Summer Visit From Nana

Since Nana has the summer off work, she likes to make sure and get in about a week-long visit. We were so excited to have her!

Our fun included...

Making Dirt! Yum!

Afternoon Pool Time

The kids swim most afternoons, so Mom and I enjoyed being able to watch them (and they loved showing Nana how good they have gotten at swimming and I'm sure she loved seeing well as how well they can argue over a floatie) and sit and chat before/during supper prep and wine time.

Park Bike Trail and Picnic

It was gorgeous weather and we loved getting out our bikes/walking shoes, which we haven't done nearly enough this summer. We enjoyed having a picnic lunch by the pond as well.

Zoo

Lorelei happened to have zoo camp on Mom's last day. (More on that in next post.) Makin had the two of us all to himself all morning at the zoo. :) First stops were the aquarium and butterfly house. He stood very still and even had a big blue butterfly come and land on his ear!

Other highlights were the polar bear feeding, the lemurs, the chameleon and feeding the fish.

We left and took him to get a nap in the car since Lorelei's camp went until 3:30 and that is a big day for little legs. :) Then we went back for some more fun (Dad included this time) and picked up L. It was member appreciation day so they had extra activities including a bounce obstacle course and giant bubbles. Lorelei took a camel ride and they both enjoyed brushing the goats. (Soooo much better than food btw!)

Our first train ride this year! They loved it!

Thanks for a wonderful visit Nana! We had lots of fun!

More Bits Of Summer

A few odds and ends for the last week or two...

We braved our first (and hopefully last!) garage sale. It seemed like the quickest way to get rid of an overabundance of baby stuff, but was definitely not worth the hourly rate! We are still trying to figure out what to do with all the bins/baby things left. It did rain for a bit, which is why the kids are under the table. :)

We have had some gorgeous weather and usually cool for July. We have been absolutely loving it and spending tons of time outside. This includes lots of sandbox time!

Beach Ball Fruit Pizza - turned out quite yummy and was a good one for my little helpers. :)

Typical Drue Day...three little monkey's hanging on the jungle gym. :)

Drue days are usually park days, so we go at least twice a week!

Library Pool Party - As the final activity for the summer reading program, the library books the city pool (ha ha just read that and unintentional pun! I love when that happens!) for just the kids signed up for the reading program. So not only do we get to go and swim with familiar faces, but its free! :) (See the back of Lorelei's head with Ellorie? That was my view most of the hour and a half, usually further away!) Then they even provided us with lunch afterwards. :) After lunch with a few friends, we headed over to the playground nearby to play a bit too. Great morning!

Flower from my girl. :)

This was an awesome Sunday. Jerry and Joyce came through Columbus on their way back from Wisconsin heading home to Texas. You may not remember, but they were the ones who led the launch team in starting 1C. A church friend decided to throw a quick potluck lunch and have a bunch of  families over so we could all visit with each other and Jerry and Joyce. Was such a fun afternoon. Added bonus? She has a pool. :) The kids had a great time swimming!

We were sooo excited when we found out Planes Fire and Rescue was coming out!

This became our Sunday late afternoon family outing.

 The second we walked out of the theater Makin said, "I want that movie."

Eight thumbs up!

We also took Drue mini golfing one day and Brad took the kids out golfing one afternoon so I could work on finding the laundry room and a few other chores that were overwhelming me.

We had to get Lorelei in for her Kindergarten physical and she was very anxious about it all day. The fun side is that she is in the 95% for height! :) That explains those poor sore leg muscles she has been having lately! :) The unfun part was a finger prick and four shots. :( This girl deserved a serious treat. This was her first trip to Yogurt City and she had a great time piling the goodies on her yogurt. Of course, little brother loved getting a treat too. :) Mine is the bottom right. Good thing we don't go here often!

Cannot believe we are already looking into buying school supplies. 

This Mom needs another month of summer!

Silly Day

Quite a while back I came across a mom's blog (I think via pinterest) and she had a post on Silly Day. You all know how much I love a theme day! So, the kids have been  looking forward to Silly Day for quite some time. I used some of the idea's from the lady's blog, and came up with others of my own to add. We had silly snails for breakfast, had a silliest costume contest, had a silly string fight, danced and froze to Shake Your Sillies Out, read some silly jokes, played with silly puddy, had silly sandwiches for lunch, and put shaving cream on the slip n slide. I forgot to get the ingredients for silly slime and the kids didn't want me to run to the store this morning, so that will have to wait until another day or next year's Silly Day.

Love a little inspiration to add some fun to our week. :)

Silly String works great to create a ball or throw at each other from the ground too!

Freeze Dance

Lunch and Snack - Makin was given L's raisens and he said "Look an alien."

Extra Slip N Slide Fun - Makin finally got the hang of it. Lorelei is still too careful. :)

Loved our day!

Daddy Fun

Tball Season

Lorelei's tball season was Monday evenings in June and two weeks into July. The YMCA was the perfect place to start her first activity. She was very enthusiastic and proud of being on a team.

Lorelei's first tball game was lots of fun. She was so excited. Her dad picked out her glove all on his own and she was totally elated to get a pink one. We held our own little practice in our yard before the game which I think helped her feel less nervous. She gets quite nervous for these types of things...where does she get that!? ;) After the game she was proud she did not forget to drop the bat, which was a common problem at practices. "Mommy, I dropped the bat immediately!"

She also slept with her glove that night. :) So sweet.

A few action shots throughout the games...

Dan and Michelle came to two of Lorelei's games.
Makin loved having Michelle to keep him company and play catch in between watching Lorelei.

Team Photo...I'm thinking I could teach the Y a thing of two about photos eh? And Lorelei's take on the photo? "You should not have done my hair like that because I look like a boy." She is on the back row third from the left. :)

Her favorite part of playing tball was, "Being the pitcher and running the bases."

4th of July 2014

We had fun celebrating over several days last week.

I found some fun snack ideas on Pinterest and was thankful I got one of the last two patriotic sprinkles at Hobby Lobby! We also had some pudding in bowl cones with strawberries and blueberries.

Fork fire work paintings, with Red/White/Blue glitter! :) 

They also made patriotic foam airplanes from a kit I found.

We headed to Seward this year to enjoy "The Fourth Of July City." Brad and I spent one summer in Seward during college, but were excited to experience it with the kids. We spent the night before combing over the schedule and maps online. (Of course you know I looked at it before that too...) Thankfully I read that people put their blankets/chairs out for the parade mid-morning and we barely found an open spot at 10 AM! After the chair drop off, we headed to the airport.

We knew all along we would be going to the free air show at the airport, so the kids, especially Makin, were very much looking forward to it. 

To start out the air show, they had a man parachute out of a plane with the flag during the national anthem.

It did not disappoint as we saw amazing stunts, including landing on Midwest's Smallest Airport (suburban) and flying upside down and cutting a ribbon people were holding up. Plus many amazing more!

I heard, "That was cool" from Makin many times.

 This was his high of the day.

Quick Motorcycle Ride At The Carnival

The Parade

We had a good amount of down-time before the fire works, but they are at a park with a huge lawn so we had supper there and the kids played with other children who were also there early. We were very thankful for a shady spot! After hours of waiting, when the fire works started they were picture-perfect! However, Makin did not have a good reaction and started crying and screaming that he wanted to go to the car, so I had to take him to the car while Brad and Lorelei enjoyed the rest of the show.

Hope everyone had a happy and safe celebration!

Happy Fourth!