Like A Fat Kid Loves Cake

Greg's Birthday BBQ

That weekend we were able to celebrate my cousin, Greg's, 33rd birthday as well. We always love spending time with Greg and his gorgeous wife, Heidi, but we were most excited to meet sweet little Thomas Jay!

The happy new family
Thomas was only a couple weeks old!

Snuggling with Thomas was pure heaven and definitely made us both a little baby hungry! Wow, I miss those days where Daxton would let me snuggle with him day in and day out!

Greg and Heidi are going to be amazing parents! It is already apparent how much they love their precious little boy. Thomas is super lucky to have such devoted loving parents!

After the birthday BBQ, we had some fun with a ton of water balloons. Daxton tried carrying one around for awhile until it became casualty to the grass...

Some interesting games were created, including the classic "egg" toss using water balloons where the losers lined up in a row and the winners got to pelt them with water balloons...

And then the ending game, one lone person stood in the center of a circle where everyone got to throw a ton of water balloons at them...

It was a super fun birthday celebration!

The food was great and the company was even better.

Happy Birthday, Greg!

We love you so much and are so happy for you and your little family!

Ellis and Olive's Birthday

Our nieces, Ellis and Olive, have birthdays within the first week of July, so we decided it would be fun to do a combined birthday party for both of them on July 4th. I love that we live so close to be able to celebrate special occasions in their lives!

The birthday girls

Heather made a fun birthday cake for the girls and Ellis got to help decorate it. As you can tell, she found the process very interesting. Heather even gave her the chance after to practice her writing with frosting.

Daxton cared less about the writing and more about the taste! He was a big fan of the homemade frosting!

Quite the happy little man after consuming so much sugar...

We were actually able to get a family picture!

It's very rare since I'm usually the one taking pictures. Daxton even smiled for the occasion. Pretty funny to see how blonde he's gotten over the past few weeks!

After our family picture, we tried to get a picture with him and little Olive since they both looked so cute in their 4th of July outfits...needless to say Daxton did not want to sit for the picture!

For one of Ellis' birthday surprises, they had filled a big piñata full of candy. They each took turns hitting it until Will finally busted it open spilling the candy everywhere.

Lincoln was a great sport and was content beating up the aftermath since he didn't get to hit the piñata while hanging.

Daxton and Olive wanted to play with the smashed pinata as well, but Daxton had a bit of a brake down when he was forced to share...obviously he was missing his afternoon nap during the festivities. He's quite the diva without sleep! I love Olive's facial expressions as she's wondering what to do about Daxton's melt down.

Since Ellis turned 7 and Olive turned 1 it was an interesting array of candles. The girls didn't seem to mind and Ellis took over the responsibility of blowing out the candles.

The birthday girls in front of their cake.

Blowing out the candles...

Olive's first piece of birthday cake...

Double fisting the chocolate like a champ!

The next day, Dallas, Daxton, and I took Ellis out for her own special lunch and then shopping. She chose Red Robin and then a stop at the Disney story and then Toys R Us. We had a blast with one on one Ellis time. She even helped us pick out a little birthday present for Olive as well. Such a sweetheart!

Happy Birthday Ellis and Olive!

Love you both so much!

July 4th Neighborhood Breakfast

On the morning of July 4th we decided to do a little neighborhood BBQ. Most of our block travels during the summer, so we knew that it would just be a few of us, but we figured it was a good excuse to get together anyway. Even though our apartments and especially the backyard is nothing to rave about, I can't help but admit how much I'm going to miss living here. It is so convenient to simply walk outside and be surrounded by such great people.

I found the cutest 4th of July shirt for Daxton to sport. He was quite dapper sitting in his own chair and enjoying good company.

The Berjkov Family

Jessica, Val, and the most amazing hair award to little Kostya

I sure do love this little family!

The Cook family

I swear Kaiden is perpetually happy!

He constantly has a smile on his face, which means I constantly act like a crazy person while talking to him. I LOVE me some Kaiden snuggles! And I won't even begin to go into how much I adore Jules. She's amazing...simply put.

Showing off his new walking skills!

It's also fun that the missionaries live right on our block as well. It's always great to see them!

The Dimond Family

Liz and Devon are such great people. They have become very dear friends over this past year. I can honestly say that they will be the most amazing parents, which is evident by how much all the kids love Devon...

Twinners Kaiden and Devon

Daxton and his buddy Devon

It was a great way to start the holiday.
We love our friends so much and feel so blessed to have them all in our lives.

Bryan's Family Visit: Hanging out in Clayton

After spending two crazy days in the city, we decided to spend our last full day together out in Clayton, where my brother and his family live. We had a great couple days of BBQs and hanging out at Erik's house. It was super fun to see the cousins interact and play so well with each other. Sadie and Will became the best of friends and even got "married" a couple of times.

Daxton loved the perfect grass, all the fun toys, and doting cousins to play with.

More Sadie and Will antics...

Erik and Heather have done such an amazing job on their home and especially their outside areas. The kids had a blast playing on their playground, swings, yard and back patio.

After one of our BBQs we figured it would be the perfect opportunity to give Daxton his first popsicle...

We tried to warn him not to bite!

Obviously you can see it was a huge success!

We were also able to go swimming while Bryan's family was in town. Daxton LOVES the water and would spend hours in it if he could. He had so much fun playing with all his cousins and especially loved swimming with auntie Heather!

It was such a fun visit! We loved being able to spend time with Heather and the kids. We wished it could have been longer and that Bryan could have skipped his meetings to join in on the fun :) but we will take whatever time with them that we can!
I am constantly overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude for my family. It is always so much fun to spend time with them.
Thanks for the fun visit, Bryan and Heather!
We sure do love you guys!

Bryan's Family Visit: Chrissy Field Beach

After exploring Fort Point the clouds parted for an amazing afternoon at the beach. Chrissy Field park/beach is literally right down the coastline from Fort Point, so we were able to have a fun picnic lunch before heading to the water. I was a bit nervous about how warm or cold it would be, but we were pleasantly surprised when the fog burned off and the bright sun came out.

Our gorgeous view of the Golden Gate from our picnic area.

Heather is definitely a smart mommy and made sure that everyone ate before getting in their swim suits and near the water, otherwise no one would have wanted to eat!

On our way down to the water a nice lady who spent her day training dogs, asked the kids if they wanted to "socialize" with her pets. It was pretty funny to see how they were all super excited yet a little nervous to hold them. I guess us Adams kids aren't too keen on dogs! Daxton, on the other hand, is quite the Perkins. He LOVES dogs and will do anything to pet and snuggle with them.

Katrina taking her turn. She loved feeding her little biscuits.

Rulon and Ellis taking their turns.

I didn't want to get Daxton out of his stroller since we were on our way to the beach, so the lady let the dog sit on his lap. He was covered from head to toe in doggy sand but it was pretty cute to see how excited he got!

It's funny, I've been to Chrissy Field Beach several times, but I guess I haven't walked down far enough, because we were able to find the best inlet of where a little river meets the ocean. It was much warmer than the cold ocean and also a lot calmer as well. It was the perfect place to set up camp, because the older kids could play in the ocean waves while the little ones played in the calmer inlet. It also gave us amazing views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

In true form, the kids immediately ran to play in the ocean waves...

By far one of my most favorite shots of the whole week...

Love my nieces and their absolute joy.

My first worry began when little Daxton got down to play and HATED the feel of the sand. I kept thinking to myself, "Are you kidding me!? We are moving to Florida! This guy better get used to the sand!" He spent the whole time playing on his own little beach chair and on the blanket.

I loved watching all the cousins goof off together. Lots of splashing, throwing sand, and running from waves were involved. I love hearing their excited giggles.

I couldn't complain, Daxton had a blast on the chair and blanket, which meant I got to sit back and relax for a couple hours. I also got to enjoy watching my nieces and nephews and spend some quality time with Heather. I sure do love her. I've been blessed with the worlds best sister-in-laws!

Daxton having a blast playing with his sunglasses and toys.

Quality time with auntie Heather

After the kids were done playing in the waves, they came back to the inlet to play in the sand. They had fun making sand castles and even tried to make a "hot tub" on the side.