Red, White, and Blue!

We decided on a whim to head to Yerington for the fourth.  We are so glad we did. We had so. much. fun.  As long as I can remember, Yerington Lion's Club has put on a fun day on the fourth.  I knew Liam would have a blast, so we headed down.  Before the fun day, they had a kids' red, white and blue parade. The night before Liam decorated Papa's trike and we decorated Addy's stroller to participate in the parade.  I told my mom our goal was to get on the front page of the Mason Valley News, and what do you know, Liam did! :D  When I get the article, I'll post it.  Anyway, we had a lot of fun in the parade. Liam's favorite part was the cans making noise behind his trike.







I had so much fun dressing the kiddos up in their red, white and blue. I had to add in Addy's pink gelly shoes. They are soooo cute. :D

Off we go in the parade!



Another first milestone for Miss Addy-- painted toe nails! I had to paint them red for the fourth. :D  Girls are a lot of fun. ;)  Aren't these painted toes in sparkly pink shoes the cutest thing you've ever seen?

GG and Grandpa-Great joined us for the games at the park. They had fun hanging out with Adelyn while Liam ran around crazy so excited for the games!

Addy had a lot of fun with the pin wheel. Check out those chompers!

Liam's first game was the sack race which I thought for sure was a recipe for disaster. He actually did awesome and probably would have gotten second place had a kid not fallen down and landed in front on him.  Oh well. He had a blast.











The ole egg and spoon race!



I gave it a try and failed miserably because my big, floppy hat flew down in front of my face. haha.



Mom and I attempted the frisbee toss, not even coming close to winning.

Daddy got second place in the egg and spoon race!  He won a silver dollar!  Great job, dad!

Liam wanted a snow cone soooo badly. Papa stood in a very long line to get them snow cones. So cute. :)

The grand finale was the watermelon eating contest. We almost left and then Liam really wanted to do it. Good thing we stayed because he won second place!  I couldn't believe the child we beg to eat won. :D 



I made a root beer float cake to celebrate my dad's birthday.  I should have used a stronger root beer, but it still turned out yummy.

GG and Grandpa-Great doing their system for feeding Addy. They watch the kids about once a week while I sleep before week and they have their own little systems of caring for the kids. :)


We had such a wonderful fourth!  I'm so glad we made our little impromptu trip out.  Thanks for letting us come have fun, Nana and Papa.

What's on my phone?

My friend gave me the idea for these series of posts.  I have been taking a lot of pics and videos on my phone lately and I always forget to post them!  I think I've been taking so many is because my phone is always handy and it's easier to get photos.  However, now I've built up about 100 photos on my phone, so I'll have a few posts like this, but hopefully once every 2 weeks or so I'll put up the random photos to stay on top of it.  Anyway, without further ado, here is the first bunch.

This is one of my all time favorite photos of Addy. It was in February, so she's about 4 months old.  What a sweetheart:


Addy having a good time with our dear friend Scott Darrington. He's a baby magnet.  He loves the little ones and they love him.


These photos are from an afternoon in March when we went to lunch with Brent and Elise Adams and Bernadett and Shannon Sena and their little girl, Brooklynn.  I worked with Elise and Bernadett at the oral surgery office and they are some of the sweetest people in the world. I'm so glad we've been able to remain friends.  I just love them.




This photo is from a Sunday at church back in March with a little boy in our ward named Hunter. Hunter's parents, Nick and Serina, just live down the street. Hunter is 2 months older than Addy so they'll be in nursery and primary and such together. They had fun playing on the floor together.


I call this series of photos, "Myspace Liam". He likes to play with my phone and take lots of photos of himself making different faces.  I never know what to expect when I look in the photos on my phone if he's been playing with it!






I love this photo of my sweet lil' thumbsucker sleeping away in her carseat.


Peyton had to get his adnoids removed and tubes in his ears, so after work, I went on over to pre-op to see him.  Poor little guy made this very sad, boo-hoo face for our photo. He did great through the surgery though!


And last one for now. One our way home from San Diego, girly fell asleep with her leg straight in the air. So funny.

Free Fishing Day

For the last couple of years, Wes has taken Liam to the Kids Fish Free Day at the Sparks Marina. It's a fun adventure for the two of them. :)  This year I was working so Addy went along for a few minutes and I picked her up on my way home so the guys could fish.  I had just gotten Addy down for her morning nap and layed down myself and I woke up shortly thereafter to a dead fish in my face. haha.  I was shocked they were home so early, but they had caught their limit pretty early, so they came home.  This is the first year Liam has caught a fish, and Alli and Ethan also caught their limits. So, all in all, great year! 

I think this must be the third year that they've gone with the Finlays (who introduced us to this fun tradition) because we have three of the same Marina shirts and three orange shirts, which are great jammie shirts. :)  Liam actually named his three fish which were something along the lines of Bash, Dash, and Snoogle or something. haha. When I asked if he was going to help daddy cook them and eat them for dinner he said, "Ummm I don't really think so."  But, he did try them and eat them, which I am very proud of him for.

The sad part of this story is that Wes did a great job taking photos and for some reason they got out of order and deleted from my camera. :(  I'm glad Jake took this picture at least of the kids with their fish. Thanks, Jake.

6 Years

Wes and I celebrated 6 years of marriage on Saturday. SIX years! Craziness.  I had been relatively sick the whole week with a horrible stomach virus, so I wasn't sure we'd get to go out as planned, but I started feeling better and well enough, so we went out to dinner and played mini-golf an had a lot of fun. :)

We always like to reminisce about our wedding week at our anniversary dinner.  We both agree that there is little, if not nothing, that we would change about our special day.  It was such a beautiful way to start our life together-- a big ole' party surrounded by our friends and family that love us.  We had soo much fun and it's just so fun and sweet to look back on all the memories of our special day.

I couldn't and wouldn't choose a better complement for myself.  We definitely balance eachother well.















Our official annual temple shot. 

I'm so grateful to be sealed to my very best friend for eternity. I am so thankful for the 2 beautiful children that we have together and for all that we have accomplished in our short six years of marriage. Happy Anniversary, meine liebe Schwann!

First Karate Tournament

Liam's karate school puts on an annual in-house karate tournament.  It's done to help the students get a feel for what a tournament and competing is like, but in a familiar environment.  Liam was very, very excited and he practiced his basic kicks to perform like crazy.  The pee-wees were the first to go and their whole part only lasted about an hour which was nice for their little attention spans and for a mommy who worked the night before and was deliriously tired. I wouldn't have missed it for the world, though.

Do you think the kiddos were excited? They were all running around crazy!  GG and Grandpa-Great came to watch, too, which made Liam even more excited.

I'm not sure what this was about, but it was before the tournament started and was very funny.

Bowing before the beginning of the tournament.

Liam showing his basic kick sequence.



Then the pee-wees got to spar with eachother.  Liam had also really been practicing kicking high enough to hit the dots on the pads. He did a *great* job throwing the proper punches and getting his kicks high enough.

Kicking: (L is in the blue)

After the their portion of the tournament, they each got a medal and a trophy.  We signed up late so Liam hasn't gotten his trophy yet, but he was beyond thrilled with his medal. 



He had to go over and give Grandpa-Great hugs afterward.  Addy enjoyed, as always, watching all the kids!

Great job, Liam! We're so proud of you and how much you have improved.  Keep it up!

Happy Father's Day!

To the man that is such an amazing father to our beautiful children:


And to the man that taught me that family is most important:

Happy Father's Day! I'm so thankful for all the fathers in our life. We have so many amazing men in our life, we wish you a belated father's day as well!

Father's Day was spent in Yerington. We enjoyed church in the morning and then the guys went and did what they wanted on Father's Day, which was shooting. Liam was really bummed that he had chosen not to go the last time we were in Y-town, so Papa and Daddy took him out shooting. They all had a blast and we heard all about it!










And a SERIOUSLY noteworthy thing happened. As previously mentioned on this blog, Liam is quite the Wii bowler. He's always envied Papa's and Daddy's 'pro' status on the Wii and he finally achieved his goal of reaching 'pro' himself! Man was he excited! Monumental day, I'm tellin' ya.