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Happy birthday to our wonderful husband/daddy!

We love you so much!

You are such a loving, honest, hard-working man and we are so thankful to know that you are ours!

You just keep getting better with age!

Happy 32nd birthday to you!

Fishing

This morning, Aaron and Reece woke up early and went fishing! 

Usually, Aaron just catches and releases all his fish.  Lately, Reece has been asking to keep them and eat them. 

Today, they decided to keep a few and bring them home to eat!

They brought home 5 fish...3 that Aaron caught and 2 that Reece caught!

Aaron grilled them on the grill with some onions and butter, and they were SO good!

All these pictures were taken with Aaron's phone...

Reece took this picture of Aaron! :)...Good job, huh?

We Are Ready!

We are ready...

to cheer for our favorite teams!

Reece has been practicing all his moves!

We are ready for FOOTBALL season!  Only a little more than a month away!

Y and Z Days

Y day was spent working/playing in the yard.

Reece and Clara watched Aaron mow the yard.

Reece stands on the porch the entire time Aaron mows and watches him.  He loves it!

For Z day we got a new (to us) zebra!  It was quite a hit!  Clara loves it!

And Reece had to try it out!  He said it has good "shocks."  (Always thinking like a boy)

Moments

The other day, I picked Reece up and said, "You are getting so big!  I won't be able to pick you up much longer."  That reminded me of an email I wrote about a year ago, and I thought it was worth putting on here and since today is my grandma's birthday, today is the perfect day for it:).  I do my best to soak up every little minute with my kids and family, but we all need reminders to slow down and enjoy every moment-big or small.

Here's the original:

My grandma is a beautiful lady...inside and out. She is a scrabble player, a four-wheeler rider, a margarita maker, piano player, real estate guru, poem writer, traveler...
She loves babies, baseball, big red barns, pictures, big words (that Reece tries to use)and using the computer...

Pretty neat lady, huh? Well, she is also a deep thinker. The other day I was sitting on her front porch talking to her and she said something that I cannot get out of my head. She said that sometimes in her thinking she wonders when was the last time she did something. She said, "I wonder when was the last time I put my child down off my lap." You know something so little that we do without even thinking. As our kids grow, we gradually stop doing things like putting them down off of our lap and there eventually will be a last time. She also said that she had a big wooden swing in her yard when she was little. She wondered when was the last time she jumped off that swing. As she grew she used it less and less and eventually there was a last time but she never really thought about it at the time.

So, I began thinking about my last times. Reece is only (almost) 5 years old. And I wonder, when was the last time I rocked him to sleep. He eventually just started falling asleep on his own, and there had to be a last time that I rocked him to sleep. When was the last time I put his clothes on for him? He eventually grew big enough to do this on his own, so there had to be a last time that I helped him.

At the time, did I know that would be the last time I rocked him to sleep or helped him get dressed? No. Little things like that just eventually stop without us realizing it. And that's OK. That is supposed to happen. (Even though I am tempted to go in there and beg Reece to let me rock him to sleep.) However, I know that from now on, I will not take those little moments, like getting my children dressed or helping them go to sleep, for granted. I will enjoy every time that I put them down off my lap, tuck them in, give them a bath, read them a story, or any little thing like that. Because eventually there will be a last time. They will move on to bigger and better things and I will love them more with every day and every phase of their lives. But now, I will enjoy every day and every phase of their lives even more than I already do.

We should all take the same attitude in every part of our lives. :)

V, W, and X Days

                                                        For V day, we made a volcano...

and another volcano....

and then a red volcano!

For W day, we made waffles,

and ate them!

We played with hot wheels...

and rode things with wheels...like a four wheeler...

and a car...

and a bike.

Reece told me to take a picture of the windmill for W day...

Reece watched his favorite hunting show, North American Whitetail.

For X day, we had X toast!

We played Xylophones!

And Reece watched his new favorite Discovery show...eXpedition Great White!

T and U Day

T day started with toast...

We spent lots of time jumping on the trampoline...

Our favorite T...Tucker

We played in the tent...

Reece is always hungry.  He wanted a snack and I told him that for T day I would make him the tastiest treat he could think of.  He chose popcorn for his "tastiest treat!"

Reece sat up his turkey decoys and went "turkey hunting" in the living room.  (it was a rainy day)

We had tacos and tortilla chips for supper.

Well, for this first time since our ABC summer began, my plans got a little messed up.  U day was pretty tricky to think of ideas.  I had plans of taking the kids to a U-pick berry farm to pick berries.  Friday (U day) was pouring rain all morning and they are only open 'til noon.  I do still want to go to the berry farm.  I'm gonna try to go next week, it just won't be on U day.  Oh well :(

So...instead, we played upstairs all afternoon and we read The Ugly Duckling and The Umbrella.:)

S Day

For S day we got out the slip 'n slide!

Reece splashed...

and surfed!

Clara got sad because Bo, our cat, ran away from her :(

For lunch we had sandwiches, chips and salsa, and sweet tea!

While Clara was napping, Reece and I sat on the couch and snuggled and watched Shrek.

Grandma and Grandpa gave us some silver dollars from Silver Dollar City!

Reece and I had dentist appointments this afternoon.  In the waiting room, we were so happy to see an I Spy book!  So while we were waiting, we played I Spy.

We got our teeth shined.

Reece had NO cavities for the 3rd year in a row so he got a smile shirt from the dentist!

Here we are showing off our shiny smiles!

On the way home we stopped at Sonic and got a slush.

For supper we had spaghetti!

Clara loves spaghetti!

She went straight to the bath! :)

Look at that sweetie!