Happy Father's Day!

 Jackson's card he made Greg really says it all! These boys are so lucky to have a daddy who LOVES to play with them!  We had the best day celebrating daddy! Father's day started off with some early morning golf  and then we went to the outlets and bought him some new shoes,  We went out to lunch, had ice cream and then came home to swim.While the boys swam, I cooked his favorite dinner...chicken and rice and made his favorite desssert...chocolate delight.  Perfect family day! We love you!!





Throwing pennies in the fountain at the outlets. He loves it!

 I have been experimenting with cutting out Beckett's nap and some days he does fine, but others I find him like this....

 Jackson had a super fun super hero swim party for his buddy Jack. Jackson and Aidan have been friends now since 18 they were 18 months old. Even though they don't go to the same school, they are still the best of buds!

Check out Jack's cake.He loves otters so he got an otter cake holding a sea urchin. Reminded me of Steel Magnolias but this cake wasn't red velvet on the inside!!

One night I got up from the couch to go to bed and looked over to find this....he cracks me up!!

 This is favorite post dinner activity....bowling.

 It's not regular bowling though...they have to go all the way down to the end of the driveway, run as fast as they can, and then release the ball. I love the pure joy on his face!!

 So intense!

 Baseball has come to an end. Jackson did great as first baseman in all stars. He was sad to see it come to an end and can't wait for fall ball!

 6U All stars

 The coaches. Poor Greg was the pitcher and I know he felt a lot of pressure. He did great though and had very few strike outs :)

 We have been doing swim lessons with Billy every Wednesday. Beckett is doing great. He can now roll over to take a breath and then roll back over and start swimming again.

 Here he is rolling over to get a breath.

 Billy was a competitive swimmer and used to be the director at Aqua Tots, so I am also having him work with Jackson on his strokes. Here he is doing the back stroke. Billy really wants Jackson to get into competitive swimming. He thinks he would be really good at it. I am having a hard time making the commitment, but we will see!

 This is another new favorite toy. Qixels. You build the design and then spray it with water. After 20 minutes, the little squares stick together. It's pretty cute and you really have to use your fine motor skills to place the pegs.

 Another after dinner favorite. Playing catch. Jackson literally plays baseball everyday. He will throw the ball against the house when he doesn't have someone to play with and then as soon as Greg gets home, he wants to catch fly balls.

 This one has to also be in on the action. Here he is catching a grounder. :)

 We also have a 2 person band now in our house. Jackson has been begging to learn to play the guitar. Greg decided to start with the ukulale. Now that Jackson can read, we are going to set him up with some lessons. These 2 love putting on shows for us! Beckett on the piano and Jackson on the ukulale. Jackson will watch youtube video instructions on how to play and has learned a couple of cords. We leave this week for the Kiawah for the 4th and we can't wait! Our friends the Konops are coming with us again so it should be a lot of fun!!

Summer Summer Time!

 Ah glorious summer! Late mornings, swimming, ice cream, and of course...baseball! We have had a super busy start to the summer with 3 camps in a row. Jackson did Fun and Games camp at Walker. He loved it! His favorite game was "The Blog". Sounds like some sort of tag game. He had so much fun, he cried the last day wishing it wouldn't end.  We will certainly do that camp again next year! We then had VBS. VBS was a little different this year and was from 6-8:30. I taught preschool art so it made for some long nights. Kids loved it though! Jackson, is now in his Braves Camp, which he is absolutely loving! Its a long day though from 9-3, and with temperatures reaching 100 degrees, I was a little worried. They do a great job of taking multiple water and sunscreen breaks and Jackson has really enjoyed it. Not only do we have day camps, but we are still in All Stars baseball. Jackson is doing great at first base and has a hitting average so far of .889 with 5 runs. So proud of him!

 One rainy Sunday evening, we decided to take the kids to the Movie Tavern for dinner and a movie. My kids love this place. I think its because they get to drink chocolate milkshakes while watching a movie! The only "kid" movie was Tomorrowland. I wasn't sure how they were going to do with it not being a cartoon, but Jackson watched the whole thing. Beckett got bored once the food was gone, but did pretty good!

 Poor Beckett gets dragged to the baseball field all the time. Luckily he has his best buddy there to play with. This is Ryan. Beckett just refers to him as "My Buddy!" I stopped bringing Beckett to practices because I thought he would rather stay at home. Boy was I wrong! He cried and cried wanting to see his buddy. So, these 2 are inseparable! They play really great together, but often end up looking like this!

 So proud of my little All Star! We are in the tournament right now, and if we win on Thursday, we play on Saturday for the championship. Go Dodgers!!

 This is Jackson trying to make himself into a robot. Too funny! He really did not want to stop to take a pic. :)

 Oh Beckett. Beckett decided the dogs needed a shower. He took it upon himself to start showering them with my shaving cream.....

 We took the boys to Braves game. It was great! Jackson's favorite player is of course the first baseman Freddie Freeman. I assumed we would only make it the 4th inning, but the game was so good, that we had to drag both boys out at the 7th. We were hoping to avoid traffic!

 Watching so intensely!

 Go Braves!







Future Braves star?

We thought we were going to beat the crowd until on our way out, we found a kids field where kids were playing. Jackson had to check it out. He was playing with a bunch of 9 and 10 year olds and held his own. He hit a double and 1 right out of the park!

 This was cute. Beckett and his buddies decided to go to one of the other fields to have their own baseball game. Beckett was the pitcher :)

 Jackson decided to take my camera and went around taking pictures. Not bad!

 Jackson's photo. He does a better job than his dadddy does!

 Braves camp! Here Jackson is with his buddies Wynn and Christopher. They have had the best time!

 Tomorrow they travel to the stadium where they get to tour the locker room and run around on the actual field. They also get to meet a Braves player. Jackson really hopes it is Freddie!

 After the first day of camp, I picked them up. The coach came up to me as we were walking out and asked me if I was Jackson's mom. I said yes and he said he did incredible! They made him team captain :) He got team captain wrist band and the black eye stickers that say Team Captain.

This cutie has been doing swim lessons with Billy and is doing great! Today he jumped off the diving board, swam, rolled onto his back to take a breath, and then swam to side. So proud of him!!

First Kiawah Trip!

 Immediately after Jackson's end of the year school party, we headed to Kiawah for a Memorial Day beach trip! We had the best time except for a little issue with my car. Greg was in a car accident a week or so before our trip. He actually hit a deer on his way to his mountain clinic really early in the morning. Luckily he was fine but my care was damaged. They had just finished repairing my car so we headed to Kiawah! We had zero issues on the way there. However, Greg and Chuck went to Freshfields to get coffee and when they tried to come back home, my car wouldn't start. We had to have it towed to Charleston and by the time my car arrived at the Buick dealership, they were closing and didn't have time to look at it. They were closed the next day so we actually had to drive Noni's car home and leave my car in Charleston. 10 days later, they couldn't figure out what was wrong with it! Noni and Granddaddy drove it home and it was fine. Greg got back in my car to try to move it, it wouldn't start!! We had to put it in neutral and jump on it, and it started. We took it to the Buick dealership here and they fixed it in a couple of hours! Thank goodness! Despite that drama, we had a wonderful time at the beach. We surfed and Freshfields had concerts each night. So much fun!!

 Every year I have to get a picture of my boys running on the boardwalk. Not the best one but they will not slow down for a picture!

 Jackson, of course, was the first in the water to catch a few waves!

 Hold on!

 This little guy is still not so sure about the ocean. He would much rather just play in the sand. Works for me because I don't have to keep such a close eye on him!

 This was funny. We went to Freshfields to eat pizza and watch the concert. Beckett decided the spot we were at wasn't good enough, so he moved.

 The ice cream shop at Freshfields was celebrating their 10 year anniversary, so they were selling ice cream cones for 50 cents. We took advantage of that deal every night!

 The band was kind enough to share the stage with the kiddos

 Attempt at a family shot. Never easy!

 Next day we headed back for some beach fun! Another attempt at the boardwalk shot!

 Almost!

 Jackson kindly paused so I could take a picture :)

 Noni found Greg's old letterman's jacket and had it cleaned. Jackson loved it and wore it all week. He still has it hanging in his closet!

Now that the boys are getting older, we decided to attempt our first fishing charter. We decided to do a shorter 2.5 hour river charter just because I wasn't sure how they were going to do. What I didn't realize when I booked it was that it was a shark fishing charter! Boys couldn't have been more excited!!

 I hope we don't need a bigger boat!

 Ready for some fishing fun!

 Jackson holding some of the bait to catch the shark!










Beckett was a little nervous on the boat at first. For some reason, he thought it was going to quick over. He quickly got over his fear and loved it!

Here is Jackson reeling in the  first bite!

 Shark! Yikes!! Look at those teeth!!

 Once the sharks started biting, Beckett couldn't have been more excited. He had zero fear of the boat or the sharks were were going to reel in. He did great! He became quite the fishing critic. If ever we reeled in the line and we lost the shark, he would yell "You didn't catch it!"

 So excited! We ended up catching 8 sharks on the trip. At one time we had 3 sharks on the line at the same time! Needless to say, I will never swim in the river!!

 Shark #4!

 Noni reeling in her shark! Notice Beckett is right in the midst of the action. Noni actually ended up losing this shark because it ran into the anchor and broke off. We had a surprise as we pulled in the anchor though! There was Noni's shark still on the line attached to the anchor!

 Beckett's turn!

 So excited for his first catch!

 The 8th and final shark! What a fun day!!

Our fishing guide was so great with the kids. He even let Jackson drive the boat home. Future boat captain!

 Someone had a little too much fun on the boat trip!

Guess who else loves Granddaddy's papasan? We had such a great beach trip and can't wait for 4th of July for the next one!! Thanks Noni and Granddaddy for making our beach vacations so memorable!!