Grape Stomp

The morning of Jackson's birthday party Ryan, the kids and I met Laura and her kids at a local winery. Every year they do a grape harvest and stomp and I've always wanted to go! This year we finally made it.

Cooper had such a great time finding grapes. Only the grown-ups cut them off the vine!

Jackson kept calling them blueberries!

Ryan was our official grape harvester.

Ben and Cooper loved searching for them together!

Found some!

Jackson helped us carry the bucket of grapes!

They let us take a few photos of the kids with some grapes...

and the kids dumped our grapes into the group pile!

Here we waited for a LONG time for the grape stomping to begin. After waiting probably 45 minutes in outside in the heat, all the kids decided they didn't want to stomp on them.

I tried to make Jackson go in but he refused to put his feet down, I just held him and he curled his little feet up and refused to stand. (This was how close Ryan could get to take a picture, it was a mad-house!)

Our family at our first ever grape harvest!

Jackson's Actual Birthday

We had such a fun day on Jackson's actual birthday. His party was the next day so we had a low-key day on his "real" birthday.

We started the day going to get Jackson up from bed...(his room is the door with streamers obviously :)
and then we saw the happy and surprised birthday boy!

I put balloons all over his room and he was so excited to see them. He loves balloons.

We of course had to have a special breakfast. He LOVES donuts so I went out and got him donuts for breakfast.

As I was driving I heard on the radio about bad traffic nearby because they were slowing down to watch hot air balloons! I guess there was a big festival or something. So right after breakfast we decided to hop in the car and find them. After 45 minutes of driving we came home b/c we could not find any! :( Oh well, at least we tried!

Right when we got home, Grandma B stopped by to bring Jackson a present and a Mickey balloon (he was having a Mickey party).

He loved his Mickey card!

and the balloon!

Here's the present. A really awesome water toy that you can pump water, make dams, etc... Both boys LOVE it.

Then before nap we made sugar cookies. We had Mickey cookie cutters so of course we had to make Mickey cookies! It was nice and messy!

After nap Ryan came home and we took the boys to a jump house. I don't think Jackson had been to one of those places before-he had been on our little bounce house at home but it's way different obviously at those places. He LOVED every minute of it. I didn't bring a camera though so I could run around after him! We had a wonderful time celebrating his special day!

Happy Birthday to Jackson!

Jackson Ryan turned two yesterday.

I really can't believe he isn't my little baby anymore.

He brings so much joy to our lives!!!!

We had a really fun birthday party for him today that I'll share later. Happy Birthday to you, Jackson!

We love you so so so so SO much!

Back to School Party and other stuff

My mom likes to have a back to school party for the kids, and this year she really outdid herself! It was SO cute.

The kids got these letter cookies that they could spell with and then of course eat. Look at my genius boy who's not even two; he spelled his name!!!

(ha ha ha, just kidding... did anyone fall for that?) He can name a few letters though!

Here's Cooper, and he actually can spell his name! He looks thrilled to be smiling for me huh? :)

I think the presents were the highlight!

I thought this pic was so cute of the boys in the tub!

My adorable little fish!

The boys took a break from their favorite game ever to smile for me. They sit on these cars and ride so fast up and down the hallway through the house. They LOVE it. Jackson is actually so fast, almost as fast as Cooper!

Here he is zooming up to me.

I know this is kind of dangerous but I got a picture of it before I put it to a stop. Isn't it hilarious? Cooper was doing it and I kept asking him to stop because it was going to give Jackson ideas (he copies EVERYTHING Cooper does). So of course J started doing it too. I took a few pictures and then made him stop. Then a little bit later I started dinner and he did it again. As I was walking over to stop him he fell onto the arm of the couch instead of the soft part and hit his cheek so hard it gave him a black eye. Needless to say this is definitely not allowed anymore!

Ahh, life with boys! By this age Cooper had already broken his leg and gotten staples in his head. Thank goodness J has not followed in his footsteps!

Lately we have been...

going out to eat (this is our annual lunch to cheesecake on our birthday). Notice Jackson's "cheese" face :)...

doing a minor bathroom remodel (this is mid-border removal, I'll have to post finished pictures soon)...

messy!

taking pictures with the bathroom decorations...

having a few playdates... (Hunter, Cooper, Ally, Jackson, and Ashlynn)

dancing like a wild man... playing angry birds...swimming in our little backyard pool...

being superheros... (looks like Cooper is an unhappy hero!)

and generally being silly! (I do not like this picture of me but I had to post it because the story behind it is hilarious-but also so inappropriate! We were taking goofy family pictures while hanging out and my mature husband decided to do something inappropriate to the camera with one of his fingers. I'm sure you can guess what I mean. So Cooper sees him but doesn't understand what he was doing, but knows by my reaction that it's inappropriate. So he then copies his dad! I just have to roll my eyes because as you can see Ryan thought it was hilarious. (I guess it was kind of funny :)

Hope you all have been doing fun stuff lately!

The Diving Board and Spiderman

With our extreme heat that we've been having here we've been swimming a LOT! Cooper now loves to swim without floaties on (he can't go very far yet but he's working on it ) and gets very upset if I ever have him put them on.

A favorite at Gma and Gpa's house is the diving board! Here C is about to bravely jump off, with cousin Ben behind him.

He loves it!

We have another one who loves it too! Jackson's Auntie was very nice to help him so I could take some pictures of this very special event! I don't do a great job putting him in, a few times he went WAY under when I helped him. Luckily he loved every minute of it! (look at his tummy and thighs, aren't they just chunkalicious!? Is that a word? :))

He also loves it!

This puddle jumper is the BEST-he can basically swim by himself when he has it on!

Jackson is way more into coloring than Cooper ever was. He graduated from paper onto other surfaces, wasn't that creative of him? :) Thank goodness for the magic eraser!

The boys still love dressing up like superheros, and I just love seeing Jackson in these little costumes!

Here's big brother Cooper who was so nice to share his costume with his brother!