Happy Father's Day!

We are so lucky to have such an awesome Dad! Chris is an amazing father and the kids just LOVE him. He does such a great job of balancing discipline with love. Our kids are the great kids they are because of him. I'm so blessed to have him for the father of my beautiful children. He does such a wonderful job of providing for our needs and wants. He takes such great care of us all. I know it's because he had such an excellent father to mirror as he has raised his own kids. We couldn't ask for a better dad in our lives! He makes us all laugh. He shows the example of how to serve others, quietly, without any thought of what is in it for him. He also shows our children how to live honorably and how to love the Lord, our country and all of us. I couldn't ask for more!

I thought it would be fun to take a photo of him with each of the kids and the pictures turned out so cute!
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

Bike Ride!!

Chris LOVES to ride bikes and so he asked if we could go out biking on Saturday together. We agreed even though it was climbing up to 100 degrees plus humidity... We went to our favorite bike trail along the river and were amazed by the sights we saw this time through!! We found some great mushrooms growing up inside a tree trunk. They looked so cool! But the highlight was definitely getting to see TWO ALLIGATORS!!!! We rode through a park at the end of the trail with some large ponds. At the entrance of the park, a sign said, "Do Not Feed the Alligators!" and we just rode on... Hee hee! These gators were only about 3 feet long... but sooooooo awesome and we're definitely going to be checking back on them as the weeks go by! It was a great ride. The trail is fairly shaded by the woods on either side so it made for a nice ride. We'll definitely be heading back there soon!


Mushrooms up the tree

Looking at the trail

An Alligator!!! Miah spotted him and I didn't believe him.... Now I do!

Swimming away

Scout Camp!

Chris and Jeremiah spent this whole last week going back and forth to Cub Scout Camp! Chris had volunteered and was asked to run the range (BB Guns and Archery). Jeremiah was there to enjoy the whole experience and earn TONS of badges! Yay! Every morning they would head out early and come back mid-afternoon completely worn out! It has been horribly hot here and they were out in the sun and humidity all day long. They would shower and fall asleep wherever they sat! I hardly got to talk to either of them until Friday when we were all able to go out and experience their days at Family Day. They had 2 huge waterslides there - Jeremiah's favorite thing at Scout Camp - and Jessi and Jilli tried them out. Jilli only made it down once... I was just amazed that the boys could still have smiles on their faces in that heat!! I did snap some photos of them and of the awesome waterslides! (Wish we had one of them in our backyard!!) We ate hot dogs and chips and then headed home to shower and thank our lucky stars for air conditioning!!


Jeremiah smiling

Chris and his range buddy, Russ

Wow!

Jessi ready to head down!

Fun at the Pool!

The kids LOVE to go to the YMCA pool here and we went last night for Family Night. It was a lot of fun to have Chris with us!! He enjoyed chasing the kids around the pool, teaching Jilli to jump from the side and going down the Waterslide! I enjoyed not having to be as vigilant of an observer and I enjoyed playing with Jilli in the sprinkler section! It was a great night together... getting rarer these days...


Cheesy kids!

Daddy and Jilli

Waiting to go back in!

Snuggling

Faces!

I took Jess and Jilli to the park while Miah was at a birthday party. It was hot but breezy and pretty decent for this area... They played on the playground and then Jilli wanted to blow bubbles. I got some great pictures of her making some of her more "classic" faces. She is just adorable!! I also got one of her covered in dirt from her bout with the tetherball... hee hee! Love that kid!!


Hmmmmm.... face

Let me think... face

Monkey face

dirty face!

New Creative Blog

I have finally created a fun new blog to showcase my Creative talents! I hope you'll check it out... I am hoping it motivates me to be creative EVERYDAY! Check it out here and let me know what you think! Also, add www.sharecreativesparks.blogspot.com to your lists! Thanks!!

Saturday Night Concert!

We went to see Natalie Stovall in concert Saturday night for FREE!! It was a blast! She is a young country music star from Tennessee and can play a mean fiddle! She rocked us out to some awesome country and rock songs and a few of her own songs. It was so cool. The kids loved dancing along, the Dippin' Dots their dad bought them and playing frisbee and soccer behind the grandstands!
Great summer fun!

Favorite Dress

This is Jessi's favorite dress. (And mine too!!) She looked so cute on Sunday in it!
She's had an adventurous week. She had a tooth pulled at the dentist on Thursday and that always throws us for loops... She seems so calm until she climbs into the dental chair and then she just loses it! The dentist was great though and we finally talked her into breathing the laughing gas, which calmed her down enough so they could pull the baby tooth in all of 2 seconds!! Man! I was never that anxious as a kid!! No worries! Hopefully she'll grow out of it! She sure is adorable and her pretty smile and beautiful eyes make up for those chaotic moments!

Her First Haircut!

Jilli was in need of a trim... so we got our lovely hairdresser to come and give her a little cut! After thinking about it, we decided that this was her FIRST haircut!! Her hair took so long to grow in that we had never cut it, being so glad to actually see hair! She was so nervous and insisted that I hold her hand the whole time!! Silli Jilli! Such a cutie!

Swim Fun!

We've been frequenting our local YMCA pool and having a ball! Nothing better than a cool pool on a hot day!


Ready to go!

Juice break

Model material! Especially with the farmer tan!!

Off to play!