The days are flying!

While daddy was gone Uncle Brooks and Aunt Clara kindly protected our sanity by coming up for a day visit. We had a great time swinging, swimming, blowing bubbles, and playing games. Thank you sooooo much guys! We ALL appreciated it.

We even survived Sunday morning without Wally except that Alden got up at 5:40am to start his day, and Rhianwen busted her lip on the front of the pew at the very end of the service. All in all a wildly successful day.

While eating her "garlic" (aka granola) at breakfast before dad left, Rhi was asked if we should eat daddy's birthday cake without him since he was going to be gone on his birthday. "Yeah!!!!" she said confidently and excitedly. When Daddy asked her if she knew how old he would be, she said, "Yeah, but you will still be daddy when you are old, right?"

Mommy thought it would be hilarious if we gave him a big scare when he got back at 1am and came in the door to see the big bad birthday man that Rhi and I made (aka the "wrapping" job for the hammock from his parents).

Here he is!

But I ended up warning Wally over the phone, so he wouldn't flip out and hurt himself, wake the entire house, and ruin his gift by shooting it.


The funny thing is that the next day, Mr. Birthday Man looked like he had gotten attacked by some Pygmies who liked to shrink heads...(I'm just imagining the hits I'm going to get on this page as a result of that last statement).


Enjoying the contents of Mr. Birthday Man.


Rhianwen insisted that we wrap balloons for Daddy's birthday. So, here they are. (We only let Alden try for a few seconds...yes we know it's a choking hazard, and no, we won't let your children do this if you happen to entrust them to our care.)

Rhianwen attended her first VBS this past week. She had a great time learning about Paul, played by Troy, one of our pastors. They said that he clocked in about 15h in chains by the time VBS was over and done with. And I think it was quite a bit crazier than Paul's house arrest with a hundred plus kids tramping through to visit him each day!

Alden has been so energetic and into everything as always. His favorite thing to do is to dive into the kiddie pool when we aren't looking. He did this when we were saying goodbye to our neighbors who were moving, and they said, "Um, your baby just got into your pool." They said he reminded them of the baby on The Incredibles. I think we have our hands full enough without him floating around self-combusting. The strange part is, that he doesn't want to get into the pool when we want him to be in it. Instead, at those times, he prefers to be in our flower beds eating dirt and tearing up plants. He's been learning to kiss and will make a little "Mmmumm" sound to go with it (something her learned from Rhianwen). Other sounds he enjoys mimicking are animal sounds, car sounds, and the white noise on his soundmaker. He's really started enjoying books big time and will even read to himself (finally!). I don't know why, but this boy seems to be a pro at destroying board books even though he's only reading them. We'll need a whole new round of them before the next child comes along. When he picks up the prayer books with pic of fam in it he'll often start saying, "Gac, Ga Ga, Gac." b/c there are so many Grands in them :)

The fantastic duo.