Camping

For Pioneer Day we thought we'd go out and "rough it" like the pioneers and go camping. By "rough it" I mean drive to a beautiful campground far from city life, have dinner and dessert, take a walk and a swim, and drive home to sleep in our comfy beds. :)

We went with our friends, the Stones. Here is Sam with the boys and Kirsten and Kieran.

No sky scrapers here.

Roasting marshmallows for s'mores.

"Nature boy with Doritos."

A lizard hand off.

Noah found this pretty little guy. I'd never seen a lizard like that.

Five Alive

DONE!! I am breathing a huge sigh of relief. All birthdays are done till next year. We had so much fun with the planning and seeing friends, but oh my, that was a lot of work. I think each kid enjoyed his or her birthday to the fullest. Presley's birthday was yesterday, but her party was today. For her birthday we took her to get her ears pierced. She wasn't scared and didn't cry at all. She LOVES having ear rings.

Here she is this morning testing out the party photo booth for me.

Her birthday party was inspired by the Fancy Nancy books we've been reading lately.

Here was her invite:

My sister, Denise recommended the Wii game "Just Dance". Presley really likes it. I think it's so fun. It's like dancing "Rock Band".

My sweet friend Sandy brought the cake. Isn't it great? Cinderella even lit up!

Plant Life

I have so many pictures right now, I can't keep up with the blogging. I'll post some from today and call it good so I can go watch some Arrested Development with Josh. That has been our series of choice for the summer. Our apartment complex has sprinklers come on around dinner time. The kids run through those and jump/slide into kiddie pools in everyones' yards. It's a it's a giant free for all over here.It cracks me up how unafraid Charlie is of fully immersing himself!

Check out this slide action! Pres is bracing herself for all kinds of rough housing. It's what a middle child sister does.

My jokster.

Freckles!

Josh came home and tuned up his bike. Charlie was on helper duty.

We have been working on Presley's birthday lately. I am planning all sorts of fun stuff. She keeps thinking it's her birthday TODAY and it's impossible to explain to her it's coming in three days. She was on cloud nine on Sunday because they sang the birthday song to her. Then in her class at church she told us she answered a hard question correctly and got a fruit snack because of it. She said the question was about sheep and she answered that Jesus was the shepherd??Something like that! She was in such a good mood that she decided that Noah was her best friend forever and she was never going to get in his way again and he was never going to be mean to her again. I love that notion: best friend siblings. My friend Anna always teaches that in her home and I'm totally gonna copy.

Noah's Birthday, number7!

**Edited to add: I forgot to mention that we were originally going to have Noah's birthday the Saturday before, but I saw the weather called for rain. I postponed the party and was kicking myself because Saturday was beautiful. Then when 2 pm (the time the party would've been) rolled around. It was dumping buckets for a straight hour. This is what we got after that!:

Well, I think birthday number 7 was a very happy one. Noah started off with his favorite breakfast of coffee cake and milk. Then we had his good friend over all day to play legos, collect bugs, master the Wii, and have light saber battles. A huge thanks to grandma TK for the red light saber that came just in time for the day! Charlie even got a turn with it. :)

We had a party at a small park by Noah's school that had a soccer field. So many little boys from school and church showed up. I was planning on having Josh be a ref and organize the game, but that wasn't necessary. These boys had their own system and broke into teams and began playing before Josh was even back with the tables!

I don't think Noah will ever have a birthday where he isn't in his swim suit!

Here is Presley's group. They played quietly in a corner of the park the whole time! The little guy in the jean shorts has proposed to Presley and she said yes! I am sensing Pres entering a romance stage in her life!

We had a water balloon fight that lasted two minutes. After Josh and I spent over an hour filling balloons on Saturday. The kids loved it, though. They got to cool off a bit after the soccer. Even though their aim wasn't the best!

Mmmm.

Happy birthday Noah! We're sooo lucky to have such an awesome kid.

park day, 4th, and a birthday

My friend Eve showed us a new hot spot for the summer. A park and wading pool with two hours of free parking right next to the river. So fun! I had driven by there and always thought it was impossible to get to and a pricey place. We spent an afternoon there and had a blast. It was a little chilly for the pool so we went to the park. I totally thought Noah broke his arm there, but it just got pinched. Thank goodness.

Classic Boston. There goes a Duck Boat on the Charles.

We were actually real close to Josh's lab. It's pretty much behind Charlie in that swing pic.

We celebrated Independence Day in Rhode Island with a bbq and annual water balloon toss/fight. Each year there are more and more balloons and each year we get more drenched!

Go Charlie! Oops!

Here's the tame stuff...

Uh oh, it's gonna get crazy!

Then we went out to watch fireworks.. Poor Josh was still soaked. Presley let him use her Cinderella blanket to keep warm :)

We had the BEST selection of glowy bands thanks to Mike and Ruth!

Today we celebrated Charlie's birthday. He woke up to balloons hanging on the walls and thought he'd died and gone to heaven. He sat happily at breakfast with a balloon under one arm as he fished the marshmallows out of his Lucky Charms.

We hosted the toddler play group at our house this morning so friends could have cupcakes with the birthday boy. We had a dog theme since dogs are Charlie's fave. We made our own doggie bags with home made paw print stamps. (It's not toddler time at my house without an art project!)

Then we sang happy birthday!

I can't believe he's 2!!!

For dinner we went out to Fridays. It's nice and loud there and it is a much better alternative to Chuck E. Cheese, which I think Noah's beginning to out grow.

Love ya birthday boy!