Playmates

David and Hope are my sweet playmates. Kyle loves her dearly but wants to "teach" her stuff. David on the other hand, loves to get in the floor and play with Hope. They both love her new princess castle and they love a good stack of books to look through. Above is a cute, little video capturing Hope's sweet giggle as my two playmates have fun together.

This summer has been magical-full of friends, swimming, baseball, birthdays and spontaneous get togethers. I have tried so hard to take a ton of pictures. Hope is at a super fun and cute age and she handles big outings very well. Therefore, we have been on the go lots this summer. Yesterday we went to the wave pool with some families from Kyle's ball team and that was great. At one point I looked over and five "big" boys were circled around Hope playing with her. Precious.

We are gearing up for David's birthday party this weekend. Thankfully the weather forecast looks good for his party. I have done most of the prep for it and we are just looking forward to a fun day with friends at the lake:)

BTW, about the video....make sure you pause the blog music before starting it and pardon the poor quality! Light was pouring through the windows which makes it kind of hard to see clearly:)

Our Dave

How can it be that our David is now 6?? Yesterday we celebrated David's "real" birthday by going to Hungry Mother (his favorite place) and swimming.

I still remember so vividly the day he was born-my labor was quick and relatively painless. We had only been at the hospital 30 minutes when this red-headed, tiny boy came into the world. We enjoyed nine hours of family time, snuggle time, and photo ops before we ever heard the words "Down Syndrome."

Only by God's amazing grace did we take that huge life altering moment and literally shrug it off. I remember when the pediatrician uttered the words "Down Syndrome" to me I looked in her eyes and calmly said "well, God made him and made him just for us, so that is fine with me." Truly only God could have put those words in my mouth that day.

Now we still remain humbled by God's grace as He walks with us on this amazing journey of parenting this strong-willed, confident, amazing, intelligent, empathetic, funny, and precious child. No, it is not easy but I feel so incredibly blessed that God chose us to parent this gift.

We finished the day by going to Kyle's All Star game in Bristol. Here is a picture from this year....

And here was a picture from their first game last year:)

Happy Happy Birthday sweet angel boy-we are so proud to be YOUR parents!!

The best 3rd of July!

Before even my time, my family has always celebrated the fourth of July at my grandparent's house on Claytor Lake. I think I have missed just a few when I was in New York for the summer during college. It is a fun day out in the sun boating, swimming, eating, and socializing. We celebrated on the 3rd which worked better for everyone's schedule.

How can the day not be fun when you can see cute ruffles on a cute little girl's bottom?

My parents set up their water slide and the boys had fun on it!!

Pops was the brave one that took Hope and David swimming. David actually put on a life jacket and swam all by himself!! We were all so proud of him!! Hope loves swimming, but hates her life jacket:)

My parents bought this huge raft/island at Sam's and we have all enjoyed it. It is a fun place for Hope to play and the boys jump off of it a million times. I just sit on it for relaxation:) It never fails that when I got on comfy on it, the boys would all come and jump on it with me!!!

Sweet Hope in her new bathing suit!

My Pawpaw!

Mike with all the kiddos. We really miss Hunter when he is not with us. Pictures like this remind me of how much Kyle and Hope look like their Daddy!

Mike and Dave on the jet ski! I was so hoping that Mike would be tossed in because he refused to get wet all day. Unfortunately Mike did end up staying dry:)

Our neighbors loaned us their jet ski for a bit and all the boys loved having turns on it! Chad and Clayton taking their turn:)

I would love to be able to make creations like this!!

We celebrated David's birthday with this adorable guitar cake that a lady from my parent's church made for David. He was so tickled with it!

My mom found this Hokie hat and David loved it!! I love this picture-his expression is precious and the icing stained mouth makes it even better!!

I love this picture of these three cousins together. Precious!

Here is my Pawpaw with my boys and Clayton. I cannot even describe how horrible it is to watch him fight COPD. He is currently on total liquid oxygen cranked up as high as it can go. But as you can see from his pitiful legs, he has tons of fluid that settle in his poor legs and make them hurt. COPD really stinks, but he says he feels fine, but he is unable to be active at all. Trips to the bathroom are a chore now because when he stands up his legs are stiff and sore which makes walking anywhere challenging. Thankfully they have two golf carts at their house!

My kiddos fell sound asleep on the way home-they played outside full throttle all day long:)