Jackson is 3---party and birthday shots

Jackson is 3!! It's really hard for us to believe. He's grown up so much this past year. He's become a great big brother to Anna and is even potty trained. Go Jackson!!

We've had a really fun couple of days. Here is the start of the celebrations. Jackson helped me to bake his birthday cake. Here is the cake BEFORE I really got started on the decorating.

And here is the finished version. Good news is Jackson could recognize it was Lightening McQueen from the Cars movie.

Here's Jackson ready for cake

yippee he's 3!

Party splash fun

Fun in the pool

Fun in the slip-n-slide

And of course eating cake is a huge highlight of any party

We thought this was a funny look.....

Here's a cute sot of some of his friends

Aunt Barb and Uncle Jack came over after the party for lunch.

Tickles!

More tickles!

Happy Birthday Jackson. Jackson on his new bike

Jackson and Anna yesterday morning

Lucky for Jackson meet the teacher was yesterday and so we took cupcakes for his classmates. They all sang happy birthday to him and then sat at the table to eat. Too cute! (more on the school soon)

After school we met Mike for a birthday lunch

Anna couldn't hang---all the excitement wore her out

Mike and Jackson at lunch

Here's a shot of the requested birthday dinner. Corn salad, chicken poppy seed and black olives (and grapes too but those are all gone)

We had a few leftover cupcakes from the school party for the 3 of us to enjoy last night.

Anna helped Jackson blow out the candles

Jackson had 16 friends over on Saturday for his party. They are all such nice kids and all so willing to help in blowing out the candles too. It is hard to resist! We had to do two takes on the candle blowing but it all turned out okay :)

Too sweet

Anna and Jackson were both reading their books together the other day in Jackson's closet. It was too cute. We are looking forward to a lot more brother, sister fun!

And yesterday Jackson saw me in my Miami shirt and couldn't resist wearing his too. (PS--we both had on black pants and tennis shoes to "match")

Here's Anna showing off her latest sitting skill.

P-I-Z-Z-A

One of my favorite traditions growing up was eating Dad's homemade pizza every Sunday night. Believe it or not he is still doing it! It's more a perfected work of art these days but even tastier than I remember as a kid! On our recent trip we were lucky enough to be at their house for pizza. Here are FIVE pizzas before.... Yummy! And 3 ready to be eaten (the other 2 were still in the oven). Mine is in the middle--doesn't it look fabulously delicious?

Anna eats!

The first bite is a big deal in our house so this past Saturday we got out the video camera and of course captured lots of pictures of Anna's first bite. Being almost 6 months old she wasn't quite as excited as we remember Jackson being but this morning we tried banana and she was more impressed with that.

Check out the one curl on top of her head!

Once she got the spoon she was all smiles. Maybe she'd rather feed herself?

Family time

We were also able to see some family on our trip last week!
Anna and Nana:

Jackson and Dow share some ice cream

Auntie Em and Uncle Karl with the kiddos

Anna with her Great Grandmother

All the girls

First Family of 4 vacation

We survived our first family of 4 vacation. Even though we decided it definitely was NOT the place of choice for kids we still had a good time bonding together as a family. And we are certainly thankful to Mike's Grandmother and parents for letting us stay at their lake cabin.

Jackson has always been a super traveler and Anna proved to be great as well (in all areas besides the car. No cross country road trips in our near future!) Here we are at the airport
On the plane---fun times

And the car. Not so fun (she's biting her fist because she's so mad)

Once we were at the lake we managed to take the kids to a little beach one day.

And of course you have to fish at the lake.

And kayak--

And take lots and lots of boat rides.

Jackson did a good time of entertaining Anna for sure

And there is nothing better after grilled chicken than s'mores!! My favorite!

Mike and I enjoyed some dock time at night playing games. I won by the way!

We were trying to get a picture with the moon but it didn't come out quite like we hoped.

Anna got her first sink bath (as there are no bathtubs in the house--just showers I might add)

We also managed to get in a couple of hikes to a waterfall, Minihaha

Even Anna dipped her toes in the cold mountain water

And who can resist Mini Golf in the Smokies?