Happy Birthday to me!!!! and some shameless begging.

Tomorrow is my birthday and I feel silly admitting this, but I still get pretty super excited about it...is that selfish?  I'm not even sure what it is that I'm excited about, but when that day of the year starts to come around again, the excitement is inevitable.  I was thinking today about what I want for my birthday...what would make it spectacularly and amazingly fantastic?  When it hit me, I got so excited about the prospect, I decided to blog about it.  Are you ready to hear it???

...wait for it....

...and the anticipation rises....

....here it comes....

PHONE CALLS.....phone calls from those I love and miss (and that's probably most everyone that reads this unless I have no idea who you are). I would LOVE to hear from family and friends and catch up with everyone.  And it doesn't even have to be on my birthday!  If you read this a few days late, or even a few weeks late, pick up the phone and call!!!  And if you do, I promise a phone call on your birthday or even before then...I need to keep in closer contact with so many people.  And you just may get one on your birthday whether you call or not...I won't make that conditional on my end.  

Oh, and if you've recently (or ever) had a birthday that I overlooked or was late on, I'm so sorry.  I'm working on a birthday calendar so that doesn't happen anymore.

So call me!  Please!  I'd LOOOOVE to talk and catch up! (and if I don't answer, I WILL call you back as soon as I can...that's a personal promise you can quote me on!)

And just so this post isn't all about me, here are a couple shots of dinner tonight.  Leah decided to forego (she forewent??) her pasta in favor of the oranges....all of the oranges.  I cut up three oranges for our family to eat for dinner.  I think Dallin had two slices and Dave and I each had three...so I'm pretty sure Leah ate (or rather, devoured) AT LEAST two whole oranges for dinner.  

Note the flowers at the side of the picture...Dave took Leah to the store tonight to have her pick them out for my birthday.  Pretty great intro to my birthday!!!!

Not very well-balanced, but whatever.  We let her do it.

And of course, D-man.

More pool attempts

I am working really hard to make pool time a fun family activity, however Dallin is putting up the fight. I'm not so sure it's the water temperature anymore, because he protests even if he's sitting in the pool with no water in it.  It's so puzzling...he really loves the bath and there's not a lot that he's afraid of, so who knows what's going on in his baby mind.

Here's Dallin, refusing to be comforted :(.  My friend, Sharon brought her little boy Kamden to swim with us. I think Kamden enjoyed the whole thing better than anyone else!

So after a bit of crying, I pulled Dallin over to the towels to relax in the (very bright, very hot) sun.  Leah just liked being able to travel in and out of the pool as she pleased.  And Kamden splashed and splashed and splashed.

Where's your sense of adventure, Dallin!?!

After awhile Dallin got tired of the towels and he crawled across the grass to play in the weeds on the other side of the yard.  Nice. 

Leah kept trying to drink from the little water spouts coming out of the side bumpers of the pool.

My cute girl.

I even put on my own swimming suit and got in the pool to try to coax Dallin to come enjoy the water with me.  Totally unsuccessful.

He did come test out the water sprinklers.  Baby steps!  

And Kamden's still loving it, all by himself! 

Again, no luck.  That's okay, Dallin...maybe some other time!

MUCH happier now! 

Trying out the slide (it doesn't slide very well, but she does like climbing on it).

"Sheeze!"

   

Yet another attempt a few days later.  Note: Leah in pool.  Dallin not in pool.  Not much has changed!

Mini Air Show

Dave came home from work on Friday with a gleam in his eye, asking if we had any plans for Saturday morning.  When I told him no, he excitedly began talking about this small air show going on a few minutes from our house...and by "small" he was talking about model airplanes.  I was skeptical as to how fun it could be, but agreed.  And guess what?!  It was a ton of fun.  The planes weren't quite as small as I was picturing - they were actually pretty large remote control planes and the tricks they could do were amazing.

It was a great atmosphere for Leah because she was somewhat free to roam, and the crowd was small enough that she could see everything going on. 

This jet was the first one that we saw.  It was amazing...it could fly at speeds up to 200 miles an hour!

This was one of three airplanes from the World War II era.  They all flew at the same time and even did some flying formations - a difficult thing for three different people controlling their planes by remote control. 

  

This was the biggest airplane we saw and it did trick after trick after trick.  The most repeated trick was hovering in one spot as seen in the picture above.

  

Even Dallin got to roam around quite a bit instead of being stuck in the stroller like he usually is.  And he took full advantage!

I don't love these next few pictures of me (I didn't do my hair that morning because I was going to get it cut that afternoon), but I love how Dallin snuggled up to my face when I leaned in for a picture with him.  He's such a cuddle-bug!

So thank you Dave for an awesome idea for a family activity! You can take us to a mini airshow any time!

Father's Day Weekend

Last week felt like an abnormally long week in the Briggs home, so we were ready to celebrate when the weekend arrived!

We started celebrating early by breaking out some sidewalk chalk on Friday afternoon and going at it. 

Okay, maybe I was the only one who "went at it".  Leah liked to pick up the chalk and carry it around, though. 

...and she got a little bit into it.  That right there in the picture is about the extent of what she drew, along with maybe a couple other scratches. 
This is probably an everyday activity for a lot of toddlers, but I'm not great at pulling out activities that I know are going to end in a mess - especially since I'm trying to monitor Dallin during the whole thing (ie keeping him from putting everything in his mouth).  But I do need to be better about giving Leah more creative experiences...goodness knows she has tons of creativity in her!

I got a little freaked out when I went to put Dallin in the grass and saw that thing crawling right where I was about to set him.  This picture does not do it justice.  It was huge.  And creepy.

So I ended up letting him crawl through all the sidewalk chalk while constantly pulling the chalk out of his mouth.  His pants ended up looking like a rainbow by the end of the afternoon.  But he loved it.

That night we took the kids out for Chinese food (yum!!!!) before putting them down to bed.  Saturday morning we got up and headed out to Lowe's to buy Dave's father's day gift...a grill!  And wouldn't you know, I didn't take a single picture of the grill, or of when we used it to make his father's day meal.  But you can take my word...we got one and we're excited about it.

Handsome, handsome!  That pretty much says it all!

"Peek-a-boo!"

"SOOOO big!" 
I apologize for the dirty mirror in the background.  I debated whether or not I should bring it up because I didn't want to draw attention to it, but I figure it's so glaringly noticeable that I owed an apology.  Sorry again.

Dallin doesn't love this game as much as he used to.

Saturday night we got babysitters while Dave took me to the mall to buy a new dress for an early birthday present.  Then we went back home and watched a redbox DVD, "The Vow".  It was interesting...there were things I liked about it, but overall I just felt like it was an okay movie.

Sunday we had Tyler, Jen and Eliza over for a Father's Day BBQ...and the inaugural run of the Briggs Family grill!  We made hamburgers and just enjoyed hanging out. Leah and Eliza are such a hoot together - it continues to be so fun to watch them play:

I love that they're both playing with their elbows.

Please ignore the mess on Leah's face.  I don't think I bothered to clean that off until bath time.  (I swear I'm not always so neglectful). 

Dallin was anxious to get in on the action.

But then he got a little too involved in the action when the girls piled on him for a three-way hug...he really wasn't sure how he felt about it.

Still not sure...

...it took a little convincing...

...but he eventually began to enjoy it!

Next stop: pile on Mom/Katie!

Pure fun!

The fun, as it usually does, had to come to an end.  The girls said their good-byes but we hope it's not too long before we get together again!  Thanks for a great afternoon!

And Happy Father's Day!