Here’s a little peek at what our family was up to this past month!
We kicked off the month at one of our favorite playgrounds.
July is always a busy month, as we have five family birthdays in the first half of the month, including Jake’s and Tommy’s. We did our own little family celebration on Jake’s birthday. I don’t have any pictures of it. Then we had a party for Tommy a couple of days before his actual birthday. Tommy’s birthday party is one of my favorite days out of the entire year. It’s one of the only times that we get all four grandparents and a bunch of Tommy’s birth family together. I look forward to it so much. We had beautiful weather and were fortunate to have some other family and friends join us as well, including my 94-year-old grandpa.
I made a couple of trips to the Domes for their summer show, once with the girls and once with all three kids.
I also made multiple trips to the zoo. Again, I went at least once with just the girls and at least once with all three kids. I had to share one of my shots of Tommy and Olivia with this orangutan. He brought his lettuce right up to the window and sat down to eat where they could watch him up close.
Tommy’s birthday buddy had her party at a roller rink this year. It’s a little-known fact these days that I LOVE to skate. I hadn’t put on any kind of skates since becoming a mom and hadn’t worn roller skates since I was a kid. It was so much fun to skate with Tommy.
We took Tommy to his first car show, a local one that’s part of a church festival. A very nice red Corvette owner let Tommy sit in the car for about ten minutes. He and his wife chatted with us the whole time and couldn’t have been nicer to the kids.
We also saw an 81 DeLorean. We went to the car show straight from church, which is why I was dressed up.
That night my in-laws watched the kids, and Jake and I went out to dinner by ourselves for the second time this year. When you go out to eat this infrequently, you have to make every time count.
This is one of my favorite views in Milwaukee.
The kids and I made a day trip to Chicago to see my sister-in-law.
We hung out for a few extra minutes after Tommy’s swim lesson to wait out a quick rainstorm. Yes, Tommy did wear his pajamas to the pool. #pickyourbattles And Olivia wasn’t wearing shoes because lately, she likes to take them off in the car and throw them. I wasn’t able to find one of them right away and wanted to get inside for the swim lesson.
We went to the local county fair with my in-laws and nieces. Tommy loved going on a few of the rides and really enjoyed seeing so many tractors up close.
It’s finally been warm enough that we’ve been able to do the splash pad a couple of times.
We met up with Tommy’s birthday buddy and her mom and sister at a local petting farm. A baby lemur climbed me and her mom. It was a pretty epic experience.
We also got to pet several kittens. Having kitten time is always a highlight of the week for me.
In case the car show wasn’t enough, we ended the month getting a little tour of a neighbor’s 2015 Aston Martin. It looks straight out of a Bond movie, and we totally geeked out over it. Pictures really don’t do it justice.
The theme of our family pictures this year is “as good as it gets.” I’m doing my best to embrace it.
You can find all of my baby/toddler updates for all three kids as well as general family updates and other family-related posts in the family section of the blog.
