July 28th: Canyon Lake with Pickles Family

We always have a fun adventure when we take the Pickles family to the lake with us. With school getting ready to start, we knew it would be one of our last lake trips of the summer. It was so much fun to spend that time with them. Their girls are the same ages as our girls and they all just love to hang out together. They are great little boating buddies! Ashlyn and Camryn even attempted skiing on our new trainer skis. The ski rope wasn't working quite right and it was getting late and dark, but they still tried it. Such troopers! And aside from me getting stung by a bee on my shoulder while backing into the lake to get the boat, it was a great trip.

July 24th: Canyon Lake with Atlyn

We took Ashlyn's friend Atlyn to the lake. It's always a great time and we had a fun time spending this time with our family.

Saying goodbye to Jackson

Brynlyn, Grandma Sugar and Jackson (he just woke up from his nap so he was a little buggy-eyed)
Brynlyn and Jackson having one last moment together before Jackson leaves. I even coordinated their outfits together today. ha ha
Brynlyn loves Grandma Sugar so much!
Me and Jackson right before Grandma Sugar took him to the airport to get his Mommy. It was tough to let this little guy go! He's become such a part of our family and we've loved having him with us. Mom was teasing me a few days ago when I wouldn't let her take him to her house to stay for a few days and she said, "You know you do have to give him back eventually." ha ha
Thanks for coming and staying at our house Jackson. We loved having you here and you can always come back and stay anytime!

Aunt Candace

Aunt Candace came over on Sunday afternoon to have dinner and play games with us. She is so much fun to be around and always has a party going on around her. She brought over her Playstation and the kids played "Rockstar" and had a ball singing with each other. They also played Disney Monopoly and then made jewelry with Candace's famous bead collection. She was a HUGE help to me and entertained the kids while I could mop the kitchen floor. Yuck... Thanks for coming and playing Candace. We loved having you here with us!

Aunt

Ice Cream

Janelle might make me pay bigtime for this one! Jackson and Brynlyn thoroughly enjoyed their ice cream cones after dinner on Saturday night. Jackson had just eaten some chicken/rice/broccoli casserole. Brandon was sure that Jackson would never eat broccoli because Brandon said that broccoli was absolutely nasty tasting! ha ha I assured Brandon that Jackson was such a great eater and ate everything I had ever given him to eat. I love this guy's eating habits! He's the easiest child to feed. He loves everything! (so far atleast)

And I was right. Jackson loved the rice casserole, BUT he insisted on feeding himself with the spoon. Hmmm...he did end up wearing quite a bit of it, but most of it did get into his stomach and gobbled it up and loved it. Following this dinner, I just had to put him in the bathtub because he was so dirty. But it doesn't matter how messy he is, he still looks absolutely adorable! And keep up those great eating habits, little man.

The waterproof blankie

Jackson has 3 blue look-alike blankies that he takes with him wherever he goes. And when we went swimming, he insisted on taking them out by the pool with him, of course. So I put them up on the patio table when we were swimming. That was not good enough for Jackson and he wanted a quick snuggle from his blankie and before I could stop him, he promptly threw his blankie into the swimming pool. Yikes! We thought for sure these blankies were waterproof. So we thought it was cute and funny and had to snap some pics of him snuggling his soaking wet blankie in the pool.


Now, where are those other blankies??? (And yes, he did find the 2nd blankie and threw it in the water also. Thank heavens for washing machines before bedtimes! ha ha) Jackson, you are too much, my friend!
(This is such a "Linus" picture. So cute!)

Cousin Brandon

We had an absolute party at our house this weekend and the party's name was BRANDON! He is our cousin (my nephew) visiting us from Texas and he is completely fun and adorable with the cutest southern accent. He is a ball of energy and is so much fun to be around. He's always looking for something fun to do and kept me on my toes to be more creative. He was born on my husband's birthday and he even looks like Mike did growing up and has many personality characteristics like Mike. We've said many times that Brandon was the son that we were supposed to have! ha ha

Well atleast we had this time to spend with him. The girls were not fully aware of what it's like having a boy around the house, so the adjustment was a change, but they soon came around and he became one of the gang. And you should see this guy dance...he's awesome! We sure enjoyed our time with him and look forward to many more fun times with Brandon.
These are my two boys for atleast a few days. This may be the closest I ever come to having a son! ha ha These guys are so cute and they were buddies.

I am not camera shy!

I was snapping pictures of Jackson and he was making me laugh so hard because he LOVES looking at the digital screen at his picture. So he would pose some more so I could take his picture. I guess he's not camera shy at all! And these pictures are so cute. I think the camera loves him.

Hangin' in the pool

We took Brynlyn and Jackson swimming on Saturday and they were not quite sure about the pool right off. We tried each of them in this floating swim toy and it was not a big hit. It might take the entire summer for them to fully appreciate this new toy. But they eventually got the hang of it and enjoyed a break from the heat!



Here is Jackson with my nephew Brandon. He is visiting from Texas and came and hung out with us this weekend while his mom took a quick trip over to Newport Beach for the weekend. He loved to hold Jackson. After the weekend was over, he told me that he really wanted a baby brother. Hmm...Julie, can you get right on that please??? ha ha