Lets start with...

The Wrigley Family Reunion

My dad is from a HUGE, wonderful family. The Wrigleys. It begins with great-grandma and grandpa Eva and Burnell, their six kids (the eldest is my grandma Louise Toolson) and branches off to hundreds of amazing people. I am so lucky to be a part of this family!!! We even have family numbers according to when we entered the family. I am number 60, right after Sheree who is 59 and I will have to go look at the rest of my family but they are in the hundreds.

We left for our three week vacation to the West at the end of July. And of course, a couple days before we left, my washer broke. So where did I do all my vacation laundry? In the BATH TUB!!
I was so happy to be able to fly with John, it's just nice to have an extra pair of hands to help.
Livy was SO happy to have her OWN seat for the first time since she is now two!
Johnny and daddy sat in front of us so Liv could kick their seat and not get yelled at.
Moms and Livs. I don't know if Livy finally found her nose, if something smelled bad or if she has an enormous amount of boogies in that nose, but at any given time, you will mostly see her with her finger in her nose just like this.The first day of the reunion was Thursday. It was cold and cloudy (which I was NOT sad about at all since it was a million degrees in Houston) so we did not go to the beach and meet everyone there. That night was the first family dinner at Poinsettia Park in Carlsbad. We had pizza and salad and played "minute to win it" games. SO fun!! Everyone was put in groups according to their birthdays and everything was timed. The Sept.-Dec. group won, DUH. We had myself, John, Sheree, Michelle, Ashlee, Austin, Tucker, Cooper, Drew, Connor, Nick and a bunch of other all-stars. Way to go YELLOW!
This was the group chair game where you have to get in a tight circle and at the same time, every one sits down. Then you get timed on how long you can stay seated without falling. Probably the hardest one since we had little kids and this giant 6'7 guy who threw everything off!The only bummer of the reunion was my sweet Liv who has severe "group anxiety" as I call it. She is usually very bubbly and social but the second she got around all of these smiling strangers, she would NOT be put down and cried the majority of the time. So glad I had John, my parents and siblings there to help out with her!

Andrew and Johnny were in their group together and had so much fun being big boys without mommy and daddy.
This game was hilarious! You had to put a nylon over your head and face that had a tennis ball at the end of it. then you had to swing your head around and try to knock over as many water bottles down as you could in one minute.

The girls...
This game was so fun and simple! There were paper plates on the ground, each labeled with a letter of the alphabet. You had to grab a plate and get yourselves in the right order as fast as you could.
In this game you had to hold hands and see how fast you could get the hoola-hoop over yourself and to the next person in one minute




Elsie girl!
Friday and Saturday morning we had 9:00 workouts with Codi and Jess. It was such a blast to be there old and young, working out together! Codi did a dance based class which was hilarious. Cha cha cha!You leave Mimi and Liv in the bathroom for five minutes and this is what happens:)

Some more cha cha!


I took Livy for her first pedicure on Friday morning after the dance class and she LOVED it. She picked her own color: neon orange, and sat there so nice and still the whole time.

The fam at the beach

Of course, no trip to Ponto beach is complete without a carne asada burrito. It just wasn't as good this year for some reason, maybe I'm finally outgrowing my love for lardy mexican food. Or maybe it just tastes better when KC is there.
We missed you Robertos!
Liv's first nap in three days.
It was not sunny and the water was freezing but Andrew was still up for a surfing lesson from Trevor.
Very serious about his castle making.

Saturday Friday night's dinner was at the Olivenhein Town Hall and it was probably my favorite night. Michelle got a dj, which was soooo fun! Once that sun went down, the entire Wrigley family was gettin jiggy wid' it.

Cute Dre
The party gettin' started..
I was kind of obsessed with Tay's new baby Lulu.
Liv and Mim's doing YMCA. She's still was not so sure about all the people.
Michelle can definitely get down!
And there's Papa Mike!
Cousin Sheila was my favorite dancer! she had me smiling all night long!
Saturday night was back to Poinsettia for some fresh carne asada and chicken tacos by these little guys. They even made the tortillas fresh right there. Which is why it took 1 1/2 hours to get through the line of 150 people. But I forgave them for being so slow when I took a bite. It was amazing.

Colbi and Sean showed up Saturday and Liv had even more people to play with
BFF
She finally smiled!! and spit that dumb paci out!

Daddy was such an amazing helper on this trip!!

The Italiano couple!! Their last vacay before Ryan leaves for Italy in August


We played so hard it was never hard to get these kids down at night!
Sunday was my cousin, TJ Toolson's mission farewell. My mom, Colbi and I were at Shannon's wedding shower but we made it to the family dinner that afternoon. I absolutely love days like this. Gorgeous weather, family, good food, games. Heaven.




Liv is in love with Halle and Anna Toolson.
The boys love jumping on this tramp and playing in the back yard.

It was the perfect ending to the perfect reunion! Thanks aunt Debbie and uncle Tim for organizing and putting it together!!

A little Ab Ripper X

John started the P90X program a few months ago and the kids love joining in when they can. This is ab ripper, their favorite!!


I know you're practically in your undies, daddy, but these pictures make me smile so they're stayin on the blog! love you.

A Family First

Last week we had our first successful family movie date! We saw Despicable Me which was cute and the kids LOVED the 3D. It was my first 3D movie as well and I was really impressed.

Thanks for the fun date daddy!

Big things for Johnny Boy

We finally found someone who does private swim lessons and doesn't charge a billion dollars and it has been life changing!! It was so interesting to watch this process, Johnny grew so much in just six short lessons. I am sooo proud of him!!

This is the first day, he was so excited and proud that he could do everything Chandler asked.

The next lesson was a whole different story. Chandler pushed him a bit and Johnny did NOT like it. He cried, he dry heaved, he had to pee, he had to poop, every excuse he could think of.
And then Chandler pushed him some more because the funny thing is, Johnny is actually a really good, strong swimmer. I'm not just saying that (never said it about his soccer/baseball abilities:)) He is.
And after the above picture, he swam to the steps, ran out of the pool, out the back gate, into my suburban and locked the door. I sat there with Livy stunned and Chandler said "I got this". They came back a few minutes later and Johnny was ready to go.
The next day, and a bribe of Star Wars Galactic Heroes, he was an entirely new kid. Excited and ready to go.
This picture is big deal. Johnny has never in his life let anyone throw him in a pool so when I saw this I almost cried. He loved it.
Big arms and a breath to the side!! Johnny, you are my HERO!
And then, on Friday we had even more exciting news in our house. Johnny lost his first tooth!!
*Feel free to skip this story, it's for posterity dontchaknow.

Last week we were eating pita and hummus and every time Johnny would bite off a piece he would say his teeth hurt. I thought, great, he has a cavity or something so I even set dentist appointments! Then the next day, he was eating a quesadilla and again said his tooth hurt when he bit it so I looked a little closer and there was a tiny bit of blood. I touched it and it was wiggly. I told him about losing teeth and didn't think much about it because Johnny would totally be the kind to let it sit there hanging by one vain until it rots out.

Then Friday he came running into my bathroom saying his tooth hurt so bad and when I looked his mouth was filled with blood and his little tooth was gone. I yelled "you lost your tooth, where is it? Let's go find it!!" So we ran out to the living room and there it was sitting on the couch where he had been jumping and wrestling with Liv.

We told him about the tooth fairy earlier that week but hadn't really told him about how much the tooth fairy would leave. While we were at the pool with the Ramages on Friday, his friend Will said "Johnny, if the tooth fairy doesn't leave you five dollars, give me a call." We laughed so hard and said "where on earth did you hear that?" Will said that is what his grandpa said to him!! Needless to say, the tooth fairy left a five dollar bill and Johnny has big plans for it.

Yes, another lake house post

Andrea (John's oldest sister) and Sam, her boyfriend came to Houston for the long weekend so we went to the lake house, duh! Livy and Johnny love going there and are so good on the quick drive!

It was pouring the first day so there are no pictures. We just cleaned and organized and cleaned some more.

The rain finally stopped Saturday morning so John and I spent three hours cleaning the boat (it had sat in the rain for a couple weeks and was covered in debris and mud and mold) and were ready to take it out by lunch time
The boat had a little cold and sounded like it was coughing but after several tries, it finally started and we got it in the water


We had to go back and pick up Andrea but the people were fishing in the only spot to fit a boat. We got andrea after circling around a few times...and we ended up sucking up that ladies' line and almost took her pole. Woopsies. We felt bad. But really, who goes fishing at a public boat dock?
We told the guys we'd be back in 20 minutes and it took over an hour. They were a little anxious to get on the boat by now!



Papa was a little hesitant to get near the dock after a near fatal attempt last time so Sam jumped in, and tried to pull the boat closer to get the guys. We were laughing so hard during this process!
This was "good" weather for us! At least there was no rain or lightning!
Livy was sooo tired but would not take a nap
My handsome boy. He is SO good at the lake house. He just does his own thing and lets us do our. I love him.
We had a great weekend with the family. It's fun to work hard with family and have fun at the same time. Thanks for coming Sam! JUST DO IT! :)