Watermelon!

I don't typically do photo-only blog posts since I'm so active on Facebook and post a lot of pictures on there.  However, we took this pictures yesterday when Dakota was here and they just turned out so darn cute!

Mall Ratz

Yesterday was our weekly get-together with Jen and Dakota.  We spent the morning at our house and then after AM naps and lunch, we headed to the Oak Park Mall.  We were wanting to get out of the house, but it was too hot to do anything outdoors, so we thought we'd go walk around and let the kids play in the play area.  The play area there is good for non-walkers....lots of things to crawl through or climb on.  The kids seemed to have a fun time.  We'll have to keep this in mind this winter when it's too cold to do anything else!

Picnic in the Park!

As you all well know, I'm really close with my sister-in-law Jen.  I liked her from the beginning and always teased Rory that she was "too good for him".

We were both pregnant together and had our babies within a month of each other.  We have gotten the cousins together (for the most part) on a weekly basis since they were born.  I think it started out as Jen wanting to help me out as much as she could, knowing that three babies was kind of a lot of work.  But then it just sort of turned into a tradition that I think we both really enjoy.  It's no longer something I physically need but I definitely count on it to help recharge my sanity each week.  I love watching the boys interact with Dakota and honestly, it's just nice to have a day with another grown up in the house to talk to!

Jen and I have tackled a lot with four babies.  We have:

• Gone to doctor's appointments together 
• Taken our four to the St. Patty's Day parade in Lawrence.  This trip included managing four 8 month olds in a packed bar (as it was the only place we could fit my giant stroller in to go eat lunch).
• Gone to the zoo a number of times
• Visited Deanna Rose a couple times
• Gone to the park
• Scrambled around at "Monkey Bizness"
• Participated in Kindermusik together

Most recently, we met up at Leawood City Park and had a picnic.  I was a little skeptical about how a picnic would go with four 1 year olds, but it ended up being lots of fun.  Granted, more of their lunch ended up on the picnic blanket than in their bellies, but what can you do?  It was a beautiful lower 80's day...very atypical for an August afternoon in Kansas.  We spent a couple hours just hanging out on the blanket in the shade, watching Dakota make friends with all the little kids playing on the playground.  Before we left, we let the little ones crawl around on the playground and took some pictures.  As always, it was a good time.  We'll certainly have to do it again!

Living Room Kindermusik

I have to say, I have some pretty cool people in my family.  My cousin Lindsay is a music teacher in Lawrence.  She is very musically talented and quite frankly is just a fun person.  She approached me about a month ago and informed me that she used to do Kindermusik classes for toddlers and that she'd love to come do a class at my house with the boys and a few of their friends.  I was thrilled at this idea!  So, I contacted a few people I knew to see if they were interested.  A lot of my teacher friends were already going back to work, but I was able to find three adorable little girls and their mommies to come over to make music with us! One of them was my sister-in-law Jen and niece Dakota who comes over just about every week. Then I also invited Amy, a girl I went to high school with.  Her daughter is 18 months old and is just darling.  And Kimberly and her daughter Lillian came as well.  Kimberly is in my Mommies group.  Lil is 16 months and is just adorable.

Everyone came over around 9:00 AM and we had about 45 minutes of singing, drumming, playing with scarves, dancing...you name it.  The kids had so much fun banging on the instruments and making music.  It was cuteness overload.  I had so much fun and am so grateful to my cousin for doing this.  I would love to be able to set something like this up again sometime!

Dakota's First Birthday

My sweet little niece and goddaughter Dakota turned one on August 7th.  Her Mickey Mouse theme birthday was the weekend before at the Broswick's house in Lee's Summit.  As always, it was fun getting the boys together with their cousin.  I think they had more fun playing with the tissue paper from Dakota's gifts than they did at their own party.  It was pretty cute.  

Dakota, of course, did not disappoint when it came to the cake smash.  She was covered head to toe afterwards.

We got her a cute little shopping cart but it turned out she got two of them.  So we ended up exchanging her gift for a pink Cozy Coupe!  From what I hear, she loves it!

Happy Birthday to this spunky little girl.  It's been so much fun watching her grow up this past year!

Lunch before all the fun! 

The aftermath

Lucas and Ollie playing with the water table