Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Father's Day!

 While all of you were focusing on one special person in your family yesterday, we were celebrating THREE!  My birthday and Tanner's birthday happened to fall on Father's Day this year.  The night before, Dave's parents stopped by and gave me a birthday present.  I think they did it the night before knowing that yesterday wasn't exactly going to feel like my birthday.  And what a great surprise!  They gave me a new TV :)  I have a treadmill in the basement with one of those huge fuzzy old school TV's, so they gave me new flat screen to use down there.  Hopefully that will motivate me to run a little more!

 My beautiful kids and their wonderful Dad.

 My Birthday Baby

 Dave and I both acknowledged that really, this day was about Tan.  He had a great birthday.  We invited Dave's entire family over for a cook out.  He was SO excited to open his presents.  Min, this picture is for you!

Dave gave him a black cape with a thunderbolt on back that he wore all day long.  He requested a Scooby Doo cake and picked out Monster Truck plates and napkins.  Earlier in the day, Tanner gave Dave a new air pump for Father's Day.  But Tanner was the one obsessed with it since the second Dave opened it.  And the highlight of the evening was when we sang Happy Birthday to Tanner.  Instead of blowing out the candles with his mouth, he went and grabbed the air pump and blew them out that way.  It was hilarious!  And SO Tanner!  Happy 4th Birthday Tan-Man!  Love you a hundred million.
And now that I've done about 6 posts in the last 24 hours, I am all caught up :)

Blue Angels

 I LOVE the Blue Angels.  And that works out quite nicely since we live within 30 minutes of their home, the Naval Academy.  On Saturday, they put on a show to celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the War of 1812.  Riley missed her nap the day before (when we went to the beach) so Dave stayed home with her so she could nap and I took Lacey and Tanner.

 Look!

It was sunny and hot, but we had a fun afternoon!

7 Years.....

 7 years ago today.... we got married!  Okay, so, as I stated in my previous post, I am totally behind in posting, so it's actually 7 years and 1 week ago today :)  And as I looked through my wedding pictures, I saw so many faces of my dear friends who were there that day.  And I was so happy that despite me moving to the East Coast, I am still very close with almost every one of those friends.  I am so lucky!

And here we are 7 years and 3 kids later :)  We both love Kristin Chenoweth.  Dave saw her in the original Wicked cast on Broadway and I've become a fan over the last couple of years.  So, when we found out she was coming to concert in Baltimore on our Anniversary weekend, it seemed like the perfect way to celebrate!  

Beach Day!

This year, my birthday, Tanner's birthday AND Father's Day all fell on the same day!  So, in order to make everyone feel special, we made a whole weekend out of it.  I came home from work Thursday night and Dave had a card sitting in a cooler.  The card said to pack my bathing suit for a family beach day!  He surprised me by taking the day off work Friday and the 5 of us driving out to Lewes Beach in Deleware.  Lacey, our beach baby, had a GREAT time!

 Riley's first trip to the ocean....

 Lacey and Tanner playing in the sand.

 Even though it was sunny out, it was also REALLY windy, so after a couple of hours at the beach, Dave and I were ready to move on.  We packed up our stuff and drove about 10 minutes up the road to Rehoboth Beach because they have a great play land.  The kids were in heaven!

 The last time we were here was 2 years ago when I was pregnant with Riley.  Crazy to think that that little baby who was still several months away from being born is now old enough to ride all the rides with her sister and brother!  And she LOVED it!  She screamed every time a ride was over and she had to get off.

 It was so fun watching them all ride the rides together....

The Free Fall.  Now, this was one that Riley couldn't ride, but Lacey and Tanner were very proud of themselves for being big enough to go on this "big kid" ride!  What a great family day!

Lacey

I am so behind on blogging!  It has been almost 3 weeks since my last post and we have been crazy busy.  As a result, I have been exhausted every night and just haven't had the energy to actually record all of the crazy business.  But before I get even more behind....

Lacey graduated Pre-K!  I enrolled her in a 5 day/wk school this year that went from 8:35-11:15am.  I wanted her to get used to going to school every day since Kindergarten is full day here and I didn't want it to be a shock to her system to all of a sudden start going every day ALL day.  She absolutely loved school, learned a lot, had fun and made many good friends.  It was a really good experience for her.  Here she is with her teacher, Mrs. Laverdiere.  They all tie-dyed t-shirts for their last day and had a pizza party picnic and invited parents and siblings.

 Her teacher gave her a book (The Night before Kindergarten) and bag of goodies.

 We were literally one day into summer vacation when we had our first mis-hap.  Lacey and Tanner were pretending Riley was a spider and they were running away from the "spider" when they toppled over each other and Tanner landed on top of Lacey with her face smashing into the hard wood floor.  Her front tooth was twisted and blood was everywhere.  Her gums turned black and blue.  But, as you can see, she recovered.  Here she is leaving the dentist's office.  Sadly, they said she will likely lose the tooth soon and there is nothing to do about it since it is a baby tooth.  I am very sad that that her first tooth is being lost by being knocked out!  I was ready for this process to happen naturally in another year or so.  And I'm also sad that, assuming she does prematurely lose her front tooth, it will sit there empty for probably 2 years or so :(  But, it hasn't fallen out yet.... so we'll see!

 And I have to document about Kirstin!  Karen (my kids call her Pie-Pie) has been watching my kids 1-2 days a week when I work since they were born.  She has 3 daughters ranging in age from 16-22.  Lacey loves all three of them, but she LOVES the oldest, Kirstin.  Unfortunately, the oldest is a college student, so she only comes home for a couple months at a time.  She took over watching the kids for her mom over the past couple months and Lacey was over the moon about it.  Here she is with her buddy.  Look how happy she is!

 And here she is a few days ago when we stopped by to say good-bye to Kirstin who headed back to school.  Seriously.  Does that make you just want to cry FOR Lacey or what?  So sweet.

 And last but not least.....  her dance recital.  Now, THIS is why I love having a girl!!  Back in December, I enrolled Lacey in dance for the first time.  She did ballet and tap.  They have a performance once a year and it was last week.  Here she is in her ballet costume.

 And her tap costume.

 On stage....

Great job, Lacey!