Mae's 1st Birthday

This was a day of celebration for all of us, and no one more than me! Mae is a miracle in our lives. We weren't expecting her to join our family, and now the thought of life without her is just ridiculous. She dishes out joy daily! We are all so grateful she was born and so happy to celebrate her first wonderful year. Her adorable custom cakes were courtesy of Sister Pitcock from the Branch. The giant lady bug definitely freaked her out at first, but that didn't stop her from pigging out eventually :)

More Summer Visitors

I can't believe how blessed we've been with visitors this summer. Even though my brother Scott had to work and couldn't come, we were all elated that Cheryl and the kids were willing to make the trip all the way from South Carolina. We got to play with them for a whole week and it really made our summer! We played Pokemon Go, went to the zoo, went bowling, went to Pizza Ranch and some or all of us went fishing almost every day. We also spent an evening by the lake making smores, setting off fireworks, and of course...fishing. We tried going to the Kingman County Fair but it got rained out before we were able to get on a single ride. Boo. The Wellmans were so kind to support us at a couple of scheduled events we couldn't couldn't reschedule, including an art class I had to teach and Liam and Hanna's piano recital. They were also around for an impromptu party for Mae's 1st birthday. In fact, theirs was the very first and only birthday present that Mae ever got (a sweet little electronic puppy dog). Unfortunately, Mae was not very interested in her birthday candles or her present. It took her a while to warm up to the idea of tearing into some cake. I'm so glad we got to spend some time with these precious members of our forever family. What happy memories we made.

Swim Lessons

After all the family reunions were finished, Scott flew back to KS for work and the rest of us hung around in Phoenix for an extra week so Liam and Reed could take swim lessons from the master. Liam already pretty much had it down, but Reed was afraid of putting his face in the water when we first got started. Kimber cured him of that on the first day. And by the last day, he was jumping off the high wall and swimming to the side all by himself! I thought he was so brave and I was so proud. During our free time that week, we paid a visit to Uncle Paul and Aunt Dany and their cute boys. Paul is so fun to spend time with because he loves toys and video games as much as the kids do. We played some old school Mario Bros and worked on Rubic's Cubes. We also spent all the time we could with the Eastmans, at Peter Piper Pizza and the movies and such. We stayed at the Nally's casita all week long. The Nally's weren't there, but their pool kept us company. It was a fun week, just me and my babies.