It's hard to believe...

that one year ago today...I looked like this.
And...

my baby looked like this.

And now he looks like this.
Happy 1st Birthday Julius!

Julius & Nora's 1st Birthday Party

Nora was born 4 days before Julius. It was so lucky we were together in NC just before so we could celebrate together. We found some fabric at my mom's house to make these onsies (Amanda's idea). Jenny did the sewing for us and then covered some hat's to match. ( Good idea JR!) It all turned out pretty cute I think.

This was my highchair when I was little. I thought it would be cute to take some pictures in it.

I'm one!

As far as first birthdays go...I thought this was fantastic. We were with most of my family and it was just in my mom's backyard where we had many a great birthday party growing up...that just made it perfect.

Seth was very helpful when it came to opening presents!

One of my favorite toys when I was little was my dump truck. Haha! Seriously I loved it. I really liked to play in the dirt. And I always liked the "boy" stuff. Some of my favorites were the dump truck, firetruck, crane, transformers, etc... I found it at my mom's and thought it would be cute to wrap it up for Julius. My favorite gift.

Trying to take a picture of all the kids.

Amanda and I made these cupcakes. I think they turned out so cute.

And here we go...

And it all ended with a good, old-fashioned water balloon fight.

g'boro

Mom & I were searching for the "giant swings" on the UNC Greensboro campus. We loved them when we were kids and thought all the little ones would think they were cool. But they were gone.

Mmm...Yum Yum. I don't know if you get too excited about a hot dog...but these are good...and bright pink...which the kids thought was cool...kinda weird though.

They also have really good ice cream.

The Mizukawa kids.

Shannon helped the kids make this cardboard house. Mom used to make these for us all the time when we were little. We thought they were soooo cool! Some of them were huge, tunnels going everywhere. I always especially liked the spooky halloween version.

Daniel and Sam

Another favorite summer activity when we were little was the slip and slide.

Nora and Julius

It was especially fun to pull out all of our old toys and mom's house for the kids to play with. We had some fun stuff!

We got to visit with a bunch of our good friends in NC. We grew up having Sunday dinners with this crowd. We decided to get together since some of us who don't live here were in town visiting. This is our friend Kristi's little girl...Abigail. She's just a few months younger than Julius and Nora.

Our "extended family". We love them all and it was so good to see everyone.

We all went to kindergarten at First Presbyterian in Greensboro. I just remember it being so fun. We went by to check it out because it's also a really beautiful church building. Lot's of good memories.

Adding Julius to the family height wall.

These two are so cute together.

So sad to leave the beach

It was overcast and on the verge of rain about 95% of the time we were at the beach. But fortunately it was still plenty warm to play in the water. And personally I enjoy the occasional downpours.

Seth

So worn out.

One of the downpours.

One the way home we stopped to take a look at the USS North Carolina. So...there she is.