Weekend fun!

Last Saturday Easton met his cousin, Shelby, for the first time. Shelby is Ryan's brother's daughter and they live in Pennsylvania. Shelby was up in Michigan with some family on vacation and Easton was so happy to meet her!

Last Friday night, after dinner out with friends, Ryan decided to teach Easton how to mow the lawn and, of course, Easton really dug it! :-)

Bouncey bounce fun!

Today Easton and I met up with our friends Kristen and Ethan and the West MI Parents Network for a bounce party! Easton had a blast! But I did get all teary eyed looking at these pics - seriously, when did my baby turn into a little boy? It happens too fast....

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Don't he look so old!?

The bouncing has begun!

Ethan and Easton



Easton would bounce to me with his eyes closed, bracing himself for impact! :-)




I think these two loved running around the place more than bouncing on the inflatables!

Peek-a-boo!

A couple of videos too.

You can't see much in this one, it was dark in the bouncey maze, but I love his shriek and giggle! You can hear he's having a blast!

Bouncing into Mama!

Crazy boy!

Easton and Ethan last Saturday, best buds!

Complete and utter tomfoolery.

Saturday morning, after returning from an early morning jaunt to the farmer's market, I laid on the couch for a second - a second! I heard the lazy susan open and a bag ruffle and then heard, "Mmmm!" come from the kitchen.

This is what I saw.

Oh yeah buddy, that's right, you were caught RED handed!

I am sorry, no amount of pouty lips is going to get you out of trouble for this one buddy!

Just kidding, I wasn't upset. I actually couldn't stop laughing and ran around the house like a chicken looking for my camera.

He would move his hands around in the powered sugar and then would eat it and go, "Mmmmm!" and giggle. So much fun!

"Mom! We need to do this more often!" Oh no Easton, once was enough, thanks for the laughs my little buddy.

A little late.

I feel bad that I didn't update this past week, it was a really stressful week for us.

We noticed our beloved furbaby, Ritzy, was peeing blood on Wednesday night, so we took him into the vet on Thursday and found out he has bladder stones. There are two kinds, sturvite and oxalate. Sturvite can sometimes be dissolved with meds and a special diet, oxalate cannot, so they have to be removed surgically. The stones Ritzy has are oxalate. So Ritzy has to have surgery this week.

Ritzy is one of our babies and we love him so much, we would appreciate it if you all would please say a prayer for him. We are praying that Ritzy has a safe and successful surgery, that he also has an easy recovery and we are also praying that Ritzy will be one of the blessed dogs that DOESN'T get the stones back. He will need to be on a special diet and meds for probably his whole life. We are praying and believing for a miracle that he will live a long and healthy life with us - stone free and other problem free as well.

Ritzy is such an amazing dog, he has been our happy little companion for our whole marriage. He has seen us through good times and bad, through our pregnancy and has been Easton's best buddy. He is our baby, our friend. We want the best and healthiest life for him. Please, we beg you, to pray with us for the same for him! Thank you all so much!

So it has been an emotional week for us, especially me. I have been crying at the drop of a hat, anytime Ritzy's newly developed situation is brought up or discussed, so I haven't felt like updating.

Two other big things happened last week - happier things. #1, on the 9th, Easton turned 18 months! Seriously? 18 months? How did that happen!? I cannot believe how old my little man is getting! He is doing and saying new things every day! He loves going up and down the stairs all by himself, he loves performing for all of us, he loves playing kick ball and says "Thank you" everytime you do something nice for him - it is so precious! We're enjoying him immensely!

#2, on the 10th, Ryan and I celebrated 5 years of marriage! Pretty exciting, half of a decade and all of that! :-) Next year we will have been together 10 years, insane! I cannot imagine my life without him and am blessed beyond words. We celebrated by going out to dinner and drinks at Bar Divani downtown. It was nice to have a night out just the two of us (that hasn't happened since our last anniversary!) and to get ours minds off of everything. Thank you baby for 5 amazing years and for our little dumplin's! I love you!

Boys will be Boys!

Last Saturday Easton spent some more time in the lake with the boys. He loved splashing around and playing games with Daddy and Ritzy, but he especially loved playing games with Grampy on this particular day - they were two peas in a pod.

Lake time with the boys.

Have a Happy 4th of July everyone!

Strawberry pickin's....

Yesterday Easton and I joined a huge group of friends and went out to Krupp Farms for a morning of fun! Some of our friends bailed because of the heat, but we decided to go anyway. I am glad we did, we had a lot of fun, but we did return home in liquid form - it was SO HOT.

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We started out by picking strawberries. Easton got it very own basket, it was so precious! I was teaching him how to pick and it was so cute to see him plucking berries and putting them in his basket - although, I think he ended up eating more berries than he put in the basket! Easton would walk the paths between the plants and would get excited to see a berry sitting right in front of him in the dirt, so he'd squeal and pick it up and throw it in the basket. Usually those berries ended up being "squishers" that someone else didn't want, so I would praise Easton for his efforts and toss them out and show him where to pick the good berries! It was fun!

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After berries we had ice cream and hay rides, but it was too hot for the hay ride, so we then ventured over to the petting zoo where we fed baby chickens, ducks, pigs, cows, goats and sheep. Easton loved the baby chicks and ducks most of all.

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We had a fun time, it was something different, you know!? Always good to give Easton new experiences. Plus, I ended up making my very first batch (EVER!) of homemade strawberry jam and it didn't turn out half bad! Easton has been enjoying it today!

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Easton with his strawberry basket, ready to get to work!

Carefully carrying his basket out to the strawberry fields

Doing more munching than picking!


Easton was scoping out the fields for the best pickins!


Two (almost) full baskets!


Easton was very proud and said "No!" to anyone who came near his baskets! No stealing this dude's berries!

Easton LOVED the baby chicks as you can see!

Feeding the baby goat, she was really cute.

Enjoying a good rocking horse ride!

Easton finds fun wherever he goes!


What? You want me to stand in front of this sign for a picture? No thanks Mom!

King Tut

This video was taken last Tuesday during at playdate at my friend Kellye's house. Easton and Carson are good little buddies. But look at my child - sitting on the train - being pushed all around the house like he is king tut. What a hoot.