Afton's 6th birthday

Afton turned six! Her birthday was on a Wednesday and G&G Cheney were going to be out of town, so they drove over the Sunday before and went to church with us. Then we celebrated afterwards. We had dinner and then she opened her presents. She had made a birthday list and tacked it on the fridge 2 months in advance, so we had a pretty good idea what she would like. Grandma and Grandpa Cheney got her a Captain America shield, a switch n' go, and a beanie boo.

 She also got an Ariel dress, a stuffed animal Raja from Aladdin, and an Ariel wig. That girl loves her dress up!

She requested a white cake with red balloons on it.

She had to try a few times to get them all.

We love our Afton! She is such a fun and happy person and brings a lot of joy to our family.

On her actual birthday, she asked if we could go to SkyZone, an indoor trampoline park. I said sure. We got there right when they opened and bought a pass to jump for an hour. Five minutes in, I got in trouble for holding Eli while I jumped, so I set him down and he just walked around falling and getting in other people's way. The dodgeball area (which Sam loves) wasn't open, nor was the basketball hoop area for most of the time. They had fun jumping and at the foam pit for about 30 minutes and then just wanted to pretend to play arcade game. ('Cause there was no way I was forking out more money for games when I was paying for them to jump!)

Anyway, they had fun. Even if they weren't jumping.

We came home and hung out - Afton danced around to her new favorite jam. This video is twice as long as it needs to be, but I don't feel like editing it so here it is.

 I love this picture of Eli pointing at her nose.

That night she finished opening the rest of her presents.

August Randoms

 Our HOA sent us a lovely note about our old, cracked driveway, so we replaced it. Eli liked watching them work on it.

 I took the kids to a fun park in a nearby neighborhood. It's got a zipline, a little village, and all the other things that most playgrounds have. It's lots of fun.

Literally the night that our driveway was done, Dan came home to find approximately 40 geese pooping all over it. It's been at least 6 weeks now and some of it is still there. Punks.

 Trip to the temple.

 This is how Eli helps himself fall asleep when we have long car rides.

 More library trips.

 Costco.

 And no words for this one, really. She is hilarious.

The Rest of July

 Sam continued his piano lessons this summer. While he went to lessons, I took the other two to the park each week for a little while. It was stinkin' hot.

 Dan's sister's family came to visit us. Heather had been taking a class in NYC, then Lael and the kids came to see her for a few days. Then they took a train down to Richmond to see us. It was really nice of them to make the visit! Texana is closest in age to our kids and she and Sam got along really well. Marshall and Mica were also really sweet to our kids.

 While Heather was here, Katrina also came by for a morning on her way to the beach. It was so nice to see her for a little while! (Spencer, Katrina, Luke, Juliet, James, Afton, Sam, Eli, me.) Why couldn't we have lived in Texas at the same time??

 We went to the art museum.

 This was my favorite of the day. So beautiful and life-like.

 Lael was really good at making Eli laugh.

 One night Mica watched our kids while Marshall and the adults went to see Jason Bourne. This is a selfie of me and Matt Damon, obviously.

They wanted to see the Capitol so we did that as well.

I've probably mentioned this before, but the Capitol building houses the only statue of George Washington that was done while he was alive. Pretty cool.

And that was our July!