Happy Birthday Ryan!

A few weeks ago Ryan had his 5th Birthday! So we celebrated with him at one of the local bouncy house places. It's amazing to see the difference a year can make at this type of place. Morgan was much braver and willing to do just about everything she could...and "all by myself" she kept reminding us!

Baseball Camp

Our church put on a 1 week baseball camp for 3-5 year olds this summer. Mitch was one of the volunteers organizing the camp so we went ahead and signed Will up for it. It was such a cute idea and all the kids really seemed to enjoy it!


Morgan and I sat on the sidelines most of the week which as you can imagine was hard for her. She wanted to be out there with her brother playing!

**Lots more pictures in the family albums!**

Catching up

I've been really bad about keeping this updated lately so here goes a quick review of the last few months.


Mitch started cutting Will's hair himself about a year ago but I never seemed to get a picture until recently.

August was a big month for Mitch since he turned 40! I surprised him with a trip to Lake Tahoe and had a few of his friends go with us. We had such a great time!

I took the kids to the zoo with the Apke family. As usual the kids loved all the animals but the train ride was their favorite part.

Girls Week

Sarah and her mom came in town in the middle of July for our annual get together. As usual, it was fun and filled with chaos with 8 kids total between Deb, Sarah, and I. There would have been 9 but Sarah left her son at home. It was a great visit and we all enjoyed meeting Sarah's new precious daughter Macy. It was a busy 4 days that included shopping, a splash park, the zoo, and lots of laughter!

**Lots more pictures from the weekend in our Family Albums!**

Myrtle Beach

Vacation time!! We packed up and met a lot of my family down in Myrtle Beach. We had two condos and my sister's family and ours split one and my parents and Steve's family split the other. Overall the vacation was one of my favorite! We managed to take our first vacation in three years that didn't end up in a trip to an urgent care or an ER so that was a HUGE plus for us!

This year the kids really seemed to enjoy the beach. We started each day at the beach and then would end up at the pool shortly before lunch. Neither of them would really swim in the ocean but at least this year they would run in and out of the shallow waves and they loved digging and playing in the sand!



We also did some other fun activities including a dolphin cruise, putt-putt, lots of ice cream, and even some carnival rides!

I think Will's favorite part of the whole trip was the night we at dinner at Medieval Times. It's an 11th Century setting so you eat a four course dinner without silverware. While you are eating you watch 6 different knights compete in a tournament. It was pretty cool to watch them fight with their swords and lances and all the other weapons. Will didn't eat a single thing because he was so caught up in the show!

**Tons more pictures in the Family Albums. There is also another post below.**

Family

Three weeks ago we were lucky enough to have Nanny, Papa, and Julianne come visit! The kids were beyond excited to see everyone! We did a lot of playing outside which meant a lot of water guns and sprinklers since it was pretty hot.

We also decided to watch the Memorial Day Parade in our little "downtown" and ended up meeting up with our neighbors.

The rest of the visit was spent enjoying yummy treats and creating lots of fun at home. I'm sure Will and Morgan wore everyone out but they had such a great time and were so sad to see them all go!

**There are a few additional pictures in the Family Albums.

Cavity Creeps

Will had his first dentist appointment this morning and he did fantastic!! I had to get my cleaned first so he patiently sat on the floor of the room and played with his men that he brought. At one point Dr. Rotella even played "bad guys and good guys" with him!!

I forgot my camera so these were taken on my cell phone and don't have the best quality. He sat so well for them, I was so proud of him!

Kings Island

For the third year in a row our office has had an Associate Appreciation Day at Kings Island. It's a really nice perk and the kids are getting old enough to have a great time in the kiddy land. This year my sister and Nathan came as our guests and we met up with the Lupinetti's. It was a fantastic day and the kids loved having someone else to ride all the rides with!


One of Will's favorites! He now asks us all the time if he can ride in a real airplane someday.

You have to look close but this is the miniature roller coaster that Will and Mitch rode. Later in the day we tried to ride the next sized roller coaster but Will was too short by about 1/8 of an inch and they wouldn't let him do it. He tried so hard to stand on his tippy toes and convince the ride attendant that he was tall enough that it broke my heart when she still said no!

Such concentration for such little girls! Hopefully they'll be this cautious when they are driving real cars some day!

Unfortunately Morgan was too short to ride very many rides but the ones that she could ride she would just squeal in delight. She is fearless!