The D's: June 2013

Random summer fun!

More summer fun!

We took a trip to the park to take a walk and Emily decided my shoulders would be the best seat for her!

Jacob loved walking Shoney and had fun being in charge. Megan did too!

Swimming lessons! Megan is behind her teacher. She has learned a lot and is more comfortable in the water!

Jacob with his teacher too. He is getting better and better each day!

This is the part that Megan has a hard time with because she doesn't like the everyone is watching her and she doesn't feel especially confident about jumping in, and she doesn't really know how to go under yet. All of these things together make jumping in very stressful for her but she still loves swimming and is determined to get over it and jump in like everyone else!

Here is her leopard gecko Santa brought her for Christmas. She loves it and is hoping for another one for her birthday!

She has decked the cage out with rocks from our adventures!

Fun times with the additional trains! The kids all like to build track, Jacob is especially fond of trains! Thanks Dad for the extra track, they love it!

Our friends Nate and Mindy have 3 kids with 2 of them Jacob and Megan's ages. We decided to switch the boys and the girls to change it up a little and it was great! Here is a picture of Jacob with his friend Parker!

Bennett Springs

We have decided to throw money and caution to the wind and just keep going fun places this summer. We know we will pay for it later but oh well, they are only young once right??? The weekend of the 8th we decided to take Megan and Jacob for their first real camping trip at Bennett Springs! Emily stayed with my mom. We didn't think she was ready just yet! The weather was beyond perfect and we had a really good time. We cannot wait to go back and camp again!

Shoney also got to come along! The car packed on the return trip was a little better but she didn't mind, she loved being able to come along!

OK, so we get there and the first thing the kids want to do is go fishing. It was free fishing weekend! Jacob's having a good time using his new Spiderman fishing pole!

Still loving it...

So notice how his feet are closer to the edge, and how his body is leaning outwards. WELL, he somehow managed to go fall in...and it's way deeper than it looks! Poor Jacob was basically drowning and Michael ended up going after him. People all around us were definitely concerned!

Michael and Jacob sat on the sidelines for the rest of the fishing time! After all of the commotion, Megan and I really started getting into fishing. I love it and so does she! We are planning to get a fishing license and go fishing more often!

Here we are sharing Megan's pole she got for her last birthday!

After fishing we went swimming at the pool because we couldn't find a place on the creek where people weren't fishing! After that we set up the tent and campfire. There are few basic sites these days and we were lucky to find one!

This is the life! The kids were relaxed and so were we. We don't have a car charger for the phones so the battery life we started the weekend with is what had to last and since Emily wasn't with us we made it last. So that meant no e-mail, texting, phone calls, facebook, blog, or anything! Ahhhhh!

Jacob did such a good job camping. We knew that Megan would love it but we weren't too sure about Jacob and we worried about his screaming when things don't go his way...he did great and didn't scream until the next day when we were leaving!

Is he having a good time or what!

Another camp picture!

More summer fun

What a fun summer we have had! We are finally starting to get into the groove of summer (now that I will have to go back to work again soon!). Together the kids love to play puppies, mommy/daddy, and zoo. Some days they really get into it and make signs, cages, and more! Megan is really getting into nature even more than before and loving every minute. She has even started taking naps so that she can stay up late to catch lightening bugs and see nighttime bugs! Jacob and I have had some rough days but I think we are finally seeing eye to eye. He has loved the time playing with his trains, cars, and superheroes. Emily is as ornery as ever. She loves playing with her siblings most of all but she will go off and play with her Minnie's and dolls too! She continues to have no fear which makes things a tad interesting on our swing set!

We visited Jessi one day and the kids loved playing with the turtles!

Another cute turtle picture!

Lego fun!!! Megan has really grown up this summer! She took every piece of her legos apart so that she could follow the directions and put each piece together to make her big lego set!

Ahhhh, the fun times when a cousin comes over! The kids came up with this all on their own. All of a sudden squealing laughter like never before! Ahhh, the innocence of youth!

Here is an action shot! They did this over and over again.

The next day we had fun in the pool! From this view our grass doesn't look too bad!

Emily's looking like a little girl instead of a baby these days! She is obsessed with Minnie Mouse which is kinda cute at this stage!

She has quite the arm on her too! She loved playing catch with Jacob's glove!

And let there be snow cones!!! The kids love this and so do we. I love that we can use this with juice too. And I'm sure it will come in handy for adult beverages in the future ;) Thanks Dad!

We had turned the water table into the mud table and I sacrificed a muffin tin for mud muffins and such! Well, leave two girls outside with mud and it's irresistible!

No mud bath is complete without drying!

Notice the pool is also mud-filled! And this is a much more accurate picture of our yard!

The whole mud station!

The girls afterwards!

Megan!

The next day Jacob and Emily started giggling and decided to add as many toys as they could to the pool! Man, it's a good thing we are flexible parents!

This is my favorite summer picture so far! We decided to take a trip to Panera for bagels and everyone was great! I think this was the turning point in the stressful summer!

On this day after Panera we went to the local pet store and got to see "Elvis the Alligator" and all kinds of pets. I think this is probably Megan's all-time favorite store!