Cornhole

I knew Ryan liked to play cornhole and although the game is everywhere now, it's kind of a midwest thing.  In fact, it's HUGE in Ohio.  So I thought it would be fun to get Ryan a cornhole set for his birthday.  They are super expensive to buy (hundreds of $$), but we have a friend in our ward who makes them and only charged me for the materials, which made it way cheap.  They even painted it royal "BYU blue" for us, too!  I figured I would order some BYU decals to put on it as well, but I let Ryan choose them after he opened it on his birthday because I knew he'd want to.  He decided to paint one a darker blue, so we had one of each of BYU's blue colors.  He then painted stripes down the middle that look like the sleeve of their football uniforms (or helmets?) and added the decals he ordered online.  He had to do some intricate painting on one of the decals to make it look right with the board.  Ryan finished off the project by weatherproofing them with a coat of varnish.  He always gets into projects and loves having one, so I think he really enjoyed doing this!  Now I just have to figure out how to thread the bobbin on my sewing machine so I can sew the cornhole bags!

Here's how they started out:

 And here's the finished product!  Now we're ready for tailgating before the games.... by ourselves out here in Ohio. ;)

Swaddle practice

The other morning Lucy had her dolls lined up and we covered them each with a little blanket.  I took the opportunity to practice swaddling a baby again and wrapped one up, which, to Lucy, meant that they all needed to be swaddled.  As soon as I brought out the camera, Lucy proceeded to lay down like she was sleeping with them.

Stroller rides

Lately Lucy has been asking for me to pull our stroller out for morning walks around the block.  The split second I have the stroller out and ready she will jump in the basket underneath and not get out.  This is how she stays for our whole walk and she loves it.  Now I just look like the weirdo who pushes around a seemingly empty stroller. :)

Lucy's got moves

The dancing bug has bit Lucy lately and she wants to dance all the time.  We often turn on pandora and have little dance parties after breakfast in the morning while cleaning up.  This was one of those mornings and she was really feeling it!  This video just makes me happy. :)

And just for kicks, here are some pictures of her later in the day.

Ryan's 33rd birthday

We celebrated Ryan's 33rd birthday on July 9th!  Every year on his birthday, Ryan gets a marzipan cake from a bakery.  Last year it didn't work out and I felt bad about it, so this year I was determined to get him one.  After calling approximately 95 bakeries around town and half of them not even knowing what marzipan was (weird for a bakery), I gave up.  So I told Ryan and let him pick what he wanted to have for his birthday treat.  He chose banana cream pie and homemade lemon custard.  We made both of these together the night before, which was a fun activity, and then also per his request, we had steak and twice baked potatoes for dinner.  Ryan got a lot of calls, texts, cards, etc. from people, which is also a fun part of having a birthday.  Overall I think he had a great day!

Aaron's Angel Day

For Aaron's Angel day each year, friends and family of Lisa and Brandon let off balloons.  Lucy loves balloons and loved playing with it.  There's a little picture of him in my nightstand drawer that Lucy looks at almost everyday, so I like to think that she kind of knows who he is. :)

Fourth of July

The morning of the actual 4th of July, our friends (the DeMills) invited us to join them at the Hilliard city parade.  It was a great parade- not small and dinky, but not overwhelmingly long and boring.  They also have kids that match up age-wise with the Rasmussen's kids, so they all had fun.  They all played a game of tag and then the parade started.  They collected candy like it was Halloween, too!  After the parade, we came home for naps and then went back to the DeMill's for a BBQ, sparklers, poppers, games, etc.  Because we were out so late the night before, the kids had all pretty lost it by the time we got home and so put them all straight to bed and called it good with the fireworks we saw people do on our drive home. (Also, Lucy somehow got a random cut on her nose which is why it looks dark in these pictures).