Small Group Playground Fun!

Our small group continues to get together once a month and this month we met at a local playground.

We let the kids play and then had popsicles and watermelon to cool down.

I also packed us a picnic lunch so we could enjoy ourselves before heading home for naps.  

June Celebrations!

We celebrated Father's Day with a low-key dinner with our family and my parents.

The boys picked out a tie-dye cake that I made.  Too bad I forgot to take a picture of the inside...think layers of purple, red, orange, yellow, green, and blue!

For Derek's Birthday, I made ribs, watermelon, and mac-n-cheese.

A simple cookie cake rounded out the meal with Happy Birthday wishes from all the boys (and me).  

Cheese!

Before:

After:

Whirlwind Saturday!

What a whirlwind Saturday we had.

Started off with a lunchtime birthday party for twin boys (Brighton's age).  They had about 60 people at there house, so it was crazy.  Kiddie pools and a trampoline were lots of fun for all the kiddos.  We ate lunch and cake and headed home for naps.

We got everybody up a little early from naps to head to birthday party # 2 that had started at 2 p.m. (we were about 1 hour late)

This birthday party was for Jamison's best buddy, Jett.  He was turning one.  Most of his party guests were the under 3 set, but my older boys had fun with all the littles.  

Jett's theme was "Monsters."  See the cute yellow monster cake his mom made.  Jett really enjoyed his cake.  We had hamburgers/hotdogs and lots of side dishes.  I was able to convince the boys to skip the cake at this party, because we had yet another invite to have smores and apple pie with our neighbor at 6 p.m.

We got back from party # 2, changed the boys into their PJs and headed to our neighbors for some smores and pie.  A late-day thunderstorm popped up, so we had to hang out on the porch for about 30-45 minutes until it passed.  The boys had a great time, but it was an exhausting day!

Happy Birthday Casey & Tyler!

Happy Birthday Jett!

Can't wait to play with you guys again soon!

Wildtree

I have been a Wildtree Rep for all of 2014, but I'm just now starting to get my toes wet by hosting workshops and I love it.  I really love how healthy the food is, and that it's pretty simple to prepare and that my family will eat it.

Last week, I made this organic whole wheat pizza crust and topped with pepperoni and sausage/peppers.  We also tried out a new recipe from the "Get your Grill on" workshop that I just hosted.  These kabobs were great.  Everybody loved them.  Yum, Yum!

Brighton

Just the kind of boy he is.  The other 3 were outside playing/riding bikes....Brighton stayed inside to complete this puzzle all by himself.  He's always had a mind for this.  He loves art.  He also has a great sense of direction I learned.  I use him as my back up GPS when I get lost, Ha!

Jamison

I can't believe how big my baby is getting!

Jamison loves to come outside and climb up on this rotting bench in the front yard.  I'm tempted to throw it away, but I know Jamison would be upset.

He is so hard to keep contained when he's outside.  I'm always having to stand at the end of our driveway to keep him out of the street.  If I'm not already chasing him down the sidewalk, he's always going places where he shouldn't be!  The other day I filled a bucket with water for him to play in.  At least that kept him happy and in one place (relatively) for about 10 minutes so I could sit down.  

We have no girls in this house, but all the boys have had fun dressing up in this dress.  Jamison is not at this phase yet, but his brothers thought it was hilarious to put it on him and call him "Princess Jamie" and laugh.  

In about another month, I'll have some stats on Jamison at his 15 month check up.  

He sure is a cutie pie!

Wine & Paint!

I have heard about those wine and paint places where it's BYOB and you paint.  

Sound like fun, at least I thought so.

Derek, not so much.

I was talking with my cousin, Jenny, and turns out she had been wanting to do this as well.  Plans were made.  Living Social deals were purchased and off we went.  Above is the work in progress and below is the finished product(s).  I'm not sure what else Jenny plans to do to hers, but she wasn't into painting the spooky tree, so she kinda free-flowed it.

It was so much fun having a night out and spending time with Jenny.  She even talked me into attending a DMB concert in July.  Haven't seen them in 15+ years!  Can't wait!

L&S, Field Trip Fun

Today, Chandler had a field trip to the Durham Life & Science Museum.  Since we are members, I decided to take all the boys for a little pre-field trip fun.

We absolutely love this museum, and now that Jamison isn't taking a morning nap, we can get more "bang" for our buck.  Also, when we go to Chicago later this summer the savings for other museums that will honor our membership will be substantial.  Win-win!

Here are all four boys running around like crazy (hence the blurry shot) on the sound floor.  This is always a hit.  They were so sad when it was closed for a while (may have been 1-2 years ago) but love that it's back up.  We have to do this every time we come.

Around 10 a.m., I dropped Chandler off with his class that was arriving and the little three and I continued on our day exploring other parts.  They were having a ribbon cutting ceremony at 10:30 a.m. so we decided to check it out and were the first ones there.  

After that we went to "Into the Mist," a favorite spot on a hot day.  We had an early lunch at the cafe before heading home.  Can't wait to go back again!