"4th of July"

We dressed in our 4th of July gear and celebrated quite a few different times while we were on vacation.

Before that, we had to visit the kids' trees. Here is Cooper with his tree at the cabin. Getting big!

Then we went to pick flowers.

(the pictures posted all out of order, I'm not sure what is going on!)

The kids spent a lot of time playing in the sandbox while we were at the cabin.

Here's my 4th of July boy-one of them anyway!

Playing with pinwheels!

The kids walking down the road in front of the cabin.

Cooper picked flowers too!

After we tried to get pictures of the kids in their outfits, they all ran around being crazy.

Cutie pie Cooper in a very cheesy pose his mom made him try. Mean mom, but he sure is cute! Jackson wouldn't cooperate! :)

But he looks cute here anyway! (the only one good one I got of him out of probably 30. Thank goodness for digital!)

Another one of my cute Cooper!

Both of my boys enjoying the cabin weather!

Cabin Time!

We recently returned from a very busy and fun two week summer vacation! We first flew with my parents (we being the kids and me) to MN, where we were going to see a few friends/family and then head to their cabin.

We were lucky enough to fly with my dad, who has flown so much he has elevated status and gets the perks like getting bumped up to first if the cabin is too full! Yay! They only bumped two of us though so my mom and I sat in first with Jackson since I didn't have a seat for him, and my dad sat with Cooper in coach.

I just loved watching Cooper walking with his suitcase!


Here's Jackson standing at my feet watching the crew do their thing! He had a big fit when I had to make him sit with me while we took off. Fun.

Grandpa and Cooper ready for the flight. Cooper LOVED it!

After we arrived we met one of our friends who we've known forever- Nikki and her kids, along with Laura and her kids at a park. Here are all of our children. Aren't they all so cute??

The moms had to get a picture together too!

Awww, I plan on showing this at their wedding someday! :) I think I have Cooper married off to at least three girls now... hopefully he doesn't mind that!

After we played at the park we went to my Aunt Amy and Uncle Jim's house, where the kids ran around with their cousins Evan and Emma.

They live on a lake so the kids had so much fun digging in the sand.

My boys relaxing after their busy day!

He had a 20 min nap in the car and was so happy the entire day. I was so lucky!

Throwing rocks in the lake, another favorite!

Then we made it to the cabin. Finally we were there! We had an exciting drive in, as we were literally talking about bears and seeing them on the road, a baby bear ran RIGHT in front of Laura's car (we were driving behind them) and she had to slam on her breaks so she didn't hit it. It was so amazing. I was so bummed I didn't have my camera out.

No pictures of the cabin that night, but I do have pictures of what the kids did every morning... watch a show! No surprise that Jackson woke up the earliest, and I didn't want him to wake up the kids downstairs so I'd put on a show for him.

Pretty soon all the kids would join him.

A special first at the cabin was Jackson ate at the table in a big boy chair for the first time! He LOVED it and had to sit with everyone every single meal. It was so cute! Luckily he's ok with his booster at home, I didn't want to have to deal with him moving around so much at home!

On the first full day at the cabin some of our family came up to spend the day with us. Here are the kids with Evan and Emma in their fourth of July shirts.

Did you notice that all the kids had matching pjs?

Aren't they cute?

Look what the bottom says! (Jackson helped me out with this picture!) My parents' cabin is the 'bear' cabin so these pjs were just perfect. My mom found them somewhere. Hilarious!

A favorite activity at the cabin was fishing! Cooper loved it and caught a ton of fish. He even put a worm on the hook once! He's so not anything like me in that regard!

Cooper and Ben checking out the fish.

Ben checking out a caught fish. They were very brave touching the fish and Cooper even tried to pick one up to throw it overboard. Like I said, nothing like me!

So that was our first day at the cabin!

Summer

Can you believe this picture was taken only about a week ago? We had a big summer storm and this is the hail we got! I took the picture right after it happened, probably around 2:20 am. The next day we still had piles of hail in the shade at noon! (When it was 90 degrees- that's a lot of hail!)

The sad thing was we had no idea it was going to happen and Cooper had been growing green beans in a pot outside. He really was excited to garden but that's all we had gotten around to. Of course it got shredded by the hail. He was really disappointed!

Ryan with his boys on Father's Day! (we didn't even mean for them to match, isn't that funny?)

Cutie pie Jackson

My cute Cooper!

We recently went to my friend Dana's house for a playdate. She has this really fun pool in her backyard and the boys loved it!

We actually got all the kids to sit for a picture! Our friend Ashleigh was there too-her kids are Hunter and Ally, then Ashlynn is Dana's daughter, then of course my boys.

We are really enjoying our summer so far!

Chocolate Covered Bananas

We recently had fun making a yummy snack. I melted some chocolate chips and the boys rolled a frozen banana in it. Then they rolled the banana in cheerios. The idea was to then put it back in the fridge to harden before they ate. I saw it in a magazine and they even put a popsicle stick in it to eat it. Well, Jackson was so excited to eat the snack, he started crying before we started making it to eat the chocolate! So our snack never made it into the fridge.

Here they are waiting to start. I gave Jackson a taste of the chocolate to entice him to join us, and that was all he needed! He's crying for the chocolate as I'm taking the picture.
Making the snack.

Yummy! Doesn't that look tasty?? (maybe not, it does look gross but I had some and it was actually really good!)

Cooper thought it was so much fun! We don't make fun treats very often so he thought this was really cool. I realized I need to do stuff like this more often!

Yet another messy picture of Jackson!

Cooper by this point had left us to play, so I just kept taking pictures of Jackson. I had to pry him away from the chocolate!

Swimming Lessons

Cooper just finished swimming lessons with a new teacher in our area this year. He has had a GREAT time and loves swimming! His big thing is to swim without any floaties. He does fairly well, but definitely needs to be able to touch the ground to swim for any length of time. He has fun and that's what counts the most!

Here he is doing the "dishwasher"


practicing his kicking

floating

his favorite part, the diving board at the end! The child in front of him is his friend Zach.

Jumping with no floaties! Made me scared the first time but he did a great job!

Swimming (and watching swimming) really takes it out of you!