No more teachers, no more books....

So long to being a freshman! Dom's on his way to his sophmore year....I can't believe how fast his first year of high school has gone by!

Birthday Boy gets a BIKE

Noah received his first BIG BOY BIKE for his birthday. His first reaction was "Oh my gosh Mommy!!!" He hopped right on the bike, tried to pedal backwards and couldn't (first bike with back brakes)....he promptly cried, got off the bike and told me to take the bike back to the store and requested that I buy him a motorcycle! Really???? This is so not how I imagined his birthday morning. He kept telling Jason and I that it was just too hard and that he needed a motorcycle. It took about an hour of prompting and practice, but he finally got on the bike and pedaled around the neighborhood. Zane, of course needed his turn on the bike so on he went. Now I can't keep the kids off the bike - all they want to do is ride and ride and ride and ride!

Noah and his Tony Hawk bike

First Ride....

Zane givin' it a try

Zane ridin' a big boy bike

What happens after the birthday party.....

Need I say more? This was about 3 minutes in to the drive home.....

Water Play at Noah's Birthday Party

Rio Vista has a great water area for the kids to cool down at. Noah absolutely loves the water and his friends were equally up to the task! The funniest one to watch? Dominic. The only teenager running around like a goof ball - the held the kids over the spray, layed on the ground, played leap frog...you name it, he pretty much did it. I'm not sure what I think about that :)

Dominic and Noah

Noah lovin' 4 yrs. old!

Chris

Monkey Boy Zane - loves the pool and the bathtub but HATES the squirty things!!!

Colton

Cayden

Happy Birthday Noah!

Noah had a great 4th birthday party this year! This year we ventured out from our backyard all the way down the road to Rio Vista Park. Rio Vista is a great park for little kids with a giant play structure, a water play area, big ramadas for all of us to sit at and a fabulous BBQ area. We had a great day of sun, water and hot dogs!

Thank you to all of Noah's friends that came to celebrate with us - Joey, Shane, Lucas, Austin, Kylie, Xander, Jackson, Lydia, Harrison, Ellie, Landon, Colten, Cayden, Chris and Ty. Noah had such a great time and it wouldn't have been the same without you all!

Noah and Joey

Two little monkeys....

Zane playing in the rocket ship

It's all about Super Heroes!

Amber (who looks amazing by the way with it being 95 degrees and all!) and my beautiful friend Vicki - pregnant with her 4th baby - Katherine Elizabeth. She was due in 2 weeks in this picture and looks so great - she always looks so good pregnant!!!

Amber's Husband Bryan

Cayden the monkey - he's managed to fold his body almost in half here....

Chris, Lucas and Chrissy!

Colton

Birthday Spankin's!

Dominic turned 15 this year....I can't believe he'll be driving in another 6 months. It absolutely frightens me for our neighborhood!

We celebrated with our family in Phoenix on Dom's birthday...thanks to the Pape's, Kulinski's and Budoff's who came to eat brownies (Dom's fave) and have dinner with us. We had a great time celebrating Dom's birthday. We ambushed Dom to give him his birthday spanks....it took about 4 of them to hold him down, but we did it.

We threw Dom a surprise party a couple weekends later with his friends. It was the first time I had thrown a surprise party for him and let me tell you...cell phones are great - if you know who to invite out of the over 150 people listed in his address book! Mass text messaging is fantastic but I felt like an imposter. In any case, the boys played ping pong, Rock Band, foos ball...the works!

Happy Birthday Baby! We love you!