Jon's birthday party/ Independence Day

Since Jon's birthday was early in the week right after the 4th of July, and we were already having the family over that Saturday (the 3rd) we decided to do it all in one night.

We grilled some dinner, then Jon opened his "pesents"- can you tell he was a little excited that it was finally his turn?

His big gift from us was this water table "sink" which he loves! He could stand at the real sink all day long and "wash hands". He loves to just have the water running over his hands and get all wet, so when I saw this in an ad a while back, I thought it would be perfect! 

We had fruit pizza rather than a normal cake. Easier and a big hit- Jon LOVES strawberries. We sang Happy Birthday and he sang along and clapped after he blew out the candles. He loves singing that. I keep trying to get him to do it on video, but I haven't gotten a good one yet. It's way cute. 

All the kids....

After swimming and eating, we lit fireworks in the backyard. The kids loved it. The dads of course, loved being pyros. They kept us safe, just barely! Only a couple of slight mishaps.

It was a fun day! I got my wish for a simpler, lower maintenance birthday celebration. Jon's pretty easy- it doesn't take much to make him happy!

Happy 2nd Birthday Jon!

Our littlest dude is 2 today! It's hard to believe. As big as he acts, he's still my baby, even though I know that's going to change when the new baby comes. I had a hard time choosing a few pictures from the last two years, he's so cute!

This boy is something else. He is so affectionate, he loves giving hugs and kisses. He is my little buddy, usually following me around. If I eat breakfast later than they do, he has to join me at the table to share mine. When he screams or does something mean, I give him a frown and he immediately gets this sorry face and says "Sowwy Mommy" and gives me a hug. It's too cute. He's still pretty attached, he has a hard time with strangers in some situations. He screamed the minute the doctor came in for his checkup today and usually cries if the grocery bagger pushes our cart out to the car. Other times he goes right up to people and says hi to them. He's funny.

He LOVES when Daddy comes home and hates to say good-bye to him in the mornings. Every morning he asks if he has to go to work. He also loves his big brothers, he follows them around and wants to play whatever they're playing. He's excited for the baby. I don't know how much he really understands about the baby actually living here, but he loves to talk about babies and look at all the babies' stuff.

He's my little chatterbox. He has all kinds of things to say. Especially when we're in the car, he likes to talk to us about everything he sees out the windows. He loves trains and airplanes. He's such a happy little guy, and has the most contagious smile. People always just melt when he flashes those little dimples, he's my little heartbreaker. 

We love this boy! Happy Birthday Jon!

Six years.

Love this guy. Six years ago today we made it forever. It was a Friday that year too. 

I had an interesting experience recently. I was sitting in the hospital lab waiting room for a long test. I ended up chatting with another pregnant girl who was there for a while, and during the course of our conversation, she asked if I was married. When I said yes, she asked how long. I told her almost six years, and she was awestruck, seriously. She said "wow, you know you beat the average". According to her, it's 3-5 years. Who knows how close that statistic is to correct, but I felt so sad for her (especially after hearing more about her life) that it was so unusual that two people committed to each other and stayed that way. To me, six years is not that long since I know so many happy couples who have been married so much longer, but it really made me think about how that is not "normal" in the world today, it's incredibly valuable and not something to take for granted. I felt so grateful that day for what I have and how I got to this point in my life. It certainly has never been easy, but it has been so worth it. I am so blessed.

Happy Anniversary, Love.

Christopher's birthday week

Well, our boy had quite the week! Ben's birthday party was almost a week after his birthday, so we took him to Chuck E. Cheese on the actual night-- so of course, we had to do the same with Chris, even though his party was scheduled the night before his birthday so it was a full weekend. We tried to talk him into other dinner options, but of course he had to do what Ben did. They had such a great time!

We got a ton of tickets and came home with suckers, tattoos, and vampire teeth.... raaaaahhhh!

When Saturday (party day) rolled around, I woke up feeling off, and got sicker as the morning passed. Long story short, I ended up taking a trip to Labor and Delivery after talking to the on-call doctor, and they hooked me up to and IV with lots of fluids as well as anti-nausea and tummy medicines. It was just a virus or something, but I ended up having to stay and be monitored and hydrated all night, since the sickies had left me so dehydrated. The boys were great about the party having to be postponed. They spent the day over at Grandma and Grandpa's and Daddy took them home late that night.  I mostly just slept all day/night, thanks to Phenergan (for nausea) in my IV. They all picked me up in the morning and I was glad to go home!

That next day was Chris' actual birthday, so we did cake and ice cream and gifts after dinner.

His favorite was the big set of LEGO people! The boys love to play LEGOs but Chris especially loves the people. He'll just dig out all the people and play with them for hours. So what could be more perfect. This set came with like 30 LEGO people with all kinds of accessories. He has been playing with them every day since!

When the next Saturday rolled around, we got ready to party. We were lucky to not only have all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and Grandma and Grandpa- but we also had Great Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Peggy in town that day, so they joined in the fun.

After pizza, the kids enjoyed "LEGOman" cupcakes... (if you can't tell, those are LEGOman heads made out of marshmallows on top of the cupcakes. Chris thought they were pretty awesome. (I got the idea here, if you have a LEGO party in your future).

After the kids got covered in frosting, and the adults enjoyed a nice chocolate bundt cake (no stained tongues), we spent the rest of the evening out in the pool playing. It was a fun party.

What a birthday! Next year I want to celebrate my birthday for a week too! Jon's is coming up next week, I'm hoping for a little bit lower key celebration for this one, since he doesn't really know. He'll be excited for anything!