Happy Birthday to Doo!

I know it's total cliche, but I can't believe my little girl is already a year old! The year has flown by, but at the same time it feels as though she's been part of our family forever. She's already so opinionated and stubborn at age 1... I think we might be in trouble with this one! Luckily she's also very happy and silly and sweet. Not to mention cute.

Grandma Chris came up from Long Island to visit for Haley's birthday week, and she got in lots of good play time with both Haley and Aiden. When she arrived it was brutally hot (high 90s and muggy) for a few days so we spent a lot of time on various local beaches trying to cool off. Aiden discovered he loves "diving" (basically a modified bellyflop underwater, then popping up to breathe) at Wadleigh Beach, his new favorite place due to the many freshwater mussels that can be collected in the water. And Haley was her usual crazy self in the water. Either she is trying to get loose of your grip so she can try to swim on her own (not recommended), or she's popping fistfulls of rocks and sand into her mouth (trouble, like I said!)

We had a small birthday party for Haley on Sunday which featured family and local friends, Andy's smoked ribs, slip n' slides, a pinata, homebrewed beer, burgers and dogs, and chocolate cupcakes. It had finally cooled off a bit and it was perfect summer weather under the shade of trees in the backyard. Haley and Phoebe scored the splash pool at the end of a huge defective slip n' slide to play in, while the older kids slipped and slid on a smaller one that did work. The first taste of chocolate cake was also a hit for Haley-doo - she went right for the pink frosting and enjoyed every crumb.

Other activities with Grandma during the week included going to see Cars 2 at the movie theatre (Aiden's second movie experience went really well...the first was Up at age 2 that went so badly we hadn't been back!), strolling the farmer's market, painting a large mural on the driveway, getting ice cream, hitting a giant booksale, and going blueberry picking. Now that Grandma is gone it's back to reality for Aiden (not that it's a tough reality at Windy Hill) but we'll see her again in a few weeks on Long Island!