This picture has nothing to do with the post.  But I feel bad if I don’t post any pictures… so here for you’re viewing enjoyment are the Brothers!

I realized that I missed a few important post days a while ago, so I’ve gone back and posted about those things.  However, in order to make it make sense when I look for them someday, I put those posts on the days that I really SHOULD have written about them.  So, if you’re interested you’ll need to click on the link below and it will take you back so you can read about it:

Track and Field

Spring Recital

Last day of School 2019

There.  Now I think I’m pretty much caught up.  Well, at least for now.  Summer keeps leaping forward (how can it be July 5th already!?!) Our next big thing is getting ready for Josiah’s Birthday party (and first ever sleepover with his friends!) and then a week later we head out on our Colorado trip.  Oh, and our Anniversary is somewhere in there too.  July is a big month!

Today we spent the day with our friends–who host every year.  Chanhassen (the city next to us, where they live) has a parade on the 4th, and they live close enough to walk down to the parade route and then afterwards they invite everyone over for a BBQ in their backyard.   It’s always fun to hang out and eat.  We’re finally getting to the point where we can actually sit and enjoy socializing–now that Levi is almost 3 and able to play pretty well unattended with the other kids.  It’s glorious.

I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get out to see any fireworks tonight.  Levi is definitely getting more manageable, but I’m not going to push my luck.  Dusk is pretty late… Although we can see a bunch of fireworks (albeit pretty far away) from our backyard, so we’ll probably just do that again.  🙂

On her Birthday morning Josiah and Chloe wanted to each take a picture with Maddie in celebration of her day.  She was, of course, happy to oblige.

I got the camera all ready and then said one, two, three!  And this is what she did. Hahah!

Of course, as soon as I snapped the picture she couldn’t hold that face…

She really enjoyed soaking up all the attention!

This past Thursday was Maddie’s 4th Birthday!

We have been counting down with eager expectation for days and days.  She came up with a few funny requests for her Birthday this year:

• have a pink cake with marshmallows
• get a bell for her bike
• get a scooter
• go to Valleyfair
• eat pizza
• fly an airplane…

So, we did our best to fulfill all of her (reasonable) hopes and dreams.  I picked “pink” as her theme since we aren’t having a real party.  But party or not, I just couldn’t resist putting something together for her.

She did get a new scooter, so we made a trip to the park bright and early to try it out and play for a bit. Everyone had a good time.  Well, I should say everyone had a good time at the park.  Levi was NOT HAPPY that he was not allowed to touch or ride on Maddie’s new scooter.  Not pleased at all.  There was a lot of screaming and crying for a bit, but don’t worry, he did eventually come to terms with it.

We also filled out our traditional Birthday Question sheet.  This proved to be a bit frustrating for me.  She’s at the age where she will say whatever everyone else is saying, or say whatever she is looking at, at that exact moment.  We did power through with a bit of guidance and “shushing” of the older kids.

Jen made a beautiful Piñata for Maddie as well.  It was almost too pretty to smash!  And it must have thought so as well… because it was VERY hard to get open!  It eventually tore off of the handle and fell, but even then it took jumping on top of it and eventually we had to tear it open.  Ha!

I’m behind on my posting again–I’ll be catching up tomorrow.  But for tonight, how about a couple fun pictures of Levi?  He is becoming such a kid and less an less of a toddler.  His personality is just exploding these days, and overall he is so much more delightful.  Especially in the mornings.  He will be singing and giggling and joking around before 7:00.  I’ll have to do a bullet point post again soon to highlight the kids and their likes/dislikes.

Josiah had VBS last week at Grace Church.  He was invited by a friend (Asher!) and his Mom offered to bring him for me on Monday and Tuesday while I was teaching, which was amazing.  It was from 9:00 – 12:00 each day and then they had a fun program on Friday evening.  It was a culmination of all the skits that they had seen throughout the week all put together in one program with an additional ending scene–so even though they had seen it, they weren’t quite sure how it would end.  I was super impressed with the music and performances.  It was really well done.

Their theme was county, and titled “Cross Road” so all the music had lyrics with that in it.  We did buy the CD so the kids have been humming it all week.  I love it.

We took this picture on our way to watch the ending program.  It was just me and the Big Kids, which is a good thing since it was a bit longer than I expected… we didn’t get home until 10:00!  Chloe was concerned that we were out that late and asked me, “Are you sure you can even drive this late at night?” Hahah! I assured her we would be fine.

After the show they provided cookies and an sheet with all the actors/actresses pictures on it and you could walk around and get their autographs.  It was a fun event.  Chloe and Josiah did collect quite a few autographs.  Fun summer memories!

Well, for those curious–my rash (PUPPS, or whatever it may be) does seem to be healing.  It seems to have stopped spreading and is definitely less itchy. It did make it just down onto my right wrist, but that was pretty much the extent.  Now it looks a little more like tiny pin prick scabs and dry skin.  Which sounds really gross, but it’s much better than it was.  So, if you’ve been praying for me, thank you!

I mentioned yesterday that I was gone earlier this month–and it happened to be a GORGEOUS day.  So, Tim, being the fun, awesome Dad that he is–bought the kids a bigger pool to play in and even set them up with a picnic lunch outside.  They LOVED it.

See?  How adorable is that!?!

Earlier this month I drove over to Amery to Holly’s house to meet up with Stacy and Jen.  It’s our 20 year class reunion year and, while that didn’t sound super enticing for me (ok, in all seriousness it totally stresses me out) we thought it would be fun to just get together with our group of girlfriends. Tonya couldn’t make it down from Canada, but the rest of us drove to meet at Holly’s new house.  We had a great time visiting for the day.  We went for a walk down the state trail, got ice cream cones at an adorable shoppe in town, enjoyed the grand tour of Holly’s new digs, and then finished off the evening by going out to eat at a pizzeria in town.  It was so much fun!  And… I only took 2 pictures the whole day. Ha!  Here they are: