Samantha's Birthday, too

Hello family and friends. Our good friends, the Sullivans, hosted the birthday party for Samantha and they took some photos, which I got today. I thought you might want to see some more of the party :).

Our family all together

 Samantha is SO close to walking. She stands and stands and giggles and thinks about it, and then wobbles and decides to crawl instead. 

You all got to see how much she loved the cake in the last post, but not the succession of what happened after her awesome first cake!

All Done!

Taking off the clothes at the table...

Shaking off the extras on the chair...

And, impromptu bath in the laundry room sink!

It was great fun!
Love to all! :)

Samantha Joy McVeigh: One Year Old

Samantha was ONE yesterday!  Her party was Monday, and it was a lot of fun.  Here are a few glimpses of the festivities:

Really fun cupcakes made by Mama!

 Mmmm...what could be better than eating bugs?

 Bethany loves her friends Bethany and Leah

Opening presents...Bethany, of course, was happy to help.

 Time to sing a song!

Samantha wasn't really all that into blowing out the candle.

 But she WAS into eating the chocolate cake!

Quite into it, I'd say...

And of course, what would be a birthday without a birthday song:

Happy Birthday, Samantha! We love you!

More Summer Fun

This one will be all pictures! :) 

Cassy and Abbie DePlato on their visit out here holding our girls. Bethany and Samantha had a lot of fun with them!

At Pioneer Days (Utah holiday) parade with (from left to right): Jennifer, Bethany, Aunt Joelle, Madeline, Joshua, Uncle Jeff, Samantha and Emma.

Aunt Molly having a blast with Samantha

Benjer and Samantha enjoying the park

Cousins Caroline and Charlie with Bethany. She just adores them.

For Benjer's birthday we went bowling (the first time for Bethany). It was a ton of fun. Bethany actually beat her Mama, with bumpers and a ramp of course :).

then we went to Red Robin for dinner. Want to know how to make Samantha smile and laugh like this? 

You have to get really close to her face and laugh, like this: 

Bethany helped Daddy blow out his candles. Samantha was intrigued. Happy 30th Daddy!

Nana and Poppy took us on the train at Belleview Park in CO. Then to the petting zoo. SO much fun!

Summer Fun & 4th of July!

It's been a fun week for us!  Last week, Bethany got to go to her first ever baseball game in a stadium!  We went to the Ogden Raptors single-A game last Sunday afternoon.  Mykel, our friend who works at the church and also works at the stadium during the summer in the souvenir stand, got Bethany a Raptors baseball:

During the week, we cooled off in some hot weather by playing in the sprinkler:

And today, we celebrated Independence Day (since the 4th is on a Sunday) with a parade and a carnival!  Here's Bethany with one of her favorite people, Ms. Nicole, who heads up the nursery ministry at our church:

We got LOTS of candy during the parade.  Lots.

At the carnival we got to do lots of fun stuff, like ride a train:

And of course, we couldn't go to a carnival at the park without stopping at the swings on our way out:

We can't wait until next year when it's a little more fun for Samantha.  The sirens woke her up at the parade, and there wasn't really much for her to do at the carnival.  I wonder how they'll sleep with fireworks going on tonight...

Benjer at the Baseball Game

Well, I finally got to be on the field during a professional baseball game. But it wasn't quite what I once dreamed. Our church, Washington Heights, had service at the local minor league ballpark Sunday morning to celebrate our church's week-long in-town mission trip, and so it was Washington Heights night at the baseball game later that day. Chad (our church's student pastor for grades 6-8) and I had the prestigious honor of...playing the bat race game. Chad will say that it was a tie. Unfortunately, he is mistaken.



A better view of the race was posted on Facebook; it clearly shows that I was the winner and the deserved recipient of one free pest control session.

Fun in Colorado

Hello all! We had quite a vacation this month, with Jennifer and the girls spending two and a half weeks enjoying friends and family. We didn't take quite as many pictures as I would have hoped (with absolutely none of Jennifer or Benjer, and none of our whole families), but we have lots of pictures of the kids. Isn't that what you want to see anyway? ;)

Granny (Benjer's mom) took the girls, Grace, Charlie and Caroline (all cousins) to the Botanic Gardens:

Samantha spent most of the time in her stroller and was not too thrilled about the hat mommy put on her :)

And we were able to get to know our newest cousin Cayden (Jennifer's brother-Jonathan's baby):

Samantha had a different time getting acquainted with Cayden...

Apparently, this is how Cayden says "I love you!"

Samantha loved it, too :). She was happy to get to play with another baby.

We spent so much time at the park, Bethany was in heaven. Here we're swinging with Grace:

Time with "unca Jon"

We were also blessed to spend some time with our good friends, the Frazier family, before they head off to Kenya for a minimum 2-year mission. (We have posted about them earlier this year, feel free to check out their blog at http://fourfaithfulfraziers.blogspot.com/). We were blessed to get to spend about 3 days with them, just relaxing and letting the kids play. We had nothing planned it was everything we could have wanted.

The lovely faith and handsome Joel playing in some fountains:

Bethany having a blast! And the three kiddos together :)

Jim and Heather enjoying some relaxing time with Faith:

That's it for now! We love you all :).