First Mardi Gras experience

No, we didn't go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras or anything.  In fact, I've never even been to Louisiana!  But Brian has.  He went on a missions trip with the church back at the end of June.  He and a team of students and adult leaders (there were 10 of them) got to go to New Orleans to put on a soccer camp for the local kids.  They did a little exploring and sight seeing on their down time.  And he came home with beads.  Lots. Of. Beads.  I mean, a huge bag FULL of them.....and this was after all the other 9 members of the group took some home too.  Needless to say, we have lots of beads floating around every nook and cranny of our house:)  In fact, I even give some away to the kids friends when they are over:)  A person only needs so many beads after all!  

Moving on.  The kids loved the beads.  They are all fun, bright colors, and they loved loading themselves down with as many as they could. Eli holds the record.  Maybe by default since he's the biggest:)  And they still love playing with these beads.  Who knew beads could be so entertaining?!

 

 Even Parker likes them.  They have come in handy for distracting/entertaining on several occasions when we are out of the house.  Don't be surprised if you see us out and about and you see our baby with beads around his neck:)

Splash Park

THis year has been a whole new ballgame with the kiddos.  Last year they were super timid in the pool and hated fountains.  This year, they love swimming and the fountains are a blast!  So much more fun.  And so much easier to stay cool:)  We decided to hit up a little splash park/park in Valley Center with friends a while back.  I love splash parks.  The kids can get wet, I don't have to, and I don't have to worry about them drowning because there is no standing water.  We all win.  Plus, they had friends to enjoy the experience with.  It was a little cool and windy when we got there, but it got warmer, and none of it stopped the kids from having fun (except Grey....he just wanted to eat lunch:))  So much fun to watch them enjoying things like this.  Parker will be right in the mix next year, I have no doubt.  He would have crawled in the year if I had let him.....but instead, he got to hang out in the stroller.  Poor kid!

Family Pictures

Back in May :)(Memorial day to be exact), we had some family pictures taken by my good friend Allison.  She did a great job as always.  The kids did really great.  They are not real good about being cooperative to pictures.  It always seems to help that they know and love Allison (and it helps that she had her son there "helping" too and was a distraction to our kiddos because Conrad is their pal.  Anyways, they did good considering Kamdyn was having the meltdown of all meltdowns before we started.  I'm talking major tatrum.  And it was so. stinking. hot.  But it's was better than it is right now.  Just not a lot of breeze moving.  Enough of my babbling.  Onto the pictures!

After having these pictures taken, I was in love and also wanting to attempt to do some pictures of my own.  I love photography and capturing all moments, so I wanted to give taking some pictures (of subjects other than my kids:)) a shot.  So we used some of our best friends and their adorable kiddos.  Pretty sure they will be family some day, so it was good practice:)  Parker is already promised to little miss Violet, and Kamdyn has a thing for Grey (she likes older men- Grey is Eli's bff).  It was so much fun taking pictures of other people!  And I might be biased, but I was proud of how my editing and everything turned out.  So if you are interested, scroll on down and see a few of my favorites (although they had many many more I loved!  Photogenic family:))

I need some more practice, so if you want some pictures taken, let me know:)

How about I do a little blogging

Since my kids aren't sleeping, I decided I'd blog.  I remember the days when it was quiet and peaceful in my house for at least 2 hours.  Now, Eli doesn't nap ever (which is really ok, other than the fact that he finds that time to come and ask me 7,000 questions), Kamdyn takes forever to go to sleep and then wakes up unhappy, and Parker gives me 45-1 hour to myself.  But I will take what I can get....no complaining....just fondly remembering:) Someday they will all be in school anyways.  Just gotta hang in there a few more years....

Anyways, I have plenty of other things to blog about, but I think I will do 4th of July first.  Then I will go back and fill in with all the fun other happenings of our summer.  

This year's 4th of July was a lot better than last year.  Last year wasn't even bad, I was just in a bad mood.  And I was hot, had a cold, and was nice and pregnant.  Awesome combination.  This year, I was just in a good mood, so it make the holiday a lot better!  We ended up going over to Granny and Papa's house for some swimming and eating with family.  The kids love to swim.  Too bad for them I kind of hate it.  We don't go much, so they were having a blast.  Add to the mix the fact that they had cousins there to play with too and they were in heaven.  

We didn't shoot off a single firework.  Or popper, or sparkler.  It might make us slightly un-American, but I was fine with the lack of fireworks in my life.  Eli was terrified of them last year, so I just didn't care too much.  Not to mention he was super tired from being up early and swimming hard.  So we went home at 7, the kids watched a movie, and Eli feel asleep on the couch and didn't make a peep through all the fireworks.  So awesome.  That's my kind of holiday!

Some pictures for you......

The kid shot.  I should put all the outtakes on here because they are pretty funny, but for now I will just stick with a good one.  And they are all looking.  Success!  No one is smiling, but I see three pairs of eyes.  Woo Hoo!!

 

 The cousins.  Getting all of these kiddos to look at the camera and/or cooperate is nearly impossible, but I still enjoy getting all the kids in the shot.

 Swimming!

 Hanging out with granny-great and papa great.

 These pictures are backwards.....we did this stuff first, in the morning.  We went over to Eli's best friend, Grey's house, to go on their neighborhood 4th of July parade.  Not real exciting, but the kids had fun, and that's all that really matters.  They got to ride their bikes following a firetruck.  We rode/walked back to the pool area and then they got little prizes and popsicles.  Good times!

That's all there was to our holiday.  Nothing too exciting, but fun times.  We will see what next year is like.  It's bound to get more crazy each year.