June 2013

June was a super-busy and fun-filled month! 

The first weekend of June the boys and I attended the annual Cresswell Family Fish Fry.  Dawson and Carter had fun running around outside.

Dawson remembered from last summer that the barn near the fish fry had farm equipment in it, and so of course we had to go check it out!

Me, the boys, and Nora Kate in the barn!

We went to Splash Country for the first time in June too!  John, Dawson, Carter, Logan, and I had a fun time.  Carter and I spent most of our time in the Lazy River while John, Dawson, and Uncle Logan enjoyed the wave pool too.  I think the overall favorite of everyone was the Lazy River or the kids play area though.

After a very busy first week of June with the second half of swim lessons being every morning, the second week of June we had VBS every evening!  Dawson absolutely LOVED VBS this year.  Here he is sporting his VBS shirt inside the church.

One evening they had miniature horses.  Dawson talked about it for a couple of days leading up to the night when the horses were supposed to be there.  He couldn't wait!  He loved the miniature horses.

By the end of the week, Dawson was just as excited (if not more excited) to go to VBS!  Although I could tell he was tired from all of the extra activity in the evenings!  VBS went until 8:20 each night, so we didn't get home until way after bedtime-but he did awesome!

Carter attended three of the five nights of VBS.  He did well, but his age didn't get to do anything special-it was just nursery so on the last two nights when I had the option to let him stay with grandparents and go to bed on time, I took advantage of that-and I think he was much happier getting to go to bed!

One June Friday evening was Knoxville's Relay for Life.  Target always sponsors a team, so we went out to support them.  The Target tent also had an inflatable set up-Dawson LOVED it!

John, of course, wore his Target attire...so we put Carter in the Target onesie!  We have a picture of Dawson wearing this Target onesie to a Target Distribution Center outing in Huntsville when he was one, also!

This was the only picture I got at Relay for Life of Dawson and John, but I wanted to show how Dawson wore his red and khaki too!  I only wish I had zoomed out a little more so you could see the top of the sun sphere in this picture!

(I'm not sure why these next couple are out of order)

Here are all the adorable crafts Dawson made at VBS!  He was so proud to show us his craft each night and tell us what he learned.  He said his favorite parts of VBS were playing on the playground (this was a huge deal to him!!), wearing his VBS every night, craft time, and dancing!

The Sunday after VBS concluded the kids gave a little performance in church.  Dawson was thrilled to get up on stage and sing his song and do the motions.  This was Dawson's first performance, so we made sure to invite the grandparents.  Grandad, Nana, and Pop all came which Dawson thought was a HUGE deal!  Look at that smile!  He was so proud to be doing the motions and singing in front of everyone.

Also, I should mention that this performance was on Father's Day which was a nice little gift too!  Unfortunately, I was feeling really rough this day and didn't get any pictures of Father's Day since I spent most of the afternoon and evening sleeping on the sofa.  We did give John, Pop, and Grandad their Father's Day gifts though!

John and I celebrated out SIXTH anniversary in June!  It actually fell on Father's Day this year, but we agreed to celebrate it later in the week since John was taking the entire week off!!  It worked out perfect since I was feeling so crummy to delay celebrating.  John booked a room for us at the Dancing Bear Lodge in Townsend and we left the boys with John's parents.  This was the first time I had been away from Carter overnight, and he did great!  Above:  John and I in our room at the Dancing Bear.

Me outside the Dancing Bear Lodge.  We enjoyed relaxing, shopping, putt putt (don't tell Dawson!), and some yummy food while on our anniversary trip!  It was a perfect anniversary celebration (John did great planning it), and I cannot believe we're already celebrating 6 years!  :)

Carter's new thing lately is climbing up on sofas and chairs to sit.  He's so proud of himself when he does it!  He climbed into this chair in the backyard!  Look how happy he was!

We are enjoying all the beautiful blooms for our hydrangea this month!

Our wonderful friends the Myers have invited us and some other friends over to their neighborhood pool to swim twice in June.  Dawson absolutely loves this and talks about swimming with Colt for a couple of days after we go.  Here are the kids at the pool last time!

One Saturday morning in June, we took the boys on a "hike" through the Maryville College woods.  Dawson loves going there to hike.  We always have to take the bug box and net to see if we can catch any moths or beetles.  John and I took turns carrying Carter for a while, but then we realized that he did great (for the most part) walking along the path with us and actually staying on the path.

One more picture of the boys hiking in the woods.  Dawson loves to go there and hike around, and the best part is that it's only about 10-12 minutes from our house!

Even though it's been hot, Dawson has still been asking to build fires on the back patio.  I think he likes it because we usually put Carter to bed and let Dawson stay up late to do this-so it's his special time.  Also, we make s'mores which he loves.

We made another trip to Dollywood this month.  Carter had a blast driving the 50's cars.  I rode with Carter, and he was so sweet turning the steering wheel.  He would make car noises (vroommm) and every so often say "beep beep!"

He's a serious driver!

The lighting in this picture makes it difficult to see, but here are John and Dawson driving the 50's cars for the second time around!

Dawson wanted to play a couple of games in the Country Fair area, and he was thrilled to win this panda!

We really think Dawson's favorite part of Dollywood is feeding the ducks.  They will eat right out of his hands, and he LOVES it!

Our visit to Dollywood was great, but we were all worn out since it was super hot and humid when we went.  John drove us back home while the boys and I napped in the car!  :)

The last week of the month Dawson attended Treehouse Camp at our church.  He loved VBS so much, that we thought this camp would be perfect for him.  He had the option to go everyday for the week, but we sent him 3 of the 5 days since we didn't want it to be too much for him.  Although now I think about it, and I really think he would have loved to go every day-but he would have been exhausted!  It was from 9-1 each day.  Dawson had to take a backpack and a lunch box-he seemed like such a big kid!  He was so thrilled to go every day.  He has talked about Treehouse Camp nonstop since the first day.  I'm really glad we sent him because he loved having his own special thing to do, he made some new friends, and he wasn't sad to see us drop him off each morning.  This makes me feel completely confident that we have waited until the right time to start him in preschool in the fall, because I know he will enjoy his special time away from us doing things with other kids and his teacher.  He seems to have gotten so much older and independent all the sudden.  He loved his Treehouse Camp though!!  The picture above is him before going in to Treehouse Camp-he's wearing our church's children's ministry shirt, which he loves!

 

Now we're on to July!