Sweet Sunday

I am sitting here watching the kids play and it makes my heart smile. Sean is having a ball of a time with some red plastic cups we had left over from our 4th of July party & his cars and Jaycie is laying on her activity mat. - She has just discovered she can reach up and touch/smack the one of the toys that is hanging above her and she gets so excited when she does so! Her legs will start kicking wildly and she'll do a cross between a squeal and a coo. Ha!

Our 4th of July was nice. The kids and I spent the early part of the afternoon over at my Aunt Lisa's for our annual birthday party for my Dad, Uncle Jeff, cousin Cameron & myself. My cousin Brandy was there with her 4 year old son, Anthony and Sean had such a good time playing with him! The two of them played with cars, walkie talkies and just ran all over the place enjoying each others company. This was Jaycie's first meeting with everyone on that side of the family and I was so happy to finally "show her off" to them. She wasn't in the best of moods though. She was dealing with some gas for most of the time we were there so she was a very unhappy little one. She slept for part of the time - which I was pleased about; but other than that, she pretty much cried or whimpered the entire time we were there. =(

This 4th of July was the first one Steve was able to have off in 6 years so we had a party at our house later that afternoon/evening. It was great! His entire family (minus Rob) were there, both my parents, Sami & Mere, Taylor & Linda and Jeremy & Val were all here to celebrate. Steve smoked a turkey that turned out beyond yummy and we had a ton of food to go around - dips, salsas, vege's, fruit salad, FSU corn, cookies, brownies, smoked sausages, potatoe salad, jello.... Everything was so good!! We did fireworks out front when it was dark enough and the kids had a blast. I even had little glo-stick bracelets for them to wear! They thought that was fun! Since this is our first 4th of July "off the hill", it was Sean's first "real" 4th of July seeing fireworks. He thought they were fun too look at but wasn't too sure about the noise some of them gave off. He stuck close to whomever was near him and half way thru he found his way to me in the house and we watched together from the kitchen window. -- I had been watching from there with Jaycie after the first couple of high pitched whistling fireworks were being set off - a little too loud for miss little one!

On the 7th I turned the big 3-0. Crazy!! I remember my Mom's 30th birthday and here I am already celebrating mine!! My birthday present from Steve this year was having our family picture taken and I was thrilled!!! The kids did good and we got a better picture than what I had expected so I was pleased!!
Obviously I don't have my copies of the pictures yet which is why you see "my online portraits" going across the pictures. Ha...

My sister-in-law, Jenn came over that evening and Steve & I escaped for a much needed night out. It was so funny due to since Jaycie has been born, I literally haven't left the house without the kids. - I always either have both of them or one of them with me. I felt totally naked without them when Steve & I left that night! Taylor & Linda had given me a very generous gift card to Tahoe Joe's for my birthday so Steve & I headed there for dinner. I even shocked myself by ordering their Taylor Creek Salmon and it was delicious!! I must be getting wiser in my "old" age due to I am normally NOT a seafood fan at all. But I thought I would give it a whirl since I had liked the salmon we ate at a wedding back in February. I do believe I have found a new fave to order at Tahoe Joe's! Afterwards we headed over to Edwards Theater where we took in the new 'Toy Story 3' movie. It was so cute! Definitely a "must buy" as I believe Sean would love it. Steve and I were so thrilled to finally be at the movies - we haven't been since Sean was born!! We are hoping to get in more date nights from now on. If we can manage going out by ourselves if only once a month, we'll be pleased.