Happy July!

It sounds incredibly cliche but I'll say it anyhow...how the heck did it get to be July already? And. More importantly, how did my beautiful baby get to be SEVEN years old? Sigh. :) Yup, today is my sweet Asher's birthday. He is such a blessing...adding more to our family than we ever imagined. Here's a quick picture I snapped this morning:

No huge plans for today. He has a friend coming over and later we'll do cake and presents and all that good stuff. This year, though, we're taking a slightly different route from the big parties. Each boy was offered a choice...a big party with friends but no gifts from us or a "big" gift from us and a special outing. Asher and Micah both chose the latter. Which works out nicely since they're both July birthdays. We're combining their special outings into an all day trip sometime later this month to Santa's Workshop in Colorado Springs (their favorite stop from our week there last summer). Should be fun!

In other news, my little Micah (who insists he's not little) had his first ever swim lesson yesterday. The older two had a session of lessons already this summer, but Micah wasn't willing at that point. After watching for a few weeks, though, he decided he'd rather take lessons also than just watch. :) (Which was, of course, my dastardly plan, LOL!) So, they all started a new session yesterday. Micah was hesitant at points but did awesome! (Not that there's anything wrong with it, but the other two took much longer to warm up to the idea of swimming...a couple summers of lessons before they'd even put their faces fully in the water. Micah's went in yesterday. First lesson. Course, he's also had three years of watching his brothers do it, lol!)

(It's harder to get good shots of Micah's lessons since his level uses the indoor pool. Plus, I was using my little point and shoot. I'll take my "real" camera to lessons later and get good shots of them all.)

Well, that's it for now. Been scrapping but can't share quite yet...stay tuned!

Ham.

Just a quick Friday morning post full of randomness. :)

First. Jump on over to the Prism blog today to see one of my favorite layouts of late! Here are a couple quick sneak peeks:

Second. Does anyone know why we say "potty" training? Seriously. That's just weird if you stop and think about it. Where'd it come from? I actually end up most often saying, "Do you need to empty your bladder?" instead of "Do you need to go potty?"...partly because I think "potty" is weird...partly because I have very literal boys. ;)

Third. If I were to have a garage sale in mid-July, do you think too many folks would avoid it because of heat or vacation? Would it be worth doing then? I haven't had my own garage sale in like forever but am finally considering it. Tips from the pros would be highly welcome!

Fourth. Any fun weekend plans? Nathan's been sick here, so let me live vicariously through you. :)

Second water fight of the season...

Despite the crazy weird weather we've been having here in Colorado, we managed to have an awesome water fight between the thunderclouds earlier today...just some good clean fun with my boys:

(Note to self: change into a swimsuit and pull your hair back before engaging in another water fight with these yahoos! My jean shorts were really weighing me down and my hair blinded me more than once, LOL!) Don't you just love those squirty things, btw? They're so much easier than refilling water guns over and over! We just pull out this little wading pool (that we actually have never used as such) along with a big bucket and fill both up in different parts of the yard as "loading stations."

Of course, it also helps to be bigger than the boys and still able to lift them up and drop them in the freezing cold water of that wading pool. Hee hee.

But, all in all, I got pretty darn soaked. :) Oh, and in case you were wondering, Nathan took these pictures (having volunteered to stay dry, lol) but later changed his mind and got in on the action. I was too wet to take pictures at that point. By the end, we were dumping the bucket on people and using the hose as well. Fun times. :)

How's your summer shaping up?

Sharing...

A few fun things to share this Monday:

Prism is giving away three class kits over on their blog! Hurry to check it out!

Jessica Sprague is doing another FREE class (that looks freakin' awesome!). This one's on photo editing. Register now before it's too late!

This last one isn't exactly free but I think it's cool. :) Found this cool site with pop up card designs. You pay a small fee and get a downloadable pdf to print out along with easy instructions. I've made a few of these and am pretty happy with how they've turned out. Here's the latest one I did:

Love how just two sheets of lovely Prism paper, plus a VersaMark pen, turned into this gorgeous card!

Make it memorable.

First of all, a sincere Happy Father's Day to all dads out there! To Nathan, I love you and thank the heavens daily that you are the father of our children. To John (my father-in-law), so sorry your card and a small add-on package are still sitting here in my office! Hopefully the main package arrived in time, though. Thank you for being such a fabulous example of fatherhood. To my dad...

Here's a layout that just had to be made late last night:

Yes, it's totally simple. I think my dad would have appreciated that. ;) The pictures are from September of 1978 from somewhere called Boulder Cave (I have no idea where that is and no memory of this...just found these photos and that's what my dad had written on the back). The journaling reads:

I’m sitting here tonight, Dad, and it just hit me all of a sudden. The missing you. The wishing with all my heart that you were still alive. The sadness that my boys won’t know you and vice versa. It’s not that I don’t feel this way at other times as well. It’s just that tomorrow is Father’s Day, and I’ve been racking my brain trying to think of a Father’s Day memory. It’s horrible, but I can’t come up with one. I simply don’t remember celebrating Father’s Days growing up. Mostly, you were in the middle of cherry harvest and couldn’t take a day off. Also, I think, we tended to spend that day with Grandpa Baldoz when possible. Sigh. I can’t even remember a specific gift that I got you. Don’t get me wrong. I know we *did* celebrate. I just can’t remember. This bites. I’m sorry...sorry I didn’t make more of a point to do something memorable with you on Father’s Day. I know in my heart, though, that you understood and I’d like to hope that I made up for it at other times of the year when you weren’t in harvest. I also know, though, that it would have been impossible for me to adequately celebrate you and your role as a father. You rock. Man, I wish you were here so I could tell you that.

Yup, this second Father's Day without my dad is bittersweet. My public service announcement for the day, then...if you're celebrating Father's Day today...is to make today memorable. Trust me on this one. My own boys have a day of miniature golf planned for Nathan. It's become a tradition...they've gone at least the last few Father's Days. While it's not a grand hoopla or anything, it's something I know they'll all remember. And, for that, I am thankful.