Sushi Party!!

I'm finally no longer full from our amazing Sushi party and thus, will post about it :-)  Amy and I split a groupon deal for a sushi party for 8 people as a birthday gift to each other.  We each invited three people and booked our date with the sushi chef and provided some drinks and appetizers and that's it! It turned out SO much better than I could have even expected-the chef was personable and skilled and cooked non-stop for us for FOUR hours.  He also taught us to make our own rolls which was fun but didn't taste nearly as good as his-my rice got overworked and gummy and it was pretty nasty.  Thankfully, he just kept the good stuff coming and we were SO full we had trays full of leftovers.  Would definitely recommend The Sushi Go Guy!

Our Gracious Hosts

Matt wasn't so happy with the sushi he made himself ;-)

This was Marissa "moaning in joy" over how good this sushi was!

Dessert Sushi with mango, strawberries and kiwi!!

Can't stop saying "amazing"

You know when you have one of those once-in-a-lifetime type experiences where you feel marked by it and so thankful to have been a part of it? I had the privilege of having one this week when my looooooong time friend Holly, allowed me to join her mom and husband in the delivery room for the birth of her son! He was born on Monday evening after about 10 hours at the hospital and it was am amazing, joyous event to be part of! I can't say thank you enough for inviting me into your family for this special moment. As Holly commented when I thanked her, "you've been part of the family for a long time!" I guess after being close friends for 15 years we have become more like family than anything else. Well, welcome to the family beautiful baby Grant!

One last only-child-smooch for Hope before Grant

Post delivery, Dad got to hang out with Grant while he got poked and measured

Holly finally got to hold her baby boy! So exciting!!

I took the other pics with their camera but this one was with my cell phone and it's my favorite! Love at first sight! Thanks again for letting me be in on this amazing moment.

The park

Fun day at the park with Hol and Hope :-) They introduced us to a new park with a 4 tiers of playgrounds to play on plus a farm! We'll definitely be going back.

While Holly and I chatted with her neighbor Ella got a book from the car and settled in next to a tree to wait out the boring adult conversation. I LOVE that she LOVES books!

feeding goats


Hope is getting to be a playground pro!

During our picnic, they may have gotten a little too excited. Ella was squeezing Hope to give her a slightly too loving hug and Hope was pointing and saying "eye! eye!" while poking Ella....oh these girls

Block Party Fun

We had a fun Sunday afternoon with friends at their Church's Block Party/Carnival type thing. There was food, a train to ride that the kids loved (we went twice), a rock wall (maybe next year), a few moon bounces (I almost jacked myself UP in that thing), an enormous slide (SO much fun-Ella went 4 times), watermelon (Chris ate about 8 pieces), and face painting (Ella went twice). Thanks for the invite Christys! It was a blast!


The Dads and daughters (Ella was being shy for some reason)

Beautiful family :-)

Chris looking hot

Me trying to hoist myself up on this thing

mid-fall

I knocked Ella over when I fell! It was a mess!

Ella and I coming down the slide! SO fun! (much safer than that moon bounce obstacle course!)

Ella wanted an "Ella"-phant on her cheek

The fam!

At last...

So, Holly and I have been friends since high school and even met in middle school. We've been accountability partners for about 13 years (we spend a couple hours each week sharing about our lives and keeping each other accountable for our living out our faith in our daily lives). We've been through a lot and God has totally given us parallel lives: we both graduated from college early, got engaged 6 months apart, got married 6 months apart, married into the military, moved out west (CA and AZ), went through both husbands deployments to Iraq (2 weeks apart), got out of the military, moved back to Maryland and both were in the hospital for each other's baby girls being born. So, we thought we'd finished a lot of the hard parts and now could raise our girls together and both be stay at home moms at the same time. Well, I'm sad to report that for the first 15 months of Hope's life, our children were on completely opposite nap schedules and we could NEVER see each other during the day! There were no times between about 9:30am and 4:30pm when one kid wasn't in the process of napping. We had to start meeting for accountability early in the morning before the girls woke up and for a while it was almost the only time we saw each other. It was really hard to be moms at the same time but never be able to do things together because one of them was asleep or because they just can't do the same things (they're a year and half apart in age). However, almost out of the blue, it happened. Hope switched to one nap a day. It seemed like just another fun milestone and we were both kind of nonchalant about it but then we realized OH MY GOSH!!! We can be mom-friends now!!! We can actually play during the day! We can see each other without all kinds of complicated arrangements! I'm SO excited for this new phase! I get my Holly back during daytime hours-not only at night or the crack of dawn. Ahhhh. I'm so thankful for a WONDERFUL friend to add to our daytime playdate repertoire. YAY!!! Here are yesterday's pics from one of our first playdates with Holly and Hope :-)

June extras

I have a TON of pictures and lots of stories and very little time so here's a quick wrap up of June...

We finally figured out that "GG" for great-grandma is the best thing for Ella to call Mama on this visit to Mama's hospital room (she had congestive heart failure and a bad bruise from falling but went home the next day!)

Chris got some new shoes and Ella tried on his size 15s before he did.

Ella disappeared and was very quiet. I found her almost in her closet, sitting in this box reading to herself, I watched and took pictures very quietly and she kept reading for at least 5 minutes (a LONG time in toddler world).

Last but not least for this post is Ella and baby Hope. She definitely has a maternal instinct and loves "babying" Hope and playing with Aunt Holly :-)