June, you are always such a welcome retreat! The end of the school year comes in like a welcome guest, and we all get giddy at the idea of swimming every morning and playing all day. (excuse me while I make my boys go out and polar bear plunge on this 'fair day' Friday off of school in April 2019). I love looking back at images of us enjoying our back yard- swimming with our friends. The beauty of the scene and the gift of company makes it twice as sweet.
David in our bed in afternoon sunlight- His sweet smile as he tucks himself in and says, "my spot" to which his daddy relplies, 'no, that's my spot!" This boy loves to snuggle and play in our bed, so he does it as often as he can.
The sunset that lit up the sky around Orange Park High's graduation 2018 was glorious. My high school graduation was indoors and the South Carolina arena, so being in the stadium seemed sort of strange to me. But this sky?? Made it the most beautiful place- the heavens joining in on the celebration.
My sweet friend Harlee graduated! My first Young Life girl that I really got to know; she was a joy. It was an honor to get to walk with her through the last part of her high school experience. She will always hold a special place in my heart- she showed up with it was just her&me for campaigners. She was a true gift to me & such an encouragement!
my plant babies bathing in sunlight & my honey. Gosh I love my hubs- who even knows where we were, but it doesn't matter really.
My funny fellas at James' favorite place: Jimmy Hulas!
Last Day of 1st Grade!! Last Day of 2nd Grade!! It is both glorious and terrifying that it is passing so quickly.
and then... just after school let out... our dear friends got the most unreal, most incredible, most life changing news. THEY WERE CHOSEN TO ADOPT TWIN BABY BOYS!! We flew into planning mode for them; a few close friends made them of list of necessity items and we asked for donations. I cleaned my rear facing booster seats and dropped them off in case these boys came home on 24 hour notice, which they did. When we found out they had them in the car, our action plan was set in motion & we gathered all the stuff they would need for two full weeks! It was a glorious, tearful, anxious day. And it ended perfectly. These beautiful baby boys became part of their forever family a short 6-8 weeks later, and the welcome party followed shortly after!!
Matt's cousin Aaron & his wife Nikki brought their kids to St. Augustine for a family vacation, so we met up for the day at the Alligator farm! The boys were really excited about the snakes best of all; James had become a little obsessed with them after his 2nd grade research project on them, and he was in hog heaven.
All this kids piled on the alligator! 7 kids, 4 parents, always a fun time.
Xander loved David most; he kept sneaking over to give him hugs, haha!
Our next summer trip was for Father's Day- to visit Grammy&Papa! We don't make it up to Atlanta very often, but we always love going to visit. It came right down to it, and we just decided last minute to make it happen! I love a great spur of the moment trip & especially with a good holiday surprise!
My boys playing monopoly for the first time: we lasted a whole 30 minutes, but it was fun to play the same set I played as a kid!
We spent the winter/spring/summer of 2018 reading the Madeleine L'engle series starting with Wrinkle in time. The boys loved the first one, the rest were a little more out there. Especially Many Waters. But it was totally worth reading classics together!
Grammy & Papa and all their grands together!
The boys' favorite thing was building a dam in the creek- they spent a lot of time down there & loved every second.
The boys all in Matt's car with me! It's fun to be able to take them all together in different cars now that they are big enough to sit in a variety of seats. Hooray for more ways to transport our family.
David started a new ear: They era of no more diapers in the Prose house!! Hip Hip Hooray for David & his cute little Incredibles undies!!
I absolutely love a beautiful book shelf- especially with a stray lego man.
We went to the library animal show and the boys volunteered to hold snakes! James became obsessed with the t-shirt the presenter wore, and begged for it for a reading challenge prize. It says, "keep calm, it's just a snake" so at the end of the summer, I bought it. Still one of his favorites.
Nothing beats pool time in the morning.
Sweet little Davy up in the tree house.
The boys all working on their floss dance moves- Hayden has gotten really good!
As much as I don't love video games, my boys do. So we play our old school Wii & we hit up the local resale shop for new games for $5. The joy and excitement is seriously huge. How could we miss out on this!?
David likes 'putting on make-up' with mommy, so I let him have my little sponges and chap stick for fun. This little fella is just so darn cute. He's my assistant with all the rest of the make up- "you need this one mommy?"
We also tried out the Library's lego building time. It wasn't a huge, because it was just a free build with the pieces with offered. But it is always good to try new things: especially when mine could build legos all day everyday.
My sweet friend Lindsay turned 30!?! It is such fun to celebrate special milestones in the lives of our friends. (Don't mind that food baby you see in this pic: I was not pregnant. This can happen after four babies, its fine, I'm fine).
I started planning for our big family vacation to YL TRAIL WEST!! It was coming up in July, so we took the boys to the boot barn for new cowboy boots, because everybody knows you need boots in Colorado. They tried on hats and grabbed stick horses for fun, and I had to start snapping pictures because who can resist this cuteness? David and his pink pony, haha!! Absolutely the best.
