Because I have continued to be so horrible about posting anything to the blog, I again have to just throw a bunch of pictures on here and try to give a short description of what has been taking place. We've actually been having a great time and doing some fun things this past month because we have gotten to have Jay around a little more. I'm already dreading next month when we will return to not having him around as much.
Addi's 6th birthday was a month ago, and we celebrated with our final Disneyland day. The passes are now expired and the kids are going to have to get back to work saving a bunch of money before we will get to return again. For Addi's birthday, she desperately wanted another American Girl doll, but absolutely did not think that she would be getting one (and neither did I). She received Josefina for Christmas, and I had actually bought Samantha at the same time from the same person so that I could get a better deal, but I had planned on saving Samantha for this Christmas. We didn't have any other ideas for her though, and decided that it would be best to give it to her while we know she is so into them and would be thrilled about it. Sure enough, when she opened the bag that the doll was wrapped in, she literally screamed, dropped the bag, and came running to give both Jay and I hugs. It was really the cutest thing that she was so shocked and so excited.
Receiving a birthday manicure from Daddy
Jake went out and bought Addi some "girl" legos with his own money. He was very excited to give them to her and she loves them.
She loves to be a little mommy, not only to her dolls, but to Tate as well!
The birthday girl at Disneyland
Another fun thing that Jay decided to do one day was to make a homemade rocket for the kids. I don't know how he comes up with this stuff, but he does...and, of course, he's good at it. This thing was shooting pvc pipe ends about 200 feet in the air. We then switched to marshmallows after a while because I was afraid that the pipe end might do some damage if it came down and landed on someone's head. We had attracted all the neighborhood kids and everyone was lined up trying to catch the things that got shot into the air.
Jay also decided to take the kids (Jake and Addi) on a spur of the moment, overnight camping trip. I wasn't ready to attempt that with Tate and let them have that fun all on their own. I had some reservations about how the trip would go, but it couldn't have been better. They thought it was just about one of the greatest things they've ever done...and it was only about a 20 minute drive away and cost $20 to camp. Plus, they were able to go on a Sunday night before most kids were out of school for the summer, so they had practically the entire campground to themselves.
Jay was pretty proud of his hot dog roaster.
They returned home exhausted!
Then, there was Father's Day, and the kids each made Jay some pretty cool banners...
We also took Tate to the beach for the first time. Unfortunately, we managed to choose a cold, overcast day to do it.
And, Tate continues to be as cute and wonderful as ever.
We have had other craziness going on around here as well, but these are all the pictures I have to show for it. We're taking off to visit my sister in TN next week and are very excited about that. I'll try not to wait another month before I post anything about it on here!
