the land in the golf cart (adorned with fake sunflowers – a Mumsie original), went on a treasure hunt in the Quonset hut (rescuing a beautiful antique sewing machine for Kate), canoed the pond, and roasted brats on the fire. As you can see, for Blake and Henry clothing was optional.

It’s true, time flies by.  We attempted a repeat of Blake’s birthday party at the annual balloon festival, but the weather wasn’t cooperating.  No worries, his Newton cousins came to hang out, which he loved (thanks Maddox for the DS).

The next day the sun came out and gave Blake an opportunity to play with one of his presents.

But one of his favorite presents was that of a beta fish (after the initial gold fish gave up the fish ghost before it was even gifted).  Here he is giving it a kiss.  And as is typical in the Sawyer household, his little brother tries to eat it.

We’ve had some crazy weather this spring, and like much of the rest of the country, we’ve had tornadoes come through town.  Thankfully we were spared the destruction that normally follows… but late nights dragging sleeping children to the unfinished basement isn’t much fun.

Tis also the season for graduations.  Here we are in Lawrence (with a great view of the field) celebrating two cousins entering the “real” world.  Congrats Emmy and Cooper!

We piled in the van and drove to Nashville to cheer on Aunt B as she and her friend Mollie ran the Country Music Marathon. We and the Hirlemans walked all over Nashville trying to catch a glimpse of the gals running, and were there at the finish line to watch them beat their goal of 4:30.

Bonus points for getting to have lunch with cousin Courtney who recently moved to Music City.  Double bonus points for witnessing an undercover drug bust from our hotel window.

Capped of the trip with a nice dinner inside the gargantuan Opryland Hotel.  Quite a site to behold, and highly recommend you take a tour if you’re in town.

I am starting to think in “blog”… guess I better do something with it I suppose. My children will thank me later. Right?

Yesterday and today I had a taste of what life would be like with 3 little boys. And, I will admit I got a bit excited. No, we are not pregnant.

It is no secret that  I have a reoccuring dream that I am the mother of 8 little boys. In my dream, the boys are all the same age – one sitting on my head, another jumping on my back, four dripping from my extremities, and while I am not sure where the other 2 boys are I know they are there somewhere. A nightmare, you say? I am not so sure.

My 24 hours spent with 3 boys under the age of 2 did my heart good.  Everyone was consistently entertained, I included. There were no tears, no whining, no fighting – just a lot of action… running, falling, climbing, and a lot of random objects being hurled through the air. To top it off they all slept like rockstars because they had exhausted themselves and each other with their constant motion. No one seemed to mind that I hadn’t showered in a couple of days or combed my hair or… no, I DID brush my teeth.  I do love these creatures they call boys… the more I see, the more I learn, the more I love.