Happy 4th!

My friends Margaret and Alisa invited us over to their places (they live next door) to celebrate the 4th this year. Here we are shopping beforehand (we had to bring ice cream...and pick up a few other things too)! Brett was "relaxing" in the shopping cart on the pillows we were buying...
Once we got to the actual party, the kids had a blast learning what an ant lion is...you can see one here (the little ugly brown bug in the hand below)...these little creatures are larva that bury themselves in the ground and create a cone shaped hole in loose dirt, waiting at the bottom for their dinner to fall in. The kids spent almost the whole time at the party "feeding" the ant lions...they would catch ants and toss them into the holes and watch the feast!

Well, except Brett and Anders...they played DS in Ander's room for a while...

Here's Alisa's husband, Steve, our cook for the evening, making yummy gormet burgers for us to enjoy...

And Matt, coniving with the kids, filling water balloons...

...for the water balloon launcher! They had a blast with this thing and could shoot it from Margaret's backyard, over the house, over the street, over the houses on the other side of the street and into those backyards...it was really cool. The men had more fun with it than the kids!

And Matt playing with Susie, the mut...

Thanks for inviting us...looking forward to Halloween!!!

Blah blah blah

Another large chunk of time has passed and here I am finally getting back to the summer posts. Let me tell you that I really do this blog only for myself and my family...if anyone else reads it, well, that's their problem! So, you may be wondering why I'm bothering with the detailed posts of the summer when it's over. Last year I took my blog and had it printed into a blog book through the site blurb.com. It's a site that will not only "slurp" your blog into a book format but it also has *free* software that allows you to edit it before printing. The quality of my book last year was great (hard-bound, dust jacket, nice full color pages) so that's my project again this year...the whole family journal thing. So while you might not care what happened 3 months ago, my blog book does...now you know! :-)

Science Time at the Library 07-02-2009

Over the summer, the library had various activities to go along with the summer reading program. The only one my kids wanted to go to was the science one, and unfortunately they were disappointed. We didn't stay very long, but here's a few pictures of what they did before they decided that it was boring since they had already done all the things they were doing before and things weren't very well organized! We soon escaped to the actual library to pick up more books!

Here's Jace making oobleck:

And here's Brett trying to decide if he wanted to touch the playdough...he has issues with getting his hands messy (except dirt and sand...he could dig in those all day):

Swimming: Our consistent summer passtime...

Before Grandma and Grandpa came home from Bulgaria, our days were pretty much mapped out once school was out. We would get up, have breakfast, load up in the car and head to Grandma's. The boys would play (usually Wii or DS or blocks or go out back) while I would clean and pack. Then we would break for lunch and reading, then I would work while they played for a little while longer. Once the clock said 3:00, it was time to go swimming. So grateful for a pool at Grandpa's!!! Here they are having a snack poolside...

A favorite outing...

Going to Lowe's or Home Depot to do their kids' workshops is a favorite activity. Here we are building putting greens at the beginning of the summer:

Getting Mom and Dad's house ready...

As many of you know, my parents came home this summer from their mission in Bulgaria. We lived in their house while they were gone, so it was necessary to move out and clean out before they got home. We also had the pleasure of overseeing the installation of granite countertops for them during the moving process. It was a pain, but the results were well worth it! The counters are beautiful. Here are some pictures of the process...
Master bath before (ignore the photographer!):

Master bath during install (up close to see the color):

The end result (ignore me again!):

The guest bathroom before (aka Kathi's bathroom):

The guest bathroom during install (just to show the color):

The end result (ignore the flash and grubby me taking the picture):

The kitchen before:

The kitchen counters removed:

The kitchen install:

The finished product:

Vacation Bible School 06-19-2009

I'm not sure how I missed this, but the boys got to go to vacation bible school at my friend Debbie's church this summer. This was Brett's first year and Jace's 3rd year. It's cool because they always put on such a fantastic production and the kids have a great time. They discuss bible stories and have music similar to a Kids Bop version of an EFY CD. I like it because they don't care what church you go to and it's so simple that I don't have to worry about deep doctrine discussions at a different church. I'll probably volunteer to help this year. Anyway, here are a few pictures to represent their week!

Brett and Dad on the last day:

The John boys...the 2 old guys that run the assemblies at the beginning and end of each day...we had to pull Brett out of his final assembly (he was in the preschool group) so that he could see the John boys one time:

Brett and Jace on the stage after the assembly was over:

It's been too long...

I have no good excuse as to what has taken me so long to post! We had an excellent summer, busy but not too busy to post updates. So, now that I have officially procrastinated, it's time to get caught up. I have all my pictures organized, I just have to post about them. Just a warning to those of you who keep up with my sister Kathi's blog, you will see lots of repeats!