Father's Day 2016

We started Father's Day by giving Jon his gifts, including the annual "Daddy Questionnaire" both boys filled out, and having a quiet morning just hanging out including going for a swim after lunch. After nap/quiet time we hosted dinner for our families. We had a slightly smaller crowd than usual this year for Father's Day, but it was still a lovely time spent with family celebrating all of the great Fathers in our lives. Tio and Reed played an airplane tossing game that had them doing funny moves in the middle of the crowd and entertaining everyone. It also happened to be Grandma's Birthday so she got to share in the celebrating as well.

Tio, Lyla, C, and Aunt Di Di

Me, Gran, Papa, Grandpa, Grandma, Pepe, Nonna, and Jon

Aunt Di Di wanted a picture with all three kids - this is as good as we could do!!!

Grandma's Birthday Dinner

Since Grandma's Birthday fell on Father's Day this year we decided to celebrate the night before by going out to dinner. Reed did great but Kieran was not pleased with the slow service and made his opinion known multiple times. He ate like five pieces of bread and all the walnuts out of my salad and was still yelling "where's my food?"" across the dining room (slightly embarrassing). The boys each drew Grandma a special picture and couldn't wait to give them and the gift to her. Other than trying to keep an impatient two year old calm it was a great dinner and so fun that Grandma got to have an evening dedicated just to her!!!

Toddler Tunes Summer 2016 Performance

The boys have continued in their music class over the last few months and had their end of the year performance on Sunday. All of us Moms had to get on stage to assist the kids, which in of itself is funny considering we are all friends but it made it especially comical because most of our parents (the kids' grandparents) were in the audience watching - I think we all basically felt like four year olds again!!! Anyway, the whole thing lasted all of five minutes but the boys did great, singing a lot of the words and doing almost all of the hand motions. Grandma, Grandpa, Nonna, and Pepe all came to watch and C and Tio had us all over for dinner after the performance. Seeing Lyla and the boys up on stage together was pretty adorable and I hope we have the chance to see them all performing together a lot more in the years to come.

Left to Right: Ashley and Eli (19 months), Me, Kieran (2.5 years) and Reed (4.5 years), Shannon and Clara (3 years), Alyssa and Teegan (3 years), C and Lyla (2 years), Laura and Eden (2.5 years)

 

Playing around after dinner

A visit from G-Momma and Auntie Laurie

Last week G-Momma and Auntie Laurie came to town to visit. They planned their trip to make sure they would be here on a day Grandma would be watching the boys so they had a full day with the kids that everyone said was a lot of fun. On Thursday we had an adults only Birthday dinner to celebrate Auntie Laurie, G-Momma, and Grandma's Birthdays. Then on Friday we made a trip to the zoo where we all had a lot of fun. We saw so many animals and it was fun to hear the boys repeating things they remembered from our last visit.

On Saturday I traveled to Southern California with my parents, G-Momma, Auntie Laurie and my local Grandparents, Dean and Didi . We attended a memorial service for Aunt Penny's father, Dale. It was a very emotional day but something we were all thankful we could be part of and help in honoring such a great man. Dale's life is really one to be celebrated, but we are all very sad that he's no longer with us and we will miss him dearly.

This was the last day of  G-Momma and Auntie Laurie's visit so we had everyone over for dinner once we got home. It was nice to spend a little more quality time together and let the boys see the ladies one more time before they headed home.

Half Day Trip to LA

Jon's friends from college, Mark and Stacey, are getting ready to move out of Los Angeles in the next month, so last weekend we made a speed trip down to visit them. They were having their daughter Ella's Birthday party and more friends from college, including Adam and Marli, were also going to be there. It seemed like a great opportunity to have a group of us together before it gets more logistically complicated, plus we got to meet Mark and Stacey's baby Malia. We left home when Jon got home from work a little before noon, the boys slept for a little over an hour and did pretty well the rest of the drive. The traffic once we got off the freeway was miserable but we were excited to see everyone when we finally arrived. The kids had a blast playing with the other kids there. It was hot by LA standards and so Mark and Stacey had a bunch of water toys out to play with. I think the boys threw water balloons for an hour and a half straight! After dinner and Birthday cake we spent a little more time with everyone then put the boys in pajamas and headed home. It was a whirlwind of an afternoon/evening but great to catch up with everyone and see all of our kids play together!

Reed, Kieran, and Ella playing with water balloons

Birthday cake!

Reed, Kieran, Cole, and Caden had a pretty epic squirt gun battle!