Summertime

MAY:

May was a super busy month for Richard- probably the busiest he has been since his first year in the PhD.  We all couldn't wait for May to be over :)  But while we waited for Richard's schedule to calm back down, we had a few things going on...

First off was my birthday!  Julie and Kristi spoiled me with a birthday celebration before they left but Richard was still super awesome and made my real birthday great too.  We decided to go mini golfing and luckily Brooklyn was zonked out the whole time.  McKenna had fallen out of her bed that morning and couldn't put any weight on her foot.  I was convinced it was broken but Richard told me to give it some time before we went to the doctor.  Kenna is NOT one to complain about being hurt.  She has a VERY high pain tolerance.  She was so sad to not be golfing with us so we tried to figure out a way to let her still participate without leaving the stroller

However that wasn't enough and she kept getting out and wincing around, limping, until it hurt too much and she would get back in the stroller.  Eventually it started hurting less and less and by the time we left she was running around like normal.  Thank goodness!

Kaylee had her end of the year preschool program, which was adorable.  They did snatches of Disney songs and she got really into the actions.  I'm so glad they do this instead of a graduation! We will miss BEARS preschool, it was perfect for Kaylee.

Brooklyn started her real smiles and pretty much hasn't stopped.  She is so easy to get a smile out of and brightens our day so fast with just one look.

JUNE:

Holly came to visit in June and asked if I would put together a birthday party for Madeline, since she hates that kind of thing.  Since I love it I was more than happy to do it!  Madeline is obsessed with mermaids so I went with that for our theme. We had a mermaid race across the floor, played a musical chairs type of game with seashells, toss the coins in the treasure chest, Little Mermaid BINGO, Don't Eat Pete, face painting, and pin the tail on the mermaid.  Holly also made an amazing ice cream cake with this super cute frosting mermaid.  All in all I think it was a success!

We also had one of our neighbor's recently get into face painting and Madeline has been wanting her face painted for a while so he was nice enough to paint all their faces and we went to COSI to show them off.  We also hit up the zoo to show Holly the new Africa part.

It worked out perfectly that while Holly was here we also were able to bless Brooklyn in our ward.  Richard gave her a beautiful blessing and we were so happy to have some family in town for the event. 

JULY:

We tried face painting our kids faces for the 4th of July again this year and it turned out pretty good.  The girls liked it so much they were sure that Daddy would love it too and he was nice enough to accommodate them.

As usual we had our neighborhood BBQ and bought some snaps and sparklers for the girls to enjoy.  We also let Kaylee stay up and watch the fireworks that we can see from our house.  We had planned on letting McKenna stay up too but she didn't make it that long!  It was a fabulous holiday. 

We went to visit Franklin Park Conservatory for their big bugs exhibit and it was actually really fun!  They were spread out all over the conservatory so it made a fun little scavenger hunt for us.  McKenna was pretty terrified of them and wouldn't get too close to the scary ones but she still liked seeing them from a distance :)

Chick-Fil-A had their "Dress like a cow and eat free" day again.  We weren't planning on going but our neighbor was painting the kids faces and a bunch of moms were going together so we tagged along.  I think it will have to be a tradition of ours!

I have been going back through the preschool my sisters and I did a couple years ago and doing the same lessons over again for Kenna.  She has been loving it!  She asks every day now if we can do more preschool projects.  By far the girls favorite one was doing shaving cream fireworks that ended up in a shaving cream battle in the bath.  I think they could do this one every day!

We also went to Indianapolis and St Louis at the end of July. Because we did so much, I'm giving our trip it's own post... That ended July for us and I can't believe the summer is already almost over!!!