Randomness

Here are a few fun captured moments. I've had a lot of fun making things with my laminator that I got for Mother's Day this year. Hopefully no more naps will be interrupted!

Poor little guy wore himself out!


We went to the zoo as a family awhile back and Bella got to pet this huge snake! Brandon didn't want to pet it, but he couldn't be out done by a 2 year old!

We celebrated Samuel's 3rd birthday at an indoor pool! We had so much fun!

A Weekend with the Johnsons

This weekend we had so much fun with Grandpa Bob, Uncle Barry, and Aunt Chrisite! They came in town last Thursday afternoon and the crazy fun immediately started! Christie and I stayed busy bringing the kids swimming with some of my friends on Friday and the zoo Saturday. The guys stayed busy playing 4 rounds of golf, but I think everyone's favorite day was Sunday that we all spent together. We went to church, had brunch at Succotash, went the the City Market, Smallcakes Cupcakery, and swimming! We finished the busy weekend off with a big dinner that we all helped prepare!

Birthday Bonanza!

This weekend we had 2 sweet 1st birthdays to attend! Sweet Siena's and Brady's! Saturday was Siena's music themed birthday! Bella is obviously enjoying the amazing cake that Matt and Adri made!

Siena is so sweet giving out hugs as we left! Bella and Benjamin have really enjoyed the little treat bag of musical instruments and CD she handed out!


Sunday, was Brady's ocean themed party. So many kids!! Each child had a bucket and shovel with their name on it with treats inside. As you can see there were a lot of buckets on the table. I was watching Bella and she was eyeing the treat buckets. Then she goes and picks out hers with her name on it! Coincidence? I'm not sure. We do write her name and I've shown her her name before. I'm just going to say Yes, she can recognize her name! Pretty impressed!

The cake was amazing! The top was s'mores flavored and the bottom was a tropical fruit flavor! It was so pretty we didn't want to cut into it!

Benjamin making friends with pretty Laney!

Super Mom!

So on Friday I knew it was going to be a long day when Brandon had a guys night planned after work. So to pass the time I knew we were going to need some fun outings. We all had a great day, lots of highs, a few lows, and were exhausted by the end of the night!

The weather was a bit cooler so we went to the zoo that morning.

Bella and I got to enjoy free ice cream from our coupon that we got with our zoo pass!

We fed the birds for the first time, and she loved that!


The kids waiting for the Sea Lion show to start! I thought it was too cute both of the sucking with the fingers or thumb and both holding their blankies! LOVE!

We ended our day riding the carousal a couple of times. I knew it was time to go when the second time we held the whole ride up from Bella's fit and indecisiveness about which animal to ride! Get me out of here!

We went home, took naps, then headed to Chuck E. Cheese for the first time! Never will I do that again with two kids so young by myself! Bella was overwhelmed with all the things to look at and I was pushing Benjamin around in a wheely high chair with the diaper bag, camera, tokens, etc. Bella is in a very independent phase right now, or probably for life, but was not interested in any of my suggestions. Very frustrating! But it was all kind of worth it to see their smiles on the rides finally!



We had a few tickets at the end so we went to go pick out a little prize. There were a few kids in front of us with like 100's of tickets! I was so ready to get out of there I think I cut in line, because I just asked the girl at the counter if we already knew what we wanted could we get our little sucker and ring please? I'm not in the mood to wait for kids to decide on what they want when they have that many tickets and were taking forever! haha, I did get at least one dirty look, but I got out of there! Oh, and yes, I did get in trouble early for letting Bella climb up on the ski ball game! Oops! I saw another mom doing it, but apparently another mom didn't think it was fair, even though Bella was only putting the ball in the gutter any way! Wow, it's going to be at least a year before I go back!

Family fun night

Each week we try to do at least one family fun night out. Last week we found this great pool near us! It has 2 big water slides (too big for Bella), a large swimming pool, a pool with diving boards, a lazy river, a baby pool, and a little kid fun zone I'll call it. That's where we spent most of our time. It has a great zero depth entry for Benjamin to sit and play with toys while Bella climbs up the steps or rope ladder to shoot the water guns or go down the slide! She wanted us to go with her the first few times but then she had us sit to the side and went all by herself! She was so good and waited for the lifeguard to tell her when it was okay for her to go! It was so cute as she stood there looking up at the "big" lifeguards because they didn't always notice she was standing there! She's so small compared to the other kids going down the slide, but she just stood and waited until they finally helped her sit down to go!

9 months!!!

Benjamin turned 9 months old on the 6th! He's so close to crawling now! He can get up on his knees and scoot or roll to his destination! Clapping is a new fun trick and splashing like CRAZY in the bathtub! I can feel his bottom teeth coming in! He'll no longer have his adorable gum grin, but soon a toothy grin! Benjamin loves to play with and read books, dance around with momma, wrestle with Bella, and talk with Daddy! When Brandon comes home and says hi to him and then if he leaves the room, Benjamin throws a fit, but is all giggles as soon as he comes back! Little stinker!


Bella and Benjamin got to have a little visit with their Great Grandma and Great Papa Sachse! Benjamin had a blast sitting with Great Grandma and bouncing a huge yellow balloon! And Great Papa Sachse had a magic touch to make him smile and laugh after he was a little unsure of Great Grandma at first. It was so good to visit with them and the kids warmed up pretty quickly!


Benjamin got his first piano lesson from Uncle Kev! He seemed to really enjoy it!

T-Rex

We recently went to the T-Rex restaurant with a few friends from church on a little play date. Before we ate Bella got to explore in little caves and practice dusting off fossils. How fun!!! There was so much to look at and listen to while we there that Benjamin even really enjoyed it, as you can see in his big smiles!




We had so much fun we had to bring Daddy back with us again!


After we ate dinner, Bella got to splash around in the fountains! She really enjoyed collecting the money in big handfuls. We had to tell her we couldn't take it with us but to throw in back and make a wish. She thought that was equally as fun!