Happy Birthday Daddy...a couple of days late!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Memorial day! We sure did. The sun finally came out and it made for a much more joyous time as we remembered all the men and women who have served our country and protected our freedom. Shelby was particularly interest in it and everytime we saw an American flag or something with red, white, and blue on it she would ask about it. Her curiosity at this stage is almost unquenchable. It is amazing to watch her little face as she processes new information and hear her questions. Fourth of July will be another time to share with her all that people have done so that we can live in a country where we are free to worship God, go to school, get good health care, live where we want, etc.

Here is a picture of Pratt and JP with the fish he helped Pratt reel in. After we had a nice family dinner on Memorial Day we rode our bikes down the road to a great fishing spot on the lake across the street from our house. As soon as the hook hit the water Pratt caught a fish. We just laughed because that is the same thing that happened last time we took the kids fishing. What can I say....Pratt is an excellent fisherman!

We tried to get a picture of Shelby with the fish that she helped reel in, but she really wasn't interested in standing that close to the fish.

About a week and a half ago we celebrated Pratt's birthday!! Happy Birthday Daddy!!! We love you so much! It was a great night of family fun and Shelby loved asking her daddy how old he was. Now she just says, "I know how old daddy is. He is 31. I know how old mommy is. She is 30. I know how old JP is. He is 2." My mom gave me an awesome cake pan for Christmas and we have had so much fun making and eating yummy Clemson sweet treats! We got crazy with this one and dyed the cake batter orange for extra affect.



These last two pictures are of JP being a boy. Everyday I am more and more amazed at how he just attracts dirt. This boy loves to be messy!! Everything he does ends up messy and if it is something that I think I can keep a close eye on to keep him from getting messy he proves me wrong. This first picture is of him eating the Clemson cake with some chocolate ice cream. Surprisingly I think he ate more than he got on himself...I wonder if that means we gave him too much?!?!?!?! Chocolate is one of his favorite things. Shelby steers clear of most chocolate, in fact if given the option of chocolate or something else, she always chooses the other. JP on the other hand always has room for chocolate. They are pretty opposite in a lot of things now that I think about it. Shelby loves meat and JP pretty much sticks with fruits and veggies. Shelby hates having covers on her and JP won't let you hear the end of it if you put him in bed without covering him up, and then there is the chocolate thing....hummmm, interesting.....

Another great mess picture. Shelby is really into crafting right now and I just love it. Most of the time she is sitting at the table coloring, drawing, cutting, painting, beading, etc. This day I let them get the finger paints out and while Shelby made pretty little hand prints and finger print pictures, JP proceeded to paint himself and pretty much had one little smudge on his paper when we were all done. Look at how proud he is....now, tell me, who can resist those big brown eyes??????

One more thing...today I took Shelby to Island Gymnastics to sign up for her very first ever organized activity. We have been to several birthday parties there and her end of the year school party was there. She talks about that place a lot so we thought she might enjoy taking a gymnastics class, and boy was she excited. In the past when I have asked her if she wanted to do this or do that it was met with resistance and even panic, but when I told her that we were going to Island Gymnastics to sign up for a class she could hardly sit still she was so excited and then I got 20 questions from her in about 30 seconds. It was so nice to see her excited about something for a change. Now I hope that we can keep that excitement as we wait the week we have before the class starts.