Happy 31st Birthday!!!

We had a birthday at our house. :) Justin turned 31 on the 10th. We got to celebrate together as our little family of 4 at home that morning.

Got a new COOL shirt. :)

His loving wife made him an apple pie (he isn't much of a cake person) :) Who knows if it was any good, he is the only one at our house that likes pie. :)

Then later that night we all went to the Diamondbacks game with his family. And a few of my brothers were able to go with their kids too. :)

Hopefully it was an all around good day for him...he deserves it! We all LOVE him SO much!!

Preschool!

Man I am feeling old...my first born is now in Preschool! (this is a little late, he started like 3 weeks ago. oops!) He LOVES it! That is probably an understatement. He goes 3 days a week and on the last day of the week he is already counting down till the first day of the school week for the next week. :) He has so much fun with his teacher and the other boys in the class. ( all 7 other boys! NO girls)

I am so glad he enjoys school so much, I wonder how long that will last. :) I am just going to enjoy this right now as much as he does. :)

4 fun days...

We had 4 fun filled days a few weeks ago. We were lucky enough to have our friends the Lee's come and stay with us. We all miss getting to see them more, so when they come to town and want to stay with us we are all up for it. They daddies didn't have as much fun as the mommies or the kiddos but that's ok...right? :)

We had a few free tickets for the kids to go and play at pump it up! And since Porter and Anastyn weren't able to make it for the boys birthday party we decided to make the trip over there. They all had a pretty good time.

Cy found this big basketball to play with and of course kept going back for more. :)

The big boys LOVED the big slides of course, not sure the little ones even ever went down the slides.

Porter was like a monkey in this thing! He LOVED climbing up it to go down the huge slide at the top.

From this picture it makes it look like Ryken liked it too... not so much, he isn't as brave as Porter so he didn't make it all the way up.

This floor thing was a HUGE hit for all the kids. Even the moms that were there liked it. I think Gina and I both wished we had one of our own at our houses. :)

When we switched rooms there was an even BIGGER basketball in that room...to big for Cy to even pick up, so he settled for rolling it around. :)

Anastyn taking her turn at the air tee ball.

These two really are TOO cute! :)

Had some fun outside playing in the water.

Ryken had SO much fun when Porter was here.

The younger ones wanted to go out to play...I told Cy do not get in the water because you don't have you swimsuit on...next thing you know I look out and he is in the pool fully clothed. :)

So we just went with it and let him play anyways. :)

This kids had tons of fun during those 4 days, we were sad when it was all over.

The mommies had some fun too of course. One night we got out and went to dinner with alot of girlfriends of Gina's that met up with us, Gina being the awesome person she is painted my toenails and of course they turned out gorgeous! WE had a late night QT run on the way home from our girls night, and also had a Yogurt land run as well as a DQ run! Thanks again Lee's for coming and staying those 4 days with us! We LOVED it and hope you guys had some fun too. :)

Swimming lessons take two...

Well the second session of swimming lessons is over this summer for Ryken. He had tons of fun this time around too! Makes me wish there was another session for him to do. :) But that will have to wait for next summer. (then we can see how Cy does, I am sure that will be another challenge, good thing we have awhile till it happens. ) :) This time around it was Beginner level 2 and he learned a few new things but mostly just tried to get better at the things he learned in the beginner level 1. He isn't going pro anytime soon but he sure made his mommy and daddy happy with the things that he did learn and the things he tried his best at.

Goofy goggle wearing goober before his lesson. :)

Miss Erin, Ryken and Mr. Marshmellow!!

Jumping in ready to try his best at swimming across the pool, he wasn't the best at going straight on this, but he did make it there eventually. :)

YAY! Passed Level 2 now next year he can go to Intermediate! We may have to take another refresher class of level 2 just to make sure. :)

Can you do a handstand?

I can not do any cool tricks. I can't say the same for Justin. He is good at flips,headstands, handstands and he is probably even good at cartwheels. (I haven't asked him to do one of those) :) So he was showing off the other night and the boys wanted to copy him. So I of course had to get some pics.

Daddy showing off his skills. :)

Ryken ready to try...

Mid way action...

and his final attempt. :) Pretty good for a 4 year old if you ask me.

Of course Cy had to try it too. So here he is starting...

And here he is finished. :) That is about how good I could do it too. I didn't bother trying.

We got a good laugh out of it and the boys had fun, I even tried to get a little video action too. :)

Outside fun!

Thank goodness we got the "grass" in our back yard done before this summer started. Cause I think that the boys are out there everyday playing. And lately since it is so darn hot out we have been playing in the water outside. The boys have loved every minute of it, and it makes me just as happy to see they having fun playing.

We had friends over to play in the water one day and it was a hit with all of them, I am pretty sure the mommies enjoyed relaxing outside watching the kiddos play just as much. :)

We have also just had a little family time outside in our little "frosted family pool" as Ryken likes to call it. (that is what it says on the box, so he has to refer to it as that) :) It was nice to get one small enough to not take forever to put up but also big enough for me and Justin to hangout in it too.

The boys are outside at least once a day eating a Popsicle. They are both obsessed with them right now. So they are the perfect little treat for outside. :)

They boys don't have fun outside just playing in the water, well at least not when dad is around. They love to get pushed around in Cy's new Coupe car he got for his birthday.

Cy even pushes Ryken around too. :)

Thank goodness there are ways of cooling down a little in this summer heat. It seems to be a lot of stuff involving water, and I am sure it won't be the last post about some kinda of water activity. :) We sure have enjoyed our outside fun!

Splash park fun!!

Last summer neither of my boys were fans of the splash park/pads that we had been too. Actually neither of them have ever been a fan. So when we have gone to parks that had them before the boys would just sit and watch everyone else play and they never wanted too. It drove me nuts! Well I decided to meet up with one of my B's, Michelle and her son Nash at the Tempe Beach splash park last week. I wasn't really sure it was going to be much fun for the boys cause I didn't think they would want to even get wet...boy was I wrong. :) They both loved it! It took Cy a little while to warm up to it but he loved it by the end. It was a great little outing for ALL of us!

Ryken standing there waiting for the bucket of water to come down on him. :)

Cy in the back while Nash and Ryken just made their selves comfy in the middle of the frog head. :)

The slide was a huge hit for Ryken. He went down it more times then I could count. It was a crazy one too! It must have been so slippery. Cause every kid that came down it seem to shoot right off. Nash had just gone down and was laying there waiting to get up and down comes Ryken. Thank goodness no one got hurt. They just had fun!

Love how much Cy loved the water this day! It made me so happy. :)

Cy getting a little bum washing. :)

Cy wanted to get soaked by the pelican. :) He hated this at first but by the end he had been under it a few times.

Thanks for the fun time Michelle and Nash. WE missed the other B's too! Before the summer is over we will have to make another trip back over to have some more fun!

Swimming lessons take one...

We put Ryken in swim lessons again this year...last year wasn't the best time, but this year he did WAY better. Well that is after he got over his fear of jumping in by himself. Once that happened he did great! This year during this first session he was able to be in the class with 2 of his best buddies, Aeryn and Mia. Us mommies planned it that way. :) And then he made friends with Ellie, the other little girl in the class. They were all great by the end of the session. Lets hope that the next session he is signed up for goes just as good. Fingers crossed. :)

Miss Erin is one awesome teacher!

He had troubles with the backfloat last year...this year he was great!

All of the kiddos loved the Mr. Marshmellow. :)

Miss Erin sings a cute little pancake song when they do their back floats.

He always said that one of his favorite parts of lessons was when he was able to get the ring. Then he had to take a silly picture with the ring on his face. :) Cracks me up!

Ryken is 4!!

Where has the time gone? Do we really have a 4 year old?! It really is kinda hard to say in a way. I am sad that both him and his brother are both growing up so much. I LOVE looking back on old pictures to see how much they have grown. And what better time to do that then around their birthdays. :)

6 month old chunky monkey

1 year old, with his first piece of birthday cake. (wasn't a fan and it was hard to get him to make a mess with it. ) : )

2 years old (his brother was born 2 weeks before he turned 2)

3 years old

The BIG 4 year old!!

Daddy brought home some balloons and jamba juice for him just like last year. And of course it was a big hit...with everyone.:)

He wanted an ice cream cake for his birthday...this was the best I got. And he wasn't to happy about the fact that it had pink on it. :) And he even said that the pink didn't taste good like the other colors. lol Such a boy!

He got more presents to open from us and Cy. And all of them were big hits! I think he has enjoyed the marble maze the most so far...but maybe thats cause he hasn't gotten a few of the other ones out of the packages yet. :)

Got a picture of me and him together on his birthday! He said he had a great birthday when the day was all over with. He was so lucky cause Cars 2 came out on his birthday so him and daddy went and watched it! They both said it was good, and they both had a great time together. Ryken really is one smart cookie! I love all the funny things he has to say lately. He still LOVES letters and numbers. And has now started reading...alot more! It really is pretty weird to hear a kid his age read. And don't ask me how he does it cause I really have no idea. :) He is a great big brother, but he has his moments too. He is such a people person, he loves to talk to the cashier at every store we go to. It makes me smile every time. I can't wait to see how much more he learns and grows this next year. And I know that for the next year and years to come I will look at him and he will melt my heart just like the day he was born! LOVE YOU RYKEN ROO!!