July Photos

 Brother time ~ Squinkies ~ More Squinkies

Bible Study time ~ Matching Bros ~ Levi brought me Moes

Hot air balloon love the backyard ~ Scrapbooking ~ Biography project

Backyard golfing ~ Nerf wall ~ Grant's animals

New landscape ~ Date Night ~ Our House

Millie the model ~ Spiky hair Wyatt ~ Sonic date w Grant

Cousin Camp 2017

All the cousins anxiously await Cousin Camp each and every year!! This year for Cousin Camp, Barb planned a day full of "Christmas in July" activities!!!! Oh were they excited when they got their ticket to Cousin Camp a few weeks prior, knowing what festive fun was waiting for them!! I have waaaaay to many pictures of this day for the blog, so thank goodness Barb makes a photo book of our fun time together!!! So here is a quick snapshot of our day! Christmas science, Christmas crafts, Santa shaving cream hair, slip n slide, and SO much more!!!

We are so thankful Grandma goes out of her way each year to make this time so special for all the cousins! Being kind of spread out, we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, so having this time set aside each year for the kiddos is so special!! They're already excited about the endless possibilities for next Cousin Camp!

A Trip to the Zoo

We got invited to the zoo by some of our favorite friends, the Gregory's! We don't usually see them unless its summer time because with my two busy boys and her four busy boys, there is NEVER time!! So we try to make the most of our summer freedom and hang out with them when we can! We hadn't been to the zoo in 2 years, when we went with them last! It was fun to see all the sights again, plus some new exhibits! With 6 boys, we kinda felt like we brought some of the zoo to the zoo ;-)

 Grant brought a little monkey friend because, well...its the zoo!! And we saw his little monkey twin right off the bat!

 It had rained like 7" the night before, so there were a few things that were closed until the rain dried out, the Sky Tram being one of them. We were so excited when we heard it opened up, so we headed on over to take a trip! Grant noticed the "Grant's Zebra" sign on the pole.

 We visited to Chimpanzee Playhouse for quite sometime. They were pretty active and there were a lot of them to watch. But the cutest was this little girl. She was one 3 months old I think. I could've sat and watched her all day! Grant could've too!

 But there was more monkeying around we needed to do...

 It started to get really hot and humid, so it was time for a train ride! Becca treated all the boys to an Icee to help cool down! Loved this sweet pic I grabbed!

 Time to a train ride before heading home so these wild animals could rest! Not pictured- the tiniest animal sitting between me and Becca, so he wouldn't get loose :)

The trip to the zoo was awesome but even better was time spent with the Gregory's!! 

They realized while eating lunch, that between our families we had a 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and 4 year old! They said one of our families just needs a 5 year old! ;-)

#11

I think we counted that we've celebrated our anniversary 6 times in person since Levi always seemed to be gone at that time of year! We've never made celebrations like that a big deal- birthdays, mother's/fathers day, anniversaries. It's just not something we've felt was necessary! But we always acknowledge and celebrate in our own simple way! We celebrated #11 a week early since we'd be at the farm for Cousin Camp. After church, we headed to Ted's Mexican Cafe and then went to see Dunkirk at the Cinetopia. Cinetopia was AMAZING!! I'd totally see more movies if I could sit in seats like that, although they come at a pretty penny, so maybe not!!  Either way, it was a nice evening out, just the two of us, enjoying each others company!!!  I don't care if we do anything special, I just want to do it with you!! I love you Levi!

A Night at the K

We'd been wanting to hit up a game all summer but we just couldn't justify the ticket prices! So we did the only logical thing- snagged a pair of season tickets from my dad's office! Woohoo! Time to head to the K! The boys had just got back from a week at the lake a few days prior AND it was hot, but it didn't stop us for enjoying a great game!!! We got there a little early to walk around and check things out, which we hadn't done in a long time!  Once we were good and sweaty, it was time to grab some food and head to our seats so we could see the first pitch! Midway through the 2nd inning, Wyatt lost his tooth!! Hooray!! After that, it was a combo of cheering on the Boys in Blue and getting up for more food and snacks and popcorn refills!! It turned out to be a great game, with a win in the 9th! We were leading the whole game, until top of the 9th, but we held strong and came back in the end!! A night at K is fun it itself, but its always more fun when we win!!!! 

 The last picture of Wyatt with only one lost tooth!

The first picture of Wyatt was two lost teeth!

 And don't forget the craziness this kid brought to the game! He loved his ice cream bowl hat, he had to model it quite often for me :)

Tooth Fairy Visit #2: Wyatt

We had tickets to the Royals game but didn't know what other special thing would be happening that night! After downing a tray of Nachos, Wyatt looked over at me and said, "Is my tooth bleeding?" Sure enough, it was not only bleeding, but the tooth was dangling! I ran to get some clean napkins, he did one little yank, and Wyatt officially lost his 2nd tooth during the 2nd inning!! That was almost the most exciting play of the game!! He was so proud (and so relieved) to have that little wiggler out of there!!

I took this picture just before he ate his nachos and I'm so glad I did! 

 His permanent tooth was already growing behind the baby tooth, so while he has two missing teeth, his new teeth were already there and waiting! 

It was about 11:45 when we got home, so no time to write the Tooth Fairy a note, but we put it in his heart container (still containing his first tooth) in hopes that the Tooth Fairy wouldn't take his 2nd tooth. And she didn't, but she did leave him two $1 bills and two quarters. 

Rube Goldberg

We saw these Rube Goldberg toy sets at Target and the boys were asking and asking to get one. I knew we didn't need to buy some fancy set to make a Rube Goldberg machine, so we set off to make our own. The boys gathered some toys from around the playroom that they thought we could use and then started to make their plan. I had to do a little bit in the execution but they pretty much figured it out on their own! Pretty cool to watch!

While the Kids are Away....

So what did I do while the boys were at the Lake for a week? Well, it wasn't as glamorous as it sounds, but I was able to have a good balance of pool and Netflix time with cleaning and chore time. I had lofty goals for this summer, but I was able to knock out over half of this list during that week!

 Levi and I went to church and out to dinner one night!

 We took Millie for half-price shakes after 8:00!

 Levi continued working on re-landscaping the front yard. 

 We made this for the boys!

 Which meant I needed to rearrange and declutter the playroom!

 And my kitchen pretty much looked like this ALL WEEK LONG!!!

I also supervised Grant's animals as they prepared a little welcome home party!

And I missed the boys SO very very very much!!!

Lake Vacation, Part III

I'm so thankful the boys were able to experience such a wonderful vacation! Even though I wasn't there with them (although, to them, I think that was part of the appeal!) I'm glad they have these memories to look back on. They're already talking about plans for next summer! My parents are awesome for taking on such a huge task (4 boys = LOTS of noise!) and embracing everything that came along with a week long vacation! Dirty clothes, smelly boys, wet towels, messes upon messes upon messes, differing opinions, sleep deprivation (mostly by Mimi), and lots of "Hey Mimi, Mimi, Mimi...." 

They had the BEST VACATION EVER!!!!

 They met Asher, who was also staying there for the summer and they had a great time playing with him! Lots of hide-n-seek in the dark, dock games, cops and robbers, and whatever crazy games they could imagine (and apparently there were lots of them). Meeting new riends at the lake was always SO fun!!

 Wyatt matched his Minion

 Kids these days....

And that's a wrap to the great Lake Vacation of 2017!!! Can't wait til next year!!!