Summertime and the livin' is easy !

Meredith came to visit last weekend. Her kids are the sprawled out baby on the left (Brady) and the squished girl in the middle (Peyton). Robin's little girl, Annie is on the right. This picture-along with many others-was secretly taken while Josh and I were out on a date. It was a fun surprise when I went through my pictures today!

We've been out in the sun and playing in the water almost every day since
Ayden has been out of school. It has been nice!!!!!!!!!

Ian took swimming class for two weeks, and graduated on Thursday.

He's patiently waiting his turn along with his friend Erik (the one with the goggles)
to jump in and find the wall to pull up on. The kid on his right (your left) is NOT excited about this activity. Ian didn't like it much either, but he braved it out.

Here he is getting a pep talk before being pushed out to kick with his head underwater.
In the end, he was decent at kicking, but mostly just did a lot of floating with his arms and legs spread out (ca-ute!) and he did pretty well with the jumping in and finding the wall. I have to keep working on this stuff with him. I mainly wanted him to learn to like the water, which he did.
It will be Ayden's turn in two weeks and he'll be taking his lessons with Dakota.
That coach is in for some entertainment with those two. They are both decent swimmers, they just need to learn the actual strokes. They both get really competitive when they get together, so hopefully this will make them work even harder to do well.

Two of Ian's favorite things, a car and a "car wash". He pretends that anything and everything is a car wash. This one was the most impressive yet.

Josh has some new initials to add to his name!

LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) that is.

He's now official.
We are so proud of him!!

Afton's Party

The cake instructions are from howdini.com. They have some cute cake ideas!

Close-up

Decorations I made with my friend, Erin's, cricut-thank you!
My Cricut wasn't compatible with her cartridge, so I had to borrow the whole machine.

Two pretty ladies!

Did someone spike that punch?

Birthday kisses.

Goofball.

This girl loves cake!

Chattin' it up with her cuz, Annie.

Caution, children with punchballs!

Y'all come back now, ya hear?
(We need a traffic light in our kitchen.)

House Project- Finito!

If you haven't heard much from us lately it's because since May 3rd we have been working on our house exterior. Josh's older brother, Jason, came over for the first few days and helped Josh replace the bad wood. Then I caulked the entire house, Josh sanded everything, then he took the roller with an extension rod,
I took the brush and we worked and worked for days and days until we FINALLY finished on Friday.

We are so proud of our work. Josh is especially proud of his new found carpentry skills. (He and Jason had fun reminiscing on helping their dad build his three story house that took 20 or so years.) I'm proud of my edging expertise. Josh told me I could be a surgeon with my precision skills. Now we can finally get back into our old routine. Actually, Ayden's summer vacation starts on Thursday, so it will be a new routine. Either way, I'm glad we're done. We finished just in time for Afton's first birthday party, like we planned. I plan on sitting a lot tomorrow to make up for all of that balancing on the ladder.

Our One Year Old

ME!

Do I look older and wiser?

My Birthday Weekend

Lunch at BJs Restaurant with my family 86 Ayden b/c he was at school.

Ian looking through his "nah-Q-wuhs"

After the kids were in bed, Josh's mom came over to babysit while we went on a double date with Robin & Brent. We went to a coffee shop that has improv every Friday night.
We laughed so much, our faces hurt! It was a great birthday! BTW: Josh got me a GPS and Ayden thinks it's his new toy. We've been using it to go around town to places we already know how to get to just for kicks. I selected the "Australian male" voice to direct us.

The next morning we went downtown to the "Fest For All" to see
Ayden and his class perform to "the Rainbow Fish".
The kids were so cute. They danced around like swimming fish and made fish faces while interpreting the story. If you look really close to the picture above you will see Ian and Dakota at the top of the hill.
(This is the old state capitol building-the kids performed at the bottom of the hill.)

This is a post-show pic of Ayden with his two biggest fans!

We ate here for lunch. Mostly because the signs were so inviting!

You have to magnify it and read all of the crazy meats they served. We chose a safe menu of crawfish and shrimp po-boys and seafood jambalaya. The ladies in the picture got soft shell crab po-boys and they looked DELICIOUS. Gotta love this state! No other place can replicate our food and culture. I'm so depressed about the big oil spill that's about to ruin our marshes. I could get political here, but that's for another day. For now I will just share that I loved our weekend and had a great time. I especially loved the birthday cake that Josh made for me that we all consumed within 24 hours!! He spoils me. He's a keeper. After all of that BAD but GOOD eating, I'm having a hard time getting back into my usual diet. Must....fit....into....my....swimming suit!

The Park

Afton loves to swing...

But not too high!