Well that was Close

Eric Carle Art

Eric Carle art took two days to complete. One to paint the tissue paper and one to make the collages. Only the big boys and I did collages. The hardest part is making your picture big enough so you don't have to cut teeny tiny parts out.

Julia was a little heavy handed with the paint for tissue paper so she ended up just using computer paper.

Even Philip got to do some painting.

Here's the finished tissue paper.The second day we planned our collages, cut out the pieces and glued them to computer paper.The finished products.We're entering them in the fair!

Ponies

Julia rode ponies at the rodeo and carnival.

One realand one pretend.

She was thrilled both times.

When she got off the real one she saw the calves waiting to be roped and said, "I'll ride those next!"

Kittens!

We have kittens. Seven of them! Sam wants to keep an orange and Thomas likes the one with an orange face and white boots. Julia said she likes "Biggie." My friend Karen wants the other orange one but the rest need a nice home. They are 3 weeks old so in a couple of weeks they should be ready to go. :) A couple of them didn't make it into the pictures.

Mama's done pretty well but she did leave them out in the rain one day.Philip LOVES them. We are working on being gentle.They're really cute! You know you want one...

Welcome Aliza Grace!

We have a sweet new niece. She's adorable. Sorry no pics right now though. Congrats Jen and Mike!

Water Park!

On Sunday Jeremy had a technician fixing a combine three hours north. He called to say he needed a part and that the closest one was at their store which meant a three hour drive to spend ten minutes pulling the part and then a three hour drive back to the combine. Jeremy pulled out the map and remembered a water park a little over an hour north of here so we packed up the kids and headed out. We met Josh, who was very glad to have 2 hours less of driving, had dinner and spent the evening at the pool.

My only complaint was that the life guards seemed a little apathetic. Julia (and every kid there) took advantage of this and went down the little slide headfirst!Thomas even went down headfirst!

Philip is our only child who has liked spraying water at this age. In fact, Thomas and Julia still don't really like spraying water!They had fun bigger slides too.Believe it or not Thomas is in this big splash. It's so big because he spread his legs way out to slow himself down!

They have four big slides as well. Samuel and I went down the intertube one on a double tube together which was fun and then we floated around an intertube river together. Jeremy and I both went down this twisty slide (that's me coming out) and Jeremy also went down a fast straight one and a "toilet" one where you go around and around in a cone and then plop out into the water below. I didn't get any pictures of him, the camera was in our bag across too much blazing hot cement!

Here's all the kiddos, I should have taken this picture at the beginning instead of last!

What a fun spontaneous family outing!

Music to My Ears

I've been giving Samuel piano lessons this summer. He picks it up really quickly and it's going well.

It's so much better than whistling!!!!

Mud Wars

Jeremy had a golf outing with work this weekend. He invited along Tim, one of our friends who actually plays golf. I felt bad about leaving Karen and the kids husband and fatherless for most of the day so we invited them over to play. Our kids play really well together so we had a great time. Eventually it got too hot to do anything but go through the sprinkler which then turned into a mud war. Thomas G. and Samuel ganged up on our Thomas and Anna. You can guess who won the war. I didn't get any pictures of Thomas and Anna afterward but Anna had to take a bath!
Julia and Alex didn't participate. :)

Somehow Philip got in on the mud too, although he was inside during the "war".

I'm so glad Karen isn't afraid of her kids getting dirty!

The Gift of the Babysitters

Have you ever read Gift of the Magi? Here's our version.
On Tuesday Raleen called and asked if we wanted her to watch the kids so we could go out for our anniversary. I asked Jeremy and he said he'd rather go out over the weekend so I called Raleen back and asked her if she'd feed the kids at her house Wednesday night so I could make a nice dinner for Jeremy and I.
On Wednesday the kids and I met Raleen at the pool and she took them home from there at 5. I got home thinking I'd have an hour before Jeremy got home. The door was unlocked which was strange and there were two pairs of purple shoes in the kitchen. Then Jeremy came around the corner and said, "I have two girls in the living room to babysit the kids!" Luckily he'd figured out my surprise because I set the table for the two of us before I left, so he'd already called his mom and she brought the kids over so we wouldn't have to send the girls home jobless.
We went to Fleming's and had a delicious steak dinner. The kids had a great time with Grace and Anne and everyone was sleeping soundly when we got home.
And to top it off my hair is still the same length and Jeremy didn't even have sell any heirlooms. :)

A Walk Across the Lake

I can't resist taking pictures every time we walk across the lake. It's so pretty. Thomas is missing because he was at Grandma and Grandpa's . There is a nest of eagles at the lake and I think we spotted Mom or Dad.

What is Philip excitedly pointing out? An eagle? The water?

Nope, an excavator.

Julia needed a little help making it back. It was a little difficult due to Sam's big stick. One of us had to push the stroller and carry the stick while the other carried Julia. You can guess who did most of the carrying. I just happened to snap this picture before the piggyback ride ended.

It was a long walk. Philip got all tired out even though he only got to get out of the stroller at the bridge!Yay for nice weather!

Happy Anniversary Jeremy!

Here's to 9 wonderful years and, God willing, many more to come! Love you Jeremy! I think a new picture of Jeremy and I may be in order, this was the most recent one I could find...

Family Weekend

We enjoyed some time with my dad's family this weekend. All my aunts, uncles and cousins were in town. We celebrated my cousin's 13th birthday, ate, swam, played at the park, went on walks, played some trivial pursuit and just enjoyed spending time with each other. The kids and men visited the tractor museum while the women relaxed a little too. I forgot my camera at home for all the festivities but in preparation the kids and I worked on making these names for our project time all last week. They were a huge hit. Everyone's name was made out of something that they like. (And I even moved this the right way so it will enlarge!)
Thanks for all the fun, Family!

Summer Cuts

It was time to get haircuts. Even though I hate to get rid of the baby hair it needed to go. And it was totally worth it to take them to my beautician friend Mary. Julia's hair is straight across (unlike if I'd cut it) and Jeremy didn't have to fight Philip to buzz him. Philip sat really nice on Mary's special chair, looked at his cute little self in the mirror and let her buzz away. He did think he was finished before we did so we had Julia hop up and then finished him when she was done.
Cuteness!

Freedom

Julia is terrified of fireworks. Not just scared TER.I.FIED. So Jeremy took the big boys to our local display and I stayed home with the sleeping little ones. I used the quiet time to read Left to Tell. Although I'm not quite finished, the story of survival and forgiveness during the Rwandan genocide made me appreciate our freedom here in the United States more than anything else I could have done on the fourth.
God Bless America.

God's Handiwork