Wedding Crashers

Claire and Hayden were the flower girl and ring bearer in my cousin's wedding this weekend. Claire had been prepping for the event for weeks. She practiced with Barbies, watched You Tube videos of flower girls, and we held several mock weddings in the yard. The morning of the wedding, she woke up at 5 a.m. and said, "Is it time to put my dress on?" She had the time of her life and is already looking forward to her next wedding.

Hayden wasn't quite as enthusiastic as Claire (to be fair, no one was as enthusiastic as Claire), but he did his job, looked adorable, and probably consumed about 5 lbs. of candy, so it might well have been the happiest day of his life.

The dapper duo
 
The whole family
 
Not sure what Hayden is doing, but that boy has some impressive moves
 
Claire with Mr. & Mrs. Brawn
 

Happy Birthday, Hayden!

...and thanks again for being born on the 7th rather than the 8th. I really didn't want to have a Thomas the Train birthday party this year.

This was the first year that Hayden really understood what a birthday is. He woke up at about 11 o'clock the night before, wandered downstairs, and said, "Is it time to blow out my candles?" He had a small party with a few of his friends on Friday, followed by more presents than any one child needs. Sounds like a good day to me!

 

Fishin' (whistle the Andy Griffith theme here)

Grumps and Hayden patiently settle in for their first bite.
 
And two minutes later...Hayden's first fish! Hours later, he was already telling fish stories like he'd caught some kind of trophy fish.
 
Claire and Papa came so close to catching a fish, but the fish bailed on them. Surely Hayden throwing sticks and rocks into the water had nothing to do with that.
 
Reid thought the whole experience was exhilirating.
 

Reid's first haircut

He turned into a big boy in like 5 minutes flat. Waaaahhh.

Before
 
During
 
Well? How do we look?
 
Ta-da!
 

Fourth of July

We took Claire and Hayden to their first fireworks show this year. The show we went to announces each state and then shoots off a canon. "Alabama....BOOM! Arkansas...BOOM!" That's 50 ridiculously loud canon blasts, and we were a worried how Hayden would deal with it. After the first blast he looked a bit surprised and then a slow smile spread across his face and he yelled, "Boom!" He got more into it with each blast, often throwing his fists in the air and yelling, "Boom!" He's afraid of the dark, but you can shoot a canon off next to his head and it won't faze him in the least.

The best photo I could get of the matching outfits Baba got them.
 
 
 
 
I took this just as the first fireworks went off. I love her expression.
 
And because I love this picture...here's Claire four years earlier.
 

Claire Bear turns 5!

We celebrated Claire's birthday in Kansas this year with some of our old friends and their kids. It was supposed to be a swimming party, but the kids had to settle for ransacking Baba and Grumps' house because the weather was unseasonably cold. July in Kansas...go figure. Claire had a great time and has a whole fleet of new Barbies and Polly Pockets. We celebrated her birthday at home before we left so we didn't have to haul her loot with us, and she decided that multiple days of presents was a pretty good idea. She's going to be like Mommy, and celebrate her birthday for an entire week. Smart kid.

Future musical genius
 
Check out her expression. Cinderella = pure joy
 
Pink helmet, pink dress, pink shoes, pink scooter. Can you tell she loves pink??
 
Five candles ((sigh))...such a big girl.
 

Tall Ships

So Lauren and the kiddos are spending an extra week in Kansas City...all of sudden I have a lot of time to myself (an unintended valuable gift from my sweet wife). It has been a rare beautiful day so I decided to walk over after work to check out the Tall Ships that are in town for the weekend. I saw them coming into port on Thursday (didn't have a camera) and they are even more breath taking with all of their sails out. Check out facebook if you want to see more.  
 
 
 

Reid turns 1!

...only 12 days late.

 
He had a little party...
 
...and got lots of help opening his gifts
 

Dear Reid,
One of the advantages of being the youngest is that your parents already know how quickly the first year flies by. When you were born, I'd already accepted the fact that your first year would feel like it passed by in about the span of a week, and I promised to enjoy you from the very first day. Sometimes enjoying time with you meant that dinner was pizza delivery and the house was dirty (because before you, I was a stellar housekeeper), but when I had the opportunity, I just sat down and enjoyed you being a baby. I spent hours just holding you while you slept, and even though there were lots of other things I should have been doing, I'll never regret a moment I sat there staring at this sweet sleeping baby face.
 

Happy birthday, baby boy!

Love,
Mommy

 

Story Land

We took Justin to Story Land for his 33rd birthday this year. It's an amusement park targeted to 2-10 year olds, and Justin couldn't think of a better way to spend his birthday than breaking his legs trying to get them inside of a giant flying whale. See?

 

Aunt Lesley was visiting us and she was overjoyed to come along. Story Land is an ideal vacation destination for someone without kids. Actually, we're pretty fortunate that Lesley enjoys kid stuff as much (maybe even more) than the kids do, and she was more than happy to be Claire's "buddy" on the scary rides that Mommy was too chicken for.

I put on a brave face and sat next to this creepy clown. Shiver.
 
She is STILL talking about meeting Cinderella. I think a trip to Disney World is going to blow her mind.
 
The kids' first roller coaster ride. Claire would have ridden all day long. She is such a daredevil...I won't be surprised if she does Extreme Sports when she's older. I'll just cover my eyes.
 
All of us, plus Aunt Lesley, on the Ferris Wheel.
 
Log ride...another one Claire would have ridden all day long.
 
Poor Reid couldn't ride many of the rides, but he didn't seem to mind too much.
 

Preschool Graduation

Claire Bear graduated from preschool a few weeks ago. Her class put on a little program, which was the cutest thing I've ever seen. From the amount of cameras in the room, you would have thought Obama was the commencement speaker. It makes me feel better to know that other parents over-photograph their children as well. We just might be raising a generation of flash blind children. We've decided to do one more year of preschool before sending her off to join the big kids in kindergarten, so look for another preschool graduation next June!

Walking over to the big event
 
The class
 
Post-program cookie goodness
 
Love this one