Summer!



Hannah caught a baby bunny



Daniel and I have been trying to be better at taking each of the kids on dates.  I like taking a "date picture" with the intent of someday making a little book with all the pictures and a little write up about the date or about them at that age.  Anyway...here is my date picture with Eliza.

We walked to the park for our date.  She pushed her baby doll and I carried some apples and crackers for a little picnic.  We played on the swings because that is her favorite.

We enjoy watching the cool storms.

 

Ethan's preschool graduation



Ethan is ready for kindergarten...I am not ready for him to be in kindergarten.



Camp seems like such a long time ago...it has been a busy summer.

 

Andrew and his cousin Megan are about to jump of the deck onto the trampoline.  

Andrew started piano and is taking a combined lesson with his friend Luca.

 

For my date with Hannah we picked wildflowers.

Afterwards we went to a beautiful meadow where we hoped to find deer. We didn't find deer, but did find a turtle.

The beautiful meadow and my beautiful daughter



Andrew and I went to the park to play trac ball for our date.

We stopped for slurpees on the way.

We also had fun throwing rocks into the river trying to be the first one to hit different targets.  It was a fun night!

Andrew is into cooking lately...I love it! He just started making chocolate chip cookies which is both wonderful and dangerous...I have a serious addiction to cookie dough.

I threw together a last minute party for her birthday.  She loves bubbles so we just had friends over for bubbles and cake one evening.



This pool has gotten a lot of use this summer.



Cute kid.

Eliza wanted to go to the zoo on her birthday.

I can't believe my baby is 3!











I love summers for this reason...more time together builds relationships.

who knew he was real (Andrew wrote that caption :)) Ethan loves this spiderman costume.



We went back to the beautiful meadow and brought books and oreos.









Eliza and I love playing with our friend Ian

They were having a good time reading "funny books" :)



Ethan loves playing sports



fort of epicness' (Andrew wrote this one also) I love having screen free weeks! Speaking of Andrew and screens...he loves the dude perfect videos on you tube and I have to say how impressed I am with them.  They are cool and funny without swearing or talking about sex.  They don't even use boy humor (potty talk, making rude sounds, etc...).  When girls are on they are dressed modestly. I love it!

My date with Ethan

We picked out treats and went to the park. We watched the turtles in the pond and went on a little hike in the woods.



A fun day at the creek







We have been subbing a lot in his church class which is a lot of fun. We were taking "reverent pictures".



Andrew and his friends playing in the cul-de-sac



Another date with Hannah.  We couldn't pass up the opportunity to go see the play "The Wizard of Oz".  We read the book a couple of months ago and she also read it in school. She is pretty lucky- she also got to go see the play "The Sound of Music" with Daniel.  She has loved the sound of music for a long time and Daniel always sings her the songs at bedtime so she was very excited to see it with him.

I love this theatre- it is outdoors and has some free seats!

 

 

 

The Rest of Camp

They went on a treasure hunt

 

Here is the treasure...books and gummy worms. These boys are showing the books they picked.

Flying giant paper airplanes off the porch was lots of fun.



Catching the giant paper airplanes that were flown off the porch was also lots of fun :).

We were so blessed to have Sister Fryhoff come teach a dance class.  She was wonderful and the kids loved it! 

The indoor toys were a hit when they wanted a break from being outside.

Andrew and Luca did relay races that involved riding the dump truck down the grass hill. Andrew is modeling how it was done because I missed taking pictures of the event.

Making bouquets to sell at the bake sale.

I wish I got better pictures of the bake sale.  We had lots of help and it was very successful...we were so grateful!

Playing with playdough on the rainy day.

I wish I had gotten a picture of them all wearing their shirts, but here is Ethan looking happy in his.

We had so much fun doing camp!  I'm sooo grateful for Niki and her family for partnering with us to pull this off.  I definitely couldn't have done it alone and it was so much more fun doing it together.

A little rain didn't stop them.

Geo trax on the rainy day was very popular.

This isn't everybody, but it was most of the group that was here on the final day.



Eliza is never happier than when she is holding a baby.  In this case...a toddler who was being very calm and nice to let Eliza hold him.

I loved watching the big kids play hedbanz on the rainy day.

We gave the kids beads throughout camp for doing activities or cleaning up.  At the end they could use them to make bracelets or necklaces.

We had so much fun doing camp! We raised about $1300 to help refugees.  We are only $200 short of our goal and we would still like to make it!  If you want to donate go here.  We gave people the option to have us send their money to our church's humanitarian aid or to RefugePoint. The portion given to RefugePoint was done online but we allowed our children to turn in the money to humanitarian aid so they could feel the joy of giving the money that they had worked hard to earn.

Andrew was inspired by his ability to make money and wants to start his own little camp/babysitting business. He really enjoyed working with the kids!  He is only 10 (almost) so he can't do it alone, but with my supervision he more than able.  He worked really hard to figure out the details and type up a flier :).  If anyone wants a fun and supervised babysitter, let us know.

We were asked many times if we were doing camp again...we'll see! Maybe a parents night out version. We could play night games and have a movie party...lots of options to think about! For now we are just grateful that we received so much help and were able to watch all of the kids who came make friendships and have fun.