The 4th of July

I am way far behind with blogging, so now that it's almost October, here are some pictures from our 4th of July!  We spent the day in Troy, Missouri visiting our friends Erik & Liz and their family.

Waiting in line for sparklers!

The 4th of July

We had a great 4th of July this year!  I told Jacob it was by far my favorite 4th we've had since we've been married.  We spent the day in Marshall with Jacob's family.  We spent a good part of the day playing at the pool, which was a lot of fun!  Celeste and Kalie convinced me to go off the high dive with them, which I don't think I've ever done before.  I'm really scared of heights--it's one of my worst fears, after spiders and bees.  The high dive didn't look all that high from the ground, but I almost chickened out once I was up there.  It looks a LOT higher once you climb up that ladder!  But going back down the ladder actually seemed worse than just jumping into the pool, so I jumped. 

Naomi finally loves swimming, so that makes it so much more enjoyable for our family.  I got her a little inner tube floatie thing, and she LOVED it.  She had a lot of fun floating around and going down the little kiddie slide.  Aleta didn't hate it, but she didn't really start enjoying herself until we were about ready to leave, which was unfortunate.  Oh well.  I'm just grateful she doesn't scream and cry the entire time like Naomi used to do!  Sadly, I didn't get a single picture of our family at the pool.  Actually, I didn't take a single picture all day, which is a little depressing.  But I did enjoy my time with my family, which Jacob claims is more important than taking pictures of spending time with the family.... silly man!

I finally got my camera out the day after the 4th, but this looks like it could have been the 4th of July.  So we can pretend. :)

In the evening, we had our barbecue with LOTS of yummies!  Naomi was my little helper the day before, and we made some festive snacks (chocolate chip cookies with red & blue M&Ms, and white chocolate covered pretzel rods with red & blue sprinkles and M&Ms).  We snacked on the pretzel rods throughout the day on the 4th, and then after our barbecue, we made ice cream cookie sandwiches with our homemade cookies.  They were delicious!

Blurry phone pics!

Sorting the M&Ms

These were actually the ugliest ones we made, but it's the only picture I took.  Most of the others were a lot cuter!

The last few years for the 4th, the Romneys did their own little fireworks show at the house.  I've never been a big fan of fireworks at home... they kinda terrify me.  (To be honest, I'm even scared of sparklers... I don't think I've ever used one. ha!)  And last year, one of the fireworks accidentally got shot sideways, so instead of shooting up into the air, it shot RIGHT AT US.  It was slightly terrifying.  So after last year, I hate home fireworks even more.  Growing up, we always went to the fireworks show put on by our town, and I loved it.  It was usually my favorite part of the holiday!  So this year we all went to the fireworks show in Marshall!  It was a lot of fun, and the girls loved it, Naomi especially! 

Thanks to Kalie, there was one photo taken of us on the 4th!  Here we are, watching the fireworks show!

Easter

We had a great Easter weekend!  We had a fun-filled Saturday with Naomi's birthday party, and my sister-in-law Jen & I dyed eggs with the kids later on Saturday.  Naomi absolutely loved dyeing the Easter eggs.  She had so much fun!

Naomi & her cousin Adelyn

On Easter Sunday we went to church in Marshall, MO with the rest of Jacob's family.  The only kids in the nursery that day were Naomi & her cousin Liam, so Aleta, cousin Hazel, and even baby Lily all came into the nursery to play for a while.  Aleta is usually super difficult during church, so it was nice being able to let her play in the nursery instead of trying to deal with her in the church meetings or chase her around the halls.  My sister-in-law Kalie recently got a nice camera, so we got some good pictures of the kids playing in the nursery at church.

 

 

 

 

We also took some family/group shots after church.

Sisters-in-law & daughters

 

The daughters all born within a year (we are just missing Elizabeth who lives in Utah!)

Naomi's Birthday Party

We had Naomi's birthday party this weekend at Jacob's parents' house.  Naomi was SO excited for her party.  She'd been talking all week about her birthday party, and birthday balloons, and birthday cake... and she loved it all, of course!  Especially being the center of attention.  We did an Easter egg hunt for the kids--Aleta loved being outside but didn't care at all about the eggs.  But Naomi loved gathering the eggs and putting them in her basket.

Naomi got some boas and dress-up shoes for her dress-up center, a Disney Princess stamp set, and a bunch of new clothes that my parents sent from Pennsylvania.  Thanks everybody!!

I didn't get a ton of pictures, but here are a few!

 

My lame decorations... haha

 

 

And a video or two...

Happy Valentine's Day!

I LOVE holidays.  I love 'em.  I look forward to them months ahead of time, and I start making my plans much farther in advance than is "acceptable" by most people's standards.  But I just can't help myself!

That said, Valentine's Day this year was kinda lame.  But the girls have been sick all week, I got it a couple days ago and felt awful for most of the day, our house was a mess (which I'd like to blame on the fact that everyone's been sick, but let's be honest... that's not the reason), and Jacob had a really busy week/day with lots of schoolwork & studying to do.  But I tried to make it at least a little special!

I printed some cute blank Valentine's notes that I found here and wrote one reason I love Jacob on each note (I did 14 total, for February 14th!).  I did something similar for Jacob's 29th birthday, where I wrote out 29 reasons I love Jacob and attached each one to a piece of candy, so I made sure that I came up with all new reasons.  Anyway, then I hid the notes in various places for him to find throughout the day, like in his labcoat pocket, on the steering wheel, in his shoes, in his lunch, etc.  My favorite was "I love you because I know that you could keep us alive if the world was ever overrun with zombies." :)  So true.


Ok, so the flash on the camera made the bathroom mirror look really disgusting.  But I SWEAR to you, it does not look that bad in the bathroom lighting!  I had no idea it was so dirty.  I'm cleaning it as soon as I'm done with this post... promise.

I knew he'd play this game today at least for a little while during one of his study breaks.  I was right. :)

We had a delicious Valentine's dinner--New York strip steak, baked potatoes, broccoli, red velvet cupcakes, and Love Potion #9 (strawberry crush... I got the printables from here).  It was delicious, although it was ruined a little by the fact that Aleta was upstairs screaming the entire time we were eating, because she wouldn't sleep.  Poor sick baby. :(  Also, I'd really wanted it to be a candlelit dinner, but I couldn't find my tall candles.  I haven't used them in like 2 years, so who knows where they are!

This was Jacob's plate at dinner.  I was going to get him a bigger box of chocolates, but every year, he ends up throwing away half of his holiday candy.  So instead of being wasteful this year, I just bought him a tiny box.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year, at least for me, was pretty dang awful... probably the worst ever.  One year in high school, I had my wisdom teeth taken out on the Monday before Thanksgiving, and on Thanksgiving I was still so swollen that all I could eat was a roll.  This year was much worse.  Thanksgiving fell right in the middle of my 40ish days of being really sick, and it fell during what ended up being the worst week of my sickness.  I was much too sick to go to the Romney Thanksgiving so Jacob and Naomi went without me and Aleta.  I spent the day laying around, watching Christmas movies, crying, and feeling sorry for myself... haha.  I didn't handle being left alone at home very well, but in my defense, I was so physically and emotionally exhausted from being so sick for so long that I couldn't really handle anything.

I was glad to have this cutie home with me to keep me company though! 

I felt bad that Aleta's first Thanksgiving was so crappy... she didn't get to try any yummy Thanksgiving food, and the only pictures I got to document her day were of her lounging around in her pajamas.  At least she looks adorable!