Celebrating on the Water

We just returned from a fun long weekend at the lake. 

This guy was pumped to go up a day early to have extra time to play in the water. 

The whole fam took Friday off so we could enjoy a long weekend. Friday 

was spent playing in the water all day. 

And several boat rides too. This guy loves to take over the front of the boat. Maybe he has watched the old vhs of Titanic and is trying to recreate it, not sure. 

Isn't it sweet to have to force your child and hold him down to take a family picture. 

Oh just precious. 

He knows who to go to when he wants some snacks. KK always comes prepared. He starts sucking up to her and then sneakily sticks his hand in her bag to see what he can get a hold of. 

Snuggling with Uncle Pete before his pre-bedtime entertainment he provided all of us. There may be a video, but I think we have a country western dancer on our hands. 

Saturday morning I woke up to some fabulous birthday decorations by my sweet family. We are all about the health rating around here, so you can never be too careful in the kitchen. 

Hair protection is essential. 

We had some sweet friends come to play. The Bowens. Miller is three and so much fun. His mommy and daddy, Bo and Rebecca, are pretty cool too. Fulton enjoyed watching Miller jump off the side of the pier and I think it gave him a little courage to start preparing now for his Olympic diving career. 

The Warrens came too. This was little Chloe's first time to the lake. She did so good!

The three little amigos hanging out by the pool. 

We came in for lunch and a little surprise serenade of Happy Birthday, complete with candle blowing and all. 

 Nothing like two cakes for your birthday. A scrumptious oreo ice cream cake from Dairy Queen and the old standard you can never go wrong, cookie cake. Delish!

Sweet girls. The guys were good to man the kiddos and let us relax and chat. 

One last afternoon boat ride before calling it a day. Summer...please slow down. 

Dad's Day

We had a wonderful day yesterday celebrating Matt and my Dad.

Matt is an amazing father. He the spiritual leader of our home, always praying we 

will rear Fulton to know the Lord. 

He is kind and gentle, yet firm and stern when needed. He is disciplined and dedicated, focused and  determined. He is an incredible leader. I pray Fulton will model himself after his daddy. 

The family came over for dinner. We made chicken nachos. No serious food, just fun and laid back. However, what would you consider as serious foods?

And I am so grateful for my father. He is supportive and understanding, 

hardworking and loads of fun. 

Fulton kept us all entertained as usual. Happy Father's Day to Matt and to my dad!! 

I love you both!

The High Dive

We had a great day on the lake with the sweet family below. 

The Ness Family joined us for the day. Sweet Will and Fulton are about 3 months apart. 

They enjoyed a little dip in the pool together. 

The new pier finally arrived this week and dad had a little surprise included for us. A jump platform. Oh Matt is on cloud nine. He absolutely loves to jump off things and used to do it from the walkway of the old pier. Now, he can do it safely. So Emily and I decided to try it out after the guys did their flipping and showing off. Well, it was a little higher than we thought so we opted to do it together. Except Emily didn't actually jump... so I came back up and we tried again. Second time was a success. 

Pops even did it. We could not get Mom to try it. She refused... we will keep trying. 

Ellie is a water rat. This girl can swim and jump and swim and jump all day!!

Who wants these two to captain your next boat ride?

We enjoyed a good boat ride before lunch and these three did great. 

As long as there were snacks involved they were happy. 

We made a pit stop at the marina to feed the fish. Thankfully they actually threw the 

crackers in and didn't try to eat them first. 

We took a break from the sun for some grilling out. 

Look, another cake for the birthday boy. We like to celebrate all weekend around here. 

After some good naps by some of the little ones, we headed out for another afternoon boat ride. 

With snacks of course. Enjoyed the day with sweet people. 

Birthday Celebration

We went out to dinner last night to celebrate Matt's Birthday (which is today). 

He chose Japanese. We were all pumped. 

We have never taken Fulton to one of the Japanese restaurants where they cook it in front of you, so I thought this could either be really fun for him or he may freak out. 

Luckily, it was the first one. He loved it. He was so into it... loved the fire. Until the table behind us lit theirs up and that caught him by surprise a bit. He even showed his appreciation and 

clapped for the guy when it was over. 

It gets even better... he actually ate some vegetables. We are talking like several stalks of broccoli, a mushroom, carrots, and lots of rice. Maybe we should start cooking like this all the time in front of him and it will help him to eat his veggies. 

We loved having the whole fam there to celebrate Matt's Birthday. 

I guess he thought this was a pinata or something the way he kept punching the Japanese lanterns out front. Not that he has been to many parties with a pinata or anything. 

We went back to KK and Pops house to continue the celebration. 

Sister got us a cute little cookie cake. 

Matt enjoyed opening all of his goodies. I don't know if you can see that card, but at first it looks like a regular old light bulb, right?? But look a little closer. It's really an extra large man bending over and pulling up his boxers, see it now?? Sister is a mess with her cards. Pops had a pretty good one too this time and mom even refused to sign it because she said it was gross. It has something to do with eating burritos and lighting matches. 

We had another little morning celebration before daddy headed to work this morning. Happy 31st Birthday Matt!! I love this guy to the moon and back. Love spending celebrating his big day!!

It's Been A Week

It's been a fun week. Here are the highlights. 

Monday we started VBS at church. My friend Emily and I taught Kindergarten. Our class consisted of 7 boys... all boys. They were sweet, but they wore us out. Fulton was excited to go and made some pretty cool crafts about God's creation. 

Tuesday night we went the Ness's house for dinner. Fulton loves sweet Ellie. She just grabs his hand and pulls him around and shows him all the cool stuff she has. He eats it up. He loves sweet Will too, but he was already crashed out for the night. 

Wednesday was full of reading and reminiscing about old memories. Here's my slacker moment of the week. I finally, yes now that Fulton is nearing 2, finished a book from his first birthday party. It's not that the book took me that long, I just never sat down to do it. But that free book from shutterfly coupon I got at Target a few weeks ago really encouraged me to get on it. Anyways, back to the book... Fulton loves the book. He goes through each page pointing out everyone and saying their name. 

It's Matt's big birthday week and Thursday night we went to dinner with the fam to celebrate. 

More on that to come. 

And today is the big day!! Happy 31st Birthday to the man I love!!! I got up extra early before him this morning so I could decorate the house and the driveway with sidewalk chalk (Fulton sure has gotten me back in the spirit of chalk). It was a fun week!

Sweet Fellowship

Last Saturday we had some couples from our small group up to play at the lake. 

Mom, Fulton, and I went up early Friday morning to get a head start on the weekend. Fulton got to spend some time with Mema and wore her out pretty good. 

Saturday a few couples arrived for a fun day at the lake. This is Fulton with little David. This little buddy will be one soon and Fulton is excited to have more friends to run around with. 

A few of us went for a boat ride and it was an absolutely gorgeous day!

For some, it was their very first boat ride. Sweet! Write that in the baby book. 

Sweet Brock and Jill. 

The guys braved the water again. Not the ladies... we watched from the pier. Speaking of piers... look, it's ours upside down in the background. Hoping the new one will be in soon. 

There was good fellowship had by all. And don't forget good food....these two sure enjoyed their share.  This was the first time Fulton didn't sit in a highchair while eating a meal. Now I know why we strap him down to eat... he is a roamer. Just walk around, go back, pick up a bite, walk some more. Geeze. After lunch the guys spent the afternoon fishing. We had a great day with sweet friends!

In other recent events, we did some babysitting. Last week we kept Colt and Avery so their mommy and daddy could have a date night. These two are a mess together. They had the place destroyed in no time. It was a good taste of what two, even three kids would be like. Wowzers!!

Early Celebration

We got together with the fam Monday night for a little early Father's Day celebration for Dad. I will explain more. 

Fulton loves his "Tete"... eventually he may say Pete... but for now it's Tete. 

See, Dad's power stuff (whatever you call it) went out a couple of weeks ago. The battery that he switches around died, and he really needed to use it. We had already gotten him a new set, but he was itching to buy one. Mom was tired of talking him out of buying it, so we decided to celebrate a little early and give him his gift. 

He loved it... and Fulton loved the box. Please note that no one encouraged him to go in... it was a decision all on his own. 

He conned these two lovelies to get in his train tent with him.

They are way more fun than mommy and daddy. 

A quick snapshot before he was off to destroy something else. Happy early Father's Day Dad!!

Grilling Mood

With summer brings one thing to Matt's mind... grilling. He loves it. And I don't mind because it means less clean up in the kitchen. We were grilling hamburgers and corn on the cob and called our sweet friends for a last minute dinner. It's so great to have friends that can just walk down to your house in a second. 

Fulton has been really into baby Colt lately... he likes to stare at him and touch his toes. It probably freaks Colt out... but Fulton is just waiting for the day they can play because he needs some more guy friends in his life. 

These two cuties enjoyed playing in the pool with no water in it. It was so nice out and we were able to sit on the back porch and visit while they kept each other entertained. 

Then we found them like this. Pretending to be asleep. They are too funny together. 

We have also been enjoying some bubbles lately. Fulton scored two bubble guns in one weekend thanks to KK and Aunt Keri. He loves him some "ubbles" as he calls it.