Thursday, July 26, 2012

This Summer Week


Shane gave me an incredible gift this past weekend.  He took the three big kids out on Saturday evening and let me have some time at home with Blaise to get a few projects done.  I felt incredibly refreshed when they got home.  It was wonderful.  Shane took Silas, Simeon, and Lieren out for pizza then went to Target and Petsmart.  They had a great time and all three children told me that seeing the animals was their favorite part.

Shane had taken Silas to a high school swim party on Friday night and I thought that night how different it was to just have three children at home.  On Saturday I really felt the difference!

Then on Monday Shane kept all four children at home by himself while I went to work for a few hours.  He finished lunch and put the three little ones down for naps after giving Blaise a bottle.  He's super-dad!

I had taken our four on a walk Sunday night, which is when I took these pictures.  One day I'll look back and remember how we made it all happen.  And I'll probably take a deep breath, sigh, and part of me will wish we had these days back.


We are in the midst of a busy week.  Silas is finishing up swim lessons today (it has been a two-week session) and today is also the last day of VBS.  It has been a great week.  I looked ahead to this week all summer wondering how it would go with so much activity, late nights, and a 3 month old.  We are tired for sure, but I am loving it.  I kind of felt like this week would make it feel like summer was coming to an end.  We'll see about that.  I think we have a few hot days left!

Friday, July 20, 2012

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Four Birthdays

Silas turned four while we were on vacation.  I'm sure it was hard for him to figure it all out because we were not at home, did not have a cake or sing on his actual birthday, and ended up having four celebrations with different groups of family and friends.  It felt like the birthday that would never end!  But it was super fun for him and we loved getting to share it with some of the most important people in our lives.

There was this one extra cute thing that happened along the way.  On Silas' birthday, we visited with three different sets of friends.  About dinner time we were between places and decided to go ahead and stop for dinner.  We were in the van and Shane called back to Silas asking him if there were any place he would want to eat that would be special for his birthday.  After a long pause he said, "Chick-fil-a?!?"  We died laughing cause that was exactly where we were headed!  He is Shane's son, after all.




We started the birthday celebrating right after we left Branson.  We spent that night with our friends Daniel and Denise.  Denise was thoughtful enough to have cupcakes ready and even a candle...



We four adults stayed up late into the night talking and catching up.  And of course it was great for them to meet our Blaise...



The next day we made a stop at my cousin Mindy's home to visit with her family and my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Rob.  Aunt Sharon had brought Fourth of July cupcakes so we stuck some candles on them and had a party...



We had such a good visit there; wish it could have been longer!



We then drove on to Bolivar to stay with our good friends, the Bachmans.  We spent time with them and many of these same people when we visited a little over a year ago, which I documented here.  Silas, the Bachman's Scarlett, and the Garber's Ellen all have birthdays within days of each other.  So we had a little shindig on the 4th of July.  The kids played in the water and threw water balloons and generally had a great time...




And as we seem to do every time we are together, at some point in the evening someone looks around and wonders out loud what we would have thought if we had known in college that this would be life in 10 years...

Crazy!  Especially when you turn a certain two-year-old loose on the blue icing...




We came home the next day, and had a couple days to get slightly settled back in before Silas' party on Friday evening.  It was a great night!  We rented out the pool for an hour so had dinner and cake and opened presents in the park right by the pool then all went swimming afterwards.  It was HOT that night so was perfect for swimming.

Silas loves green and loves cats so wanted a green cat cake.  As I've said before, who really knows the mind of a preschooler?!?











I only took one picture at the pool.  My friend Trisha took a bunch, though, so I need to get them from her.  This was a few of the boys waiting for the lifeguards to tell them they could get in.  They swam for a bit then it wasn't long till they transitioned to the big slides and stayed there the rest of the night.


Such a sweet week celebrating Silas!  It was a whirlwind but full of fun moments, dear friends, and lots of memories.

Thursday, July 12, 2012