Dear friends

And this is how we ate dinner at our house on Friday night...we were just having too much fun outside to make it inside for dinner! And who needs pants anyways?!?!

These two absolutely amazing people came to visit/work this weekend! We love any reason to see them and we were especially pumped because we FINALLY got to go out to dinner with them with NO KIDS!!!! As much as we love our kids, we were so excited to spend some time with Matt and Kristen! Sadly, they are leaving the northeast in a little over a month:( We will miss their drive-by visits and weekends with us! It has been such a privilege to have the easy and fun relationship with them that we do.  Our lives are better because we have known them! They are such fun and kind people and we appreciate them and all of their talents so much! If we have any more kids we'll have to fly her back up to take the pics! We will miss you guys:(

After dinner we stopped at Max's office for a quick nerd-gun war between Max and Kristen...and Matt really knows how to cut Max deep-disorganize his incredibly organized desk!  So funny!

They had to shoot a wedding on Saturday and we had a very relaxing day at home as a family! Tucker and I had a lot of fun playing in the yard and digging up rocks.  We found one that he determined was a "heavy" rock and i couldn't dig out with another little rock. I told him we would probably need a shovel...so cute little boy ran all the way back up the yard to his sandbox, took the top off of it, and got his little plastic yellow shovel out.  He tried for awhile to dig up the big rock...then I gave in and gave him the gardening spade-it worked a little better:)

Saturday evening we took the boys for a walk/ride. Tucker hadn't gotten to use this "chariot-like-bike thing" yet and he was very excited! When I took him again yesterday, he kept yelling, Faster Mommy!

With all of the humidity, Tucker's curls were in full effect last night...i kinda helped the fro along, but his hair is getting long!

Father's Day Weekend!

We had a very busy and very fun Father's Day Weekend! Life has been quite busy with me back at work full time so we get very excited when we can have fun weekends! We don't get anything done around the house, but they are still super fun!!

Saturday morning Max's sister's family and mom came to visit. Tucker had a blast playing with his cousins and Brayden loved being cuddled and loved on:) The kids had fun in the yard with all of Tucker's toys and the water toys. I didn't get too many pics because we were running around playing but here's a couple of Tucker playing with Annie.

Saturday night was a blast! We went to the Irish Festival to hang with and watch our neighbors dance! The girls have been doing Irish Step Dancing for awhile now and we've never been able to see them dance in a real Feis (fesh) so it was so fun. 

Tucker was in an awesome mood right off the bat because we got to ride on a bus to the festival! Brayden got shoved in a seat but Tucker was thrilled to be looking out the window!

Tucker had a blast watching the girls dance! He actually SAT with Addie to watch Sienna in the main tent!

He snagged a free jump in the bounce house!

This guy was such a trooper with minimal nap. I wasn't thinking, but if you want to attract a lot of attention, bring a cute RED-HEADED baby to an Irish Festival!

Watching Addie dance in the Children's Tent:)

T and his two best buds:)

We had some happy but sleepy boys by the end of the night! Can't wait for next year:)

Father's Day was a blast also! We had my family, Anggy, and Angela over for a BBQ....steak-lots and lots of delicious steak!  And I finally got pics of Max with the kids this year-major fail on that last year!

 the grill-master:)

Tucker always has so much fun playing with Angela:)

 Some quality Brayden-Papa time

Tucker's fancy eating set up:)

Daddy and his boyzzzzz!

T & Papa

We miss you D!!!! Chris and I will take care of the "masquerading as a normal person every day is exhausting" man:)

 No family dinner would be complete without a little activity...Chris was trying to school everyone in soccer-not too tough:)

Angela chased him down...

Anggy ran interference...

And then she tackled him!

So cute and fun!

 Happy Father's Day to some wonderful dads:)

Heatwave!

It's funny how we can't wait for the heat, and then it comes full force and we want it to leave! I still loved it:) We had to put some AC in the boys rooms, but it was overall a great weekend to be outside! We got to break out the water table, new turtle pool and wacky sprinkler! Brayden has his first dip in a pool-he seemed to like it. Wasn't a huge fan of how cold it was but he seemed ok and even smiled a bit:)

Tucker had fun showing Brayden how to splash in the pool. Although he seemed content to do it from outside the pool!

7 months old!

I'm a few days behind with this post, but our little guy is 7 months old! He continues to be a joyful blessing filled with smiles, giggles, drool and spit up. 

He has adjusted well to being with the babysitter for the past month. We have an awesome situation and Brayden was able to spend one morning a week with her for the few months before I went back, so they were well acquainted:)

B has begun the phase where I put him on the ground in one place and then I find him in a completely different place (as demonstrated by a picture below). I am excited for him to start to move because it will give him more independence, but I am not rushing it! I understand and value the ability to plop him in a room and go do something and have him still be in that room when I return.  

He has started to sit up by himself for the most part. He still falls over but those plops are getting less frequent.  He is a HUGE fan of Tucker-T makes him laugh and vice versa. Their love is adorable and exactly what I dreamed/hoped it would be. I can't wait to see how it grows and their interactions become even more exciting (and rough I'm sure!) as they get older.

Brayden i still taking two naps-one from 9-1030/11 and one from 1/130-230/3. He began boycotting his catnap at dinner a few weeks ago and will only get it if he gets up before 3 from his nap. Otherwise he's a trooper and will make it until 730/8 for bed. Then he wakes up anywhere from 630-730 in the morning...he is very good about hanging in his crib until we get him at 7 though just like Tucker was.

He has begun eating many more foods this month. I have been much more lazy with introducing new foods than I was with Tucker.  Oops! He's eating 3T mixed grain cereal with fruit for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then he also eats 1/2 tub veggies with lunch and dinner. He is very excited to start eating finger foods I think. He is always reaching for what we are eating and his dexterity is pretty good so we'll see. He still doesn't have any teeth (despite the EXCESSIVE drool and gnawing on things) so I might put the finger foods off for awhile. So far he's had, bananas, apples, pears, mangos, prunes, peas, carrots,  and sweet potatoes. I think we need to add a few more! He's drinking 6 oz about 5 times a day-he's getting 2-3 bottles (mid morning, mid afternoon, and dinner) when I'm at work too.  His red hair is still going strong and sometimes I think I see some curls coming...oh dear! My kids and their crazy hair!

We love him so very much and he is so smiley and fun.  This is going to be a big month!

oh the love...2 seconds later Tucker stole Brayden's animal:)

I promise I didn't put him down under the crib...he's a master roller and swiveler

 Tucker likes to tickle him!

 red hair going strong!