Jackson's Birthday

I think a certain little boy had a pretty great day!  He was so excited about his birthday.  He kept talking about "Jackson's birthday" and birthday cake and opening presents.  It was all I could do to keep him from opening his presents until his party in the evening.  He shares a birthday with Rocky's son, Griffen (who turned 12), so we all got to go swimming in the early afternoon to celebrate Griffen's birthday.  Well, everyone went swimming except for me - the water was really cold and I didn't want to get in!  Phil managed to handle the boys pretty well by himself.  This was Emmett's first time swimming ever and Jackson hasn't been swimming in almost a year.

The boys loved the water.  Emmett, of course, was about to jump in all by himself right when we got there, but Jackson took a little longer to warm up.  Oh man, you should have witnessed the craziness that happened before he actually got in the water.  First, I had to convince him to put his water wings on.  He put up a little stink about that, but actually wasn't as upset about it as I thought he would be.  But then he went into the water a few steps and his swim trunks got wet.  Heaven forbid his swim trunks get wet!!  He started getting really upset that his "flight suit" was getting wet.  I think he was confusing flight suit and swim suit.  Maybe this gave him flashbacks to potty training, too, and not liking the feeling of his pants being wet.  I don't know.  Anyway, he kept yelling, "Flight suit all wet!  Get flight suit off!"  He was getting really upset, so I had him get out and I took off his "flight suit".  As soon as he was naked he made a beeline back for the pool, so I had to call him back and at least put a swim diaper on him so he didn't go into the pool naked.  Maybe we need to buy  him some Speedos.

After that, things were much better and he jumped right into the water with Phil.  He loved being in that pool once he got used to the water and even "swam" by himself with his water wings on!

Both boys were shivering and shaking from the water temp but didn't want to get out.  Finally, Phil and I had to make them get out and go warm up in the sun.  We ate lunch with our friends and then drove home and tried to keep the boys awake so they would nap at home.  We managed to somehow, but it was hard!  Emmett was pretty beat...

Then in the afternoon we invited a bunch of friends over for dinner.  We had 14 adults here, eight big kids, four little kids/toddlers, one almost-toddler, and one newborn.  Phil smoked some awesome chicken on his grill and we had some salads and cake.  We didn't have a theme or anything... we just decided at the last minute to have everyone over for dinner.  The kiddos all played outside with water balloons, the hose, a small pool, balls, and a slip n' slide almost the whole time.  I think they had a lot of fun!

Okay, don't laugh at the cake.  Thomas was a lot harder to draw on a cake than George was last year! I kind of ran out of steam.  

  
Happy Third Birthday, Jackson!!  We love you so much!!

Happy Independence Day!

We had a nice, but pretty uneventful day.  We went to our town's parade in the morning, then went and got some groceries for Jackson's party tomorrow, and then went home.  The boys napped, Phil stained our back fence and worked on his Jeep, and I worked on Jackson's birthday cake.   Here are some pics from the day:

Trying to get a cute picture of the boys in their Independence Day outfits... they weren't nearly as obliging as they were the other day:

My sweet boys and me before we left for the parade:

Jackson watching the parade:

Poor guy, he's his mother's son when it comes to loud noises.  He had his ears plugged for most of the parade, after getting really upset when the jets flew low overhead and he didn't have his ears plugged.  Emmett, of course, is totally not phased at all by loud sounds, be they gunshots, jets, sirens, whatever.  Here he is all tuckered out after watching the parade:

Just a little side note:  Our town's little 4th of July parade is one of my favorite things.  We make sure to go to it every year.  It's a pretty short parade, but I seriously tear up several times while I'm watching it.  Just seeing everyone being so patriotic and happy... it makes me so proud to be an American.  The best part of the parade today was the big truck that was carrying a whole bunch of soldiers who just came back from the Middle East.  Everyone was cheering and yelling "Thank you!" to them.  It was so great!

Part of the reason we had such a laid-back day today was that we had a really fun day yesterday.  We went to my friend Michelle's house for lunch to celebrate her daughter Addy's second birthday.  Then after the boys napped we drove out to a beautiful lake near here to meet some friends for dinner.  There were a ton of people camping at the lake for the holiday, so there was all-you-can-eat BBQ and a live band playing.  There was also a big bonfire later in the evening, but we didn't make it that long.  The wind was blowing pretty hard and it was fah-reezing!!!!  The boys had a great time, though, just running around and climbing on rocks.  Emmett's favorite thing by far was the band.  He was completely and totally mesmerized by the music.  A future band nerd for sure!!

We had to keep going after him because all he wanted to do was walk right up to that band.  He would have climbed up on the stage it I had let him.  Here's Phil trying to clean him off after dinner:

And in these next two pictures you can see Emmett making his way back over to the music.  I'm telling you - he loved it!  At one point the band called kids up on stage, so I took Emmett up there.  He stared at the musicians playing literally the entire time we were up there.

We went on a short walk down by the water.  It had to be short because Emmett ran straight for the water and would have completely gone in over his head if I hadn't snatched him up.  It was a good thing I brought a change of clothes because he got wet up to his knees, and like I said, it was freezing!  We couldn't believe how fast he made a beeline into that water.  We took a few quick pictures and then I took Emmett up to change clothes while Phil stayed down by the water to let Jackson throw rocks in the lake.  He loves that.

HA!  That last picture makes Phil and me laugh.  That is how our life is most days!  Those boys do not want to be still, but we love them!!  :)

Hope you had a wonderful Independence Day!  I am so thankful to live in our wonderful country and for all of our veterans and servicemen and women who make/have made it possible for us to do all of the fun things that I write about in this blog.  Thank you!  God Bless the USA!!

New Pictures

I realized the other day that I've seriously been slacking on taking pictures of the boys. So I've decided to try to be better about it and take at least a few every day. I cannot believe how fast they're growing and how time just flies by. I know I say that all the time, but it's TRUE!

The weather has been gorgeous here lately so we've been spending time playing outside, going on walks, and playing inside with the windows open. So nice! Something that's not so nice: Emmett is a climber. I went to the bathroom for just a few minutes today and when I came out I saw this:

Uh-oh! Constant supervision needed, stat! After we ate lunch today the boys were in great moods so I took advantage of that to take some pics. Of course, I got several of Jackson with his eyes closed:

But then I actually got a pretty good one.  Hello, handsome!

Emmett is always pretty good at taking pictures, for now!

Then I even got two cute ones of the boys together!

But all of that nice, sweet posing was very short-lived.  Two seconds after I snapped those pics, this is what happened:

Emmett tried to climb over the arm of the chair and Jackson tried to stop him.  Emmett put up quite a fuss, so Jackson gave up (see next picture)...

"Whatever!  If you want to climb over and fall off, then go right ahead!"