a week in June.

My goodness it's been a busy week! I feel like as things wind down for the school year we are busy with end of the year gifts and projects while preparing for some fun summer plans. 

Last Sunday we celebrated Father's Day and the amazing dad that Matt is. There would be more picture except the kids refused to wear their pajamas and while they are adorable in undies it just wasn't appropriate to post. So, we gave him some special gifts and the kids made breakfast in bed all on their own! 

We had planned to go pick strawberries as a family except it was pouring down rain and the thought of 3 small children in a muddy, wet strawberry field just didn't scream fun. Crazy, I know. So, Matt spent some quality time with the kids at home while I ran out to the fields and did some picking to stock up for the winter. Luckily the rain stopped for the 40 minutes I was out there which helped...a little. I was still soaked from bending over but we now have 11 lbs. of strawberries to use all winter long!

Later in the day we had fun plans to go to the beach or a park but instead we went car shopping! Because there's no better gift on Father's Day to take 3 tired kids out to different car dealerships and sit in minivans. Ha! Loaded with snacks we made the best of it and got a lot of questions answered. No new car yet but I think its inevitable we are headed in that direction in the near future. Goodbye sporty SUV, hello new car payment. 

 Monday morning we got Carter off to school and then took Simon to his 2 year well child check. He is healthy and perfectly growing! He now weighs 33 lbs, 36 inches long and shot up to the 90% for height and weight, pretty typical for our kids.

 Simon got a new backpack and lunchbox for his birthday and is now obsessed with wearing it all around the house. He loves wearing it out to the bus stop and standing in line with the big kids while they wait to load the bus. Too cute!

 Wednesday I got to help out at Field Day at Carter's school. Sadly I haven't been able to attend any field trips this year or volunteer in the classroom so I was so happy to be there and help. He has such a great school with so many wonderful kids. We feel so lucky to be a part of such a great district.

 I got home and we played in the backyard for a bit. Simon loves our old lawnmower that we've had for all the kids to play with and while he was walking around I had this weird flashback to when Carter was a baby. Crazy how much these brothers are alike! Simon at age 2 on the left, Carter at about 16 months on the right!

 Carter has 1 last day left of school tomorrow (soooo late this year!) and got to bring home his final portfolio on Thursday.  A huge collection of all of his work throughout the year. To say this kid has improved would be a huge understatement. He started out the year writing simple stories with only 1 or 2 sentences and is now writing paragraphs with characters, problems and a conclusion. He has excelled in math, gained more confidence in his art skills and really loves learning. I'm so, so proud of this (almost!) 2nd grader!

 Teacher gift for his 1st grade teacher!

 And...today...the hottest day of the year! We are so excited for summer and swimming and sunshine....bring it on!

Read more...

Simon turns two!

It was such a fun week celebrating our littlest one. I kept it simple and easy, which was perfect. To keep with the sports themed birthday I created a football cake, complete with a turf field underneath! I love how it turned out and it tasted delicious! Vanilla cake with green vanilla buttercream and then a topped chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. I had so much extra cake batter (and homemade buttercream!) I ended up making a small smash cake for Simon in the shape of another football along with another plain cake with crushed oreos. Thank goodness we have friends who like cake that I could gift 3/4 of the leftover cake to!

 The morning started bright and early, as usual, with presents waiting for Simon at the table. We always let the kids open up gifts when they wake up because, lets be honest, you try telling a small child to just wait a while on their birthday.

 He's still learning how to hold up only 2 fingers! So for now...he thinks he's 5.

 Cutest kids on the planet.

 Pretty excited about his new monkey lunchbox from Grandpa and Grandma Longhurst.

 And his big gift from us? A new soccer goal (for the whole family to enjoy!)

 We sing Happy Birthday as many times as we can on birthdays so it started with a pancake breakfast complete with extra whip cream and two little candles.

 Then it was off to the beach! We met up with 2 other friends to play in the sand and have a picnic lunch.

 Love these little ones!

 We were having such a fun time until Simon decided to jump off a log and accidentally slipped and fell onto another log. It wasn't a big tumble but created a huge, instant goose egg on his sweet little forehead. It looked awful! Luckily he seemed to recover quickly and was begging to climb up onto the log again 4 minutes later so I felt comfortable sticking it out and playing on the beach a little longer.

 That night we headed out to dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Simon didn't touch his dinner but the other kids loved theirs! I'm thinking he just wanted to save his appetite for his special cake at home.

 The birthday boy with his cakes! Yum!!

 He dug right in and devoured the chocolate frosting!

 This weekend we opted out of a party and decided to have a family day at Remlinger Farms. We've never been and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to check it out. But first....more gifts! Grandma and Grandpa Vance spent the day with us and Simon loved his new monkey backpack to match his monkey lunchbox. He also got some new sports clothes and his own set of golf clubs...which he won't put down!

 Then we were off to the farm! This was the perfect place to let the kids run around, ride on kid rides as many times as they wanted and see some farm animals. Carter and Lucy went nuts over the rollercoaster and rode it at least a dozen times (about 10 of those in a row!). We went on a train ride, saw ducks, goats, chicks and bunnies and the big kids even rode a pony! Such a fun family day.

 Happy 2nd Birthday Simon! We loved celebrating you!!

Read more...