summer birthdays...

in our family, we have 3 birthday's within 1 month... mine included... which, btdubs, was awesome this year. i got to go to dinner and a movie with my bestie bests on my birthday, pizza with the besties on saturday, sunday dinner [and presents] with my besties and fam on sunday, and then a baseball game with the besties and family on monday. it was a bit of a palooza. and it was fantastic.

anyway. getting back to the moral of this story...

apparently we are all getting old and need help blowing out our birthday candles... and who comes to the rescue? our lovely miss hayley! i don't think i could have blown out all 25 of my candles this year without her help... thanks, jellybean!

..........

and just for fun... thanks y'all for a great birthday :)

pool time fun...

have i ever told you how much i love summers in arizona? well... i do. so many people complain about them, but i tell ya... nothing beats a june day spent in the pool. i wish i could spend more days like today... but unfortunately i am a grown up now... working a full time job and junk. it just makes me appreciate pool days all the more. 

hayley even started swimming today... which is a legit first. she was in a little floatie, but she was kicking and kicking her legs! she started out on the lagoon, but quickly figured out that she could go to the deep end... she did so so good! we are all excited to have her actually swimming with us and not just playing on the step. 

i can't figure out how to post a video on here... 

so instead you get a post-swimming pic of hayley & papa.

also... we i thoroughly enjoy putting chowder in the pool. he probably doesn't really like it in the moment, but it's got to help cool him down in these hot summer days right? and it makes me laugh. so it happens. 

dad & austin got flippers and snorkel masks a couple months ago (they are getting ready to go on a big scuba trip) and we love playing with them in the pool. and hayley loves playing with the flippers and masks too! 

good heavens, i love this girl! 

we ended our pool day with otter pops. classic! ps... today was hayley's first otter pop! what a good day for her! hahaha...

it's summer!

if you recall from last year around this time... hayley kept talking about how excited she was to go in the big pool, but she never actually got in [see here]. this year.... it was pretty hot outside, the pool was warming up, and hayley was jumping up and down by the pool saying, "it's summer! it's summer!" apparently adrian had been telling her that she could go swimming when it was summer. well... she did pretty good in the big pool, but she loved the little kiddy pool that my dad picked up. he also got a new slide. check it out. this little girl loved the set up :)

papa & austin also brought home some seashells for her from mexico...

she kept getting a wedgie. it was making me laugh...

one of her many trips atop the slide...

she slipped on this one... and i just so happened to catch it. 

i seriously start lol'ing every time i look at it... :)

easter 2012...

easter was a fun day... we hid 50+ eggs for hayley multiple times. she loved it.... then hayley left and austin hid those same 50+ eggs for me... i didn't enjoy it as much as hayley did. lol. 

ps... i love this first picture. lol...

our sunflower cake...

tree house part deux...

there was more work completed on the tree house this weekend. 

austin and dad added a swing, finished a wall, almost finished a door,  a mailbox (which was my contribution to the project), added a folding table inside and got the pulley system up and running. 

and we were right... hayley loves it. 

i'm getting excited to finish it up!

hayley loves it! see?! 

so does chowder! see?!

she's really good at climbing up and down the ladder...

how cute is this mail box? it use to look like this. 

side note: we're still working on the path... it's pretty wobbly and uneven at this point, but this kid still loves to run on it...

...unless chowder is blocking the path. then she doesn't love it as much. haha.

and she still loves to help papa water the plants. 

:)

toot...

so this one time kelsey, tino, devin & i went to golf'n'stuff. kelsey's one lucky son of a gun and won a butt load of tickets... we ended up with a bag o' loot- amongst which was a whoopee cushion. whoopee cushions are freaking funny.... always. 3 year old little girls playing with whoopee cushions? even funnier!  

sorry the video is so dark... it's from my phone (it was closer than my camera. haha).

enjoy.

:)

trot...

i just realized i never blogged austin's eagle project. i don't know how i forgot that! 

photo curtesy of spencer boerup photography. check him out.... he's amazing! 

well, back in october austin finally finished up his project. he made a sensory course at TROT (therapeutic riding of tucson). trot is a nonprofit organization that has been around for 35 years. it helps handicapped children and adults use their sensory skills and work on their balance and coordination. it is a really awesome organization. tino's project consisted of eight different wooden shapes that were attached to wooden posts along a zig-zag path.  all eight shapes were painted a different color and had a different sensory item attached (like roofing tile, tire tread, outdoor carpet, etc). he had a lot of people show up the day of his project to help out and support him. 

yesterday was a special dedication. the directors and all the children love this course so much that they named it "austin's alley." it even has a sign. how legit is that? we all thought it was pretty cool. his eagle court of honor is coming up on the 30th. we are all so proud of him! good job, buddy! 

...

afterwards papa and hayley wandered around the property and pet/fed some of the horses. how cute are they? that little girl sure loves her papa!

 favorite ^  :)

whoa...

so... i got a memory card for my phone years ago and apparently i have never emptied it. as of this exact moment in time i have a whopping 942 pictures on my phone. perhaps i should have waited till i got to an even thousand before i did this, but whatevs. here are my favorite pictures from over the years...

an abundance of love...

i positively adore my niece.

i love the way she loves playing with beach balls.

i love the way she says, "hmm?" when you ask her a question that she 

doesn't know the answer to... or knows the answer to, but doesn't want to say.

i love the way she always loves jumping.... off laps, rocks, fire places, beds, chairs, stairs- basically anything that is three inches or more off the ground she will jump off of.

i love the way she says "aunt kendle."

i love her hugs and kisses.

i love how much she loves "stuff in her milk."

i love that she loves chowder... and gets excited to come see him.

i love that she knows where his treats are kept and always wants to give him more.

i love how she says prayers.
i love that she asks me to polish her nails.

i love that she eats as much dough as i do while we make cookies.

i love that she prefers to play with hot wheel cars instead of dolls and barbies.

         

gosh... this list could get really long. basically... she's the coolest almost three year old ever. 

and i love babysitting her. 

today was one of those babysitting kind of days. i woke up much earlier than i normally do and spent the day with this awesome little kid. welp... we came back up to nana's house and i was helping my grandpa with some stuff when i heard hayley walk down the hall behind me. and i just knew where she was going. she was going to my room to feed my fish, edwin. she knows where i keep my food and how to get a little pinch of food out for him. welp... apparently he was really hungry today. little miss hayley dumped the whole bottle of food in the bowl. haha... so i told hayley thank you for helping and immediately scooped edwin out, took some pictures and cleaned his bowl. it was positively hilarious! 

now i need to add "i love how she loves to feed my fish" to the list. what a funny girl <3