July

We started off the month making 4th of July treats! 

The big even of July was our family vacation to my folk's cottage for two weeks! It was awesome.

Below Joy is playing in the sand.

The girls picked flowers for us daily. Pay no attention to the two naked kids on the stairs. ;-)

Carrie and Lydia went tubing this year!

But the all-time favorite activity this year was jumping off the dock. We did this every day, many times a day.

And Zach and my favorite activity was going for pontoon rides with the kids.

Captain Carrie!

The fun was too much for Carrie...

Just a sweet picture of Joy...

This first morning the girls woke up early and put all of our groceries on the table, playing store.

Carrie is such a care giver to her baby sis.

Our dear friends from Jarvis came for the weekend. They have three boys and they all awoke nice and early to go fishing.

Here are the kids eating breakfast.

Lydia and Colin found a dinosaur bone! They spent a lot of time together being paleontologists.

Doing devotions together on the boat in the evening.

We greatly enjoyed relaxing and swimming in the deep water and jumping off the pontoon.

Storytime!

Tubing!

Chuck soaking in the sun!

Group shot before they left.

Mama and Si kayak ride!

All the fun in the lake and sun wore the kiddos out...

We wrapped up the week with a family trip to get ice-cream!

It was an awesome vacation. Another fun outing was going to Rockford's Farmer's Market.

Creepy picture of Si in a box with dolls.

Boulder Ridge Animal Park! This place is awesome.

Cherry picking!

Swinging at the park!

I got them all swinging at once. So fun!

Cousin Sarah and Si.

Zach and I got to take the older girls to their babysitter's wedding. It was at the Conference Grounds by Lake Michigan. Here are the girls seeing the big lake for the first time.

This month we discovered that Joy loves corn on the cobb.

Pretty girls all ready for church.

Grandpa and Si dressed alike. So sweet.

June...FINALLY!

So here we go... catch up time! I'm a good 4 months behind- that's what 4 kids in 5 years will do to ya. Here is June! Below the kids are doing some outdoor art.

 

We took a trip to a nearby park with a beach and Joy got to experience sand for the first time!

You know it's summer when there are home-made popsicles!

Daddy and Joy having fun!

This picture needs some explaining. So, when JoyAnna nursed she had this incredibly annoying habit of pinching and twisting the skin under my arm. It got to the point where I had about 15 itty bitty black and blue marks. What a stinker.

Two beauties ready for church.

Joy's first swim!!

We got some read aloud books from the library and the kids loved using their head phones to listen... for about 5 minutes.

My cousin, Lindsey, was visiting from Florida with her two kids. Her youngest, Saylor, and Joy were born a few weeks apart.

You know it's summer when you hear the ice-cream truck!

The best part of a Costco trip is the Costco tower you get to make when you get home!

Strawberry picking!

We ran into some friends while we were picking so the kids had to run down a hill together. :-)

Carrie loves to play her guitar just like Mr. Matt, our worship director at church.

Pretty sure he's gonna make us burn this one some day. :-) Dancing Si!

Group hug before Daddy leaves for work!

Si is our little sugar sneaker. Here he is caught in the act.

Just a quick picture in front of our neighbors beautiful flowers.

We had VBS this month at church. Here is Lydia's hair for Crazy Hair Night!

Carrie decided she wanted to go about 5 minutes before hand so I quickly did her crazy hair too.

And here is what our two little mischief-makers did while I was in the bathroom doing Carrie's hair.

And here they are for hat day!

Good friends of ours were in town and we got to enjoy a quick morning visit with them and their four kids. Yup, that's 8 kids total.

We miss you Bus and Jules!

All four kids dressed and looking in the right direction- that's a winner!

Look out! It's a Carrisaurus!

I celebrated my 35th birthday this month. WHAT?! Anyway, the kids know I like the charms in Lucky Charms so they, and Daddy, secretly pulled all the charms out of 4 boxes to make me an entire bag of charms as a gift!

Face painting at the zoo with cousin Daniel!

And you have to climb on John Ball whenever you visit the zoo.

Isabelle and Carrie in coordinating jams. Too cute.

Another great picture of all 4 kiddos! I get one like this out of every, oh...500 picture attempts. Seriously.