The 4th of July!!

This 4th was a little different for us. Normally we get together with Hunny's side of the family and have a big picnic. It is something I look forward to all year. But this year no one had a picnic. So we ended up having lunch with my side of the family. We ended up going to Monicals. Monicals is sort of a family tradition that we have had since I was a little girl. So that is were we decided to go for lunch. :)
Joy even got to bring her current "boyfriend" Andrew. And I must say that he is a very nice and polite boy.

Dada was in her element with 16 other people to show off for!!

Brother on the other hand wasn't. He was quite crabby and cranky that day!!







Last year at our city's fireworks, there was a shooting, and people were throwing fireworks into the crowd a half a block from where we were sitting. We just didn't feel safe and so we decided to go somewhere else this year.So we jumped at the chance of having a picnic at Kevin and Heather's house. This was something that I had been looking forward to.





Beth and Heather having a great time!


The girls were laughing and running around before the fireworks started.
They were playing in the field across from us and picked flowers. They even found a Roley poly that they all fought over!!



The boys played their own games in the field......I still don't know what they were doing, but they were having fun!! :) Brother and Logan came up to the parents with this pile of dirt as their treasure!!

And this is my favorite one of the day! Little Eli is such a precious baby. He was just laughing and smiling and making all the parents laugh!!






And finally....last night I made a peach crisp. Peaches are one of my favorite fruits, and I had a bag I needed to use up. I have also been in the baking mood lately. SO I whipped up this crisp. Hunny said I did good. It was delicious!!

Weeding, dumps and studs

Thursday morning I was up at the crack of dawn. For some reason I just couldn't sleep. So I got most of my house work done, and then headed over to Tancy's to continue weeding the garden. I wish you could see how high this pile is. With the help of Rebekah and Hannah, we got a lot done in the garden.

I got a little dirty today!!












Chris and Steve were hard at work tearing 1 of the many roofs in Tancy's dining room.




Later in the afternoon, Esther, Rebekah, Hannah, Big Nathan, Brother and myself headed to the dump to drop off some junk.


Brother was totally excited about going to the dump! His eyes were very wide as we pulled up the entryway and this is what we saw->


Hunny came over after work to help with some plumbing. But he wouldn't look at me and smile, so this is his picture. :(


Tancy and I with our studs.

A busy, busy day

My friend Tancy has been in demolition mode in her house this past month. I don't mean paint the walls and get some new carpet, I mean MAJOR demolition. See they have this addition where there dining room and family room are. They also have a bedroom and bathroom there.

Now when the Warmuth (or was it Varmuth??) brothers built the addition back in 1976, they really did a......in Tancy's words a craptastic job. Now she doesn't mean craptastic.....she means CRAPTASTIC!!!!!!! There isn't a straight line in the whole place. Some of the walls don't match up, the floor is caving in, there are windows, the builders just left IN the wall. Tancy has found 2 windows after taking off the paneling and drywall. It really is unbelievable. Honestly I could probably have done a better job at building that addition then the Warmuth brothers.

I say all that to say that yesterday Beth and I went over and helped Tancy.



Tancy is tearing out everything! Walls, ceilings, floors, you name it, it's coming out! It is actually quite amazing.

Now if you have never helped take out a floor, it's actually quite harder then it looks. I do not take floors or walls out. Tancy calls me a priss. And I'm ok with that. In all honesty, I am afraid I am going to fall through the floors joices or something. (By the way.....the picture of me is supposed to show me doing nothing and Beth working really really hard.) Well, since I don't take out floors or walls, I was laying in bed the other night wondering what I could be doing to help Tancy out. And I got to thinking about her garden. Since she has been working so hard in the house, her garden had succumbed to weeds. So I spent yesterday working in the garden and tending the never ending burn pile. (they are burning all the wood from the house)


The boys helped drag all the wood out to the burn pit.

While the mothers were working.....the kids played. And let me tell you, they played so well.
The kids built a "tree house" in the pine tree. It was so fun to hear them playing and pretending.
















This is by far my favorite picture of the day. #4 was the supervisor of the day. He helped me in the garden, and kept Beth, Esther and Tancy on track. He also kept all the other kids in line. :) Don't you just love the stud finder in his pocket??

Not something you see every day

Look what was on our patio yesterday!!!!!!

It's a wild turkey and 4 babies!

Now for some of you seeing a wild turkey and 4 babies may not be a big deal to you. Maybe you see it routinely. But I don't. You see, I live in the CITY!!! Not just on the outskirts of the city, but IN the city!!!

The waterpark

Yesterday, we were blessed with 2 free tickets to a waterpark here in town. The kids have been begging to go for a very long time. So they were so excited to learn where we were going. Dada's cousin had spent the night on Wednesday night, so she was able to go with us also.





#2 and #3 on the nets


Elisa on the nets






Dada on the nets










#1 and brother on the nets




Brother running around








I Love this picture of #4. It was so cool watching him in the water. He wanted so badly to keep up with the big kids. And for the most part he did. This is 1 of my favorite pictures of him from that day.






Brother and #1 pumping some water







All the kids waiting to go play again after lunch.






#2 and Dada on the lazy river.

A funfilled weekend

Last Saturday we spent the day at Jared and Melissa's. The guys were helping Jared roof their house. Which is quite the chore if you ask me.

Thankfully for everyone involved Jared had Kevin come over and help. Kevin has his own construction business and knows what he is doing.




I was thrilled to spend some time with Melissa and Heather. I have come to really enjoy there friendships since they have been at church. It is also a joy to see Melissa grow in her role as Dylan's step mom. You can tell how much they love each other. Melissa is so patient and kind to Dylan. I love the way Dylan wouldn't let go of Melissa.



Dylan is such a card. He likes to walk around in everyones shoes.








Later that night we took the kids to Chili's again. We had such a nice time just as a little family.

I just want to thank Beth and Brad. They gave us a gift card for Chili's a while back. Although they didn't need to, they blessed us with the gift card for watching their kids.
The kids were hamming it up and making us laugh. They can be so fun!!












And LATER...........


While Tancy was gone SOMEONE tp'd her house!! Can you believe kids these days??










And finally......

We had a potluck at church on Sunday. ( I love potluck Sunday's!!) It was the 1st Sunday that the playground was finished.
The kids flocked to the playground. It was so fun to watch them having such a great time.




Remember playing spider??? The swings were full of girls playing spider!

It rained for a brief moment and the girls were inside playing dolls. I walked into the conference room and here they were.


I also want to thank Roger. I have been really hating my camera lately. It never would take great indoor pictures. He took the time to talk to me and answer any questions I had.
I think I sort of look demonic here. :)