what we've been doing this summer

 Camping in our front yard

Science experiments:

Homemade slime 

 or Ben and his gigantic bright green briefs!!

Baking soda volcanoes

 Dissolving eggshells in vinegar

Slip and slides

 Trampoline jumping

Tree climbing

High flying

  Eating

Hiking and cabin time

Cousins Redo

In April Philip's sister and kids came for a visit, only for her daughter to come down a few hours later with a terrible flu and had to leave the next day. We were feeling very gipped. So they came back for Memorial weekend. We had lots of windy, warm weather for kites, bubbles, trampoline jumping, barbecuing and our newish tradition of donut making.  And not one sickie!! She is also a very talented photographer and I am sharing some of her fantastic pics. It was almost exactly a year ago she came and took these (and I added one so you could see how much our kids have grown up in a year)

And this is them now enjoying our yummy donuts.

This is still my go-to, never fail donut recipe. This is also a good buttermilk old fashioned one I've tried twice fairly successfully. I did make it dairy free with soy buttermilk in exchange for the sour cream. I used the glaze for the old fashioned ones to glaze the raised ones and left the old fashioned plain because the dough is pretty sweet on it's own. Best fresh and warm, but if you have leftovers, freeze them and rewarm in the microwave per my sis-in-law's suggestion and they were YUMMY too!!

 And here are some fun action pics.

 And a slew of pics of my baby. A birdie told me he didn't like my collages because he wanted full size pics to steal from my blog. So I will try to control myself and just use single shots so be prepared to scroll. 

And have I told you that he doesn't say mama.....well at least to me. I figured out why....

He just doesn't believe I am his mama.

He pointed a number of times to his blue eyed, blonde haired AUNT and called her mama, so he can say the word, just not to me. 

But I forgive him.  He looks like he fits in with her family more.

But that's why I adore him because he is this magical creature to me. He looks nothing like me but he's mine. It's a funny feeling that I can't explain.

And I don't know if I will ever get over it.

Firsts and Lasts

Amelia finished school. Here is a contrast pic of her first and last day.

It was so bright she is making a funny face, but we were in a rush to get to school so I didn't realize it. But you get the point. She has really lost that baby face. And maybe grown a little too. It was really important to her that she lose her first tooth in first grade at the school. Her teacher is the school's unofficial tooth puller and if you lose it there, you get to go to the office and get a plastic tooth box to put it in. Every kid in her class lost one and she was feeling a little left out. A week or so before the last day of school, her first one was a tiny bit loose. She spent the next 3 or 4 days wiggling and wiggling and wiggling that tooth. The night before the last day of school she was so desperate that she wanted me to try and pull it, but between the shrieking and squirming, I couldn't get it out. So finally on the last day after all the fun and all the kids went home, she asks her teacher to pull it. Sure enough it took 2 seconds and there it was. I could tell on Amelia's face that she wanted to scream or cry but did not want to do it in front of her teacher so she sat perfectly still. It was bleeding quite a bit and the teacher kind of screamed because it was so funny that it made her kind of embarrassed.  But pretty soon she was back to her usual grinning, confident self.

Graduation

Hope my brother doesn't mind, but a few weeks ago he received his MBA. We went and celebrated and cheered Jared "Awesome" Hansen!!  And of course no celebration is complete without dessert.

Birthday Party

Here's some pics from Miles' first birthday party. He loves to growl like a monster and he's so big we always call him a monster, so it only seemed fitting to give him a monster themed party. Grandma,Grandpa and Aunt Ali came. They brought Miles a present to open and he loved the wrapping paper so much he was quite offended when the kids started to show him how to rip it off. You can see in the top left pic that he has ripped some of it, but he's not really happy. It was hilarious watching him do it. Every rip pained him but he kept going because we were clapping. He was not sure of the whole thing.  He loves balls and I think it's the best boy first birthday gift, so since we already have a collection of balls, we got him a little inflatable pool filled with ball pit balls. He thinks it so much fun. Grandma and Grandpa brought a basketball hoop so he can practice shooting for when he is 6 foot 10 and getting ready for the NBA!!! The kids also picked out a Monster's Inc fork and spoon set because he always is stealing spoons if the dishwasher is open. The Stevenson's sent another great ball that he likes to carry because he can palm it perfectly with one hand!!  His Brindley cousins sent him some monster books and a stuffed animal of the abominable snowman from Monster's Inc. He sleeps with it, shows you how it growls and drags it around too!!

We made a monster cake and little monster cupcakes. The kids got to put them together with eyes and hands and teeth. Miles thought they were so funny.He loved being sung too. He softly licked the frosting off for a bit and started to put his face in it, like I always wanted one of our kids to do, but then quickly retreated back to the finger licking. The kids thought this was hilarious(you can see Ben in the top left picture laughing to death). Green frosting is not ideal for a birthday cake you are giving a baby, so we gave him a cupcake so he could really eat cake for the first time. He, of course, loved it. It was carrot cake since he's kind of our Easter baby.  He loved going to Grandpa every two seconds, which is usually what he does for Philip, so he was feeling a little upstaged but loved hearing how Miles' sweetness reminded them of when Philip was a baby.
 

But after all the fun was over, he crashed in his daddy's arms. My favorite pics at the end of a birthday.

Here are some other cute pics of him on his day.

His curly mullet.

His cute little teeth.

And his beautiful blue eyes.

Birthday Boy

Our Miles turned one yesterday!!!  Here's a little picture tribute for every month of his first year. He has stayed at the 98th percentile for his height this entire year. He is the size of one of my other kids at 2 or 3. he is in between size 18-24 month clothes. He is the happiest baby and so sweet and loving. He has kept those crazy blue eyes and blonde hair. He has a little mullet of curls in the back and has had 3 haircuts already. The little chalkboard signs tells some more fun facts about him. We are so glad to have him.

I will post more pics from his birthday later.

Other things

Also, Miles turned 7 months today. He is such a happy baby and loves to laugh, all the time. He is army crawling and gets up on all fours but can't quite stay up when he moves. He is eating food and loves carrots the most. He also just started pulling himself up on everything but can't quite stand. He thinks Ben and Amelia are hilarious. He has slept all thru the night 4 times now. He loves snuggling soft things on his face, pulling hair, climbing on you if you are on the ground, being squeezed, playing with the springy doorstops, swings and chewing everything. He hates the car seat, green beans unless they are mixed with carrots, sitting still and sleeping by himself. He still has no teeth and is 21 pounds wearing the clothes Ben wore when he was 1. He is maintaining his 98th percentile!! He has kept those blue eyes and blonde hair and although it is hard to see his light eyebrows, he is extremely expressive with them. He has had 2 haircuts and is in need for another one. He just started crying if someone leaves the room or picks him up that he doesn't know. He prefers dad to hold him 70% of the time. He also says dada for everything. We are trying mama, but he just smiles and says dada. Stinker. He is completely adored and the center of everyone's attention here anywhere we go and has no problem hamming it up.

Also, Philip passed the Bar here and was sworn in last month. I took no pics of this event because carrying around a 20 pound baby is heavy enough without having to then hold a diaper bag AND a camera!!! But we somehow got captured by another photographer while eating lunch with Phil's parents and somehow Philip just happened to see the article the next day. So random. You have to scroll to the 3rd picture, but you can see the back of me and Amelia, Philip, part of his dad and Miles and the waiter bringing us a plate of yummy food. So I guess it did happen if it's out there on the web!!