Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit's alive! And it's still summer!

Yes, yes...this blog is still alive and well.  Ok, maybe not well, it's been majorly neglected...but it's still here! :)  It's been a rainy, but very fun summer so far, and I have lots to catch up on.  The good news is, even with all of the rain, we've done a lot of fun "summery" things in the month of July, such as....

Lots of meals and cool treats outside:

 

Swimming:

 

 

 

Eating corn on the cob (while rocking a lobster shirt!):

 
Mini Golf:

Sparklers:

Going to get fro-yo:

Going to fun birthday parties that include a carousel ride:

And then sometimes falling asleep in the car after a day full of fun:

 

Soooo....that's a quick snapshot of our July so far!  I'll post updates soon about the luau (it was fun!) and the treehouse (it's finally done!)....hope you're having a wonderful summer!!

Baseball: That's a wrap!!

We are officially D.O.N.E with baseball for the season!  It was fun to watch them play of course, but I was ready for a break.  And Liam had been ready to be done since the season started, so....yeah.  Let's just say it's a good thing we're done!! 

Liam might not have loved going every week, but he loved getting his trophy at the end!

Jake was selected to play in an all-star game near the end of the season, we were so proud!  Here is a hit from that game:

This was the first year that they got outs and strikes; as a mom, it was hard to watch sometimes. It's hard to see your kid looking discouraged and disappointed when he would strike out...but I know that it's an important life lesson to learn, and I was proud of him that no matter what, he always got back out for the next play.  I might have complained at times about the running around involved in baseball, but I really did love watching him play.  He made a lot of progress this year!! 

After the all-star game, there was a trophy presentation, where they announced each kid's name on the loudspeaker, so that was cool for them:

 

 Another season in the books!!

Jake's last day of 1st grade

I realize it's now July but better to post late than never, right?  It's hard to believe that by the end of next month he will be starting SECOND grade!!  GAH!  Let's start with a look at some first day/last day pictures for comparison:

First day of 1st grade:

Last day of 1st grade:

 

It's amazing what a difference a school year can make!  In both physical appearances, as well as the stuff you can't see.  What you can see in these pictures is a boy who started to lose many of his "baby" features that he still had, lost a tooth, and really started to own his sense of fashion this year :)  What you don't see is how far he came with his academic skills (especially reading, he made huge strides in this area!), his maturity that increased this year, and his discipline when it came to homework.  Yes, he was still complaining about doing it by the end of the year, but not nearly to the level of fighting about it that was occurring earlier in the year.


Last year, I purchased a copy of Dr. Seuss Oh the Places You'll Go! and had his kindergarten teacher write a message in it; I did the same thing this year....I love that he will have these to look back on later!

His teacher rocked this year, she was a great combination of down-to-business and making the classroom a fun and inviting place for the kids to be.  She made each of the kids a personalized book with special pictures of the things they did this year; here are a few pages of that book:

Look!  I made a guest appearance, that's me in the bottom left picture! :)

We are really happy with how 1st grade went for Jake, and we're looking forward to what 2nd grade has in store!! 

What I'm Reading Wednesday

Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty 

This is the 3rd book from author Liane Moriarty (The Husband's Secret and Big Little Lies) and I've really enjoyed all of the....I just started this one, but I have high hopes!






 *This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you purchase from one of the links above, I'll receive a small monetary compensation.

What we've been up to

I've fallen behind on blogging, so brace yourself for a post that's basically just filled with random happenings and pictures.  You're welcome! :)

After years of tagging along to many, many birthday parties (a benefit of being the 2nd child, I suppose)  Liam is starting to have his own little social life at birthday parties.  This was a recent one for one of his besties, Maya...with an appearance by Ariel!!

Painting seashells-look how sweaty his head is, he had just come out of the bouncy house!

As I posted before, Liam has pretty much moved away from weekend naps.  It's fine for the most part, and sometimes if we're home, I have both of them take a rest in the afternoon to recharge....sometimes they read or do something quiet, sometimes I put on a movie and pop some popcorn:

And sometimes, after an especially tiring weekend, this is what happens around 5pm:

 

DONE.

We had a low key Father's Day celebration, which was very welcome after a few busy weekends in a row.  My parents came up and the rain held off so we were able to have a family wiffleball tournament, followed by a trip to Bruster's and burgers on the grill later in the evening :)  Happy belated Father's Day!

Me and my dad, circa 1984

Brian and his dad, 2006

Brian and the boys, 2011

Nothing like seeing a picture of your newborn to make you realize how quickly the time passes.  *sniff, sniff*  Is someone chopping onions in here?!?

Anyway--this past weekend was pretty much a total wash.  Saturday was storm-tastic.  There were maybe 3 breaks in the rain with tiny amounts of sun, but that would be followed by a full blown storm with sideways rain. We did the usual rainy day activities for most of the morning....coloring, board games, etc.

We gave up on the day by lunch time and went to "Inside Out":

I promise Jake was having fun, I'm not sure what is going on in that picture, haha!!  It was a good movie...not my favorite Pixar movie, but good. It made me cry, though I'm pretty sure there hasn't been a Pixar movie produced that hasn't resulted in tears for me! 

Sunday was a bit better in that there was no rain by late-morning, but temperature wise it felt more like fall.  I could nearly taste the pumpkin spice latte!!  We made it to church in the morning...I have to tell you a little more about this picture.  It's rare these days that Jake wears anything other than "comfy" shorts (aka-athletic shorts) so when he does venture out of them, I like to document it.  They were both looking handsome and my impatiens are the BOMB this year (if I do say so myself) so I wanted to snap a picture of them in front of the beautiful flowers.  That's not asking so much, is it? 

Well, according to my 7 going on 17 year old it was.  His exact response when I told him to stand still so I could get his picture was, "Mom, are you seriously going to take my picture?  These church clothes are embarrassing" Well, excuuuuuuuuse me. 

Also, when did I become "mom"???

The rest of the day ended up being a nice balance of work and play....Brian was able to get some treehouse work done (I promise to post an update soon!), I was able to clean out 2 closets that looked like they were going to explode at any minute, and we were able to play in between that stuff.  At one point we were all wizards and sorcerers:

And later in the day, we headed outside to play baseball. 

In case you were wondering, my cue for that picture was "smile boys!"  NAILED IT.

So that's it for right now; it's hard to believe that it's almost JULY!