Ooops, missed a few big moments

That's what happens when I don't blog for a month. So now, the punishment is mine to do a catch up post to capture all of the happenings in the past month - and we've been busy!

So Tony's dad's visit ended July 24th. We had a last minute get together the night before he left with several of Tony's aunt's and uncle's, which was really nice since we usually see them under less fortunate circumstances like a funeral. It was a nice visit and I'm glad we were able to all get together.

We also celebrated Don's birthday which was at the end of the month.

We took a few pictures before Grandpa left.

And then Hannah took a couple of us

Oh, and here are a couple of our darling children at their finest

Hannah being silly

And this is Nicholas' hidden talent, he sticks his fingers up his nose because then when he talks, it sounds funny and he loves being silly and making everyone laugh!

Then came Vacation Bible School week. Hannah had a blast this year. Our theme was Inside Outside Upside Down on Main Street. She learned a lot of fun stuff and good things about being a good person. We enjoyed seeing her perform the songs she learned that week at the program at the end of the week. Picture taking isn't the greatest, but here she is (in the pink dress and bow in her hair) singing her praises to God!

The next big exciting thing we did was taking Hannah to her first concert. We saw Taylor Swift on Saturday night, July 30th.

She was so very excited to go and I think we were equally as excited to take her. We didn't have very good seats, but the show was great! We went with Jerry & Maci too and we all enjoyed the show. Here are the girls with their T-shirts ready for the fun.

And with their daddy's

My big girl baby and I

Hannah as Taylor was coming out on stage

And then as the night was nearing a close, Hannah was pretty tired but still had concert fever and was using my phone to show her light during the encore.

Nicholas spent the night at Grandma's by himself for the first time that night. He did just fine, but missed his sister. Wonder how he's going to feel when she goes off to school in another week and he's without her every day!

Perhaps this is how he'll be......

Time out is becoming a common place to find him at home and at daycare. He even puts himself there when he's misbehaving. He lets himself out though when he's done throwing his fit.

Then we celebrated Kendal's 16th birthday.....really, 16? It doesn't seem like that long ago when I first met her and she was a little girl that I read nursery rhymes to. And then she was just a little girl when we got married and now she's 16. She's a very smart, pretty young lady and I hope she has fun being 16! The kids had fun swimming in the pool and playing on the trampoline.

Nicholas is Uncle Jack's sidekick for sure!

Hannah had her last swim lesson for the season. She's doing better, but still needs to work on getting her face in the water and gaining more confidence to swim independently. She actually did really well at Aunt Dawn's pool with goggles on and getting her face in, but without them, she's so hesitant. She's getting more comfortable in the water, which is big progress. Hannah and Nicholas played a little b-ball before that last lesson at the Rec Center

I went to Columbus for a business trip this past week. I thought I was going for a standard corporate type training on Diversity and Inclusion, however, I was so pleasantly surprised at the experience I went through. It was a really awesome self-reflective two day training full of energy, emotion and really great stuff. It filled me with some great positive thinking and feeling and I'm so excited to have had the opportunity to share with everyone in my life.

I came home and the next night we took the kids to the county fair. They seemed to have fun and Nicholas even got to take a couple rides on the carousel.

And lastly, we spent the weekend back in Columbus for a family reunion. I hardly took any pictures - shame on me - but it was so super busy that I just didn't seem to have the time. We got in Friday night and sort of settled in. Sunday we did a little shopping while the guys golfed and then I took the kids to the water park. They had a blast! Nicholas has no fear of the water at all, which is super scary for me. He loved the water slides and Hannah is getting more fun to do that sort of thing with since she's bigger and braver. We all went to dinner together - about 35 of us, and then hung out Saturday evening. Here is one of the few pictures I took. Tony was missing as he snuck away to catch the Browns game.

We got home yesterday afternoon and did normal weekend stuff like laundry, cleaning and grocery shopping. Here are my two adorable babies being best buds and having fun in the laundry basket.

They're so awesome!

And there you have it, the last month of our lives - pretty much all the good stuff. There were some other happenings like a flooded basement, fevers and puking, car repairs.... but really, some things are better off forgotten!!!

Cooking Lesson

Tony's dad is here from Florida for a visit for about a week and a half. Today, he was giving Tony a little cooking lesson on how to make "real" meatballs and pasta sauce. Now, the little secret is that I really DO know how to make it from scratch, but Prego and frozen meatballs are just so much easier and Hannah has grown quite fond of that form. Now I'm guessing my sauce (if I were to make it), might not be as good, so I'm glad that Tony's learning. And the other part of the good news is that Hannah and Nicholas both did like the little bites of meatballs, so the real test will be the spaghetti for dinner tonight!

I think I also did quite well with seeing the mess they made and am also happy to report they did manage to clean up after themselves just fine!!!

Here are a couple pics of the lesson

And then Nicholas had to join the guys too

First Haircut

Nicholas got his first haircut last week. He was a little overdue as he was usually styling some serious wings on the side of his head! He was getting a little slight curl in the back of his head, but the top still seemed pretty straight. So anyway, we headed over to the barbershop last Saturday. The barber is our neighbor across the street. As soon as he set up the little stool for the barber chair and I sat Nicholas down, it all went south from there! Then Jack tried to strap the cape on him and told him he was like Superman - yeah, Nicholas didn't buy that one bit! And then Jack came at him with clippers............oh, boy, Nicholas was pretty much done!

So I offered to sit him in my lap and eventually minus the cape and that worked slightly better, but it was still not going so well.

Then we discovered the ashtray in the side of the chair. That provided a bit of a distraction and allowed Jack to get some cutting done.

I was a little surprised how short he went, but I absolutely LOVE it! It's so super cute! He looks like such a little boy now and not so much a baby anymore. Jack tried shaving his sides and around the back of his neck and ears, but he realized when enough was enough, so he stopped. He offered Nicholas a pretzel stick and after we brushed off most of the hair from our shirts, things were much better.

Here is the little boy all clean cut!

He's dodging the camera pretty good these days, so there isn't a great picture, but, boy, is he cute!

They're off, now she's off

Hannah asked for her training wheels to come off this past Friday night. So we reminded her that once they came off, we wouldn't be putting them back on this time. She wanted them off and wanted to learn to ride without them. So Tony took them off.

He practiced with her for a while. He did the hold on to the back of her approach. She did pretty good, but I don't think she was getting the real feel of how to balance herself.

I'm not sure who seemed more frustrated, Tony or Hannah, so after he went in for the night, I stayed out with her and practiced. I helped her feel how it felt to balance and had her try to start the bike herself from a stopped position. When she'd fall, I made her pick the bike up herself and try again. She took a couple pretty good tumbles, but we practiced until it got dark.

Saturday morning after breakfast, she wanted to go out again, so we did. We did more of the start from a stop and I did a few runs with her down the sidewalk. She again, took several good tumbles and has a gigantic bruise on her left shin, but she was getting so close. It was super hot, so I hosed her and Nicholas down outside and we stopped for the day.

After I cleaned the house Sunday morning, she wanted to go again. I helped her get started and literally had my finger on the middle of her back and gave her a little push and off she went.....down the driveway, turned onto the sidewalk and up the neighbor's driveway all my herself!!!!!!!!!! I ran over to her and screamed for joy! I was so proud of her!!!! She got it on the first try!!!

She was still a bit wobbly, but could go herself! Tonight, she really started perfecting her turns and isn't so wobbly. We got her a new helmet that actually fits, a bell and a kickstand and now we have an official two-wheeler rider! Way to go Hannah!