Beach

 We've made it to the beach twice this summer - we're doing pretty good I'd say :)  Its funny how we live here and dont really go to the beach much in the summer. I am not a fan of the beach in the summer. The sand is hot. The kids dont want to walk across the hot sand - dont blame them - and its such an effort to drag everything and everyone out to the beach just for an hour before everyone is ready to leave. I had a friend go to the beach yesterday with her kids and she sent me a text saying "i'm not doing that again anytime soon!" so at least its not just me.  Maybe when the kids get older it will get easier.Take me to the beach in the fall/winter and I could be there all day.  But the kids love it and I love seeing how much fun they have. 

 The boys like to see how much sand they can bring home with them! 

 Sweet baby girl loves the beach.  She runs right for the water and the bigger the wave the better. 

 We are going tomorrow night for a friends birthday party at the beach so as much as I complain about it, its still fun to go. 

Weekend at the farm

 We spent last weekend at the farm.  All the siblings but the wandering hokies. I forgot my camera so these are from the rest of the family.  It was a great, relaxing weekend. 

 

 

Happy Birthday Joel

Today is Joel's birthday.  Sweet honey badger turns 4. 

This boy is something else.  He is definitely a honey badger through and through but also has a sweet side to him that is so precious.  We do admire how determined/stubborn he is and have no fear of Joel sucumbing to any sort of peer pressure whatsoever.  He wont budge from what he does/does not want to do.  So we're learning how to teach him to use that for good.  It also brings me to my knees daily because I have no idea how to parent him.  My mom once said raising kids requires lots of prayer.  And trying to figure out what this boy needs requires lots of prayer. But oh how he melts my heart.  He loves to be snuggle buddies and just come up and randomly give me kisses. And he gets so excited about just the littest things. Its been so fun having Joel the past 4 years. Oh so sweet. Joel, you add so much joy and good to our family.

Joel has been talking about his birthday party for months now and its funny but when he would get mad at me say "I'm not inviting you to my birthday party"  Thats when you knew he was upset with you or didnt like what you were saying :) 

I sat next to the Kona Ice's wife the other swim meet and started talking to her and on the way home thought about having him over for a birthday party.  We looked into it and the more Brent and I talked about it the more we wanted snow cones on a hot summer day :) so we booked the snow cone truck to come to a park near our house.  And during the week its even cheaper - sold!  So it wasn't too hard to get Joel on board!  So we had a playdate party at a park in our neighborhood.  Although I'm afraid now when the kids want to bike to that park that they will always want the kona ice truck to come!

And I think it was a hit!  The kids got to add their own amount of syrup to the ice.  It was fun to see who had more syrup or more ice in their cups.  My boys snow cone philosphy is a little ice/lots of syrup :)

Brent crashed the mommy/kid party for his own snow cone and then headed to work after :)

He loved it and I'm so glad. I hope its the start of a great year. 

4th of July

We had a very laid back 4th of July.  Brent had taken the boys wednesday night for the fireworks in chesapeake and then on the actual 4th we went to the chesapeake 4th of July parade with some friends. Then came home and had to set another nutria free.  But all the animals Brent keeps trapping in our garden deserves its own blog post.  I think he should write that one!

My pretty patriotic girl.

This picture makes me smile looking at all the kids. I think since I was determined Joel would be born on the 4th of July I now always look back to that day 4 years ago when I was waiting for a baby. In fact I can still hear my grandpa singing "born on the forth of July" to me since that day he was in my house singing it the whole day :)  But Kelly and I were both waiting for babies to come so its fun seeing how RJ and Colin have grown in the past few years and also how we've added a few more along the way.  I'm very thankful for Kelly and her freiendship over the years.