Asher is ONE!

 The past 12 months have gone very quickly and it is amazing to see how much he has grown!

 Asher got a new shirt from Grandma Buys and I made him a special crown for his birthday.  Briella and Gideon 'helped' me decorate Asher's cake.  It turned out pretty cute, too :)

 Asher enjoyed his new car carrier and his cake--what a fun night!

Upcoming Birthdays

 My baby is turning one next week and my firstborn will be 5 the following week!  It was time for a little photo shoot :)  We went to a nearby park so the kids could play while waiting.  I thought I would share a few of the cute ones that didn't make the cut to be printed . . . if only I was a little savvier with my camera and wiser about lighting . . . then they would all be wonderful!!  Enjoy.

 

Briella . . . jumping jacks . . .

Briella is so proud of her new skill and as you can see it takes much effort :)    She wanted me to send this to her teacher, so Gideon is asking if this one is for her teacher.  She will be turning 5 on September 5, her first day of school!! WOW.

 Disclaimer: She dressed herself this morning and I did not interfere.

Camping

 We spent at week at a campground with 4 other families from church.  We set up in some oppressive heat and then enjoyed four beautiful days followed by two rainy days.  The kids had a blast. There were friends all around, a playground 5 campsites down, the pool nearby, and lots of bike riding. A friend brought this gate to help keep the little ones contained and less dirty, but the big kids liked playing in the cage, too :)

 Monday night our group participated in a sand sculpture contest and we won the staff pick.  We made the London Tower with the Olympic rings . . . it was quite exciting to have the kids getting buckets of sand and water while the adults shaped various parts of the sculpture.  We each got a free snow cone or ice cream cone for our prize--yum!

 One afternoon they had a slip and slide so I got the kids all excited about this and when we saw it I was not impressed.  It was flat. It was soapy. Briella didn't even want to try it (surprise surprise) and Gideon finally dared to try and then slipped and landed on his back/head so that ended our slip N slide adventure.

 One night there was a family scavenger hunt. We searched the whole campground for various characters.  The kids were excited to find this monkey in a tree until some other kids screamed and then they did too.  We also found the scooby-doo cast, Little Bo Peep & her sheep, a Dutch lady, a surfer dude, some exercise ladies, a clown (also a little scary), and Waldo.  I may have trained Briella to be a little more competitive while we raced from place to place . . .

 We spent some time inside on those rainy days, I was glad I packed books for the kids :)  We also had to enjoy the last night of s'mores under the canopy.  Thankfully for us it cleared up after the kids went to bed so the adults could still sit by the fire for hours.