We are just about to start school again for the year so here’s a little wrap up post for our summer. 

Rock took me on another great date last month.  Ice Blocking!  Believe it or not, I made it out of college without ever having gone ice blocking.  It was a lot of fun!

The kids entered their artwork in the fair again this year and some of them even won money.  This is surprising because everyone but Cade created theirs the day before.  “Quick, the deadline is tomorrow!  Let’s draw some pictures and take some photographs to enter in the fair!”  Maybe next year they will learn from Cade’s example.  He won 7.00$!

His Origami bird feeder won 1st place:

This is two hummingbirds and a squirrel on top.

Levi and Liberty entered this year as well.

Whale above his head.

Piggy above hers.

Liberty found this photo at the fair and got super excited.

I can’t wait to take her to the Statue of Liberty again someday when she’ll actually remember it.  She remembers nothing from her first trip there.

While at the fair we “ran into” Cade’s hero, Jeremy Schaffer.  He’s a guy on U-tube who makes/teaches origami and balloon animals and all kinds of crazy crafty things.  Cade adores this guy and some days all we hear out of his mouth is, “Jeremy Schaffer, this and Jeremy Schaffer that.”  So when Rock found out that he was going to be at the fair we knew we had to go that day.  We didn’t tell Cade, though, and the surprise was perfect.  I only wish I could have gotten his face on film.  But we did get this picture and a high five and Cade was thrilled to meet his idol.

Libby was also thrilled to see her favorite animal up close and personal.

Reagan picked up his new cello at the rental place a few weeks ago in anticipation of his new adventure at the middle school.  He will be taking a few classes there every afternoon, one of which is orchestra.  Thank you Piano Guys for your inspiration!  He’s so excited to start!

He will also be doing Cross Country as an after school sport and has thoroughly enjoyed his practices so far.  He comes home every day telling me how much faster his time was that day than the day before. 

And there went summer.  This was the first summer in a while without a move or big travel plans and I thought it would go by a little slower, but I was wrong. 

Goodbye Summer!  Time to hit the books!

Cade reached double digits exactly a month ago! 

He spent his birthday money from us and G & G Wesel at the craft store, his favorite place on earth.  And then just last week when G & G Hymas were here they brought him their birthday gift.  He spent all week designing cars with the design kit they got him.

Designing cars…
 

Designing Cars again….
You see Harry Potter 7 on the floor beside him because in the month since his birthday he has blown right through Harry Potter 4, 5 and 6.  And he just finished 7 today, exactly one month later.

We love you, Caderade, and all your wonderful talents.  Thanks for coming to live at our house!

Liberty has been dancing since she was old enough to sit up, let alone walk.  Here is the first time I caught her movin to the music in her head.

Since then she has danced her way to everything, breakfast, bedtime and everything in between.  She has been waiting anxiously for the day she could take ballet when she turned four years old.  That milestone just passed, so we signed her up for ballet.  Here are some pics and video from her Ballet Camp.  This was just to give her a taste to see if we should really sign her up for lessons.  Most of these were taken through a window, so I apologize for the low quality.

She LOVED every minute. But then, that’s not a surprise.

I’ve had some funnies I’ve been saving up from the kids and I now have enough to share these gems with you!

Levi was thrilled this week to to read his first Dr. Seuss book all by himself.  So the other night when I went in to check on the boys after they’d been put to bed, I found him reading this book, in the dark, with these night glasses.

He was reading it out loud to Cade!  I couldn’t really be mad because he’s so excited about reading and in fact, I laughed quite hard.

On Wednesday Liberty, who is very aware of the boy/girl differences at our house because she’s the only girl besides mom, went over to the bookshelf and pulled out the church hymn book.  She sat down on the floor, opened it up and said, “Mom, is this a ‘she’ book?”  I had no idea what she was asking so I said, “What?” And she asked again, “Is this a ‘she’ book?”  In exasperation I said, “No, it’s a HYMN book!”  And the second I said it out loud, I realized what she meant and busted up laughing.  A HIM book!!! 

A few weeks ago, the kids came home from a birthday party with live goldfish in a jar.  I was a bit bugged that I now had to try and keep these fish alive.  The next day, when Cade found his fish belly up in the jar he said perplexedly, “I don’t know why my fish died.  It didn’t eat anything!”  He meant of course, it hadn’t eaten anything bad, but it was still pretty funny.

I can’t remember if I shared this one or not, so forgive me if I have.  Levi has been losing his first teeth lately and the other day I overheard him telling his brothers about the $14.00 pack of Pokémon cards he was planning on buying.  I asked him how he planned to pay for something so expensive.  Looking at me like I was a little slow he said, “Mom, I have teeth!”

This last week Alli and I took the kids to Denny’s where kids eat free on Tuesdays.  After helping all the kids figure out what they were going to order, I finally took a look at the menu to decide what I wanted.  The waitress came up right then and asked if we were ready to order so I told her we needed a little more time.  As she walked away Liberty, who was hungry and impatient for her food, called after her, “But I don’t need any more time!”

And one last one I just heard last night from our neighbor.  Liberty was wandering the cul-de-sac talking to all our neighbors as she always does.  She was dressed in her princess dress this particular day.  When our neighbor Tom asked her if she was going to be Miss Idaho someday she said, “No.  I do not want to be a state.”

I realize these might not be as funny second hand, but we sure love remembering them after the fact.

To celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary (which isn’t technically until this Saturday, the 26th) Rock and I went to McCall, ID for a few days last week.  It was wonderful to get away. McCall is beautiful. 

On Monday we slept in nice and late and then went to the Pancake House for breakfast. 

The food was so delicious and the atmosphere so fun that we ate there for breakfast both days!  We ate outside on the flower covered, wrap around porch.

After breakfast we rented a canoe to take on the Payette River at the north end of Payette Lake.  It was peaceful and serene and wonderful not to have to answer any questions or stop any fighting. 

That night we ate dinner at the Shore Lodge, a fancy ski lodge that we’ll stay at when we are rich and famous.  The professional pictures are better than mine, so I’ll use those.

The restaurant had the most amazing view of the lake!

(Note, there was no snow on the mountains last weekend.  lol)

The day ended with a beautiful sunset. 

On day two we drove up to the Brundage Ski Area and explored the surrounding area. 

This one is worth a click to enlarge.

Brundage Reservoir

Beautiful, relaxing, awesome getaway!  Thanks for watching the kiddos, Grandma and Sarin!

We had my parents and siblings over for the 4th of July this year and had a great day.

Liberty

Liberty was fascinated by Alli’s star earrings. 

Shucking corn

Hangin with Sarin

We got them all to sit still for a split second.  Ok, not Levi, but close enough.  They made their own shirts this year!  Thanks for the cute idea, Penny!

Watching Fireworks

If you’re wondering what Liberty is wearing on her ears, look here: Ear plugs the Monster Jam way  She looks ridiculous, but they allowed her to actually be outside this year to watch.

Setting off Fireworks

God Bless America!

For those of you who don’t have a pink addict living at your house, you might not know about the children’s books called Pinkalicious about a little girl who is, yes, addicted to pink.  Liberty turned four last week so here are some pictures from the big day and some funny ones I’ve been collecting for a while. 

First, the Birthday Party

We’ve lived in our house for a year now and we are just finally settling on what rooms the kids will be in, so now I can finally do something to Liberty’s room.   For her birthday we graduated her to a twin bed and painted one wall pink.  We won’t talk about how many shades of pink it took before I got it right.  Ok, just two.  Luckily one wall does not take much to repaint.  The room is not done yet; still needs a comforter and some curtains among other things, but it’s a start. 

Her favorite gifts were this ballet outfit from her Hymas grandparents (for her ballet camp coming up next week) and this ribbon wand from her Wesel grandparents. 

Now on to the collection of pics I take every now and then.

She wears this dress every other Sunday.  It would be every week if I didn’t require her to wear a different color/dress in between.

Nope.  This is not Cade’s shoe basket.

Fashion show host:  “Liberty is wearing a pink dress by Hand Me Down, with a Mama’s Sweater designed by Great Grandma Norma Wesel.  Her hair is in the Messy Modern Bun Come Undone Look.” 

On top of the world.  At least at Target.

My cousin Katelyn got married last week and Liberty couldn’t wait for the reception when she could see Katelyn in her beautiful dress.  “Is she going to dance, Mom?” 

Katelyn looked amazing!!

My mom and I took Libby shopping to the mall, which apparently I’ve never done with her before.  She squealed with delight at every mannequin she saw.  She was fascinated by these fake people everywhere and it was quite the adventure for her.   Better than the zoo! 

A few weeks ago she was getting a little talkative in church so I gave her a warning by saying, “Do you need to go out in the hall?” To which she responded, “Yeah, it’s getting boring in here.”

 
We love our little pink addict. 

I decided it’s way past time to update my blog look, so while I try and figure out what I like and how to make it look cool, bear with me.  🙂  It might look different every time you visit!

We ordered caterpillars this month to watch them turn into butterflies!  Even though we’ve done this before it was still exciting to see. 

Once they create their chrysalises we transfer them to this:

Four out of five caterpillars made it to butterfly this year, but one was a little mangled.  His wing never fully opened.  He couldn’t fly too well and so he hung around on the kids, which they of course loved.

When we let all of ours go, we went to see the ones at the zoo butterfly house.

Waiting for one to leap onto his finger.

It leaped onto his back instead!

Such amazing little creatures!  Thank you, Heavenly Father for giving us this wonderful creation to enjoy.

Cade is back in baseball this year and loving it. 

I have to admit I love it too.  No rainy, muddy fields like in Jersey or Washington.  Just blue skies.  It’s great!

Reagan has been doing a lot of baking lately.  He has help sometimes.

He picked the cherries for this pie from our very own cherry tree!  He pitted the cherries and made the crust from scratch.

A few days later he made Rock’s Father’s Day apple pie from scratch too. 

And I made my first batch of freezer jam! 

My children now call me blessed.  Who knew Winco jam was that bad. Picky picky people.

We planted a garden this year!  We started small, just strawberries and tomatoes, but it’s something.  
 

The odds have not been in our favor, though.  The birds have been eating our strawberries (we haven’t gotten to eat a single one!) and Levi was trying to help one day and weeded one of our tomato plants.  He was devastated when he realized what he’d done.  It was so sad and funny at the same time.  But at least everything is growing! 

See the green balls!

So are the birds going to eat my tomatoes too????