Celebration

It is always fun to have an excuse to go out to dinner with friends. Tonight we had a great excuse, we got to celebrate Traci Falder's birthday with her. We stole her away and headed to Muncie. We had a great time eating, talking, laughing (and yes, we threw in some shopping).

Traci- you're an easy person to celebrate. Here are couple of photos from the evening. From left to right, Molly, Traci, Beth, Carrie and me.

Hayden

Today Hayden said,

"Mom, I need some deodorant, I have some apple stuck in my teeth."

Obviously he's gotten his hygiene products confused and we headed to my bathroom for some dental floss.

I just thought that was funny.

Lake Weekend #2

It doesn't seem to matter to the kids that it rained at the lake on Saturday afternoon. They made their own fun. They constructed a fort with chairs and a big float. Their cousins were up this weekend, plus there are two girls next door who love to play.

We have a lot of fun (I say we because I like it too) catching turtles and frogs. We caught two frogs and four turtles-three were very tiny baby turtles...about the size of a half dollar! Here's Conner with frog #1.


Millie holding the frog backwards...


A friend from high school was up visiting her parents with her four kids. Her parent's lake place is very near my parents, so when she's up the kids get to play-yes, more kids!


Millie with her cousin Ella. They were loving the new rope swing hung from the large tree in the front yard.

I have great memories of the lake -this same lake-from my childhood. We'd catch turtles, ski, have grape bubbalicious (how do you spell that?), eat the large freeze pops and drink milk and coke-not all in the same day :). My Grandparents had a place and it was a wonderful place to spend weekends as a child. I am so thankful my kids are going to have some of these same memories.

Summer Nights

We had a great time Wednesday with our neighbors. I asked them if they'd like to have a cookout on Wednesday and Jodi offered to host and let the kids swim.

We headed over at about 5:00 and the kids swam and swam. They have two kids, a boy age 4 and a girl almost exactly Millie's age. They are very sweet kids and our kids love to play with them. This was Millie's first time in an actual pool (although she asked to swim every day of swimming lessons), she has just been in the lake.

Well, I was not quite expecting her to be quite so brave. She was not at all hesitant. The boys have always had a healthy fear of water (maybe too much), but Millie would have jumped right off the diving board without a life jacket. Thankfully we put a life jacket on Millie and once she figured out how to balance herself with her arms, she was everywhere.








We grilled out and had delicious strawberry shortcake for dessert. The kids swam until about 7:45, then we had to get them to bed since the night before was the sleepover!

I hope to have many more evenings like this...what summer is all about.

Conner's Sleepover

Conner has been asking me for sometime to have a sleepover. I said he could, but we'd have to wait for swimming lessons to be over. So Tuesday night after their baseball game, Noah and Bailey, two of his favorite friends, spent the night.

It started with each of them having a caffeinated soda after the game (they can have a can of pop or a snow cone free after each game). Well, usually it's a sprite or snow cone-but we went all out and let them have a fully caffeinated beverage-aren't we crazy parents?

The boys came home with us from the game and played outside for a bit. Then (of course) they asked to play lego Starwars on Playstation. They were elated when we said yes and had them set it up in the basement. They played until about 10:20, then headed to Conner's room for bed. I made them brush their teeth, then we set up the sleeping bags. I gave Conner the choice and he opted for his own bed. Bailey, Noah and Hayden were in sleeping bags on the floor. It was pretty funny because Conner and Hayden defintely seemed most interested in going to sleep. The all finally fell asleep by 11:45 p.m.

What time did they wake up you say? Not totally sure, but Conner was in my room at 6:20 a.m. asking if they could play Playstation. He said they'd already been playing in his room for awhile. It was actually Conner who woke up first and he proceeded to wake up the rest of the gang. By 7:00 a.m they were back to the game and played until about 8:50.

At Conner's request they had a bowl of Lucky Charms for breakfast. The rest of the morning was spent playing outside, playing with actual legos, and just having a great time together. They all got along really well and it was fun to have them over. What great summer memories!

Monday

A trip to the dentist followed by a visit to Chuck E. Cheese. The kids always have a blast there...here's a few pics from the day.


Check out Millie's tickets...she won about 6 on her own.

Weekend Fun

The weekend was filled with fun evenings. Friday evening I spent helping Beth organize her design 'closet'. It was fun to see the transformation and hopefully will help as she runs her business and prepares for this new little one to arrive.

Saturday we headed to Mounds State Park to visit the Spiegel Family at their campsite. The kids had a blast playing at the park, going on a raccoon hunt/hike (Conner's favorite thing of the weekend) and watching the mentos 2-liter trick. It was fun to share the evening with their family and Conner has already been asking when we can go camping (it's not really camping unless you spend the night apparently).



Sunday we celebrated Father's Day by sending Mark off to golf with some small group guys. Then we all met back at the Seigelin's house for Mexican-or the American version of it. The kids ran through the sprinkler and the girls managed to have fun with an inch of water in a plastic pool. I love spending time with our small group and watching the kids interact. We left just as the storm was rolling in. A fun Father's Day for all...