Marsha entertains the children

When Andrew gets bored we will often come upstairs and Marsha will entertain him. Jill and her family were here today. It appears that Aunt Marsha is cable of entertaining multiple children at once.

Andrew's Birthday

What!!!

Andrew's face tells it all - the surprise, the deliciousness, and the fun of having a birthday.

Here's a rundown of the day.

There was cake!

Enough to share!

Banana cake with fruit loops on top.

Give me the cake. NOW!!

There were cousins!

Nice ones who shared their baptism day. (Thank you, Saffron!!)

Mischievous ones. What are you doing Nigel? 

There was singing!!

And don't forget the spontaneous clapping (one of the best things of having a one year old around is the clapping).

There was a mess!

   

Mmmm good.

We're so glad to have this little, gulp, toddler.

-Wendy (hee, hee stealing Ben's login)

What the guys do while Wendy gets ready for work.

There are some-days that Ben and Andrew wake up with Wendy. This was not one of those days.

Sim's Family Reunion

At the end of June we had the Sim’s family reunion for the descendants of Grandma Hunter’s parents.  Growing up I remember going to these reunions. I haven’t gone to one in a very long time. Therefore it was slightly disconcerting to see all the extended cousins that I remembered as being at the most high schoolers having their own high schoolers.

One of the first things that was on the agenda was the presentation of awards.  Our family cleaned up on the pre-reunion awards.

Oldest Female

Oldest Male

Drove the farthest

Youngest Male

Some were more excited for their rewards (Andrew) than others (Grandma).

A family reunion isn't a reunion unless there are some kind of games.  The planner of this specific reunion did  a great job at creating interesting games.

Clothespin dropping

Coin Dropping

Egg Walking

Ball Carrying

Balloon Carrying

Balloon Tossing

Unfortunately while the Stuart branch excels at being old, young, and driving we do not excel in actual competitions. While thoroughly enjoying ourselves we did not win a single event.  Which is all right; because we tromped the rest of the attendees in the most important part of a summer reunion...

Getting wet.

In between soaking each other we also found some time to play Frisbee.

Balloon

Wendy went shopping with Andrew. The cashiers thought that he was so cute that he deserved a helium balloon.  Andrew for his part was very intrigued with the balloon.

Fell asleep holding his balloon

Playing with baloon

Learning to ride

Today we visited the Grandparent Ashton's house. I'm taking a GRE online prep class. Until recently I have been able to study and do the online class while Andrew entertains himself.  His recent development makes this significantly harder. Not only is he becoming more mobile, he has also realized that people should play with him. As Wendy gorgeously stated it Andrew thinks,
" I'm a person. I'm interactable!" Which leads to the reason we are at the grandparents. I need someone to entertain Andrew while doing class portion of the GRE class.
It worked today. Andrew has been having a ball.

Backwards

This is how I described the above picture to Wendy while she was at work.

"He hits the buttons to make the noises. Then attempts to push with his legs to make it move. He isn't tall enough to make out work though."

Of Gardening and Water

Inspiration.  Somehow Wendy caught it. I don't know who to blame more; KaLyn with her recreational gardening or Arden with his self-sufficiency gardening.  Either way, starting this Spring Wendy decided that some sort of gardening would exist. Now as we currently do not own the place in which we stay we were limited to pot planting.

Andrew has become an eager participant in "helping" his mommy with her gardening.

He helps prepare for planting

He chooses the right spot to plant

He waters the plants

He sorts the harvest

It's sad to say that Ben has not caught the gardening bug. Instead he has introduced Andrew to one of the other great Summer activities. Playing with the water hose.

Toothy Grin