SWIMMING!

I'm sorry, I don't have any pictures, but I felt this was worth mentioning.  Yesterday, James went swimming in his little pool that Grandma and Grandpa gave him for his birthday.  Believe it or not, it was a major success.  He walked all around the edge, threw toys around in the water, and even crawled around quite a bit.  Some of you may think this is totally dumb, but if you knew the extent of his fear of the water, you would be amazed.  So there is hope for him after all.  Hans is overjoyed and I'm starting to feel like he might actually be my son.  Lake Powell, here we come!

Crazy Weekend!

We had a very eventful weekend.  It was tons of fun and James enjoyed every second of it.  Ok, maybe not every second.  Just the parts that didn't involve water.  On Saturday, we went up to Deer Creek to spend a little time out on the boat.  James pouted and whined almost the whole time except when he got to sit on Grandpa's lap and feel like he was driving the boat.  If he has a steering wheel and buttons to push, he's feeling great.

Hans got to do a little wakeboarding.  Check out that sweet tan!  I even got up for a bit.  It was far from graceful, but I haven't been wakeboarding since before I got pregnant with James.  Looks like I'll be taking another break for awhile.

On Sunday, we had a combined birthday party for James and Kaden with my family.  Kaden is six years old!  So for the festivities, I was in charge of the cake.  I wanted to do something a little different.  This is what I came up with.  It took me all day and I had to have Hans help me a little bit with the head after I kind of had a breakdown.  Anyway, I'm glad it turned out.

James is trying to figure out what he's supposed to make of that candle.  Good thing Marissa was there to blow it out for him.

On Monday, we had another party with Hans' family.  This time, we went with a store-bought ice cream cake.  I couldn't handle another marathon baking day like the one before.

Happy Birthday James!!

I can't believe it's been one full year.  A year ago on this date at 2:40 pm we finally welcomed our little James.  We could never have anticipated how much our lives would actually change, but we're so glad they did.  James is everything to us.  We love watching him grow up and joking about how much he is already like his dad.  He has been such a joy to us in this past year.  We're so excited to watch him continue to grow.  We are especially excited to see how he will grow and change with a little brother or sister.

It's sometimes hard to imagine he was ever this small.  He was just a few minutes old in this picture.  This is my very favorite picture of him when he was brand new.

And here he is one year later.  This is him eating birthday cake.  He didn't really feel like smiling while he was busy with the cake, so this is the best we got.

Summer Fun!

Happy 4th of July!  We had such a great holiday this year.  We went to a few family bbqs and it was James' first experience with fireworks.  He actually liked them.  He didn't even freak out when my dad pulled out the really loud illegals.  It was really fun to be able to spend the day with family and enjoy a little time off.

Here are a few older pictures.  This is from a few weeks ago when we went to the Orem Summerfest parade.  This is my favorite parade and I'm glad we went because we didn't dare brave the Provo 4th of July parade.  Katie caught a UVU sucker and James couldn't get enough of it.  He had a green mouth for the rest of the night.

We decided it was time to get James in the water.  We were both pretty sad to find out that he hates it.  Who would have thought that a kid of ours would be so afraid of the water.  He's pretty much fearless when it comes to everything.  We bought a punch pass to Veteran's Pool with the hope that by the end of the summer he won't be such a scaredy cat.  Hans is determined to make his kid a swimmer.  So if any of you want to go for a swim, we're always up for it.

This was James' favorite part of the day.  As soon as he was out of the water and wrapped up in a towel, he was happy as a clam.

On Saturday, we went down to the courthouse where they have all the booths set up for the Freedomfest.  We just strolled and grabbed some lunch.  James loved it too.  As long as he has something sweet, he's in good shape.