Father's Day!

We had a great Father's Day weekend! On Saturday we spent most of the day working outside and building our fire pit for Brian's Fathers day gift.

Nora showing Teddy her hula hooping skills.

We had hot dogs and marshmallows in our fire pit Saturday night and didn't think hard enough about giving Wesley a roasting stick and a few minutes later he flipped it out of the fire pit and burned Nora's lip. She freaked out and had a pretty bad blister for a while, but we're glad it wasn't her eye! :)

Funny boys and girls!

Of course we had to bring Brian breakfast in bed, and Wesley thought he needed to join him!

After church Brian took a little rest with Scooter.

For dinner I made ribs for the first time and they were pretty delicious.

For dessert, fruit pizza. Yum!

Brian often reads to the kids on Sunday evening.

We went on a nice nature walk a few miles from our house and it was beautiful! We'll definitely be going back there soon. We saw 4 turtles and lots of flowers and bugs.

Nora brought Teddy along in the stroller but Wesley wanted to push him so Nora was nice enough to let him do it most of the way.

Sophie brings along her nature sketch book and take notes and does sketches of the plants, bugs and animals she sees.

Daddy and the kids.

My pretty girls.

Miles looking at one of the turtles we saw.

 

Mommy and Sophie (she's getting so big!)

 Looking at a cool bug.

On the dock by the pond.

It was a fun Fathers Day and so wonderful to celebrate the amazing dad that Brian is. He is pretty much the perfect father to these four and I'm so grateful they have a dad who is so involved in their lives. He is patient and funny and everything a good dad should be.

The Dells!!

We kicked off our summer by heading up to the Wisconsin Dells on June 11th for a day of fun with our good friends, the Schaefer family! Brian and Steve (the Schaefer papa, and also our bishop) had waited in line at a radio station where they give away these awesome free passes for the Dells. Since both families needed 6 passes and they only gave away 2 per person they had to go twice and took some missionaries from our church with them the second time to get all our passes! Our first stop was to ride the Wisconsin Ducks. They are crafts that can go on land and water and originated during World War II. We went on a nice long ride and it was a lot of fun. In fact Nora said, "I could ride this all day and not go to the water park and have just as much fun!"

Brian, Wes, Nora, Eli and Jake, Sophie, Emma, Josh, Miles, Jamie and Steve

After the Ducks we had a picnic and changed in to our swimming gear to head to Mt. Olympus water park! Here are the kids ready to go!

Doesn't this look awesome?!

Josh, Jake, Sophie and Nora.

Wesley loved this little area (that's him in the blue shorts)

Poor Nora still had a pretty bad case of swimmers ear but she wanted to still go on our trip and not postpone it. She was pretty tough but not her usual excited self :(

Sophie is a little thrill seeker and went on all the scary rides. Any ride with a drop-off or anything like that she was totally there and loved it. I went with her on a few and even when I hesitated she would just jump in without a second thought. There was one ride where some high school boys were second guessing going down (the straight drop off one) but when they saw Sophie do it without even hesitating they decided they had to as well.

This is Jamie (the Schaefer mama) and funny Emma. After we wore ourselves out at Mt. Olympus we let the kids all choose a ride to go on that wasn't part of the water park. Our tickets were only for the water park so the roller coasters and such we paid 2.00 per ride.  Brian and Sophie went on Hades 360, which is their new wooden roller coaster that goes underground and upside down and they loved it. Nora and I also went on it but we didn't love it so much. It was so jerky and it made Nora's ear hurt really bad and I was so worried about her I didn't enjoy it either (usually I would!) Brian took Miles on a go-cart ride and Wesley was content to just hang out. After the rides we went out to dinner to Pizza Ranch, which is a Pizza buffet place. Yum!! We had a great day and

Summer softball

Sophie is playing softball this summer and she is loving it! Which is good because she has games every Monday and Wednesday until the end of July! I might have cried a little watching her play her first game..... my baby girl is so big! It makes me happy that she loves softball because I always loved playing it when I was little. Sometimes I wish I had not gone the cheerleading route and tried out for softball instead. Anyway. She loves it and she's pretty darn good to boot. After her first practice her coach said she could tell we'd been working with her. Hee hee. Umm... nope. It was her first time ever batting and she'd only had her mitt and ball a few days. Go Sophie!

Running in to home!

 Getting some pointers from the coach.

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Luckily all the diamonds we play at are at a school or park so the other kids can play. Here is Miles and his friend Porter who has a big sister who is Sophie's friend and also on the team. They were so cute with this tetherball, we could hear them laughing across the field at the game.

Start of summer

Our summer has started off nicely.  The first day was a little rough when the kids and I had a talk about our summer routine. They were disheartened to learn that I still expected that chores and all our regular things to be done! Oh, the unfairness of it all.

We had a bbq with some friends and the kids all wanted to play in the van. What is it with kids wanting to play in parked cars? I guess it's because they are usually buckled in nice and tight. I have to be diligent in locking our cars in the driveway because Wesley loves to go out and get in them without telling me, which could be scary on a hot day, although I think he knows how to get out himself.... but maybe not so I'll keep locking them!

My cute kiddos eating out on the porch.

Here's my boys with the two boys I babysit in the afternoons. They were watching some guys shred our branches up that we left on the curb to be picked up.

Poor Nora has had a bad case of swimmer's ear the past week. I didn't know it could be so painful but she cries if the side of her head/neck/ear gets touched. I guess we need some earplugs for the pool!