iowa in the summer

the past twelve days that james has been out of school have been like a dream come true! i can't tell you how many times over the days and weeks before his final test i thought, "i can't do that now, but i'll do it as soon as james has his last test."

and let me tell you, james has been amazing at letting me do all the girly stuff i wanted to do (manicure w/ a friend, hair cut and color, summer clothes shopping, etc.) as well as creating memorable summer activities with scotty and me. (as hard as james works at school, i think he puts in ten times the effort to be an awesome husband and dad.)

here are some of the fun things we've been up to:
we finally got to officially celebrate scott's first birthday. here's a shot of his cake (yes, i bought it)

and here's another shot of the cake all over scott's face! (ok, i had to help him out a bit by smearing it around his mouth, but he caught on quickly and did the rest.)as you can tell, he as no aversions to chocolate.scott even got to have a couple friends over to play in the kiddie pool and eat cake. he had such a great time!we also got to go to the farmer's market in des moines. i loved it!and the boys had a good time too.especially once james found his famous breakfast burrito.then we met up with our friends kelly and andy. we all walked to the east village to do a bit of shopping.scott's buddy brody came over the other day for another pool party. the two of them were hilarious as they lounged about in their miniature hot tub. and here's a shot of scott ripping brody's hat off. he was obviously jealous that he didn't have such a cool looking hat
james even goes grociery shopping with us on his time off! scott loved having his daddy push him around in his little automobile cart. (he doesn't look extremely happy in this picture, but the fact that he stayed in the cart through the entire shopping experience says a LOT!)i just had to include this random little video of scott and james shopping. i think its so funny.



oh! and i just have to post a few of these pictures of our front garden area. just so you know, i had nothing to do with its beauty. i mean, i weed it (and i feel like i'm my mom everytime i come home and feel the need to grab at a few random weeds) but other than that these beautiful lillies grew all on their own! they were there when we moved in and now we are reaping the benefits.

we bought this shirt for scott on one of our walmart trips this week. it says, "i love danger." and its so perfect for him. he HATES being confined.

this past saturday we went to the zoo with our friends Pavel and Shayla and their boys. scott loved roaming around looking at all the little animals. in this picture you can see a man waving at scott. this is because scott waved at him first. he is SUCH a little waiver these days.
here we all are in front of the sea lion show (which wasn't as fabulous as the cashier lady made us believe).
here's our little boy just hanging out looking at the world around him.
and here we all are on the $2 per person train ride. another cashier lady said it was about 10 minutes long. i would guestimate... 10 seconds long.
here are my boys looking at the lions. i think scott wanted to get in there and play with them.
me and my boy on a little bridge deep in the wild of des moines.


and in less than four hours we are leaving for the airport to fly to utah where we will spend the next month playing with our family and friends. (if you thought this post was long, then just wait for THAT post!)