Summer Fun

Okay, after the first week of summer vacation, when it rained nonstop (my kids said the first two days felt like two weeks), we were perked up by some lovely sunny weather and some visiting cousins that made the next couple of weeks not only bearable, but actually fun! We went to the zoo, though just being at our house feels like being at the zoo most of the time....

These are our little monkeys hanging off the railing at the monkey house....see, I told you, it's always like the zoo at our house!

Adam is so happy to have cousin Kobe here visiting for several weeks. These two cute boys have been known to hang out together very happily for 36 hours or more, and STILL complain when it's time to leave! They are such good friends!

We had a Father's Day BBQ and slip 'n slide party. We would have made Papa T. slide down the Shark-O-Death, but he had just returned from a fishing trip in Alaska and apparently had had enough sea wildlife to last a while!

Sunbathing Beauties

Preschool Grad

Happy summer everyone! Schools out! Hooray (I think). Here are a few pictures of Benny's preschool graduation. We already miss preschool (I do, anyway). We have the BEST teacher, and Spencer can hardly wait 'til it's his turn.

This is funny because it looks like Ben is half asleep while giving his part. Anyone who knows Ben knows what a ham he is. For weeks he practiced his part with great enthusiasm, jumping up and down and waving his arms at the end. But when it came to the real deal, this is exactly what he looked like the whole time. I thought, "who is this and what did they do with my son?"

Congratulations Ben! You did a super job!

I'm proud to be an American!

Dino Park!

For our cousin's Brie's birthday, we took an exciting trip to the dinosaur park. What an adventure! The kids ran from one trail to the next, exploring and finding gigantic dinosaurs hidden in the trees. Way cool!

The kids wanted to know the names of every dinosaur. T Rex we could handle, but most of them we couldn't pronounce with our limited vocabulary...why couldn't they just call them "big green monster with horns" or something?!

Thanks Brie for letting us come to your party! We love you!

Wicked Sisters!

Okay, now you will officially know how long it's been since I posted, but I couldn't leave these pictures out (by the way, thanks Trisch since I forgot my camera). After nine LONG months of waiting (it was worse than being pregnant) we finally went to Wicked. This was our annual sisters' weekend with our wonderful mom, and I have to say it was the best one yet! We had so much fun. Thanks girls, and thanks so much mom! This was a day we will never forget.

Aubree was probably more excited than I was. She has every song on the CD memorized and can play most of them on the piano too. I was so happy she could come with us. And, she held up under a full day (and I do mean a full day) of shopping with four crazy women!

Piano Recital

Saturday was our spring piano recital. I planned for way too many people, and made a ton of treats. Then some of the kids didn't show, and the rest didn't bring many spectators, so we ended up with a very small, short recital and tons of treats. I guess that's better than a long, boring recital and not enough treats!

How thrilling to play on a fancy black baby grand!

Look out Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, here comes Aubree!

EGG FIGHT

I guess it's just our weird family tradition to have egg fights with our Easter eggs, because nobody else I know does this! First you color the eggs....

Then you give your special egg a good name--I was sure my Egg-O-Death would be the winner this year!

Or, if you're patient enough, you make it very beautiful--like Daddy's hot-air-balloon-egg.

Then, you find a worthy opponent and crack the ends of your eggs together. Whichever egg does not crack, is the winner! The legendary final battle was between Cam's "Eggonator" and Ben's "Smanji Rocks" eggs....and Ben wins! His facial expressions give him a slight edge. Nobody can pull mean, egg-killer expressions quite like Ben. He really does rock!

Easter

Well, the Easter Bunny came and he hid the eggs pretty well this year...We had to help the big kids out and we still didn't find them all. They'll probably turn up sometime....Here's Ben & Spence with their cousins Brie and Amy getting ready for the little kid hunt!

Guess who found the GOLDEN EGG?