Family Reunion prep

In efforts to prep for and find clothes that worked well for our big family picture for our family reunion I had the kids try on clothes. They got a little carried away and we had a fun photo shoot. Rebekah just kept going, don't worry I spared the onlookers of her many many poses. She is such a girl. I love it!






I love Miriam's face in this one.






Also, here are a few late summer pics that I could not pass on.


Movie night each week is a treasured thing for the kids. Marcus actually watched a few minutes of this one.


This boy loves his treats. I think he is in a chocolate creamy comatose state.

Carmel

We caught a lucky break this year in our vacation to carmel. We have a vacation planned for carmel in October, but early July glenn's grandma called me saying she had a cancellation and would we like to go in two weeks. After talking to Glenn I learned that he will pretty much do anything to fit in a vacation to Carmel. He is willing to work all nonessential holidays...labor day, day after thanksgiving, you get the point. That will make in total three trips to carmel for Glenn this year. I think he is making up for years past. I love those vacations when it is just our family. It is such great bonding time. While it is fun to go with cousins or siblings, there is nothing like going with your own children and spending such great one on one time with them.

We had about 4 days to ourselves and then we were lucky enough to have Glenn's high school friend, Cameron and his wife Rachel and daughter Candice. They were so fun to be with and get to know better. I am just going to post a million pictures of our week long vacation. So it can get a little long. Feel free to skip the photos if you would like.


























Highlights of this trip are that we found a million golf balls which for the girls sake included one keebler elf ball and one bright pink ball. I was hit by a golf ball while reading on the front porch (that was a first). We got locked out and slept in our car one night (more on that later). We ate lots of icecream, took lots of walks, and saw more sea life than normal, including dolphins. We can't wait to go back in October!

Summer swimming

What is summer without a little swimming. Rebekah is getting better at swimming, which makes my life easier with three kids in the pool. The girls both took lessons at our county pool. We swam there and at Grandma and Grandpa's this summer.








At the begginning of the summer Marcus ran screaming when I opened the pool cover. Now he stands by the side willing to let me hold him in the water. We went to a lake front yesterday and he even voluntarily went in the water by himself. I hope we can keep it up through the winter so it isn't so hard for him next year.


some of my best summer memories are of swimming for hours on end while my mom sat near reading and my siblings and I played games and did "tricks" in the pool. This year I finally saw a little of that as my girls are getting more comfortable in the water.

4th of July

There are those bloggers out there that feel guilt when they take a long break from blogging. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I am not one of them. No guilt no guilt at all for taking a break. I guess that means we have had a good summer and I did not want to take the time to sit down and blog. I did manage to take a few pictures of the summer fun the last few months and will make my best efforts to post them.


We started our 4th of July celebration off with a city parade and then headed back to our neighborhood for a bbq, talent show, and a few fireworks.


My girls were in heaven sitting by all the teenage girls from our neighborhood. They were sweet and shared food and candy with the girls. Also both girls got hair cuts this summer. They both got A line cuts. It was so worth it. We had some tears over the shortness (from Rebekah of course), but all in all my mornings have just gotten A LOT more manageable.


Highlight of the parade was seeing cosmo cougar. Rebekah was like a crazed fan. She learned that if she acted crazy she got more candy. She got a lot of candy!

Marcus enjoyed the parade too, it got a little long and hot for him though.


We gave the kids nap at about 6:30pm on the night of the fireworks so they would be good to go for the fireworks. When it was time to wake Miriam she did not want to wake up. She fell asleep sitting up at the counter. It was too funny.


Glenn and I left the kids with grandma and grandpa while we went to Stadium of fire. The girls like fireworks with grandpa. I was a little nervous, because last year Miriam covered her ears, cried a little, and curled into me because she was scared. She loved them this year and tried to guess the different shapes they made.