Our big ol' baby boy

JJ's a big boy, and a pretty sturdy boy too. He's crawling everywhere, (always on his left knee and right foot, so dang cute!), he's cruising on the furniture, climbing up the stairs, and standing on his own quite well.

He is pretty super mobile, unless he needs to roll over from his back to his tummy. For some reason that little manuever has never caught hold.

This makes bedtime pretty dang simple. I lay him in the crib on his back and the poor little man can't move. Nice for me though!:)

The funny thing is, when he gets upset, and he's sitting down, he tends to throw himself backwards...so he's laying on his back, and he gets even more upset cause he's stuck. He doesn't throw himself hard or anything, but he has smacked his head on the furniture.

Someday he'll get the hang of it, and I'll have to teach him how to lay back down and go to sleep. The girls won't have to keep helping him sit up when he falls over...they'll like that.

But for now, I think it's kinda funny that he just won't do it. It's not that he can't, as you can see by the picture below, it's just that when he has done it, it's usually been on accident then he can't figure out how to do it again!

Oh wait, right back to where he was. Thank goodness he had those little trees in his hands, there's no way he would have stayed there that long without screaming if he didn't!

He's so big, but still very much my little baby...I don't really want it to end!

9 super groovy years

9 years ago yesterday, I'm a little behind, I got to marry the man of my dreams.

I mean really, who wouldn't wanna marry a guy that looks like this?

These pictures are actually from a disco party we went to for a friend of ours, and they're the most recent pictures we have together.

We have had our difficulties, and each child we've had has had their own scares, and joys, and personalitites that they've added to our little family. But in the midst of it all I can honestly say that we have had so  much fun!

I love that my man knows how to play, and loves to play and have fun both with me, and with his kids. Hopefully I can always keep up with him...he kinda has boundless energy.

But on top of all that, Kevin is super disciplined when he needs to be, and always amazes me with how well he stays on top of everything that he has to do. He's got a pretty full plate between, work, real estate, being the YM president, and having me for a wife.:) But somehow he manages to get almost everything done when it needs to be done. I say almost, because there are times when things naturally have to slide, but man, he really does amaze me, and I don't tell him that enough.

Hopefully we'll still be playing and having fun together, and also working hard for our family for a very long time to come. I am so incredibly blessed that I not only found, but married the perfect guy for me.

Lemonade & Sunshine

What better way to kick off summer than to have a pool party the day after school gets out?

You invite all your besties, take over your inlaws big ol' pool,

and spend WAY too much time making it all look cute...cause 1st and 2nd graders and their little siblings totally care about all that stuff, right?:)

I'd wanted to do a lemonade party for awhile, cause that's what I do, and this was the perfect opportunity!

It was SUPER fun to come up with tons of yummy lemon-y treats. Allie helped me find a few new recipes too. Luckily, since these were all recipes I hadn't tried before, everything turned out delicious!

There were boxed for the kids to take home with some treats inside. Most of them ended up soaking wet by the pool though, the kids just needed that treat NOW!:)

Everything was pink and yellow, and the lemon sugar cookies were so very yummy, like a lemon snickerdoodle, I should make those again soon I think.

There were lemon cupcakes (the small ones), and pink lemonade cupcakes, (the big ones). The pink lemonade cupcakes were so incredibly good! The recipe can be found here, and I give it 5 stars! In fact, I'm using the same recipe, minus the pink lemonade, for Lexie's birthday party this weekend.

There were super cute mason jar cups for all the moms

and cute personalized plastic cups for all the kids.

And when you have a lemonade party, you musn't forget the lemonade.

or the pink lemonade.

We had about 21 kids there that day, and all these little fish were in heaven!

I mean, what's better than jumping into the pool with all your buddies?

suprisingly, no one was hurt that day...at least not seriously.:)

JJ had his buddy Lauren there to keep him company.

and Blake somehow found time to meditate among the madness. Apparently Halli, Maddie and him were doing it earlier and I missed it, but saw him doing this alone on top of the wall and thought it was hilarious!

JJ pretending he's a big boy, thank goodness for Lauren!

These four waterbugs are the floatie crew. Doesn't Mr. Cole look so excited to be grouped with all the girls. Well, he's probably used to that by now considering he has three older sisters. Someday Cole and JJ will have lots to talk about.

We had SOO much fun, and I am so incredibly blessed to have such amazing friends and women in my life. They are all such wonderful examples to me in so many ways, and they all have awesome kids. I mean, when can you get 21 kids together and have them all get along?

Summer is off to a good start, and with all the kids birthdays coming up soon, I'm just starting party mode at my house, so this was good practice!

11 months

Yesterday, our sweet little man turned 11 months. I can't say it enough, but where does the time go?

Our "little" JJ is such a handsome guy.

He's got an infectious smile, an adorable laugh, and I happen to think he's pretty smart.

I love it when he gets mad cause I'm busy and I don't pick him up, he starts stomping as he crawls. It's pretty funny actually.

He's got the softest bright blond hair, and he gets comments on it all the time when we're out.

He absolutely loves to cross his feet. When he's sitting, they're almost always crossed, so dang cute!

He's a "hoss" or a "bruiser" or a "brute" depending on who it is you're talking to. He's a big boy, but so soft and huggable.

Oh man, who would't just wanna squeeze and kiss those baby cheeks!!!

We are super duper in love with our JJ, and this is by far my favorite age....so I hope it doesn't go by too fast, and I can soak it all in, cause it'll be over before I know it!

Swim meet ~ May 2011

Our saturdays are super full lately. Waking up early to get to the pool, swimming, sweating in this awful heat, trying to put a 10 month old down for a nap at the pool, swimming, coloring, eating and even  more swimming. 

The heat has been awful this year, either that or carrying JJ just makes it feel like it is.

Peyton is getting good at swimming, and made it all the way across the pool without touching anything. She's still pretty slow, because she basically doggy paddles across the pool, but she still did it. Watching the little kids learn to swim, and dive is so fun! Their dives usually involve more jumping than diving.

Thank heavens for lane lines, that give the little kids something to grab onto when they're tired.

Some of our best friends are on the swim team with us, this sure makes saturdays go by quicker, and makes everyone a little more excited to go. Who wouldn't love to go hang out with their friends all day?

Lexie is always fun to entertain at the meets, but she is actually alot better than she was last year, so I can't really complain! We may start her on swim team a little early and get her in the pool next year, who knows!

Halli's an old pro by now, and knows how everything goes. She's just been busy learning her new strokes this year. Her best event is still the freestyle, but she's catching on to the butterfly.

After the meets, everyone is pretty beat, and ready for a little downtime.

swim team is always a little exhausting, and alot time consuming, but the kids love it, and we've grown to love it too. I'm sure you'll be able to find us at the pool every year cheering on the kids for quite a few years to come!

Lets go back to Mothers Day

We're going back in time a little bit, cause I LOVE my kiddos, and my awesome husband, and they spoiled me a little bit on mothers day.:)

I am so lucky to have the most amazing kids EVER! Not to mention my wonderful hubby, and the great man he is. I couldn't ask for a better father to our kids.

I got to sleep in till 8! That is pure Heaven in my book, and would have made my day even if they didn't do another thing. But they did, and I had a delish breakfast waiting for me when I woke up.

There were cards, and pictures from the girls, and a new panini maker from Kevin. I love me some paninis, so that was pretty great!

Then after church I made my kids all get together and take a picture with me.  This was definitely harder than it should have been, but they eventually pulled it together for a picture, and for once I was actually in there with them!:)

After church we headed over to grandma & grandpas for dinner. We had fun hanging out with cousins,a nd eating some yummy food. I had fun taking a few pictures of my nieces and nephews, I'm pretty bad about bringing my camera to our family get togethers, so I'm glad I remembered it finally!

My nieces Olivia and Adelyn, there are some gorgeous girls in this family!

Little Colt, he is such a cutie patootie!

We also got a picture of all the grandkids (13) with grandma. They are so lucky to have all these cousins so close!

Then we had to get one of all the goofy dads with their mom. Seriously, we couldn't get them to act normal at all, this was the best one, not to bad, but you should see the other pictures!:) 

I had a wonderful mothers day, and am so grateful that I get to be a mom. Even when it's hard and I'm begging for a  break from it all, my heart is incredibly full of love for these beautiful little kids I get to call mine!

Ten on Wednesday

I've been quite the slacker lately with the good ol' blog, so here's a little catch-up on our lives!

1. SCHOOL'S OUT!! Yes, I'm a litte bit excited, mostly because I hate the whole morning routine during school, and am excited to have a break from it. Well, sort of, we still have to be at the pool at 8 am every morning for swim practice.

2. Schools out...and that means one more kid at home all day. You wouldn't think that would change things much, but either it has, or I've just been super grumpy these last few days. I took all four kids to target the other day...holy cow! First of all, it was busy there, because of all the extra kids cause of summer, and second, my kids were slightly hyper making it a kind of exhausting trip to the store.

3. JJ has been teething like crazy! I thought he just had his two top teeth coming in, and come to find out, he had both of them, two more bottom teeth and a molar coming in all at once! He still has another molar and two more top teeth coming in, but he's much happier now than he has been, thats for sure.

4. Summer of Seals officially started this week. I've got myself lined up on a pretty stringent workout schedule, and on mondays, wednesdays and fridays I'm doing two a day workouts. Hey, I have to catch up to all the girls that did it last year and are in great shape still. I've got a long ways to go and I don't want to let my team down. Plus, I REALLY hope I look different by the end of the summer!

5. We had a super fun pool party last friday to celebrate school ending. It was a sunshine & lemonade party, and it was SOOO fun! I'll have more on that soon, but can I just tell you all how lucky I am to have the amazing friends I have? They're awesome women, and they all have the most amazing kids, and we all had a blast playing at the pool!

6. We spent memorial weekend up at the lakehouse, more on that as well, but we had so much fun relaxing and enjoying some time together without any interruptions. Halli got up on the wakeboard with me and Kevin, and she LOVED it! We may have to get a kids wakeboard soon. We cooked yummy food, ate yummy food and enjoyed playing with cousins...couldn't ask for a better weekend than that!

7. I am in the process of planning my sisters baby shower, and a birthday party for Lexie, both within a week of each other. I may need to institutionalized after this...so much to do, and so little time! AHHH! But I am super excited about both of them!

8.  Kevin is busy, busy, busy as usual. He's got a campout this weekend and high adventure is coming up in a couple weeks. Luckily he LOVES those boys and is really excited about going with them. I however and dreading that very long week.

9. Swim team is keeping us busy as usual also. Halli is doing great, and is learning two new strokes this year. She's doing pretty well with them although there's a lot of fine tuning to do still. The freestyle is still her best stroke though, and she's having a ball with it. I have a hard time knowing just how much to interfere with her coaching. There is a fine line there between coaching and pushing too hard, and I tend be the type to sit back more and let the coaches do all the work. Even when I've had something I think she should work on, I am sometime hesitant to say anything because I don't want her to think I only care about her winning. But it's sometimes hard to just watch without wanting to give pointers every step of the way. She's a great swimmer and I love seeing her do well, and she really does love to get those blue ribbons, so hopefully I'm not doing her too big of a disservice by not saying much. Ahh, the joys of parenting!:) 

10. Peyton is really enjoying her first year of swim team, and this past week she swam across the whole pool without touching the wall, the rope or the floor at all! We are so proud of her, and how well she's improved already this year!