Camping

We went camping with our friends, Tracy and Tag and their daughter Lily to Wellington Lake. We were just off the lake, but it was a quick walk to it. Jake loved the dirt, was fascinated with the fire, which I'm not sure he ever quite understood that it was dangerous. Just before bedtime. Mental note for the future: we will never share our air mattress, or any bed for that matter, with Jake. What a bed hog! We all ended up sleeping the width of the mattress to have more room and by morning, I was kicked out of my sleeping bag and sleeping spot and so Wesley shared his with me, leaving Jake with my sleeping bag and 3/4 of the bed. Needless to say, neither of us got much sleep that night, but Jake was very well rested! Don't let this sweet face fool you
Breakfast donuts. He's hanging out by Lily's princess tent.
Tag and Lily eating/making breakfast. They made a really yummy breakfast with their dutch oven.
The lake was so pretty. The only down side was as we were walking on the shore, a little boy was telling us how he had found a leech in the lake. No, there was not any swimming for any of us.

Slumber Party

Most of you who know me, know that I still haven't adjusted to Wesley going out of town. I have always, (and am sure always will) hate it when he goes out of town. Thankfully, my friend Tracy's husband was out of town the same time as Wesley and so we had a sleepover. Who says you can't have slumber parties when you grow up? We had a blast. We took our kids to Red Robin for dinner. Which I have decided is the best restaurant for families. The noise volume is so loud that you never have to worry if your child gets too loud. Tracy and her girl Lily.
Morning hair and faces
Tracy found a cute recipe from her friend where you bake pancakes in muffin tins and they become cute cups. We put strawberries and cool whip. They were really yummy.

My Little Mozart

You've seen him dance, but he is quite the pianist as well. What a natural.

Summer Fun

We've had a great summer so far. The heat has been a bit much but we have found some fun indoor activities to occupy Jake. We went to the Wildlife Experience nearby with some friends, Becky and Rachel and their kids. It had mini golf which the kids loved. The kids dressed up in fun outfits. It was so cute. There's Maya, Bennett, Ellery and Hayley. I didn't even try to put Jake into a costume, though I was tempted.
Since it's been so warm, we don't go out much unless there's water involved. Jake loves playing in water and we went to Tracy's house so Jake could play with her daughter Lily in her pool. This is Jake "sampling" Lily's popsicle.

It's kind of strange, but I love experimenting with food in the summer, and detest cooking in the winter. Probably because grilling is involved so much in the summer, which is Wesley's job. I love trying new recipes in the summer and this one was a hit. For any of you who've seen Robin Miller on Food Network, she makes multiple meals out of the same meat used in previous meals. This week was roast. So we had roast, asian beef salad another night, tacos and empanadas. The empanadas tasted pretty good b/c we used the leftover sauce from the roast. The presentation of this avocado dish looked way better than it tasted. It just called for lime juice and cilantro. I must have over done it with the lime juice, but it looks pretty!

And this is where you will always find Jake if Wesley is around... right by his side.
Wesley has had a few chances to go hiking this summer. This time was with our friend, Mike, they hiked a 14er. Wesley said it was fun but challenging. Here's a picture of them at the top with the gorgeous view. I'm glad I got to experience the view without having to do the hike!

My cute hubby

We've been trying to be more consistent with family nights on Mondays. It's been hard since Jake is still so young. But we decided to have a picnic at the park one night and it was a success! I got all the food ready, we ate and then my 2 boys went off to play. They are so cute playing together.
Here they are holding hands about to go down the slide.
Jake's favorite summer fruit is watermelon. We have to strip him down to his shorts b/c he makes such a mess and eats so much of it. But this picture shows his pure enjoyment.

We trade off dinner every Sunday with Clint and Kara. This particular week was at our house. Ella really is a natural in the car.
Jake is pretty clingy to us, BUT he does a few other favorites, and that's Clint and the boys. He gets so excited when he sees Clint, David or Max. David is Jake's favorite play friend.
I just thought this was cute!

Fourth Of July

We had a great 4th of July this year. We started out by taking a hike with Clint and Kara's family (Wesley's brother). It was a lot of fun, Jake loves being outdoors and was such a good sport!

Daddy and Jake on the hike. He loves the new carrier backpack we got for him, but I think he'd love anything that had him attached to daddy. He's Wesley's #1 fan!

We went to a fireworks show nearby. They had the armed forces band playing all sorts of fun music. Aside from patriotic songs, they played Mama Mia, Beauty and the Beast and Jivin' music. The singers were great. Jake was dancing his heart out! He was quite the entertainment in our section.

The fireworks show was great! It lasted for what seemed like forever. I can't say whether Jacob loved it or not but he was quite content sleeping...

Cleaning Housewife

I am in the process of re-evaluating my cleaning supplies. Most of the ones I buy are very convenient, for example, I use the disposable pledge wipes, flushable scrubbing bubbles wipes, flushable toilet scrub brush,etc. Mostly everything disposable or flushable. But, last week as I spent 2 entire days deep cleaning my house, I wondered if there were better products that I just don't know about. Can any of you help? If there is any cleaning product you swear by or love to use, please let me know. I'd love to enjoy cleaning more and I think with some new and improved products, I just might want to clean more... or not, but it'd be nice to have the good stuff just in case! Thanks for your help!

Future "So You Think You Can Dance" Star

By far, dancing is Jake's favorite thing to do. He dances to any and every music, including church music. We'll be sitting in the pew at church and he'll dance to the hymns, it's really cute and funny. We were watching one of the morning shows today and Miley Cirus was on, he immediately busted out in dance. I've been keeping up with 'So you think you Can Dance' this season and I have so say that I think we have a future star in our midst!

Overly Excited Jacob

All I can say is that Jacob can get REALLY excited at times, and I'm so happy I got it on video. Funny how he's completely alone and able to entertain himself. This is from Memorial Day weekend at grandma and grandpa Edwards house. He loves being outdoors and it shows.

Jacob's 1 year pictures

My sweet baby isn't a baby anymore. I keep saying that, but it is becoming more and more true...I love every new stage, but can't believe a year has gone by and he's this big already!

Trip to Austin

There was an extended family reunion on my side last week and we thought we'd go and participate. Jeremy (my brother ) and his family live in Austin and we hadn't visited them there yet so it was especially fun to go. This wasn't a typical reunion, it was with people I've never actually met before. But it was a lot of fun to meet some distant cousins and spend time with them. Our reunion had bingo, which was a lot of fun and consisted of cash prizes of which I did not win any. And there was an auction which was one of the funnest things I've participated in. We went to a relative's ranch and they had singing, music, food, swings, animals, horseshoes, etc. Aside from the heat, we had a great time. Here's Jake and Wes in the pool

Here's Brooke (Jeremy's wife) and my nephew Caden

My niece Ashlyn with her super smile!
At the ranch on the hammocks
Momma Vick
Jake and I... this is one of the only times Jake let me hold him that weekend, and it's pretty much because I bribed him with a popsicle. I definitely am second in rank to daddy.

Biking and Mowing

We were given a bike trailer recently from someone at church and we tried it out a couple of weeks ago. Jake has been extremely clingy to Wesley the past few weeks and here's an example of it. While Wesley was checking the tires on the bikes, Jake had to make sure he was right by his side with one hand on Wesley's shoulder. He's very supportive of everything daddy does. Here's the bike trailer. Jake had a great time in it. This is yet another goal that we want to do more of from now on.
Sometimes if I have a meeting or am running errands, Wesley will put Jake in the backpack and mow the lawn. Jake loves it. As long as he's by daddy's side, he could care less as to what he's doing. They really are a cute pair!

Hiking at Castlewood Canyon

We have decided now that the weather is beautiful and warm, to start hiking every Saturday morning to a different place. Not that that's happened, it's a great goal for us this summer. We went to Castlewood Canyon with our friends, the Nelsons. It was a lot of fun and it is such a gorgeous area. Jake on Wesley's shoulders
We walked down a bunch of steps that led to a river

Here's Becky and Mike Nelson with their 3 kids.