family day.

yesterday was family day for the navy.

lots of "this is what your family member is going through"

or "they need to do this before they deploy" and all.

my favorite was a guy who spoke about money,

saving, spending, etc.

he told us some valuable information.

he passed out booklets for guidelines to use.

the most beneficial speaker, i think.

i even have an extra book if anyone wants to

take a peek.

they had drawings...

i was the 2nd to last winner.

won a nice purplish-pink camping chair.

awesome.

we enjoyed bbq for lunch and cake for dessert,

made by my 2nd fave navy boy's wife.

she did such an amazing job.

simply extraordinary!

i didn't have my camera on me,

so the camera phone was used.

thanks to the navy side for a great family day!

flying.

cousin day yesterday.

put the trampoline to good use.

the kids practiced flying.

with 3 large cousins,

aiden found himself spending a lot of time on his bottom.

do you see that body flipping in the unnatural position??

yeah, that's my daughter.

she wasn't a fan of that.

at all.

she wanted conner to hold on to her.

he was her seat belt.

ha ha.

she really did have a great time.

i took a lot of shots like this with her flying up.

she'd squeal,

"mommy, i'm flying!!!"

the boy didn't like jumping with his big cousins.

he'd yell at them to stop everytime he fell down.

well, got knocked down.

he went to play with the ball.

when the boys came over,

he gave up on the ball thing and just ran around the pole.

all in all,

a good time with the cousins.

breaking the rules.

now i'm not one to discuss potty training on a blog.

or show off naked photos of my kids for all the

weirdos in the world to see.

but aiden wanted to tell his papa and granny something...

surprise!

underwear are very much present in his life.

and because i'm the "mean mom"

(i very proudly hold that award),

i thought i'd have a 'far-from-being-a-mean-mom' shoot.

since we refuse to get new furniture

til after the preschool years,

there's no reason they can't jump off the old stuff!

with an adult present, of course. :)

safety first, people.

it was a cloudy day out here yesterday,

so i was forced to use my flash.

ugh.

their faces make me laugh, though,

so it was worth it.

they scream 'christmas card'.

don't you think??

ending summer.

school starts here this week.

well, not for anyone in my house,

but the area schools.

justin starts next week and emily will start

on the first.

with school coming,

justin did a little project

that was very much needed.

cleaning the gutters.

we can't grow plants in our yard, 

but our gutters had a full abundance of them!

haha.

found 11 locust skins on our outdoor toy.

11.

ewww.

emily took this one of me and aiden.

we used the timer here.

aiden didn't want to push the button.

he just got a toy story 3 camera

(we've been searching the end caps for one forever!)

and he wanted to use it instead. :)

so everyone is well aware of how much i hate the heat.

and how much i love it when it rains.

well, when it rains,

it pours.

(the rain made it nicely through all of our

clean gutters. haha.)

***OH, BEFORE I FORGET....

we went to church yesterday at westlink.

we really liked it.

my sister attends there and we have lots

of other friends that do, as well.

one of the families that we know there

i grew up with at antioch(in the '80's).

the mom teaches at the preschool and she told

me that she snuck a peek at the class list yesterday

and emily's name was on it!!!

my mom watched her girls when they were little,

so i really wanted her to watch my little one.

i'm hoping the list doesn't change

(sometimes they do changes at the last minute)

between now and the 24th!!

so i hit target after church,

enjoying the day's high temp of 80,

and when i checked out,

it was pouring.

i stood in the building waiting for 5 minutes to see if it'd

chill out,

but of course it wasn't going to.

and since i was at target,

it wasn't a light shopping day.

oh, no.

when i made it home,

this is what i looked like.

justin laughed.

my poor birkenstock's drowned.

the kids were excited about my wet purchases,

though.

justin was, too.

his calculator for school was listed at $128.

i bought it at target for $80.99.

so thrilled!

we had to get rid of our futon a while back,

so we've had no seating in the basement.

the kids now have their own chairs.

target had them $10 off their original price,

waiting for the college kids.

i love dorm stuff.

these chairs are awesome.

i love the color.

i even snagged the last two.

:)

i promise aiden was excited,

but he had just woken up from nap. :)

dinner plans.

we had some last minute visitors for dinner last night.

adrian was in town and never gives us notice when he comes...

he had dinner plans with josh and cheryl,

so i had them all come over for dinner.

mainly cause i wanted to see the maki twins,

collin and caden.

hehe.

i have my priorities. :)

this was the first time that i've been able to see josh with his boys,

so that was pretty exciting.

i realized later that cheryl missed the photo fun.

she was prepping bottles for the boys' dinner.

the big boys didn't hog the babies all night.

jus and i got turns to snuggle with them, too.

i also got to watch my kids as they slowly opened up

to josh and "uncle adrian".

when they did,

we were all begging that they'd be shy around them again.

haha.

thanks for getting the kids all wound up before

bedtime, boys! :)

i made some pioneer woman enchiladas for dinner.

adrian asked me when i learned how to cook.

ah, humor.

har har.

the military boys talking shop.

sibling rivalry.

awesome photo shoot last night.

love these sibling shots.

thanks denise for asking me!!

more on this family on the photo blog.

national night out.

justin let me tag along with him for

national night out last night.

more photos on the photo blog.