More Summer Time Updates

Megan Turns 5

It is actually hard to believe our youngest is now 5, and will be going to school this fall, which will make all he kiddo's in school at the same time. Megan had a few of her friends over for a water party in our backyard, playing on the swings and sprinklers. It was perfectly sunny during the party, some clouds started to show up in the distance, and in 2 hours the severe storm sirens were g0ing off and the parents were picking there kids up in straight line winds up to 60 MPH. It was a fun day though. Special thanks to Grandpa and Omi and Vati for their presents also.

Why do all kids love to do this right after it rains, especially Megan.

Megans hair is actually getting longer now, so she is recognized as a girl most of the time now.

Megan loves helping Mommy make cookies after church on Sunday. If she can tell us what she learned in her class she gets to make cookies.

Candice and the kids at the Como Zoon in Mn inside the butterfly exhibit.

Remember how Lilly loved sleeping in the bathroom sink? She now gets competition for it.

We also have this rare albino squirel that shows up in our back yard. It always shock me when I see it running along the grass.

Summer Time Updates

Hard to believe how fast summer time goes up here in Minnesota. Maybe because it starts so late and ends so early. We just turned our AC on for the first time on July 6th because it was 86 degrees. To catch up I'm posting all of the major events from the summer so far.

Spring soccer is over now. I coached both Michael and Rachel's teams this year, so it was some busy weekdays. It was Michaels last year in "mob soccer", so he learns to play positions next year. Rachel played great this year, really attacking the ball now, but she still likes to play defence so she doesn't have to run so much. Below are their pictures I made for them this year.

For the 4th of July we did fireworks at home since Megan is still scared of them up close. She had to run inside and watch through the door for a bit while we lit them off.

Michael with his sparklers

Rachel with her sparklers

Strawberry picking time started in June, so we went to the fields on the first day they were open and loaded up on some fresh strawberries. Megan loved picking the really red ones (the white ones were yuck!)...

...except she didn't like when the bugs crawled on her.

Candice in her strawberry picking clothes...

Michael and our neighbor Joey

Rachel not wanting her picture taken.

Daddy doing all the hard labor

Megan learned how to climb on the swing by herself and swing now, so she spends alot of time out there while the kids are at school

We also got a hammock (for Father's Day) but the kids use it far more

Grandpa came and visited for a month during June

The kids have spent alot of time out at the local lake since school has been out. Candice grabbed a great one of Rachel's natural smile, since her camera smile is normally all we get.

Michael and Megan splashing in the lake


For Memorial day our ward had a picnic at another lake, and we took the kids fishing. Daddy got to put on all the worms and take off all of the fishes.

Disney World - Islands of Adventure

We had our first family vacation where we all flew on a plane together at the end of April. We started early on Monday morning (4 am) and flew to Orlando FL. We got to spend time with Candices family and take some great family pictures.

We spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday at Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom which was great fun.

Michael loved the car driving ride, where we ended up going on it about 5 times.

I was trying to take pictures from the car infront of him by holding the camera behind my head and just pressing the button. Some actually came out.

Rachel was excited because she got to drive the car all by herself.

Megan still loves cats. This is the first time she's ever worn a hat ever, and she actually wore it most of the day.


The Buzz Lightyear ride was also a favorite. Michael loved anything with guns on it, and it was like a real live video game.

The kids finally got their crocs they've "always wanted" and then learned that the pins fall out if they run all over the park with them.


The roller coasters were really popular. Megan actually enjoyed riding on them. This was my favorite picture of the day. Megans look of pure worry as we are going down splash mountain.



The picture of the Vacation goes to the Jurassic park ride at Islands of Adventure though. I had been prepping Michael for this ride for over a month, telling him about the real dinosaurs and how one comes right by his face. Instead of preparing him for it, it actually ended up scaring him more. Michael was totally terrified by the end of the ride, and we caught it on film!!

Saddly, he didn't want to go on it again though... We got to spend alot of time in the Marvel Super Hero land visiting some of the X-men also.

Dinosaurs aren't so scary now!

Megan got to visit with the Cat in the Hat.

After the Cat in the Hat, they visited the Grinch, who stole Megans Cat in the Hat doll, so didn't want anything to do with Thing 1 and Thing 2 after that.

After 3 days in the parks we ended up staying at the hotel pool on the last day, where the kids all got sun burns and were ready to go home at that point. All in all it was one of our best vacations yet and hope to do it again soon.

Even more teeth

So, we were setting up another room in our house for the tooth fairy as teeth are falling out left and right. Of his front eight Michael has 4 of them showing righ now. Makes a great smile though.

Easter Snow

Well, we thought we were through it all. Last week was mid 30s-40s, which felt great. Yesterday almost all of the snow had melted, and then today, this is the shot out our patio window - March 21.

Toothless

Michael has lost about 3 teeth this month with one more about to come out. I went on his 1st grade field trip yesterday and it was funny to see how many kids in his class are walking around with half of their teeth missing. It's almost a daily "sharing time" event - who lost a tooth this week?

Rare Sighting!!!

Had to post this one, as it was an extremely rare sighting of Megan with "open eyes" and "smilling mouth". Occasionaly we can catch one at a time, but the smiles are accompanied with a closed eyes, or the open eyes come with a nice frown. As you can tell it was caught on camera quickly with some blur and low light levels, since it was really hard to catch.