July

July started with our annual trip to the lake with the Palmatier side of the family.  What a wonderful week.  Noah's birthday was that week so we got to celebrate at the beach again and of course there was 4th of July in there as well.  Bill's niece and her boyfriend joined us for a few days which was really fun, too!

Papa, Noah, Kylie and I came a day earlier than Grammy, Leah and Sukha (Waylon and Bill had to work some so they came halfway through the week) so we went straight to the beach when we got there.

 

Do you think we had enough stuff for just the 4 of us!?

Cuties on the beach

 Some fun with balloons....

Kayaking with Papa...

The night before Noah's birthday, I decorated the house a bit so he was excited when he woke up...

Last night as a 5 year old!!!

So excited in the morning.  :-)

Look!  Two hands!

A present from Grammy and Papa - a Harry Potter wand!

Beach time with my (pregnant!) dit

 The afternoon was a little overcast so we decided to have a water balloon fight on the porch!  :-)

Since Daddy had to work and couldn't be with us on Noah's birthday, we did Facetime with him while Noah opened his presents from us.  :-)

Family picture!  :-)

Noah was so excited to get a DS game that he asked for - Luigi's Mansion

So happy!

We decorated for dinner

Even Sukha got in the spirit!

More presents!

Nana and Grandad called to wish Noah happy birthday right as we were getting ready to sing, so they joined us over the phone!  :-)

Big wish before blowing out the candle

Kylie has been on us about getting a dog.  We are still trying to put her off but our days are probably dwindling.  We still aren't sure whether time with Sukha helps by giving her a dog fix or hurts by making her want one more!!  :-)  Noah wants a dog too but Kylie is much more relentless about it.  Funny since she was terrified of dogs for the first few years of her life!

Waylon arrived that night and Sukha did his best to try to get Waylon to want a dog also -- he still has some work to do there, although I know Waylon did enjoy playing with him!  :-)

Waylon brought along a little something from Nana and Grandaddy - Noah was very excited about the Ninjago clock he picked out...

 

Beach time with Grammy

We had our annual 4th of July parade and this year instead of decorating their bikes, Papa had the idea to decorate a kayak!  Great idea cause we won for the most unique float in the parade!  :-)

Sukha got in on the action again!

Dinnertime on 4th of July!

Bill's niece Sarah and her boyfriend with Leah and Bill

Sharing ice cream with Papa

Sweet Sukha!!!!

4th of July isn't over without sparklers!

"Reading" to Papa (the teaserhead)  :-)

Snuggles for Sukha

No lake trip is complete without a trip to the marina to feed the fish!

I think Noah crashed this party - he's just getting them ready for parenthood.  :-)

Grammy and Papa!

On the way back, the kids fell asleep and they slept on the boat for about an hour - even after we got back and docked.  I just hung out on the boat and read while they slept.  Leah and Bill kayaked and paddle-boarded and Sukha swam his little behind off!!!

So cute!

You can see Sukha swimming to the left of Leah and Bill here

A little break for Sukha

The lake is so much fun!!!

 What a wonderful week!  Always fun to be able to spend that much time with family on vacation!

One last pic from the lake - in the bath!

That following week, I started my new job and it went so well!!  I'm so happy with my choice even a few months later.  Here are just some cute pictures from the following week...

I found this is Noah's school stuff from Kindergarten - a note to Aunt Leah.  So cute!  :-)

So sweet

Kylie wearing my shoes.  :-)

 The following Saturday was Noah's 'friend' birthday party at the bowling alley.  It was a hit  Noah had a blast and I think his friends did as well.

Love love love this picture

Getting instructions

Silly cousins!

All Noah's friends!

So happy  :-)

Opening presents

 Then games!!!

This was a game where it looked like you were on a roller coaster and the chairs moved and you could fee air.  All the kids liked it but Kylie LOVED it!

That night, the kids stayed up a little late on Saturday so I made them rest on Sunday before going over to Nana and Grandad's to celebrate Waylon's birthday - since we'd been out of town and had so many things going on in early July, we had to celebrate a litlte late.  This is how I found them both after a few minutes....

All my cuties!!

Happy Belated Birthday to Waylon!

The gym behind us opened mid-July and we joined.  I've been doing really well with going pretty regularly - those of you who know me know this is highly unusual for me so I'm happy about that!  After I got home from the gym one night that week, I found Waylon painting Kylie's fingernails and toenails.  What a good daddy!!  :-)

The following weekend, we left for a trip to Myrtle Beach with a bunch of neighbors - we had 6 families and I think 34 people!  Crazy.  As soon as we arrived, we met them all for lunch at Broadway at the Beach.

All the kids

All the adults

After dinner, we let the kids do a trampoline jump - they had so much fun and I was surprised Kylie did as well as she did!

Happy girl!

Kylie jumping

Noah's turn!

Noah on the right and Ben on the left!  :-)

So sleepy at the end of the night  :-)

The next day, the kids were so excited to be on the beach.  I was a little stressed cause the beach was so crowded and I wasn't quite sure how they were going to do in the ocean but things settled in after a while.

Boogie boarding!

Snack time with Ben

Throwing the football with Daddy

Pool time with Ben and Liz

Happy Jonah!

 Friday night, we had dinner at House of Blues - they had a band afterwards and the kids loved dancing!

Silly boys!

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While we were there, we got a text from Grammy and Papa saying they were in Raleigh looking at some condos!  They went to see our new patio and sent us this picture from our house!!  Too funny....

Noah fell asleep with his hand in a doritos bag on Saturday!!  :-)

 Saturday night was dinner at Dick's Last Resort.

 The adults had fun sharing these huge margaritas...  :-)

Our whole crew!  Wow.

 Since it was our last night, we went back to the beach to play and did sparklers after the sun went down.  So fun!

Before we left town on Sunday, we had told the kids we'd do something but it was too overcast for the pool or beach so we went to play putt putt!  Another fabulous trip!

When we got back, we finally got the finishing touches put on our room and we are so happy with the result!!

The following weekend, we had a party at our house for our birthdays.  I don't have many pictures of the party because we were too busy having fun but I have two....

Some of our neighbors made this for us!  So cute!

Silly girls!

Noah and Kylie spent the night with Nana and Grandad's house that night

 Sunday we went to Kai's 2nd birthday party at the pool.  More fun!

That night was the night before 1st grade for Noah!!  The previous week, we had meet the teacher and found out that Noah got Ms. Carter - she just happened to be Teacher of the Year last year so we were pretty thrilled about that!  She gave the kids a little note and some 'fairy dust' to sprinkle under their pillows then night before the first day to ease the jitters.  He was very excited.

Noah was very excited about his first day!  I could tell he was a tad nervous once we got to the school but I know it didn't last long!!  He's doing so great and has already learned so much!

Since we dropped him off the first day, had to get a 'getting on the bus' picture the second day  :-)

A wonderful July!  Fun vacations, back to work for me, school starting for Noah!

One last cutie patootie picture of Jonah!  :-)