Joseph's Birthday, Family Visit, and Summer Fun

More photo dumping!  The month of July was fulllll of adventures!

Happy birthday, Joseph!!  On July 13, Joseph celebrated his 32nd birthday.  We're so lucky that we've spent exactly half of our lives celebrating each others' birthdays together. :-)

Joseph, opening his gifts with the boys very interested to see what he got.

I had Alex "write" a book (with my help of course) entitled, I Love Daddy.Inside the book was all of the things that Alex loves to do with Joseph.
I wrote down the sentences, and Alex drew pictures to go along with them.
Joseph loved it and Alex was so proud of his hard work.

Joseph and Alex are reading the book together.

William wanted to join in for a snuggle.

Oscar, of course, was after one thing:  The wrapping paper!  He loves to
rip it to shreds.

His cake got a little smooshed, but here it is, happy #32! :-)

Make a wish!

Oscar helped Joseph blow out the candles. :-)

Ok...the moving trucks came in mid July to move our friends to Atlanta.  The boys and I just HAD to stop by and give our final, tear-filled, farewells to the Hearne family. 

James, Alex, and William, playing in the empty living room and checking
out the moving truck.

Kate holding James, with Alex giving a farewell kiss good-bye.

Alex and Sanders getting in one last snuggle,
while William was trying to help himself into the car.

Me, Kate, and James getting in one last selfie,
sniffle, and a snuggle before we bid farewell to our dear friends.
We'll see you again soon!  Love ya, mean it! ;-)

Back tracking a bit due to organization of pictures, here.  In July, Joseph's parents visited us for a week.  Linda had a presentation to give in Boston, so Elias tagged along and hung out with me and the boys.  We had a great time exploring Boston and the surrounding areas and soaked in as much summer sun as possible.  :-)

The boys and I took Elias and Linda for their
first official Swan Boat ride in Boston Common. :-)

Then it was time to splash around in Frog Pond!  (Also a first for Linda and Elias!)

Linda splashed around with William.

While Elias splashed around with Alex.

Elias, Alex, Linda, and William in Frog Pond.

I love the look on the boys' faces in this picture.

Joseph was able to join us after his shift
and managed to walk over from the hospital
and meet us for lunch. 
We enjoyed a lovely lunch from this cute
little sandwich shop in the common called,
"The Earl of Sandwich."  Cute, huh?

Linda and Elias typically drive when they come see us, and when they do, they come bearing gifts!  This time, they brought us two dozen ears of delicious Indiana corn from our friend's farm.  Okos corn is truly the best sweet corn on the planet.  Linda was nice enough to shuck a lot of it and freeze it so that we could have eat it any time we wanted.

Mmmmm!  Okos corn!

Joseph had a day off, so we packed into Elias and Linda's mini van and drove to Animal Adventures in Bolton, MA.  It's an awesome place where you can get up close and personal contact with lots of exotic animals.  It's also an animal rescue facility where the animals have been rescued from less than ideal situations and are given the love and care that they deserve.  The caretakers at this facility have such a love for the animals and know so much about them that it's a great educational experience as well.  We love this place!
However, since I had to hold William the entire time, I wasn't able to take pictures during our visit. 

Other than this gem!  Here's the boys
being cute in front of the facility.

Little love nibbles :-)

Woo hoo and Hallelujah for date nights!
Especially if grandparents are watching the kiddos!
Thanks Elias and Linda for watching the kids
so that we could take in a Lux Cinema viewing of 22 Jump Street!
(We love that place because you get food and booze
delivered to you while you watch movies in a reclining chair!)
What a treat! :-)

We have a teeeeeny tiny little plot of land and planted another garden for this year.  We planted heirloom beefsteak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, snacking peppers, sweet basil, cilantro, and rosemary.

Here's one of our first BIG harvests!  Boo yah, baby!
Alex is a really great eater and prefers healthy foods.
However, William has proven to be more difficult to
get to like healthy foods....until we planted our own garden!!
As soon as we picked the veggies off of the plant,
William stuffed them into his mouth!  He now
loooooves cucumber and tomatoes!  So great!

William and mommy snuggle time. :-)

What a big boy!

While Linda was at the convention and Joseph was at work, Elias, the boys, and I went to Houghton's Pond.  It turned out to be one of our favorite spots to visit this summer.  It was only about 20 minutes away from the house, was free (huge bonus), had clean facilities, and a quaint little beach that was just perfect for the boys.

Here's William in his little floaties, ready
to play in the water.

What a happy little kid :-)

Elias and Alex at Houghton's Pond.

William was finally ready to cooperate for the picture.
:-)

Mom and William selfie at the beach.  Once we got the
little floaties for the boys, Alex became quite interested
in learning how to swim.  So, Elias took Alex to swim
and William and I played on the beach with the sand.
It was a perfect day.

Joseph and Alex practicing reading.  Joseph really spear-headed this
and Alex has really shown an interest in reading.  It's so awesome to see his progress!

William came in for some snuggles, too.

This kid loooooves edamame!

Look at that face and determination :-p

Nono and Nai Nai came bearing gifts!  Here's the boys checking out their spoils!
Thanks so much, Elias and Linda!

Linda, William, Alex, and Elias, checking out all of their gifts.

Messy little cannoli eater!  We have an amazing local Italian bakery
that makes THE best cannolis and other delicious nom noms...they know us
now and always give the boys butter cookies when they come in.  :-)

Love those baby blues....that are sometimes green. :-)

Silly photo booth selfie time!

Alex loves playing around with my camera phone.

He also cracks up when I make faces.

This one cracks me up!

I think he takes after me in this respect... :-p
I love his silliness and sense of humor.

Woo hoo more veggies!!  We enjoyed lots and lots
of delicious salads this summer that were provided
straight from our garden!  I didn't have to buy
cucumbers or sweet basil all summer!  It was awesome.

A pirate super hero holding a fire extinguisher...why not?

"William.  Can you give that fire extinguisher to mommy?"

William:  "Noooooo, sheh shoo, mommy."  (No thank you, mommy.)

Brother snuggle time!  Love this :-)

I love how they're both smiling so much.

See what I mean??  As soon as I would
bring the harvest in, I would see little hands
grabbing veggies from the counter and
then scurrying away.  Here's Alex...caught in the act
of thievery with half of the cucumber already gone.
I'm one proud mommy.  :-)

Cute...just so stinking cute!

William that only wanted to wear
the knight's head piece.  He was so proud of himself.

He loves seeing himself in the camera phone, too.

Ninja turtle Alex!

On one particularly hot day, I got out the baby pool and water table and let the boys have at it.  William wanted to jump right in, while Alex insisted that he wear his swimsuit.  This says a lot about their personalities, am I right?

Alex being goofy while William was splashing
around in the background.  Methinks we need
a bigger pool for next year.

The big guy is all about the silly faces.

Awww!  So cute!

These guys looooove playing in the water.

Alex has started taking more responsibilities
and has been walking Oscar on our daily walks.
He was very proud of himself that day.

What a big boy!

Little man has been getting better at
tooling around on his balance bike!

On a gloomy and rainy summer day,
I took the boys out to our driveway
and we splashed around for a while.

The boys were so happy to splash around
without having to wear their boots and rain coats.

Ok...seriously...the boys love seeing themselves.

So much that they crack themselves up!

On July 28, we decided to stop putting William in the zip-up sleep blankets.  Instead, we began putting him under a blanket with all of his stuffed animal friends.

The poor little guy was afraid of it at first
and didn't want to touch it, let alone
get under the covers.

That night, Joseph was able to convince
William that it was OK to sleep under his blanket.
The little man woke up happy!

So happy that he wanted his blanket to be with him on the
changing table that morning.  :-)

Woo hoo!  He loves his blanket now.

Shadows of love :-)

The boys at play...I love the faces that these
two guys are making.

Awww!  So sweet.

It was a little too chilly to go in the water one day, so I took the boys on July 29 to hike through the Blue Hills Mountains.  We had a nice picnic in the picnic grounds, and then went for our hike.  It was a beautiful day walking through the woods.

Alex insisted on carrying the backpack that held
all of our supplies.

William lasted about half of the walk
and then I had to carry him the rest of the way.

Here's the boys at our picnic.

I told the boys that they had to be quiet
because we didn't want to scare the animals away.
Sure enough...as soon as they quieted down, I looked
up and saw this giant hawk right above us!!
Since we saw this at the beginning of our walk,
the boys totally believed me that they had to be
quiet for the rest of the hike.  It was delightful.

The boys in front of Houghton's Pond
at the base of the Blue Hills Mountains.

This is a pretty common view on any of our walks.
William will stop and refuse to walk any further.
He'll let us get pretty far before he finally decides to
join us once again.

After our hike, there was a cute sandwich
shop at the end of the pond.  I got the boys
a slushie and gave each of them half of it.
Their little minds were blown!

Two very happy little boys :-)

William drank it to the last drop.  :-)
I love his little cheeks in this picture.

"Finished all of it, mommy!"

Houghton's Pond is absolutely beautiful.

The boys enjoyed drinking in the sights as well.

I went 3 days without harvesting and look what I found!!

On one of our morning walks, the boys
decided to be extra cute with one another
and were playing with each other around the tree.
It's moments like these that make me so thankful
that I'm able to be with the boys full-time so that I don't miss a moment.  :-)

 

 

I absolutely loved packing the kids in the car and going on our many adventures this summer!  We spent a lot of time at the beach and soaked up lots of sun.  I can't wait to share more of our summer with you.  Until next time...

Love and kisses,
Nikki