The Fackler's Fabulous Fourth Fiesta

My little firecrackers,

The Fackler Family hosted a 4th of July fiesta at their house last night and we proudly celebrated our great country.

We had to take a "girls only" picture to show off our red, white, and blue!

The party started with you kids playing upstairs.  

Kate melted my heart with this picture.

(Random side story:  Jax, you currently tell Kate that you don't want to marry anyone ever.  In the event that you should change your mind, this would make a great photo for the wedding slideshow!)

All that playing made everyone hungry for a snack!  

Your dad made fruit kabobs and this is the conversation that took place earlier in the day:

Jax:  Why'd you buy blueberries?

Me:  I need them for the fruit kabobs we're making.

Jax:  When can we eat them?

Me:  Tonight at the party.

Jax:  What kind of party are we going to?

Me:  We're celebrating America tonight.

Jax:  Does she like fruit kabobs?

We also made some yummy chocolate filled strawberries drizzled with blue icing.  

While hard to see in this picture, they were cute and delicious!

The party then went outside and you played in the sandbox for a while.

You & the host with the most, Grady

Next thing I knew, you boys were down to your swimsuits and were ready for some water fun!

But, first, dinner.

And then y'all jumped straight in the pool.

No worries, the lifeguards were on duty ; )

The cozy coupe got a lot of love.

And everyone made a few runs down the "slippy slider".

Colt, you were an adorable captain of this vessel : )

A big thanks to Mr. Justin for helping out on the swings!

It was then back inside for patriotic dessert!

And a game of kickball (?!?!) in the foyer.

We went outside one final time for our own fireworks.

There were some called "The Chicken" and they were supposed to cluck and spark.  Well, it got a little crazy on the patio and I had way more fun watching the big boys react to them than I did watching the fireworks themselves!

Colt, you were happy to take in the show from Daddy's shoulders.

Some local fireworks were scheduled at 9:45 but you boys were both exhausted so we headed home instead around 9:30.  And it was the neatest ride home ever as we ended up seeing at least 6 different firework shows on our 10 minute ride home!!  The exclamations from you two in the backseat were the perfect ending to a fabulous evening!

Happy Birthday, America!

God Bless...

Dearest Colton and Jackson,

On one hand, my cell phone has come in handy lately as I've used the camera function quite often to capture you and your cuteness.  On the other hand, the picture quality is poor and the pictures end up blurry nine times out of ten!  Here's a dump of the recent pictures courtesy of my iPhone:

Last Tuesday, after VBS, we (Jax and Mommy) went with a big group of friends to lunch and then to see Brave.  Out of 7 kids, 5 of them (you included) ended up in their mommy's laps as the movie had some scary scenes.  I'm glad we had fun with friends, but I'm not glad we saw this movie!

Wednesday was beautiful outside and our playtime eventually led to bubbles.  

Colorful bubbles.  Colorful, messy, bubbles.  Colorful, messy, bubble memories!

The church hosted a VBS wrap party on Friday night and they filled the lawn with all sorts of water games.  Here you are after coming down a big water slide!

Colt, you were super happy in this kiddie pool!

Saturday night, I went out to dinner with these lovely girlfriends and then we walked over to see a movie.

Yesterday, we checked "Empty our game card at Going Bonkers" from our summer list!

And this, this is why I hope to be done with my camera phone!  

My birthday present came a few weeks early and I'm now learning this new, beautiful, lens!

God Bless America, the inventor of the DSLR, Channing Tatum, and good friends!

1st day of summer?

Dearest Jackson and Colt,

Yesterday felt a little like our first day of summer vacation.  I had something planned for us for every day in June - but our July calendar looks a little more lackadaisical.  My teacher-friends have declared Mondays to be playgroup day so we had full intentions of meeting up with everyone for that.  But then, the "first day" of summer kinda took on a life of its own.  We stayed in our pajamas far longer than usual and then I had the overwhelming desire to get active!  So, we prepped the bike and the trailer and went on a four mile bike ride with a pitstop at a playground.  

The day's fun, while undocumented, continued as we grilled steaks for dinner 

and then played outside in a lovely rain shower.  

So far, so good, July!

VBS 2012

Dearest Colton and Jax,

It was Operation Overboard last week as we attended Vacation Bible School - and, for our first time, it was at a new church.  We spent each morning from 9-noon "Diving In" and "Going Deep"!  Colt, you went to the nursery each morning and I know you had a blast!  I know because you ran to them with open arms each morning and you didn't seem to mind when we would run into each other in the halls.  The nursery workers had such sweet things to say about you but, unfortunately, there were few photo opportunities in there.  Jax, you went into one of the 4-year-old classrooms and bonded quickly with one of your teachers.  You also did awesome and were unfazed by random "mommy sightings" ; )  Meanwhile, I was helping out with elementary crafts in one of the three craft rooms.  Michelle and I volunteered together and I'm grateful for that as I would've been lost without her....probably literally as there were over 1,000 kids and 500 volunteers!!  

Each morning started with an assembly for the 2, 3, 4, and 5 year olds and Michelle and I would join you in there to hear the day's lesson, read scripture, sing, and dance!

It was a little nerve wracking to me that you were just one of awholelotta kids and that, unlike at our last church, you were unknown by a majority of the volunteers.  But one of the volunteers who does know you texted me this picture of you in your classroom and it calmed my fears a bit.

At the end of the first day, everyone was all smiles!

See, Colt - you were there!!  One of the workers from your room took a few of y'all on a stroller ride each morning and you looked like you were loving it every time I saw you!

I'll wrap things up with the final scriptures from our week.  The first comes from Joshua:  ....as for me and my house, we will choose to serve the Lord.  Appropriately last, from the book of Mark - Go into the world and proclaim the good news!

Take me out to the ballgame...

Dearest Sports Fan,

Another game is in the books!  Last weekend, we arranged for Deanna to stay with Colton so we could take you to a baseball game.  To save some money, we saw the local farm team, The Roughriders, instead of our major league team.

It was the first super hot day we've had around here and sitting on the 1st base side put us directly in the sun.  

So, we might have scoped out some empty seats on the shady, 3rd base line and sat there instead.

Ice cream also helped keep us cool!

You made it through the entire game!  And afterwards, they allowed the kids to run the bases.  You were confused at first and I caught a picture of you checking to see if you really were allowed...

but then you got the hang of it and took off around that diamond!

This is you coming off the field...over an hour past your bedtime...but in awesome spirits!

This game seems to have reignited your passion as you've asked every day since then, "How many days before my next baseball game?"  We thought we were going to try a different sport this fall, so this should be interesting...