Birthday Princess!!

I cannot believe that my little girl is already a year old! It seems like just yesterday that I looked like "Shamu" and I couldn't wait to be done being pregnant, and now she has already been here for a year!
The day before Ella's actual birthday we had a party with family and a few of our close friends. As you can imagine Ella was absolutely spoiled by everyone!! She was the princess for the day (not that she isn't always the princess) and she even had a little dress and tiara! Nick's parents were able to be here for her birthday which was so nice because they live in Chicago and we don't get to see them nearly as often as we would like to. I like to blame this inconvenience on my father in law (just kidding George!) It was nice for them to come and spend time with the kids. When it was time for Ella to play in her cake, she wasn't quite sure what to do, she kept looking at all of us like "guys are you sure I should be doing this?" after a few minutes she put one of her fingers in the cake and then grinned! But she still didn't dive in. Finally big brother decided that he needed to help sister with this. Jax had NO problem leaning down and taking a HUGE bite out of the cake! He thought this was quite hilarious. Ella still didn't dive into the cake and make a huge mess like most kids do, but Ella likes to be quite dainty and diving into a birthday cake is apparently not her cup of tea. We finally gave her a spoon with some cake on it, and she licked it clean!! All of the kids at the party got a chance to take a bite out of Ella's cake to show her how it's done!

Happy Birthday Princess!! We love you so much!

Lava

Every year in August we go to Lava hot springs Idaho with my mom's side of the family. While it might not be the most "high class" place to visit, we have an absolute blast! All of the kids love that they all get to play together. Jaxson's favorite thing is the river, he loved getting in and throwing rocks! Even if we told him numerous times not to throw them.

We all love to go down the river on tubes, we all hold on to each others tubes and make a big line (and I mean BIG, we have a very large family) then we go down the river together and it is a blast! Sometimes it is difficult to hold on to the other tubes when you are laughing your head off. Somehow my hubby always manages to fall off his tube when he goes down the mini waterfall. Since he is so tall he has to have a double tube just to fit, it's hilarious! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of him on it. You are lucky if your behind doesn't get several bruises on it from the rocks in the river, fortunately you don't notice how bad they hurt until later because you are too busy laughing at the time! As usual I didn't take as many pictures in Lava as I would have liked to. But I did manage to snap a few of the kids.

Boating

We went boating yesterday with my Mom and Dani and Derek. The weather was absolutely perfect. After you got over the initial shock of the water temperature it felt great! We had lunch on the boat and cruised around on the lake, and the boys played in the water. It took a little bit to convince Jax to actually get in the lake but once he did he had fun, and he was proud of himself for getting in.

Dani and Derek and I had fun wakeboarding, although neither Dani or I were even close to being as good as Derek on the wakeboard, we had a blast doing it, minus my faceplant into the water that left me with a splitting headache for the rest of the day. Ella loved the boat too, although she was not overly fond of her lifejacket at first.

We had a great day and the kids loved it! Jax keeps asking when we get to go boating again so he can jump in the water!

Playin in the mud!!

Jax loves to play outside in the backyard. Yesterday he went outside and played in the mud (little boy heaven) he had his monster trucks in the mud and was having a BLAST!! It took me forever to convince him it was time to come inside and have a bath. I had to bribe him with a treat after his bath. Today he went outside again and wanted to play with the hose, its amazing how they can be entertained for hours when they are outside making a mess! I snuck out and got a few pictures of him today when he wasn't looking. He was standing in a bucket full of water trying to see if he could splash all of the water out of the bucket by stomping in it. I just sat there laughing at him, he was having so much fun! This is why I am a stay at home mommy, I don't want to miss these things. They grow up so fast and I want to cherish every moment, even those moments when I want to tear my hair out. It is all worth it!

4th of July

Every year on the 4th there is a community parade by my mom's house. Anyone can be in the parade and it is fun to see all of the fun things people come up with for the parade. There is also a breakfast early that morning. For the past two years Colby and Nick have helped cook. I unfortunately was not smart enough to take pictures of the two of them cooking! Colby drove my dads hot rod in the parade and Jaxson and Gabe loved seeing uncle Obey drive by. People in the parade would throw candy and the boys would get so excited and run as fast as they could to gather up as much of the candy as they could!

After the parade we had a barbeque at my mom's house and then we went to see the fireworks. Once again I did not take very many pictures throughout the day. But we had a fun day and Jax loved riding in the prowler with daddy.

Newport Beach

We just got back from Newport Beach on saturday night. My mom took all of us, we stayed in a condo by the beach and we had a blast!! Jaxson and my nephew Gabriel had a blast at the beach, they played in the sand and loved jumping the waves in the ocean! Jax would hang on to his daddy's back and they would catch waves on the boogie board.

Lil miss Ella loved to sit in her stroller and watch everything that was going on at the beach...and she loved to get her "beauty rest."















She also discovered that she loves licorice!! As you can see, she made a mess with it.



Jax and Gabe loved taking turns burying each other in the sand. They also liked to make each other mad and throw sand in each others faces! Boys will be boys!
















We went to Sea World one day, although we managed to get ourselves lost on the way there and ended up at the Mexican border (thanks Nicky) once we finally figured out where we were going it was a lot of fun! Leave it to us to manage to get lost. Sea World was a lot of fun, Jax loved watching the Shamu show, and seeing the sharks. My favorite part of course was the Dolphins :)



















We also went to Legoland one day which is a "little kid paradise" the boys got to go on all kinds of rides and at the end of the day Jaxson got his very first legos.








Im not sure who had more fun on some of the rides, Jax or Nick ;)

As you can see we had so much fun on our vacation (minus the detour to the Mexican border) and it was over way too soon. But im glad we got to go and relax and have fun together! Thanks mom!!

Just look at that handsome man in his swimming suit! I think my hubby should be a swimsuit model. ;)