I'm tired...

Two weeks ago this Wednesday we headed up to Michigan -- cut the traveling in half since it was a 16 hour trip. We went up for my inlaws 50th wedding anniversary party. (More about that later) We were there until Monday afternoon, traveled a little Monday and then the rest of the way Tuesday (with some fun stops on that day), got home Wednesday morning at 2:30am, and then Kenny had to work on Wednesday and I had to do laundry and clean getting ready for company on Thursday. My cousin, her husband and daughter came to visit and were here until this morning. We had a good time, wish we could have stayed longer in Michigan, then wished our company could have stayed longer, but now..... I'm tired. I'll be posting some pictures later, but right now I'm going to go curl up in bed next to Isabella and take a little rest. :) Hope the last couple of weeks has been good for everyone!

Daddy

Here's what I had the girls do for Daddy for Fathers Day:

I think have 2 great little future artists. :) Isabella picked out the colors of paint for them to use (which is funny since she mixed hers together to make the gray background) and I gave them some sequins, the little gems and the little sayings from my scrapbooking stuff, but they put it all together by themselves. Although, I think if I would have let Amelia continue, she would still be painting. She didn't want to stop. :)

After church Sunday morning, we grabbed something to eat and then headed out to the lake. It was the first time we had taken both girls out in the kayak. We had so much fun. We didn't get a great deal of actual kayaking in since Isabella kept asking to go swimming. So we went for a little while and then pulled into a little cove and had fun swimming, fishing (we forgot Isabella's fishing rod, but our little lucky charm "happened" to find one on the shore) and climbing the rocks. This is probably the only lake in the area that I actually enjoy swimming in (again, I like to see my feet :) It was a beautiful day and a great time together as a family. It was also special for me because Kenny and I used to go kayaking a good bit before the girls and this was one of our favorite places, we would love to just see all God's creation, enjoy our time together, and talk about different things. I know we had plenty of talks about "One day, if the Lord blesses us with kids, we can bring them here..." etc. So to be in the kayak with him and now our 2 precious girls, made it extra special for me. All the glory belongs to God!

I thought I would let the girls write letters to Daddy for Fathers Day. This is what Isabella dictated to me (I will admit, she might have said something about you taking her places and buying her things a couple more times :)

Dear Daddy, I love you! I love you really much, .... this big! And you are really sweet to me. Thank you for building me things and buying me stuff. Thank you for sharing things with me. Thank you for bringing us to the lake, and when you bring me to gymnastics. And Thank You Daddy for all your givings to me. And for taking me to lunch and to the sports and to the pet store. I like you to take me places in your truck. Thank you for playing with me really much. Thank you for all the work you do at your work. Thank you for letting me sleep with you all the time (LOL!! I think she is trying to weasle her way into sleeping with us Honey. :) Happy Fathers Day to you Daddy. And I want to sing a song to you now. "Happy Fathers Day, Happy Fathers Day, Happy Faaaaattttthers, Happy Faaaaaathers,..... Happy Fathers, Happy Fathers, Happy Faaaaathers Day, Happy Faaathers, Happppy Fathers Day to you Daddy...... (she's still singing....... now she's marching, now she's dancing and adding hand motions......) Happy Fathers, Happy Fathers, Happy Fathers, I love you, Happy Fathers, Happy Fathers DAYYYYYYYYY! " (This has gone from the Happy Birthday tune, to Oh My Darling, and it is still going although I've stopped typing. She has now slowed it down and is doing ballet to it. )

I love you! You're the best daddy in the whole world. Isabella

Wish I could have taped that one, she's so cute singing Happy "Fotters" Day,

(What just happened: "Amelia, do you want to tell Daddy anything...." "Nah, go poo poo" And she goes running through the room. Me: "What?!" And then I get to go looking around for her diaper and praying she already didn't have some in it, because thats her new thing to take her diaper off AFTER she's gone potty in it.... gotta figure out how I can catch this child BEFORE and get her to be potty trained.)

Dada, Wuv Dada (Love Dada) , Du, do, diddy, DADA, (?? Dada) UH, sissy, Da Da, Wha Tha? (UH, Sissy, Dada, What's That?) And off she goes to figure out what "That" is. I think what she was meaning to say was I love you Dada and you're the best daddy ever!!! :) Amelia

Isabella decided to add more: Daddy, I love you really much. Thank you for taking me to Mighty Moo. I know you get gas in the car. (??) I'll draw a cross for you (and she just did) I love you!

And I love you too honey, for all the things that were on your card and so many more. Watching you with our girls and the daddy you are to them, just makes me love you even more!

Oh, and she's still singing. :)

Father's Day Weekend

I hope you all had a wonderful Father's Day weekend. We had a reall nice time both days. On Saturday, we got together with my parents and my brother's family and started the day off watching Tyler race in a Soap Box Derby.

We watched him a few times, but it was SOOO hot and when you start seeing your already brown little girls cheeks start turning red, you know its too hot for them to just sit in the sun. So, we were right next to a park, so Kenny and I took the other 4 kids down to ride on the train and then play at the park, while the others continued to watch Tyler. The kids loved the train -- although Amelia doesn't look like it, she was having fun and was squealing part of the way. She is now going through the lovely stage of putting her head down or looking away when mommy says "Look at the camera" (Stubborn little booger!) Isabella and Garrett are such good buddies (I have a cuter picture of them on the train, but must not have downloaded it) and loved riding together, Kenny got some Daddy time with Amelia, and Olivia and I got to bring up the rear with our extra cuteness--- ok her cuteness, my rear. :)

Then we had planned on cooking out at another park, but really it was just that hot, so we opted to go back to Mike and Meredith's and we ate there and the kids had fun playing. I love this picture of the girls in the back of Mike's Scout

And here are my sweet girls.... although the picture is blurry. :(

Afterwards we went to a small fair and rode a few rides and Kenny and I learned a couple things:

1. Isabella is going to be our daredevil when it comes to rides, she was asking to go on some that she wouldn't have been allowed to ride on and even the one she and I rode on, spun around pretty fast and she wanted to have us spin our heart seat (you can spin it like you would the teacup ride) as well.

2. The older we get, the easier our equilibrium or something gets messed up. Kenny has always had a problem with spinning around in circles (like on a merry go round), but he rode with Tyler on this one that took you up and you went upside down and he was a little green after he was done. I, have never had a problem with the spinny rides, love them! and while Isabella and I were spinning around, I was ok, but when she said she wanted to spin our "seat" as well, I got a little funky feeling. I just convinced her we were spinning. :) And then when we got off, I was dizzy for a little while. Really, we're not that old..... I thought this wasn't supposed to happen for YEARS. I wasn't green though, so I WILL try again. :)
Amelia on the other hand, screamed and would not even ride this ride with Olivia -- even with mommy holding onto her. Looks scary though doesn't it......... :)

And here's Papa with all the grands... Its late, so I'll post a couple pics from Sunday tomorrow. Just wanted to say we had a great day on Saturday celebrating Fathers Day with my dad. And I'm so thankful for the Godly father I have, as well as Papa for my girls. I know it is a blessing to have a dad who loves the Lord, whom we get to spend time with and who my girls just adore!

Do you remember.....

..... what it was like before you had kids? More specifically, do you remember what it was like to kiss your husband before you had kids. The other night, Kenny went outside and I went and joined him on the porch to talk, without the girls. Within seconds, Isabella was at the patio doors with a pitiful look on her face, which then turned to falling on her knees pouting. Then Amelia joined her and was trying to open the door and then started pressing her face against the window. It was like they thought they were missing out on something great by not being right with us (which is also why I always have an audience while I'm using the bathroom) Then once we were inside, we were standing in the kitchen and I put my arms around Kenny's neck and kissed him and Amelia started pulling at my leg, then wedged herself in between us, saying "Nah, my mommy", then Kenny gets hit in the back with a little ball from Isabella. Just as I was about to say it, Kenny said "what was it like before we had kids...." :) Amelia is especially jealous of mommy, she doesn't want Kenny to hug or kiss me, and she doesn't want to share me with him. Isabella on the other hand, just wants to be a part of whatever is going on. When she was around Amelia's age, she would cry if we were hugging, but instead of seperating us, she would say "group hug."

We also took the girls on a little hike the other night and instead of lugging my big Nikon, we took Kenny's small digital camera with us. I don't know what it is about small little cameras that make me feel like I'm in high school and I have the need to turn the camera around and try to take pictures of myself, Kenny and I, etc, but I did that half of the evening. :) When we did want to take a picture of the girls after they climbed up a rock, these are what we got:

But, when I would revert to my 14 year old self and would try to take a picture of Kenny and I, this is what happened, all of a sudden she was ready to smile. :)

We actually tried to get Amelia in one of these pictures as well, but she wasn't interested, she was more interested in playing in the creek, oh yeah, and we sat her on daddy's lap instead of mommy's and that made her mad. Crazy kids.

New favorite pastime

Don't look at the "artistic" qualities of these pictures, because there is none. These were taken from inside my house looking out the patio doors - if I open them, the birds then fly away.

Recently, this is mine and Isabella's newest favorite pastime -- bird watching. Well, at least in our backyard. We had one bird feeder back there, which we forgot about for the past couple years and this year Isabella wanted to see birds, so we decided to fill it as well as get another one. We hung them on a pole thinking the squirrels couldn't get to it, but those little boogers are horrible and would climb up the thin little pole and would eat the food (as well as part of the bird feeder) After a recommendation from my aunt, we then got another favorite past time which was watching the squirrels, jump, then slide down the vaselined pole. Oh, how I wish I could have gotten some video of that. We had lots of laughs at that. Anyway, we then went and got a finch feeder, which is not attractive, looks like a big white sock, but it said it would attract finches to our yard -- and amazingly it has, I had never seen a finch in our backyard before, but now we've seen several, such as the goldfinch and house finch in the pictures above. We also see lots of cardinals, wrens, bluejays, robins and today a black bird and a pigeon (whom Isabella named snow cone) The past couple days we've seen a little gray and black bird in the backyard so I decided to look up bird "websites" with Isabella so we could try to find out what kind of birds we might see. When I opened one website, Isabella saw a picture and let out a little gasp and said "Do you think we will have EAGLES come to our bird feeders? Papa LOVES eagles" :) I'm thinking we'll just stick to our finches. I think she agrees now, since I told her that Eagles don't like bird seed, they like to eat fish and little animals. She then gasped in horror and said "Do you think they will eat Tucker?" Tucker is our 100+ pound black labrador, so I think he's safe from the Eagles. We're now trying to convince Daddy we need a hummingbird feeder, we asked him last night and he said "How many birdfeeders do you crazy women need?" Surely he can't resist our charms for a $5 birdfeeder for long though. :) Anyway, thought you'd enjoy my silly little girl. We sure have fun creating new hobbies together.

Another dress up day

Something about little girls and dressing up...... it happens quite regularly around here, the girls will have little princess dresses on, tiaras, or for Amelia its always a cute pair of shoes. For the last few days Isabella has been asking me to play dress up with her --- but not just ANY dress up, I had promised her last week that I would put some makeup on them sometime when they played dress up. And she remembers everything!! It was the first thing she asked me this morning after breakfast. So they got their little dresses on, little tiaras, which Amelia refused to keep on her head and off we went to Mommy's room for hair and makeup. :) I'm not sure how or why I happened to have some 80s looking light pinks, blues, greens, but it came in handy today with my girlies. And Isabella wanted lipstick today not lip gloss -- you know, the REAL stuff. So here they are in all their glory.....

This is normally what happens if I say "Ok, now get closer and hug your sister" it always turns into play time in front of the camera. I love it!

After Isabella was done playing dress up, she went into her room and got dressed for real. She was so proud of herself. She came into the kitchen and said "Look, and I did it all by myself and I did it all right" (We have had issues before of items of clothing being on backwards :) The only problem was....... this is what she had on........

...... cute as can be, but this is what it was like outside today....
Thankfully, we were able to change it up a little before she played outside. :)

Few beach pics

Just a few pictures from our trip. We had such a good time (even with all the sicknesses going around.) I think all the sickness did make the kids a little more whiney than normal, but for the most part I think all the kids had a good time together. This year I think was a little more relaxed, we ate at "home" most of the time, which meant we could stay in our coverups most of the day and switch the kids from swimsuits, to tub, to PJs. The only negative to that was not getting the kiddos all cutesied up every night, but I think the more relaxed time and fellowship was worth it. Isabella loves pretty much all things at the beach, the sand, the water, the seashells, etc. Although, she is not exactly my little "fish" because she would prefer not to get her face wet. :) Amelia LOVED the sand, and after a couple days loved the water as well. She at first didn't want to get in the pool at all, screamed and pulled up her feet even if we tried to put her in, but then at the biggest pool, the kids could walk in, kind of like the ocean, minus the waves. So she felt like she was going at her own pace. The afternoon that I was sick, they had to run in after her because she decided maybe it would be fun to keep on walking. :) After that she wanted to go to the pool anytime she saw it and loved playing in the ocean.

Here's my sweet girls on the beach together, getting them to slow down and pose rather than ripping their cover ups off and running away is not easy. :)
I love this picture of Amelia and her cute little mischievious grin. Isn't she beautiful!!!!
The picture of Amelia above was when she was having so much fun running to the water, filling her bucket up and coming up and pouring the water on Noni's feet. She got the biggest kick out of doing this.

I don't know what they're laughing at..... maybe they're just showing their excitement for the BIG fish Garrett caught. (Inside joke)

And here's my beautiful little beach babe. She looks so grown up, I wish she'd slow down on growing up.

And what did Mommy do.......

...oh yeah, nothing like relaxing on the beach. :)