A Wonderful Celebration

The weekend of July 24th, my whole family gathered at my Grandma's house in IN to celebrate her 80th birthday! It was a WONDERFUL time with the whole family. We usually all get together every Thanksgiving, so this was a nice time to hang out together in the summer. Chris and I camped in Grandma's backyard with our families in our campers. It was very fun, despite the HORRIBLE storm on Friday night. My kids slept through it just fine. Tyler and I did not.

Saturday morning Dad was all excited to do a big "camper" breakfast. Kevin did the cooking out in the garage and we all ate sitting on the driveway on our camping chairs. It was very fun. I told Dad we should do it at Thanksgiving too (maybe not in the garage). In the afternoon we went to my aunt and uncle's little lake in the middle of their subdivision. Tyler took Noah out on the little boat and did some fishing. Ty caught a TON of fish, and Noah reeled a couple in too! He had such a great time out there.

Saturday night we had a birthday dinner for Grandma with her sisters and my family. Tyler grilled some burgers, hot dogs, and brats (of course). It was just a really nice time talking with everyone. After that we hung out around the fire for a few more hours. By the end it was just me, Chris, Sandy, and Dan left talking. Pretty cool to have some time with my siblings.

It was a wonderful time, but it was over much too quickly. I'm already looking forward to Thanksgiving!

Noah on a scooter:

Catching a bubble:

Grandma with Naomi

Daddy and Noah on the boat
Look what I got!


Scuba Dan
Mmmm, ice cream!
Grandma and the grandkids

4th of July

I'm at home relaxing before Tyler and I have to head out to 2 different parties today. Noah's grabbing a quick nap and Naomi is playing right next to me so she'll be tired out by the time we leave. We had a great time at the parade this morning. Noah was AWESOME!! This was the 1st year he really enjoyed it and payed attention to what was going on. He sat right by me on the curb, never once trying to get up and run across the street or in front of vehicles. I was very impressed by that. He enjoyed the fire engines, all the bands, and all the dogs that are always in the parade. His favorite part by far were all the "dancers". There are many different high school dance teams that march, and he was always asking about the dancers. It was really fun to watch him this year. Naomi just slept the whole time, which made things very easy!

Naomi is becoming so much more interesting. The first weeks there's not much going on with babies. Eat, sleep, cry, poop, that's about it. Now she's awake and alert for longer periods of time. She loves to lay on her blanket and just kick around. She also really enjoys tummy time. Naomi already has many funny facial expressions. I'll leave you with just a few.

Happy 4th everyone!

Baptism Weekend

Last weekend Naomi was baptized. I was very excited to have most of my family. Mom, Dad, Chris, and her girls were all here staying at my house. It was very busy but tons of fun! Noah loved hanging out with his cousins. They played so great together. Noah has been asking me where the "girls" are ever since. :) The weekend just reminded me how much I really miss my family. I wish we could be together more often.

We also celebrated Peyton's 5th birthday while everyone was here. It was great! The pictures are a random mix of those days.

Grandma and Naomi

Noah and Cousin Addison
Daddy and his little girl
Most of the fam

Birthday girl Peyton with Addy and Noah

My twin sis, Chris, with her girls

Naomi on her baptism in my baptim gown
My family

Chris with Addy and Noami