great friends

So many of our great friends made long drives and big efforts to see us while we were in Iowa.  It never fails, we always seem to have a yard full of kiddos running around during our stay and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Jen and her adorable little Maggie and Max came for a fun visit!

Grant playing at the pool with his friend, Abbie

Kate the Great and her two little guys also paid a visit, Daniel and Jude!

This just makes me laugh, love you Bear...and thanks Frank for being willing to get really, really sticky each night ;)

 The Guild and Lien families came and it wouldn't be the same without a few park adventures with all six of our boys!

L to R: Jonathan, Parker, Caleb, Grant, Jacob and Josh

Sarah, Carla and I with our sweet little guys!

We love you all and can't thank you enough!

xoxo

June, you have been a blur!

We had a grand time visiting Grandpa and Grandma O in Iowa this month!  It was a wonderful trip with a lot of family time and time spent with friends.  We especially loved that it is Summer in the Midwest right now and we are still waiting for it to arrive in the Pacific Northwest!

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for a wonderful time in the old GC!

The boys always love the days Uncle Mark is visiting too!

Grant LOVED playing with Abbie, next door neighbor to Gpa and Gma O!  She was a really great sport and played with Grant endlessly while we were there.  He wanted to play hide-n-seek over and over and over again and she obliged, what a very kind and sweet little girl!

Two tan little bears, watching a movie together and eating popcorn and M&M's, I think Grant was in love at this point, haha!

We all had a lot of fun visiting a local dairy and the boys seemed pretty taken with it all.  The ice cream and homemade butter with crackers at the end of the tour were definite highlights for them!

I love this picture of Parker, he was so tickled to be sticking his head here all by himself, haha!

Kind of random but their mascot at the dairy is the Wallaby.  Grant enjoyed getting to feed one of them with the owner!

Yes, we all "got" to milk a cow.  This experience turned out to be quite memorable for Grant because for the remainder of our trip he wouldn't drink any milk.  He kept asking if it was dairy milk or from the store...pretty sure he thought the cows were peeing milk and he decided it was a bad idea to drink it anymore!  Thankfully, he's back to drinking milk again ;)

This is a four hour old calf, Grant loved it while Parker thought otherwise and kept his distance...too big to be a dog so he wasn't too keen!

My dear friend, Jamie, came with her adorable little ones, Aly and Evan, for a fun morning visit.  Thanks Jamie for taking the time and making the trip to see us, I loved catching up with you again!! 

the boys

Parker decided for a few weeks to go on strike, he decided he would not sit in a shopping cart and it didn't matter what a person did to entice him, he would scream, yes, scream at the top of his lungs in protest and would not stop until he was comfortably placed on your hip.  He would also not walk along, but rather all 25 pounds of him insisted on being carried, yes, even through Costco.  He may have won a few of the battles (or all of them) but I have finally won the war.  Here is our first successful outing to the grocery store, in a very long time, so I snapped a quick photo.

(Grant, for the thousandth time, will you PLEASE stop chewing on dog-dog!)

Any glimpse of the sun shining and we frequently head to the park, yes, it STILL rains here in June (a lot!)!

Free slushy day at 7Eleven, the boys were in heaven!

A few friends roasting marshmallows on Memorial Day

Lastly, our friend, Rossi, enjoyed a morning at the zoo with us this week, the boys had a blast!

Gator boy

Parker loved having Great-Grandma Billie and Grandma and Grandpa R come down for a quick visit!

The Bear was still waking up from his nap here

Grant was thrilled (understatement of the year!) to find this fire engine in the back of their truck as one of his final birthday presents!  I swear his birthday lasted the entire month of May this year!

Parker is a very focused colorer, paying close attention to where the paper is and how to hold his crayon.

And here Grant is just a few days later having upgraded from the poor little fire engine that only lasted a few hours before it would no longer drive forward but rather only in reverse?!  Needless to say he LOVES his Gator and so do all of his little buddies!

Parker prefers the old fashioned way...

The Gator has proven to be new motivation in Grant helping with yard work! Ha!

phone photos

Hmmm, Day 1 Disney, haven't even stepped foot into the park

Parker liked sharing Grandpa O's wheels!

You can only see Grant's hair sitting next to me, third row from the front, on Space Mountain, and Grandma O directly behind him.  He was such a champ and wanted to go on ALL of the rides that he was tall enough for...except for the Haunted House, too scary for his liking so we avoided it!  His favorite ride was Thunder Mountain, he rode it 5 or 6 times in one day!

Grant fell asleep waiting for us to finish a ride, poor buddy was TIRED!

Grandpa R and Aunt Lindsey being kids on Splash Mountain, hmmm, who was having the most fun here?!

 Can you guess what flavors of ice cream he had in his cone?

My cousin, TJ and partner, Todd, joined us on our last day and had a blast acting like kids with us!

Disney fun

Our second day we met up with the rest of the family for more Disney fun!

grant, olivia and grandma R

It looks like Francesca finally got her wish, holding hands with Parker and he seemed to tolerate it this time!

All 5 of the cousins, olivia, grant, jake, parker and francesca

Grandpa was the only adult that could go on the teacups with the kiddos without getting sick!  Thanks Grandpa R!

 Disneyland agreed with Parker Bear, even when he couldn't go on all of the rides!

Hmm, it seemed like such a good idea at first....

Our last morning we were spoiled by Grandpa and Grandma R to a character breakfast celebrating Grant and Jake's May birthdays!  Grant wasn't having ANY of it until Grandma O miraculously convinced him to join us for this group picture...."puppets," as he calls them, are NOT one of Grant's favorite things!

The May birthday boys!

We had a wonderful trip and can't thank Grandpa and Grandma R enough for making it happen.  The boys adore spending time with all of our extended family and this was no exception!  It was a special treat to have both sets of Grandparents with to both help and play with us all!  Memories we will always treasure.

We love you!

Frank, Abby, Grant and Parker