Happy Birthday Aislynn & Other Summer Fun

This Saturday, September 6, 2008 - we celebrated Aislynn's 2nd Birthday at a nearby Des Moines Park with my next of kin, fellow law school students and their families! I actually invited more people who weren't married and didn't have kids, but they are closest thing to family, as I see them every day and depend on them for alot of different things. So, here's the birthday girl on part of the new-age jungle gym they have here. No more woodchips or tire swings, this place was high tech.

This is Sami Craven (3), Maggie McCullough (4), and Michael (3) on the cool play structure.

This is McKenzie Craven (9 mos) in the Shark ball pit, it didn't really go with the princess party theme, but it only cost $5 and I thought it looked cool, so we set it up!

Here are Mikey and Sami eating their cupcakes. Nothing like loading the kids up on sugar and letting them run it off. We had a lunch and then the kids just played on the swings, jungle gym and slide. I bought a bouncy house, but it hardly got used because of the lure of the jungle gym and open grass to run around in.

Miss Aislynn had cupcake all over her face most of the day, wouldn't let me do her hair today, (which was unusual) and she also wouldn't wear shoes, so her feet were extremely dirty. When it came time to open presents, Aisy was too interested in playing and didn't open a single one. I guess she really takes the "it's her party and she'll do what she wants to" attitude. Overall, it was about 3 hours of fun with friends, Matt, Rick, Miguel, and Megan were also there -- these are the "uncles and aunt" we've adopted. They are great people and make my law school life bearable. Luke and Linda Craven are the parents of Sami and Kenzie, Dave and Katie McCullough are Maggie's parents. Not too many people are married with kids in law school, so it's nice to have a couple of friends who know the particular parent struggles.

Some more Aisy -it's her day, so why not a few more pics of my pretty princess? She's only 2 once, thank goodness because that "terrible" saying might apply here!

But those big puppy dog eyes sure do make it hard to give timeouts or do anything besides kiss and cuddle my little chub. Her new saying when she pees in her diaper is "I poop myself mommy". We tried potty training at the beginning of August, but she is NOT ready for that. She just was hit and miss and didn't mind having pee running down her legs, so we will wait maybe until Christmas break to undertake that feat again.

This was our other summer fun - we had the chance to spend a couple days with Brynn and Caden when they came to visit Iowa. We went to the Library and watched a movie, then we went to the Burger King play place, the park, the pool, and finally spent time jumping on the tramp. They had so much fun and love to see their cousins. The age differences worked just perfect because Brynn and Caden were good helpers with Mikey and Aisy.

This was at the Dysart park before we went to the pool, not sure exactly what it was, Caden says it is some canon of sort and I believe him because he is so smart and a great reader.

This was on the way into the pool, Bryn and Caden helped with Aisy so much. They made sure she was safe crossing the road and couldn't believe how much she was talking. Bryn kept saying, "I just love her little voice". Bryn and Mikey splashed in the pool together most of the time and Caden swam in the deeper water and did flips and canon balls. He is a great swimmer. Aisy went down the little frog slide once, but didn't really want to be in the water that much.

I will also have to post a little bit about our yellowstone trip and tell my bear story, but that will have to wait until next time.