Art work

We needed something up on the wall in the playroom, it is white and was completely bare. But since  it is a playroom we wanted something fun (and cheap!). Thanks to a combination of ideas from us, pintrest and help from our family art expert, Nikki, we came up with something for Jake to paint himself. He had so much fun with this and was so proud of his art when he was done!

Getting ready to paint!

Cute face!

So proud of his work!

Future Olympic Gold Medalist

Jake is ready for the opening ceremony tonight! We love the Olympics in this house and I for sure will be glued to all the swimming and gymnastics coverage. And as you can see from these pictures we have high hopes for Jake's athletic career! He is shooting for 2028.

4th of July

We spent the 4th with a few families that live on our street. We had everyone over to our house for a bbq. This was the first time we have had all our neighborhood friends over with their families and it was great! It started out a little rough when Jake and one of the twins from down the street that is the same age as Jake decided they wanted some of the cake that was on the table. Somehow they managed to get the cake to the edge of the table and knocked it off. It landed frosted side down on the floor. Oops. I really wish I would've thought to have grabbed the camera before we cleaned it up because the boys were sitting there with the cake between them licking the whipped cream that was on their fingers. It was too cute! We managed to save the cake, it somehow did not break at all during the fall, it just wasn't as pretty as it had been! I also failed to take a single picture while everyone was over. I get caught up in talking and watching Jake play and forget about the camera.

We tried to talk everyone into going to see fireworks but being in the middle of the week some people (the dads) had to work the next day. (Side note: I LOVE that Josh gets to be home during the summer!). So we headed out when everyone left to go to our city's 4th of July festival. Jake got to jump in the bounce house and play in and on a firetruck. Both of which he loves. Then we had to find a spot to sit and watch the fireworks. He LOVES fireworks. It is so cute watching him get so excited about them!

Jumping in the bounce house

"Driving" the firetruck

Running around waiting for fireworks

"Wow! Amazing!" Loving the fireworks

First ice cream cone

All gone!

Playdate and Swimming

Last week Jake and I had a playdate with Kathleen and Austin. We were supposed to go to a big and really good splash park. But it was closed, the entire huge park was closed, with no notice or anything. So plan B was to go to a fountain for kids to play in at an outdoor mall. Neither of us had been there so we didn't really know what to expect. It ended up being a lot of fun and pretty busy, partially due to the splash park being closed. So Austin and Jake played in the foutain for a while. Austin kept bringing Jake back to me on the side, it was so cute. He would go find him, grab his arm, and they would walk back. It is so fun to see Jake playing with other kids now instead of just in the same place.

We have still been doing a lot of swimming this summer. We got a waterproof case for the camera before going to San Antonio so we took it out to the pool the other day to see if we could get some underwater shots of Jake swimming. We were surprised at how well the pictures turned out! They will be good to show when he becomes an Olympic swimmer!

Diving for his goggles

San Antonio, part 2

Jake passed out when we got back to the hotel after Seaworld. He tried fighting sleep for a little bit, but it didn't last long. The next morning we packed up and headed to a new hotel on the river. We got there and our room wasn't ready so we parked the car and headed down to the Alamo while we waited. As we anticipated, Jake wasn't overly excited about it, so we went through quickly and let him play in the garden area for a bit before taking pictures and then finding something for lunch.

We headed back to the hotel to refresh and head down to the Riverwalk to do the river boat tour. Jake did pretty good with the boat. He loved seeing all the ducks and waving to the people on the Riverwalk. We did the walk down and back on foot, no stroller for Jake, hoping that would wear him out for the day. After the Riverwalk we hung out in the hotel and relaxed/played for a while and debated and discussed how we were going to get to the market and dinner. The three adults tried to figure out exactly how far it was from the hotel looking out the windows and turning the map every way we could (the maps were just tourist maps which weren't really drawn to scale). We finally decided to walk down and if it was too far we could take the trolley back. It was less than 4 blocks.

We walked around for a while looking for the perfect wrestling mask for Jake, which turned into looking for the perfect matching wrestling masks for Jake and Josh. Of course all that walking we did earlier worked and suceeded in wearing Jake out and he ended up passing out in the stroller. Not exactly what we were hoping for, but we let him sleep, figuring he needed it even if it wasn't when we would like, until some lady decided to blow a whistle right in his face and wake him up.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and hung out for the rest of the evening, until Jake finally decided to sleep at 10:30. We got up in the morning and took our time eating and getting ready to leave before heading home.

It was a great trip and Jake had so much fun. I think when we do it again we will do at least 2 days at Seaworld though. We could've easily gone to Seaworld for another day and Jake would've loved it. I can't wait until we go again and he can ride some more rides!

San Antonio Vacation, part 1

We headed to San Antonio last Wednesday for a few days of fun. We weren't sure how a 6 hour drive with a 2 year old who is now potty trained was going to go so we were all sorts of ready. We bought a travel potty, brought a lot of little presents wrapped, brought a portable dvd player (borrowed, but ended up not working), and lots of snacks. We headed out not too early hoping to miss some of the traffic in Dallas. We weren't in a hurry, we didn't have any plans for that night. After picking up Grammy, we were off. (Cosmo stayed with the Morrow's and had a sleep over with Bridget and Gigi.) We ended up still hitting some traffic in Dallas and one exit before we got onto 35 to San Antonio, which is also right in uptown, (also did I mention it is in the middle of the city where there is no open space and no where that will let you in just to use the bathroom and no place to park) and Jake decides this is the perfect place to let us know he needed to go potty. So once we find get off the highway, sit in traffic to get off because of construction right there, and find a parking lot, that we weren't supposed to park in, to park in, we pulled the travel potty out and tried to find get it in a spot that was somewhat not showing our child's entire private parts to the highway or uptown, he decided nope he doesn't really have to go.

So back in the car we go, hoping that this doesn't start a pattern of just saying he has to go potty to get us to stop! We made it about 1.5 before we tried the dvd player and it didn't work. So after a quick stop at Target (that looked like it was just a few blocks from the highway on the map but was actually a good 5 miles off the highway) we had a new dvd player, that worked and got a movie started for Jake. A quick stop for lunch and a quick potty break and we were back on the road. We made great time considering the couple of unexpected stops in there!

Jake typically has a rough time settling down and going to sleep anywhere but his bedroom, and unfortunately this trip was no different. About an hour of scream and fighting and back and forth trying to decide where he wanted to sleep and he finally went to sleep.

Thursday was Seaworld day! We have been talking about it and watching the Shamu cam online for a couple of weeks so Jake was so excited! I'm not sure who had more fun, Jake getting to see everything or us watching him react and have a blast! He got to feed the dolphins, get his picture with Shamu, ride a few rides (he was too short for a couple, but we are pretty sure he would absolutely love a roller coaster), get splashed and soaked by Shamu, play in the giant play area and splash pad, eat ice cream, and meet the Sesame Street characters.

Entertaining himself by making Donald Duck fly in the car

Shamu!

Feeding the dolphins

Loving the rides!

Cookie Monster and Elmo!

Seeing Shamu for the first time!

So excited he was hitting the camera and Josh yelling "It's Shamu daddy! Look Shamu!"

Getting splashed by Shamu. Jake LOVED it!

All wet after the Shamu show

Climbing

Splash pad

Parties

We attended two parties last weekend. Jake is now a birthday party pro and knows a birthday party means CAKE and that we sing Happy Birthday. He gets so excited! The first party was at a fun little gym place. Jake had a blast and we had to drag him out of the play area for cake.

The next day we headed to the Morrow's for the annual Pirate Party for Uncle Tom's birthday. We spent the afternoon swimming and playing in their backyard. It was a fun weekend but it made me glad both Josh and I had the next day off, we were exhausted!

Playing in the ball pit

Strong boy!

He loved the paracute

Pirates!