Josh turned 3! We celebrated his birthday the day before and it was an all day celebration. We went in the morning to see Cars 2 with grandma and grandpa. Jake loved it and Josh got a little wiggly in the middle. Overall everyone enjoyed it. Then grandpa took us all out to Red Robin for lunch. After lunch we came back to our house for a little bit to wait for everyone else to come over. Jake enjoyed jumping on the tramp with Uncle Jeff and the birthday boy took a little nap. Josh loved opening presents. We gave him a sand and water table. He got some Cars Legos, cars, and money. He already spent some of his birthday money on the tramp that we got in May. For his cake he wanted a Choo choo. I had already done this cake for Jake before so it was easy. Josh wanted his all red. He helped put the decorations on and was so excited to eat. We had to put it up high because he kept trying to pick at it. He was tired by the end of the day. We are so lucky to have Josh in our family. He has turned into a great brother and I love watching my two boys play together. Josh has some stubbornness in him and knows what he wants. We are able to understand what he is saying more and more each day. He is so full of energy all day long. He has stopped taking naps on most days. He is a good healthy eater and wants carrots and celery to snack on. We love you Josh!

Our family took a two week vacation to Oregon this summer. We spent the first week at a beach house with all of Kurt’s family. Most of the week was spent at the beach playing in the sand and water. We bought toys, horseshoes,a kite, and a rocket launcher. The water was cold but that didn’t bother Jake at all. He got his whole body in it. Josh went to put his feet in it on the first day and decided it was too cold for him and just stuck to playing in the sand. One afternoon we went to some tidal pools that were close by. Josh ended up falling asleep on the drive over so I stayed in the car with him. It was a good thing that I stayed because it started pouring. Kurt and Jake came back soaked. They said there wasn’t much to the tide pools but Jake enjoyed the visitor center. He got animal track stamps on a paper for different animals. We also went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium one day. The boys loved seeing all the different animals and got to get shirts of their favorite animals. Kurt and I ran on the beach two morning which was very fun. One morning we saw a bunch of harbor seals just on the edge of the water. They were so close to us. On the way back to Portland, we stopped by Tillamook to tour the cheese factory and get ice cream. Jake and Josh loved getting to know some of their cousins on the Didenhover side and had a great time.

The second week of our vacation was spent in Portland at my sister’s house. Kurt was there with us through the 4th of July weekend and then he flew home. My mom flew out to spend time with everyone too. For the 4th we did a nature trail hike, had a picnic at the park, and then did lots of fireworks. After Kurt left we went to three different splash parks, the farmer’s market, played at several parks, saw Kung Fu Panda 2, and did lots of playing with cousins. We were there to celebrate my nephew’s birthday at a pizza place too. Since Kurt flew home I had to drive. It was a long ride home. We got home late and everyone was exhausted.
Thanks everyone for the fun vacations!

We finally got to go out on the boat for the first time this year. My dad bought Jake some kids training skis so he can start learning to water ski. My brother went out to help him. He got up on the first try and stayed up for a long time. He even did it 3 more times. I was so proud of him.

We are so thankful for Kurt and all that he does for our family. I am so lucky that he has a great job to support our family and I can stay home. He is so good with our boys. If he is home then all they want to do is interact with him and play. Jake made a cute coupon shirt at school that he was very excited to give to Kurt. Then we got him some golf clubs so that he and Jake could go golf together. In the morning he had meetings so we didn’t get to do dinner for him but hopefully we made it up to him by letting him rest after church since he didn’t have any appointments to attend to. We love you!

Jake and his friend that lives by us have been wanting to do a lemonade stand for a couple of weeks. So we put one together to do on a Friday when school got out early. We printed tickets to take around to all the kids in the neighborhood that could bring back to get some lemonade with. Then we got our table, chairs and goodies ready. I printed out some cute signs for it. We had a good turn out. They boys were so cute serving everyone and advertising for people to come. They were a little worried about making money and us moms didn’t want to charge people so we put out a tips optional bowl. They made $5 to split between the two of them. It was a really fun afternoon.