Happy Birthday Kristen!

Kristen celebrates her birthday today! Happy happy birthday to you! We got to join in the birthday party fun over the weekend with a cookout, sunshine, the game of Washers, and a firepit for making s'mores. Supposedly, Washers is a Texas game and the Texas girl wanted it at her party. She also got Blue Bell too...the best ice cream ever. I attempted to make her a cake with a high heel shoe on it. I was hoping it to be a little more pointy, but overall, it turned out alright.

Adam throwing his washer and trying to get it in one of the holes

Everett is wearing his Baylor shirt that Kristen gave him

Enjoying the sunshine

Everett and Mommy

Everett and Auntie Kristen
(yes, all of the noise you hear is from Everett even though his mouth isn't moving)

Anyone there?

Dash: "Is my Mommy or Daddy out there?"
Everett: "I haven't seen my Daddy all day...Is he out there?"

Dash: "I'll come help you Everett. I'll see what I can find."

"Any luck? We can't find anyone...."

Dash: "I'll look through my window again."

Everett: "I'll check mine again too."

Hmmm....still no one there.

Oh look! I did find my Mommy! She'll play with you too Dash! Come on!

These two boys were so sweet today. They are really learning to play together and it is so cute. Adam left this morning for Las Vegas for work and Everett goes around the house saying "Dada? Daddy? Dada? Daddy?" Alas, Everett and I wait a couple more days to see Adam. We're doing just fine though and we had lots of fun with Dash today.

Here's a picture of Everett and his Daddy a couple days ago. The rocking cool shirt was from Mim when we visited her in California. Love the red and Chinese writing on it! Everett is a stylin' dude!

Everett's Picture Book

Everett has this little photo album with pictures of our family in them. I wanted Everett to start learning our family even though we live far away. It's been fun to go through the book with him and he LOVES looking at them! Here is Everett with is picture book! We love this little boy!

Everett's Buddies

Dash and Everett are as entertaining as ever.....Dash is walking around and Everett is quickly crawling after him. Both of them are on similar schedules which makes it nice, but lunch time is feeding chaos! Actually, it isn't so bad as the three of us just sit in the kitchen and all eat together. Here are pictures of these two guys. They are so funny when they see each other for the first time in the day or after they have gotten up from a nap. They get so excited to see each other and giggle. It's pretty cute!

Dash showing off all of his teeth! What a great smile!

Everett learning how to take things out and put them in....Thanks Auntie Heather for letting us borrow some toys!

Dash and Everett sharing

Can you tell how much my son loves meal time? Haha!

Yay for lunch!

We had a surprise visit from Matthew, Emily, and Evan on Sunday. They were driving through on their way home from Wilmington and joined us for dinner! So fun! It's always great to have friends come over!

The Dads playing the Wii and the boys trying to figure out what they are doing

Everett loves having friends over just as much as we do!

Sleepy Evan and Everett...Time for bed!

California Family Vacation!

Adam, Everett, and I headed out to California a couple Saturdays ago and had a blast on the West Coast. In preparation for the trip, we pushed Everett's bedtime back about 15-30 minutes each night to help him get on West Coast time by the time we arrived. We are thankful that it worked because the transition couldn't have been any smoother! We were fortunate enough to stay with dear friends, Brandon and Melissa, while in L.A. During our tour of the West Coast, we visited Adam's Aunt Jeremy in Orange County.

Aunt Jeremy and Everett

Everett enjoyed swinging at a park near Aunt Jeremy's house

On Monday, we visited my brother at Lulu's Cafe. He is the manager there and needless to say, we got great service! We also spent the day visiting Hosea and April along with eating Pinkberry's Frozen Yogurt and dining at El Cholo. Yum!

Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in Carlsbad at my Uncle Perry and Aunt Helen's home. My parents had already been there for a few days, so Joshua and I joined them with our 2 boys. Our parents were thrilled to see their grandboys together for the first time and we loved all the time with our family. From shopping to walking along the beach to eating lots of delicious food, it was a blast. We think it must have been Everett's best day of his life thus far as he laughed the entire day! It was just so sweet and such a memorable day!

I put these sunglasses on Everett while we were out shopping. He was laughing and hamming it up that my mom had to buy a pair for him. Needless to say, he's the coolest baby on the block!

Everett got this cute monkey and I love how it matches
his pajamas....he is just so cuddly!

We took lots of family pictures while we were all together, so here are a few highlights:
My brother and I with our boys, Tice and Everett

Our happy family

Our whole family together for the first time: Dad, Mom, Joshua and Tice, Adam, Everett and I

My two cool studs

Loving the beach together

No matter Everett was doing this day, he was laughing and smiling up a storm....couldn't love it anymore!

We spent the rest of the week spending time with more friends and family. From walking around in Malibu to eating a ton of great food, we all just had a fantastic vacation. It is definitely a trip we won't soon forget. These are just a few pictures from our week in California. If you'd like to see more, click HERE and view all of our fun times! The Parken Family is back home in Raleigh and glad to see the weather finally warming up over here!