Happy 1st Birthday Simon!

We celebrated Simon's first birthday on Sunday with a cowboy party and a bounce house, and today he is celebrating his "real birthday" in bed with croup and a round of steriod injections. Poor guy! At least he doesn't really have any concept of birthdays yet, because no one wants to spend their birthday sick and tired. His doctor said it's going around, and he was actually the third patient of the day to have it (and it was only 10:00 am!).

Good thing we had a ton of fun on Sunday! Thanks so much to everyone who came out to help us celebrate! We appreciate that so many people made the drive up here to party with us, and we loved sharing the day with all of you! XOXO

♥

These guys wore their mustaches ALL day long!

The girls loved the mustaches as much as the boys!

Everyone was loving the big bounce house! Granddad even captured this fun mid-leap shot of Sawyer!

(The only kiddo who didn't love the bounce house was the birthday boy!)

He loves his cousin Zane though!

Cake time! Hmmmm...not really so sure what to do with this.

The first tentative taste test

Hey! This stuff is pretty yummy!

Oh yeaaaah, VERY yummy! At this point I was wondering if red velvet was the most reasonable choice of cakes for the occasion. Oh well!

Everyone enjoyed rootbeer floats with their cupcakes

All cleaned up and ready for more playtime in the garden.

Happy birthday, Simon! We love you SO very much! ♥

First Day of School!

I'll update more after they get home and can share all about their first days with you! :)

A Little Bit of Baby Love

Six Flags Park Photos

Funny Faces!

On the rapids ride, right before Sutton and Mitch got drenched under a huge waterfall, and Sawyer and I got shot in the face by the water cannons!

Discovery Kingdom

Yesterday we dropped Simon off with my mom and  headed to Vallejo to take the big boys to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Mitch had taken them there last year with his sister and their cousin (while I was stuck at home with awful morning sickness), but this was my first time going with them. It was SO much fun! It was freezing cold and cloudy when we got there, but after lunch the clouds burned off, and the weather was a perfect 74 degrees. We spent the whole day there until we were all so exhausted we could hardly walk anymore! I agree with Sawyer when he said it was "the best and most fun day EVER!" Maybe next year Simon will be big enough to join us too!

Waiting for the tiger show to start

Safari Jeep ride

Frog Hopper ride

Playground

Playground Show Off ;)

Watching the dolphins swim

Butterfly Pavillion - the camouflauge on these huge butterflies look like owl's eyes!

Butterfly Pavillion (we were all soaking wet from the rapids water ride we had just been on!)

Checking out the penguins

But it wasn't all just kiddie rides and animals...

After we all rode The Cobra (a small rollercoaster), Sawyer decided that he was ready to tackle the Boomerang with his dad. He actually wanted to go on a couple of the other big rollercoasters, but this was the only thrill ride where he just met the minimum height requirement.

Sutton and I were happy to be waiting at the bottom...but if you zoom in on that track up there...

...you'll see my two brave daredevils in the very front car! Mitch said it was pretty funny because Sawyer really had no frame of reference as to what was going to happen. The cars get pulled to the very top of the left tower, released to go through a corkscrew and loop series, and then back to the top of the right tower where they're released to do the loops again backwards! 

Sawyer said it was a ton of fun, and he was grinning from ear-to-ear when he got off the ride...but later on he admitted that he's not going on any more rollercoasters until he's a little bit older! ♥

Chompers

Look at all those teeth! Not the most attractive picture, I realize, but I swear this is all I get these days! I can't take out my camera or my phone without Simon instantly attacking me and climbing all over me to get at it. So all the pictures I've been getting are these weird extreme close-ups of him making strange faces. At least I'll be able to remember that he had this many teeth at 10 months, right? Because naturally I haven't taken the time to fill out these kind of things in his baby book...the last kid always gets those things overlooked, right?

In other [but still about Simon] news...he is walking! Yay! He's been taking about 5-6 steps at a time mostly, but this morning he did one big 14-step venture in the kitchen. Last night he impressed his brothers by walking from his bedroom doorway and down the hallway to the bathroom door. He's well on his way to being a full-time walker very soon! I can't believe it's already time to start getting ready for his first birthday (and his cowboy birthday party!)!

4th of July {Photo Overload!}

This was the first 4th of July in years that we didn't have plans to get together with my family and spend the day in the pool. We could have done that, but since we had already had a long weekend (more photos from that to come!) we were excited to stay at home and let the day unfold naturally.  We pitched in with our neighbors and rented a waterslide bounce house, and the boys spent the earlier part of the {SUPER} hot day playing with their friends in the water.

 As night began to fall Simon fell fast asleep, and Mitch and Don set up the "Tripod of Doom" at the end of the cul de sac - 3 ladders with platforms in between for the fireworks. Between all of our neighbors we ended up with well over $600 worth of fireworks!

Sutton proudly wore his tie-dye firework shirt that he had made earlier in the day.  

 Sparkler Time!

 Mitch kicked back with an icy lemonade and took on sparkler-lighting duty. The kids had a blast writing their names on the street with the sparklers (am I the only one who never knew you could do that!?!), and since there were so many of us we had a TON of sparklers and snaps for the kids to pass the time until the big fireworks show.

 This kid (not one of mine!) thinks he's fireproof. No joke.

 If you've ever seen a fireworks display put on by my hubby, you know that it doesn't take long before one firework at a time turns into numerous fireworks in multiple locations!

 See that burst in the sky up top? Yeah, we had some fun illegal fireworks too, thanks to Jonathan. He set off a few bottle rockets and roman candles to add to the show.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that a street-level fireworks show can't be as exciting as the aerial ones!

Even lighting several fireworks at a time turned out to be too long of a show for my boys since we had so many to do, and they were pretty exhausted from their day of fun in the sun and bounce house. I took them home at 9:30...just in time to put on jammies and watch the McBean aerial show from the playroom window. I had such a great 4th of July just staying home and enjoying the company of family and neighbors! :)