Our summer started with 2 birthday parties in one day. Saturday morning Kerigan went to a birthday party for one of her friends from day care. She had a great time!
I'm not sure she'd ever hit a pinata! Now I'm confident she will want to at every birthday including her own! Ha!
More of her sweet day care/dance/school friends. These girls could not be any sweeter.
Cousin Jayden's birthday always kicks off the beginning of summer! Andrew was so happy to celebrate at their house that evening.
Kerigan just loves her grandpa (grandma too!)
Playing dress up with her cousins and friend
She was having a blast putting on all of Evelyn's old dance costumes, especially since she just had her first dance recital this spring!
Evi put lipstick on her and she thought it was the greatest thing in the world.
The boys playing outside!
Andrew got to spend the night and go to Jayden's party with his friends at the Science Center the next day. I had to stay home and get ready for our party that evening so Daddy went and picked him up and took Kerigan.
Does anyone recognize this mural? Ha! Craig texted me this picture when they were on their way home from the Science Center. This is the mural from the Bachelor when it filmed in Des Moines last season. I about died because I had been wanting to see it! He texted me and said "I can't believe it's over" (meaning their relationship)- ha ha! I think I laughed for 5 full minutes.
This is what I was doing, along with Ga Ga and Papa. We cleaned the patio and scrubbed the outside of the house, got lights hung up and made everything ready for summer! Daddy and Papa put together the trampoline for the kids as a summer surprise!
I've had it since the Black Friday sales when I came home with it about 1am! Ha! We always like to surprise the kids with something for the last day of school.
They were so excited. I said next year they aren't getting anything though! We're running out of space in the yard! Ha! Next year we want to pull out the fence and expand it to enclose our whole yard, which is only about 1/16 fenced in right now (from the previous owners).
Last year their surprise was this water slide. It has gotten so much use! It's so easy to put up and the kids are entertained for hours. We just put it outside the fence and pull our lawn games out there too. But it will be nice when we can have one big enclosed area.
Each year we like to have a BBQ to kickoff summer and invite all our friends in town. This year we added even more new friends we've made and everyone had so much fun. It was almost too cold for the pool but we decided to put it up anyway and you can see the kids didn't care!
My favorite thing ever is being surrounded by our friends and family and just having everyone relaxed, visiting and watching the kids play.
And that's exactly what this night is. Craig grills burgers and hot dogs and everyone brings a side and drinks and we all just relax and enjoy kicking off summer!
Kids are everywhere and having a blast!
It just makes me happy. I always say I don't look at it as having "company," but rather being surrounded by friends. I love it when people come over and I love to entertain. Some people like alone time (don't get me wrong, I value that as well) but give me a choice and I'd choose "company" any day!
The trampoline was definitely a hit. It was used constantly all.night.long. I made a rule that only 3 people could be on it at one time. Yeah that lasted about 2 minutes. Ha! We know about the safety and the risks. The kids were all informed and everyone was really good.
Time to fire up the grill for s'mores!
Sweet friends
Marshmallow photo bomb!
Because why not roast s'mores in your pj's?
The kids found a frog!
Andrew and one of his best friends from school, Eli. His mom was our realtor and we just love their family!
The kids wrapped up the night watching a movie as the adults still enjoyed the fire! It was my definition of the perfect summer night.
