4TH OF JULY

Happy 4th to all, I am a little late, but better late then never. We took howie to the park to watch the St. George fireworks. They were wonderful this year! We all enjoyed them very much. It was about a 20-25 minute light show. So, as you can imagine, howie lost interest. But he lasted about 10 minutes...a record high for anything dealing with attention spans. I just loved this photo of tommy and howie. They were checking out the fireworks and I just loved how in to it they were.

Visit from Juliene's Clan

Juliene (my sister that lives in Logan, UT ) and her clan came to spend the night while on their way to a family reunion. It was fun to have them here, even it was only for 1 night. The next morning we took them swimming at a friends community pool. It was a lot of fun, excpet the little boys, howie and ray, got pretty tired. Ray even fell asleep in the water! Just some fun pics from the day.

The Robin Clan

Top Row: Riley, Randy, (their cousin) Erin

Bottom Row: Shayla holding Ray, Reagen, and Juliene

Outside our apartment complex

Top Row: Randy, Riley, Reagen, and (their cousin) Erin
Bottom Row: Tara holding Howie, Shayla holding Ray, and Tommy

Randy, Erin, Tara, Howie, Ray, Juliene, Reagen

Howie diving out of his floaty. He is too big for it and hates it now. Everytime we put him in it, he dives out, but usually his feet are stuck in it and he is upside down in the water. We just recently got him arm floaties which are working tons better. But he is manages to be under more than he is on top of the water.

Ray fell asleep, sheer exhaustion, with mom juliene and sister shayla.
this is so cool

Erin, Randy, Shayla, Riley, and Reagen.

So cool, I made them do it again so I could get the "splash".

funny fish faces

pooped out

Juliene with her boys, clockwise: Riley, Reagen, Ray, and Randy.

18 MONTH PHOTOS (already!!)

This was the best one of howie smiling, even though he is moving; you take what you can get sometimes. Boy he is sure hard to get a smile out of. These were all of the proofs. Usually the photographer will take a bunch and then you have to pick the best one from a bunch, but this was all that we could get because he just wouldn't smile. He is too serious when it comes to taking photos. Each time we go to Sears, the experience gets worse and harder than before. I keep thinking it will get easier, but getting howie to agree is another thing.

Okay, that morning Tommy took a photo of Howie and got him to say "cheese" for the first time ever. Then, when we were at the photo studio, I asked howie to say cheese. The bottom right photo is howie saying cheese. It cracks me up because it is such a forced smile and the veins are popping out the side of his forehead.

WHERE DID MY FROSTING GO??

I was busy in the kitchen doing the dishes after having made the cream cheese frosting that goes on the pumpkin bars that were cooling on the counter, and all the while battling howie at my feet and tripping over him constantly. I had just finished the dishes and grabbed a spatula to spread the frosting on the bars when I couldn't find the bowl of frosting. I looked all around the kitchen and couldn't find it. Then it dawned on me that it was awful quiet and I hadn't heard a peep from howie for a few minutes now. I dashed to the living room to discover my little ANGEL had been chowing down on the frosting, as he called it "canny" (that's howie language for candy).

So instead of getting upset, which I thought about immediately, I took a deep breath and then reached for the camera. Wow, little boys are sure busy at 18mo. I had no idea! Today has been a perfect example of non-stop howie patrol.

SUPERMAN finds his long lost cape.....or towel??

Superman finds his cape! Daddy tied a towel around Howie's neck last night when he had his Superman pajamas on and Howie thought it was the most amusing thing. He walked back and forth through the apartment just so he could see the towel drag behind himself. He would look down and giggle and keep walking. He has never even seen Superman cartoons before and he still understood what the cape was for. It was a crack up for us to watch.

Howie having a blast with his new makeshift cape.

I like this photo on the left because it reminds me of Darth Vader, view from the back.

Howie thought: "This thing is so much fun!!"

Ahhh....the simple things in life that make us smile. Who needs expensive toys when you can have this much fun with a towel???