July Coming To An End

Where is summer vacation going? School starts for the kids in just 15 days! Jaidyn accompanied me on a grocery trip to Walmart last week to get the remainder of the schools supplies needed that I wasn't able to find at a great back-to-school price and I now have all three kids back packs filled and with their names labeled on their items. We tried to convince Addy to come along, but apparently lounging on the basement couch appealed to her much more than coming along to pick out her own supplies. Instead she said, "No thanks, Jaidyn can just pick me out a red and blue folder". Is she really my child?? Growing up, I couldn't wait to pick out all of my brand new school supplies for the upcoming year and I still enjoy picking it out with the kids.

I'm kind of playing catch up on this post as I thought I had misplaced my camera during our St. Louis family reunion trip, but found it yesterday in the velcro pocket of the jog stroller...forgot to pull it back out after our trip to Grant's Farm. While I am extremely glad to have several of the pictures that I had taken over the weekend, I was secretly hoping not to find it as it would have been a great opportunity to purchase a new one. My camera battery door is held shut with Scotch Tape and being about 7-8 years old it is bulkier than I would like. It doesn't zoom in very far and I am never able to capture any good action shots. I'm thinking it would be a great Christmas gift idea for Wes and I....hint, hint to the grandparents. :)

Wish I had the big group shot from our family get together, so if anyone has it, email it to me so I can add it.

Our trip to St. Louis for the family get together included stopping by to take Grandpa to lunch at his old bar, A Cardinals MLB game, Grant's Farm, fellowship in a meeting room with family and pool time. And lots to celebrate since both my brother and sister have recently gotten engaged. We will be having 2 weddings in our family in 2013. Unfortunately Wes got stuck with the duty phone only days before we went and wasn't able to go with us. :(


Jaidyn & Addy with Great Grandpa

Papa & Reid

We stayed the 1st night with my sister. She took our picture before several of us headed out to the baseball game.


While we wished Wes could have come, my Dad was excited about getting to take his place and go with us to the Cards game. And I enjoyed spending the evening with my dad!

Jaidyn & Papa sharing a bag of peanuts.

The 2nd inning wasn't even over yet and Addy was already asking me how many more innings because she wanted to go back and play with the boys. I however, was thrilled to be there. It has been several years since I have had the opportunity to go.

Addy entertained herself by taking pictures with my camera...most were blurry and of the back of people's heads, but this one turned out cute!

Jaidyn blowing her baseball crush, Matt Holiday a pre-game good luck kiss! She's such a dork, but apparently it worked because he hit a home run bomb...the longest in Busch Stadium!!

My celebrity boyfriend #23, David Freese! (see, I really do need a better camera with a better zoom)

My seat 10 rows up behind the dug out and #23 on first base is about as close as I'm sure I'll ever get to him. I'm not sure if it was the fact that I only took pictures of him or if it was because every time he batted both Jaidyn and Addy would turn to me saying, "Look Mom, David Freese is batting!!" (as if I already didn't know), but the lady beside me says, "I think I know who your favorite player is".

The girls had a good time between innings with Louie the Cardinal.

Grant's Farm
Bottle feeding the baby goats is one of the best parts.


Levi and Addy chose to stay outside to fencing to keep from getting plowed by baby goats, but eventually they got brave and went inside the gate. It didn't last long as Addy was screaming and Levi was crying from the babies jumping up on them in attempt to get to the bottle the carried in their hands.


Conner is doing a great job keeping the goats from mauling him.
I held Reid inside the gate and he really didn't mind the goats so much, but he did mind the goats drinking what he thought was his bottle. He hasn't had a bottle in several months, but apparently hadn't forgotten all about it and he had that bottle in his own mouth every chance he could get. Yuck!

Reid checking out the gigantic land turtles with Jamie.

We took a last minute trip to the lake this past weekend as we aren't sure if we will get any more opportunities before the summer ends. Reid rode with his Dad in the boat tube behind the boat for the 1st time. He'd been watching his siblings all summer ride behind the boat so when I asked him he gave me a big nod of the head and I could barely get his shirt off from under his life jacket fast enough.


Sunday evening we met at an Asian grill restaurant to celebrate both Lala and Uncle Heath's July birthdays. The kids were easily entertained by our chef with his utensil twirling and fire building skills on the grill. And everyone with the exception of Reid enjoyed the dragon sneaking up on the two of them to dance to their birthday song.

Big Time

Jaidyn ran in the ADA Camp Earthworks 5K that raises money for diabetes research and also sends kids with type 1 and type 2 diabetes to summer camp. Our local running group presented the race so the kids and I found a spot near the end of the course to encourage and cheer runners on to the finish. It was the first 5K that Jaidyn has ran entirely on her own and even though it was an evening race it was still toasty out and I'm sure the heat coming off the pavement of the road didn't help either. She's already found a love for competing and got a nice cheer from the crowd as she sprinted the last 100 meters to the finish line. She was very proud of her medal that she received for getting first in her age group and getting to wear my running group headband made her feel like she was a "big time" runner!



1st Place 9& Under Female Division, 36:14


Race start


Still all smiles while just getting started on the race course



Addy & Levi took turns wearing the yellow vest and ringing the cowbell while cheering runners down the last turn towards the finish line.


Go, Jaidyn! Go!


Awards Presentation

~ Sonrise National Park VBS ~

While I am super exhausted from the entire week and it didn't help that Reid was awake calling, "Mama" at ten till seven this morning, I was super thrilled to be a part of the VBS activities at church as so many beautiful things came from it. Earlier this morning as I was fixing Levi oatmeal for breakfast, he told me that he wished there was 100 (his 2nd favorite number) more days of Bible School so as I sit here rubbing my eyes at the computer screen, I am completely reminded how the many hours of work that was put in to this week was completely enjoyed and it makes me almost excited about doing it all over again next year...almost. :)

The kids were super troopers over the last two weeks as we spent many hours up at church decorating and preparing for the event. Thankfully, two youth girls volunteered during those days and entertained all of our kids so that we could actually get work done. With a National Park theme, the entire basement and upper gathering space of church became transformed with scenes of mountains, waterfalls, forests, woodland animals, hikers and camping scenes. The nightly snacks fit the theme with the kids getting trail mix, acorns made from donut holes, ice cream "beaver" cups, and smores. Papa Papaya aka the yearly mascot of VBS entertained the kids with bible stories each evening in two different rooms. One looked like a cabin the the mountains with a river running alongside the mountain and the other room became a starry night in which he read to the kids with a headlamp and by the light of the campfire. The starry night room was one of Addy and Levi's favorite. Addy cried the night she had a softball game and had to miss story time in the Papa Papaya's starry night. Craft time in the Busy Beaver Den included making backpacks, refrigerator magnets and a photo frame for their VBS picture. I had to take down all of the kids end of school year art work from the fridge to make room for the new.

While I have lots of fun pictures from the week and have included most in the slideshow, these are some of my favorites.


Joy!


Singing songs of praise!


Addy rocked the VBS songs and I had many people all week long telling me she was their entertainment during the nightly music portion. She was funny because she always made sure she was front row center during the songs and her actions to the songs and facial expressions sure didn't disappoint!


Reid giving Payton a high five. She was one of the girls who helped entertain him all week.


If you think her face is super messy from smores, you should have seen her shorts. Apparently wiping hands on shorts is much easier than getting up and getting a wet wipe.


Love these smiles!


Working on their photo frames.


So many volunteers made for a fun week.


Even Super Heroes need naps before VBS.

On Wednesday evening during clean-up, several of our kids were playing hide and go seek in the basement of church and Jaidyn and Addy felt that hiding on top of the toilet seat in one of the bathroom stalls was a clever idea. Addy lost her balance and fell on top of the toilet tank placing a huge crack in the tank making water go everywhere. On the bright side, she thankfully wasn't hurt (she acted like she was because I'm sure she knew she was going to be in trouble), but yesterday I found that replacing a toilet tank isn't as easy as I was hoping. After a morning of hauling 4 kids around and making several phone calls to Lowe's, I was able to come up with a tank, but found last night that it wasn't the right size. So now, it looks like replacing the entire toilet is going to be the cheapest route...I'm thinking that I could have easily spent $100-$150 on something way more exciting and it made for what started to be a very inexpensive week of great Godly entertainment for the kids EXPENSIVE!

This free photo slideshow made with Smilebox

Busy Summer

I'm managing to stay super busy trying to recover from being gone the last two weekends so this is primarily a picture post...

Family Get Together Weekend at Grandma Penny's

Lounging after a hot game of wiffle ball in the front yard.


Dog Piling Uncle Bear

The four wheeler is always a big hit with the kids. Funny how Reid managed to get to ride just about the entire time...a little spoiled, I think!





The boys requested grilled steaks so that's what they got!



Giddyup! The horse had to be dusted off from the garage, but it has seen days with almost all the grandkids.



Storytime!


An intense game of Go Fish!

Jaidyn out of the blue decided that she was ready to get her ears pierced. I'm thinking that spending time with her older cousins this summer has been part of her getting the urge to get it done. :)

Just a little nervous!!

All smiles showing off her little daisy flower earrings.

Later in the day the kids were playing dress-up and Jaidyn dressed up as the ear piercing girl...she had her clip board with papers needing to be signed, a name tag and a key around her neck so she could get in to the "cabinet" with all the piercing tools. :)


Wes was asleep and sick in bed the morning after getting home for the weekend and I had to make a run to the grocery store so I put Jaidyn in charge of the kids while I went to the store...
She had a picnic with Reid while I was gone of all the things he pulled out of the lower cabinet and took a picture of it...I have no words as I think the items in the picture speak for themselves.



Enduring the heat to watch a Springflield Cardinals game. We didn't get there until about 5 minutes after the game started and therefore missed the legendary #1 Ozzie Smith throw the first pitch of the game. Ugh! I can't believe I missed seeing "The Wizard of Oz". :(




The kids ran the bases after the game.