love.

♥

Ward Pool Party

Every year, our ward has a pool party. It's always a lot of fun and we always have a great turn out. This year, we got there pretty early (read "on time") and had the kiddie pool to ourselves. The boys had so much fun in the water.

Splash, Griffin! Splash!

Getting used to being on his back.

This was so funny! Noah kept splashing Ammon and he thought it was the most hilarious thing EVER!

This picture was taken right after Ammon splashed him back. He loved it. : )

Got him!

Chillin'

"Cheeeeese!"

You see him holding on with his feet? Ü

Poolside.

Testing the water.

More splashing.

Noah kept trying to catch the drops falling from his shorts.

My family is. adorable.

Experiment

It worked!! I really want my photos to be the focus of this blog. I wasn't happy with the largest size blogger allowed me to upload my photos so I googled "how to make larger photos in blogger" and found this tutorial. (i found a few others first but they were too complicated. this was was SUPER easy) Hooray for learning new things!!

griffin is 1!!

Last Friday, my little monkey turned 1! He absolutely LOVES monkeys. Aunt Joni got this monkey for Noah before he was ever born. Noah liked it but wasn't too interested in him. He just sat among the other stuffed animals. When Griffin came along, he instantly fell in love with this monkey. And it turns out, he loves all stuffed monkeys. So when it came time to think of a theme for Griffin's party (i LOVE having themes for parties), monkeys seemed like our only option. Not only does he love stuffed monkeys, he acts like a monkey too. He thinks he's a big kid and can do anything Noah does. He is a pretty determined little guy and is always climbing up the stairs and up on chairs. He climbs up on the train table and even in the bathtub.

He's got skills.

In keeping with the "monkey" theme, I saw a picture of these cupcakes on the world wide web and asked Gigi if she could help me make them. (turns out, she made all of them. i didn't help at all. thanks gigi!!)

Griffin enjoyed the cupcakes but honestly, he was more into the plate.

Who can blame him?

It's a pretty cool plate... : )

There's my happy baby!!

This was pre-party. A few raisins to tide him over.

Towards the end of the party, I glanced at Noah and he was sporting his gold medal and a sweet sweat band.

Right on!

(that toy was our gift to Griffin)

I love my boys!

All 3 of them!

The food.

Noah helped me make this birthday banner for his brother. He still asks me everyday if he can push buttons on the cricut.

Thanks to our friends and family who came to celebrate with us!

And to my baby boy.

I love you more than you'll ever know.

You make me laugh, you make me smile.

You've got me wrapped.

And I'm ok with that.

Wish we lived closer...

Sasha is a friend from WAY back in the day. We weren't in the same place very long. I moved away and so did she. She is one cool chica and was kind enough to make me an adorable new header for my blog. Thanks Sasha! It's so great that we found eachother in the world of blogs. I wish we lived closer... I just KNOW that we would have a lot of fun together.

putting eachother first...

We're having a birthday party for Griffin this Friday. The theme is monkeys and Ginger is going to help me make monkey cupcakes for the occasion. She was picking up the ingredients today and called to ask what flavor cake we wanted. I missed her call because we went to McDonald's with Ammon for lunch. When I called her back, I told her that Ammon prefers chocolate and I prefer either white or yellow but to go ahead and get chocolate. She laughed and said that when she couldn't get up with me, she called Ammon and asked him. He said that I prefer yellow and he prefers chocolate but to go ahead and get yellow. : ) Cute, huh? We both wanted the other to have their first choice. It's so nice to know that your eternal companion puts your desires ahead of their own.

I love you, Ammon.

Time with my man...

(picture taken during our engagement)

Last Saturday, Ammon and I got to spend the entire day together! We were scheduled to attend the temple and usually Gigi and Pap go down on Friday. They do their session that night, spend the night in a hotel and meet us at the temple at 10am on Saturday. Then they watch the kids while Ammon and I do our session. We eat lunch and then make the drive back home. I am so grateful that they have been willing to do this while I was nursing Griffin. They even did it when I was done nursing Griffin but not ready to leave him for the day. I decided that this month, I was ready to leave my children for the day and it was so nice to just be with my cute husband. Gigi came over at 7:30am so we could get to the temple. Griffin was awake and she waited for Noah to get up, fed them, dressed them, and took them up to the farm. Ammon and I actually got to talk in the car. We went to the temple and didn't worry about rushing out to meet the boys. We stopped at the mall and Target in Winston Salem to do a little window shopping. We were able to walk hand in hand which doesn't happen very often when you have 2 kids. We went out to eat and just ate. No cleaning up messes and making sure everyone was eating all their bites. We just ate... I love spending time with Ammon. He is so good to me and loves me A LOT. I definitely made a good choice when I nodded after he proposed. : )

Thanks again Gigi and Pap. I know the boys had a great time and were well taken care of. I know you love them almost as much as I do and I didn't worry about them at all while we were gone.

Pool Party with Cousins

Cortney is Ammon's cousin-in-law. Her parents have a beautiful home and a beautiful pool. She invited us all over while Joni was in town with her family. This pool really is amazing.

There is a shallow flat place for the little ones to play (bottom left). A hot tub with waterfall (right side). A really cool stone waterslide (top middle-ish). And it's beautifully landscaped too. Anyway, enough about the pool itself. Here are some pictures. Thanks Cortney! We had a blast!

Noah really liked playing in the hot tub. It wasn't heated while we were there so it was perfect for him. I really liked this picture and decided to play around with it a little.

Here it is with a technique called, TTV (Through The Viewfinder). I added a texture, cropped it to a square, played with the color a little bit and added a frame and embellishment. I love it!

What a stud.

In the shallow part, there was a fountain that was oh so much fun. Noah liked to plug it up.

Me and my white babies.

When Griffin was done, he snuggled up to Gigi for awhile. He's adorable. This is another picture that I really liked. Here's what I did with it.

Pretty baby.

This was Griffin's first pool experience. The man is a FISH! He was so excited to be in the water. He kept trying to put his face in. I think he would have sat on the bottom of the pool if we let him. We even put him in one of those baby floats. The kind with the seat and the innertube around him. Well we had to hold it up because he wanted to flip it over and get in the water so badly. Look at that face... that's one happy baby!

Remember the water slide in the first picture? Well, Noah said that he wanted to go down it! Aunt Joni was treading water in the deep end so she could catch him. I took him up and was shocked when he actually went down by himself! He went under for just a second before Joni grabbed him and swam him to the side of the pool. He did great! He said that he didn't like going under but he didn't whine or cry about it. I got out the video camera and asked him to do it again. He said ok. So we went up again but he wouldn't go by himself. :( I had to go down with him. Maybe I'll get that video off the Flip and post it...

Thanks again Cortney!!