The Girls At the Sprinkler Park

I wish my cell phone took better pictures. The spent an hour in the 90 degree weather cooling off yesterday.

They like to play with their umbrellas under the sprinkler.


Ahh, their hugging each other!

Shadow Box Frame

I got the idea of a scrapbook frame/shadowbox frame from my friend Sue. I didn't have enough pictures to make a vacation scrapbook of our trip to FL, but wanted to frame a page of our favorites. I found a shadowbox frame and filled it with some of the sand and shells from our trip and added an ocean scrapbook page in the background. I liked how it turned out!

Cucumber

Mikayla asked me to buy a cucumber at the store yesterday. I honestly have never purchased one because I don't really like them. I was excited that she wanted to try something new and healthy. I should have known. I sliced it up and put it on her plate. She did nibble it, but said, "I really wanted it to play Veggie Tales with."

Ugly to Beautiful

A few weeks ago, Ellie and I found the ugliest caterpillar I've ever seen on our sidewalk. So ugly in fact, we carried it home on a stick to show the rest of the family. We put it inside our bug catcher. A day later, it had formed a chrysalis inside the bug catcher. We learned about it with help of the Internet (It is a tiger swallowtail caterpillar) and checked on it everyday.



Tonight when we came home from swimming, a huge beautiful butterfly had just emerged! We knew from our butterfly class we took with Mikayla this spring that it would need to let it's wings spread out, dry, and to eat in order to have the energy to fly for the first time. It didn't have enough room to do any of that inside the bug catcher. Our only choice was to carefully place it outside.





Funny, it landed in the kids sandbox on a toy car. If you can't fly yet, you might as well choose your own mode of transportation I guess.

JETS Gymnastic Pirate and Princess Day Camp

On the last day of day camp this week, the girls got to dress up. Mikayla chose to wear one of her church dresses and wear a crown. Ellie went all out. She even asked for a little makeup. With a parachute and mats, they made a big fort. The girls had a lot of fun, but wore out poor Ellie. She's actually napping right now which is rare for her!









Mikayla and Molly

Happy Birthday Nate!

The girls and I made Nate a heart shaped birthday cake today. This photo sums it up. We love you Nate! You're still my best friend and simply an incredible Daddy!

Fort Lauderdale!

I'm so thankful to have gone to Florida again this year! This time, with the whole family thanks to my mom's timeshare. Enjoy the photos!

A waterfall part of the pool area.


The girls got a lot of swimming time in. I was thankful they had 2 weeks of swimming lessons before this trip. Mikayla finally got the nerve to try swimming with a normal suit on (no flotation device inside) and she swam the whole length of the pool!


A cute little restaurant my mom and I went out to one night.


A boat anchored out at sea the whole time. I wish I knew what kind it was.


Moi.


The view from the top floor of the resort. The top floor was a really cool place to hang out at with flat screen TVs .


Street view of the Marriott Resort we stayed at.




The resort had tons of beach toys, pails/shovels, and beach chairs to checkout.




We took a Duck tour of some of the million dollar homes along the canals. Amazing places, I wish I could have a virtual tour of them!








This is the saddest, funniest family picture I've ever seen of us! We all look so pathetic!

Nate went fishing. We went to WI Dells.

A few weeks ago, Nate went on a fishing trip with his family. My mom had a convention to attend at the Chula Vista Resort in WI Dells. She invited the girls and I to come for a few days. It was a nice break and a great way to really celebrate Ellie's 4th birthday.

Here is a picture of a free chocolate cake the waitress brought her.


They had some great areas that the kids could play in by themselves without me having to get into the water to supervise. This is a really small and shallow lazy river area.

Cell Phone Pictures

I finally learned how to get the photos from my cell phone. So, these few are from this winter when Mikayla's class went to the Recreation Center. I helped the kids with the ice skating, even though I am clueless on how to skate. Mikayla gave it her best try.