Birthday Boy

So, today Steve turns 25!! Jake and I are excited and blessed to be able to share his special day with him. For those who don't know Steve, I just want to take a few (or more than a few) sentences to try and put him into words :) I'm obviously biased when I say that he is the most amazing person in the whole entire world, but really, he has so many gifts and talents that I could only dream of having! He has such a gentle heart, and he could be anyone's friend. He's self-motivated, driven, hard-working, and seriously successful with ANYTHING he does, and I'm not exaggerating! He is SUCH an awesome Dad, he is Jake's favorite person. He's also the best husband I could ever ask for, and he inspires me to become better. He's patient, loving, a big goof-ball, spiritual, he loves to learn (a big part of him was sad when he graduated college), he's an EXCELLENT piano player, and he makes me laugh so much that I should have awesome abs, but I don't, sadly enough, haha. He's the most even-tempered person I know, other than my mom, and I wish I could be just like him!!! Steve is definitely my better half!! I am SO lucky to have him in my life, I am thankful for him every day. Well, my explanation doesn't do him justice at all, but there's my attempt!

I love you Steve, you will always make my heart smile :) Happy Birthday!!!!!

I added some baby pictures of Steve..... hmm, let's see, who else's baby pictures look like him????

The winner: ................. Jake!! The only difference is his brown hair and brown eyes :) And Jake's hair is a little more spikey, haha.

Milestone

Introducing: The Little Mover............. :)

This just happened this morning, and I am so happy for Jake!! He is just loving life right now!

Knowles Family Reunion 2009!!!

This past weekend (July 9th - 12th) the Knowles side of the family had our annual AWESOME family reunion! We all headed up to Idaho Falls, ID to Steve's parents' house to spend a long weekend there. It was so fun to see everyone, it's hard sometimes to be far away from family, and we missed everyone so much. It's true that you don't realize what you have until it's not there anymore. Steve and I enjoyed watching Jake be able to interact with his cousins and vice versa. They all had a great time with each other, with minimal fighting, which is always a plus! :) With a house full of 27 people it can get pretty crazy, but we like it that way, most of the time, haha. We also got to meet little Savannah for the first time, and she is a DOLL!! She's 3 weeks older than Jake, so we got to enjoy TWO new additions to the family. The weekend was complete with a day at the lake where we did boating, tubing, swimming, eating and chatting; we had a fun afternoon at Tautphaus Park with tennis, Fun-Park rides, horseshoes, softball, more eating :) and relaxing; we played games, had a BBQ, watched movies, made s'mores, did some more eating, and most of all, we laughed a LOT!! We had a great time with each other, and made some awesome memories. We are already looking forward to the reunion next year!!!

Sadly, one of Steve's sisters, Natalie, and her family were not able to make it.. :( We missed them SO SO SO much, and it was definitely not the same without them. So, I've included LOTS of pictures for them, and to (hopefully) help them feel like they were actually there! :) We love you Natalie, Josh, Adam, Faith and Leah!!!!!!

Jake enjoying the view out the airplane window on our way to Idaho!!

Yummy breakfast: Swedish pancakes! A Knowles Favorite

Adorable little Savannah :)

Handsome little Jake!

Cousin time

At the lake

Sweet Kate, she's really grown up!

Grandpa Knowles with Jake and Savannah

He was hesitant at first...

...But then he loved it!

Fun in the water!!

The proud parents of Savannah: Jon and Leila :)

Mother -and -Daughter -bonding

Whoa, this picture is a little bright! We did a lot of relaxing....

....As you can see!

Haha, it looks like he's screaming, but he's really just squinting from the sun!

Heather on the tube

Captain Steve!

More cousin time... aww

Ha, we gave Jake and Savannah a bath together....

.... and they ended up sharing toys! hehe

Another yummy breakfast! Pancakes+ bacon+ eggs= SCRUMPTIOUS

At the park

More relaxing... and much needed relaxing!

S'mores!!!

Jake's first taste of graham cracker! He REALLY liked it.

Sammy, he's so cute :)

Goofy kids!

Grandma Knowles with Sam and Jake

Loungin around

Heather and Jake :)

Haha, this was the best picture I could get of Brooklyn, she was really tired!

The all-time favorite: Wacky Six!!!!

Jake cleaning off Grandma's chair

Getting in some last-minute cousin time...

We had to get the s'mores-making action on video! It was a hit.

Hats and Sippy Cups

Since we live in California, where we are blessed enough to have the sun shining 24/7, 7 days a week, we HAD to get Jake a hat!! When I finally made the trek out to find him a hat, I came across two that were so cute, and they were both on sale (BONUS!!), so I got them both, hehe :) Jake wearing a hat outside makes all the difference! He doesn't have to squint so hard that he just keeps his eyes closed, and if I forget to put sunscreen on him I don't have to worry about his little cheeks getting burned. Hooray!!!

Hat #1

Tee hee :)

He loves his sippy cup!! And I love his hat on backwards!

Hat #2

This sun hat is reversible, I think I like it this way (all plaid) better.

When you reverse it and velcro the straps together, it kinda looks like he's wearing a bonnet, so I left them undone, and I think they were too much of a distraction because Jake tried to rip this hat off ONLY when he could see the straps flapping around. (As shown in the second video!) Silly kid.