Aunt Tricia

Aunt Tricia came for a visit this weekend, and the kids had a blast. They all loved the extra attention and were sad to see her go. There was lots of playing, laughing, and coloring, and a bit of fun with the squirt guns :-)

Abby had a fun week at Princess and Fairy camp. She made lots of crafts and made a couple of friends. I don't normally let Abby paint her fingernails, and one day at camp, they were painting all the girls' nails. As I walked into her room to pick her up, I could smell the nail polish, so on our way out, I asked her if she painted her nails and could I see them. She stopped walking and said, "Mommy, I told them that you don't let me paint my nails because it makes me look too old, so I didn't have them painted." Ah, she DOES listen to me....although I felt really badly b/c I certainly would have let her paint her nails for camp.....

We don't have any big plans for this week; hopefully it will be nice and we can hit the little "splash pad" and maybe the beach. We'll go the the 4th of July parade on Friday, and then I think our neighbors are having us over for a cookout.

Enjoy the couple of pictures below...our little princesses!

Our Little Picassos

Abby and Hannah LOVE to paint. Actually, Abby loves to paint, and Hannah loves to do anything Abby does, therefore, she loves to paint, too! It was nice this morning, so I got out the finger paints, and took everyone outside for some painting fun. Griff, as usual, took one look at the planned "artsy" activity and went right for his favorite push toys. After painting, we played with the see-saw and played some shadow tag.

Tomorrow Abby starts "Princess and Fairy" camp through our park district. It's just this week, for a couple of hours in the morning. She is super excited, can't wait to see what the "girly fun", as the description promises, is all about. As I was putting her to bed tonight, she told me she wanted to wear her pink tutu....we'll see if I can talk her out of it tomorrow morning!

Enjoy the pictures from today.

Summer ROCKS

As Abby would say, summer ROCKS. We've had terrific weather all week, and we've been busy doing fun things outside: exploring new parks, picnics outside, riding bikes, swimming in the pool, getting out the slip n slide and the sprinklers, and basically just having good honest summer fun. Below are some pictures from yesterday's picnic in the backyard and today's sprinkler fun. Enjoy! And how cute are their bums?

PS - apparently Dora Rocks, too. The other day I was cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast, and I noticed it was unusally quiet. Anyone with kids knows this can only mean something BAD is happening. I walked to the family room, and couldn't believe my eyes.....H&G laying down on the floor watching Dora. I tip-toed away, finished cleaning the kitchen, grabbed an extra cup of coffee and enjoyed the silence :-)

Fun with Grandma & Grandpa

Whew, we got back from a great visit to G&G Meiers in Tennessee the other day, and we are all still wiped out! The kiddos did great on the plane, even after enduring an hour and forty minute delay out of Minneapolis. We finally arrived in Knoxville around midnight local time. Abby was completely wired, and only wanted to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa. H&G went down pretty quickly, got up at their typical 6:30am, and then proceeded to take a four hour nap the following day!

The weather was warm - sticky, humid & hot - and we loved it. We spent a day at Splash Country, one of the biggest water parks I've ever seen, and the rest of the time we spent on Grandma and Grandpa's boat. Abby and Hannah could not get enough of the water; Griff wanted nothing to do with it, either at the water park or on the boat. We would ask him over and over again if he wanted to get in, and he shook his head no, repeatedly. He was quite happy sitting on Grandma's lap.

I took a couple hundred pictures, but I promise not to post them all! I'm trying to figure out how to do a slide show, and until then, I've posted some favorites below. They are in no particular order, as I'm too tired to organize them, but enjoy them anyway!