Photo Bomb!

Another random picture bomb for y'all!  Ok.. it's for me.  

It's summer in AZ!  It's already well over 100 every day, and that means unless we are swimming, we are not outside!  I bought some popsicles though to try and have the kids outside for a little while.  I fill up buckets of water for them to play with and send them out with a popsicle thinking that will buy me a few minutes... well it does... like exactly 3 minutes.  they sit in this little circle together (which I just love) and try and eat their popsicles faster than they are melting, and as soon as their done they are back inside.  Not interested in buckets of water or toys or bikes.. swimming pool, or nothing!  

My amazing friend Pam sent me these little boy ties that she made!  I had no idea she had an etsy shop and these are seriously well made, cute, professional type ties!  I think I need some lessons on how to make my own, because the only tie I've made for my boys was ok, but definitely a little home made looking!

All I wanted was one picture of the boys together with their ties... it didn't turn out to be a good morning for pictures!  This is what we got!

Whew.. that's when I gave up.  But Brenna wanted mommy in some, so we kept trying...

And finally, we had a birthday party for Brenna.  It was a little late, but it was a pool party and it was fun!  I think everyone had fun, and it wasn't too crazy for me either.  We had 10 kids, 5 friends and 5 cousins.  I wish I got pictures of the swimming, but I was getting too wet to dare take the camera in... thankfully after we got out of the pool my photographer sister-in-law grabbed my camera and started snapping away!  Thanks Aly!

This one is silly faces and it makes me laugh a lot.

Trying to play toss the sponges into the buckets.. in the end the buckets were pretty close together.. haha

Spin the bottle for presents!

Notice how the circle gets smaller and smaller as time goes on.. the girls just keep sneaking in closer and closer and closer to the presents!

These girls worked up an appetite!  I could barely get the watermelon out the door!

Throw one in of cute baby Graham.. so tiny!

And finally decorating their own cakes... I am getting progressively lazy with cakes.. I started out strong and every year I get a little less excited about making the cake!  So this was a great solution!

These (above and beneath) are like my favorite two pictures from the party.  Mason was trying to make his, but has trouble with spreading.  He was trying and then Brenna offered to help and she spread his icing for him... it was so sweet and I'm glad Aly brought it to my attention and caught it on film!  Sometimes, they're best friends! 

Most of the cupcakes looked pretty much like this.

And then since then we had cousins sleep over that night, then we babysat some other cousins the next day after we dropped of the first cousins, and then I had a girls night with the SIL's where we stayed out way way way too late (got home at 3 AM) and the next day we got invited on a double date so we scrounged for a babysitter (thanks to Aly and Justin for helping out!  We owe you!) and had a fun, despite that I was basically a zombie, and then we had more people over for games yesterday, and now it's Sunday and I am excited to relax... we'll see if the kids will allow it!  It's great having family so close, and keeping busy in the summer!  Besides that my house is getting a little too messy, everything is happy and fun!