Garden Tea

While the Hickmans were here, we got to have some girl time with Aunt Carol and Natasha. Becca and I brought them with us to our friend, Jincy's, annual tea in her beautiful little backyard. We were able to leave our kids (minus Sadie) with Papa, Uncle Keith, and my cousin Wyatt. It was so cool that the guys were willing to do that for us! (Mom was working, so she wasn't able to come.) It was such a nice & peaceful little break for me from our 'construction zone' at home! We all had fun looking around and getting ideas for our own yards. (:

Cousin Natasha, Aunt Carol, Becca, me, and Sadie at Jincy's tea.

We were so impressed with all of Jincy's creative ways of using small spaces to create such pretty floral scenes. There was so much to look at~it was amazing!
Sadie and Aunt Carol exploring together.

Sadie loved Ellie's playhouse.

Bubbles with Papa

Wednesday, August 13th

While we were waiting for the Hickmans (relatives from CA) to arrive, Papa kept all the kids entertained with bubbles in the field across the street. It was a great way to get everyone out of the house so that Memaw could finish getting the house ready for company. The kids loved it! They've had so much fun having Papa home all summer!

So many little helpers...

Cohen, Finley, and Sadie decided to sit in the grass to wait for the bubbles to come to them.

The boys heard some guys working on the baseball field, so they gathered to watch.
(Finn, Ronan, Griffin, Cohen, and Tyler)

Ronan and Tyler hanging out on the fence.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Later in the day on August 10th we celebrated Josh's mom's (Grammie's) birthday at the park near their house. As always it was fun hanging out with the family and getting all of the cousins together to play.

Josh and his mom swinging together.
Dylan, Ethan, and Ronan playing in the sand.
Ronan and Lydia
Josh and Griffin sliding together.
Josh thought it would be fun to drag Griffin around the sand in this box. He loved it (:
Ronan wanted to join in, too.

What a fun Daddy!

Griffin kept rubbing his eyes with his sandy hands, so we had to clean him up at the drinking fountain.
All better now.

Amy made cupcakes for dessert.

We gave Grammie a garden stake with a frog on it (:
(Ethan and Macey watching Grammie)

Grammie with all seven grandkids!

Happy Birthday, Becca!! (& Kenton, again)

Sunday, August 10th
We celebrated Becca's birthday along with Kenton's since my parents were out of town on Kenton's actual birthday. We had a nice afternoon with yummy food and nice company. Kenton's parents and grandparents were there, and my Uncle Tom and Aunt Kathy joined us too. (They were visiting from the Bay Area for the birth of their twin granddaughters in Portland!)

Cohen and Finn looking on as Kenton opened his musical birthday card.
Becca holding up one of the shirts that Katrina and I gave her.
Ronan and Queen Sadie
Griffin napped during most of the party and when he woke up he was glued to Daddy. They have such a sweet relationship (:
Josh feeding bites to Griffin.
Katrina, Outi, Kevin, Lew, Mary Lee, and Aunt Kathy

For dessert we had brownie sundaes~~yummm!

Griffin is a natural at playing the trumpet (:

Aaron and the Birthday Girl!

Katrina and the Birthday Boy~ it was also their 6th Anniversary!

Tractor Time

On Saturday Josh rented a John Deere tractor to level out the ground around our house. He is going to be building the fence between our two houses and also preparing for landscaping, so this was the first step in getting ready for all of that. I let some of our family know that we were going to have a tractor at our house, because I thought it would be fun for the kids to see. The Henrys and Greens came by for quick visits and all the kids got turns driving the tractor!

Finn and Griffin sitting on the tractor before Josh got started.

They were very excited!

Ronan driving with Daddy

Finley driving with Kenton

Working on the side yard

Clearing out our little backyard

Macey and Ethan driving with Jon

Ethan, Griffin, and Macey checking out the inside of the house.

Griffin, Ronan, and Ethan on the front porch, and Amy sitting down watching Jon and Macey on the tractor.

Fun with Friends

On Wednesday night the boys and I went to the Turanski's house to hang out with Kelly and her boys. Both of our husbands were working that evening, so we thought it would be fun to get the kids together to play...and then we could visit with each other, too. We had a lot of fun! It was way better than spending that time at our house while trying to keep the boys out of Josh's way. (: Besides, Ronan had been asking to go to John's house for a long time....mostly because he really likes John, but also partly because of this:

Ronan loves costumes and he's always talking about John's knight costume. He also likes John's John Deere riding tractor...and so did Griffin. They all took turns riding the tractor around the lawn--Kelly used a timer to help the boys know when their turn was up, and that worked out really well.

We kept it simple by making mac ' n cheese for the kids and quesadillas for us. It was fun listening to the conversations between Ronan and John...and Griffin, too, as he would add his thoughts.

Kelly and John--notice in the above picture he is holding a toy gun and below he's holding a sword. Ahh, boys. (:

After dinner and more outside play time we put on a movie to help them calm down a little. It worked for a few minutes, but then they took the cushions off the couch and started jumping and tackling each other. Even little Eli was into it. He and Griffin would stand on the couch and let themselves fall onto the cushions...and then giggle uncontrollable. It was so funny. We let them do it for awhile, then found a way to calm down and we left around 8:30. Kelly and I were tired, but I still think it was fun for the kids and for us. We said that next time we'd do it when the dads could be there too!
John (3 1/2), Eli (15 months), Ronan (4), and Griffin (20 months)
Here are a couple of pictures from last August for comparison:
Eli (4 months) and Griffin (9 months)

Ronan (3) and John (2 1/2)

blackberry picking

Monday, August 4th

While Kenton and Aaron helped Josh work on the house, my sisters and I ventured out with all the kiddos. We decided to walk to pick blackberries on the Chase's property (Becca's in-laws). It was kinda crazy trying to get 6 kids and 3 Mamas situated, but we did it! It was a fun adventure once we got going. Some of the kids helped more than others with the picking. Ronan and Sadie did a lot of eating, and I had to control Griffin's portions because he absolutely loves berries and would eat them by the handful if I wasn't watching.

We got a surprise visit from Grammie who had Lydia and Dylan with her! (The Creagers came down to borrow Grandpa's truck to tow their boat.) Dylan had fun exploring, and especially liked the merry-go-round!

We walked through the orchard to look for plums, but they weren't ready yet. We found some apples that were ripe, and the kids discovered some secret passageways. (: (Notice the apartments that now back right up to the orchard behind the Chase property.)

Ready to head back home... Lydia joined Ronan in the trailer and Sadie helped me push them. We were all tired out!

We all made it back with a good amount of berries and our family has already used them up. We made blackberry smoothies the first night, then blackberry pancakes and cobbler the next day. Yummy! (: