4th of July Fireworks

After a long drive home from Mississippi we were greeted by friends bringing dinner, dessert and fireworks.  This was Kimberly's first 4th of July celebration with us and we were curious to see what she thought.  Well... she gave the fireworks two thumbs down.  It didn't help that her sleeping was way off after a visit to Gran's and it was past her bedtime when the fun began.  She loved the bubbles and rocket balloons... and of course the Popsicles.  The rest of us enjoyed the show the neighbors do all around us, plus a show of our own and the kids had a blast with the sparklers. 

Sparkler fun!

Thanks friends for celebrating with us.

Here we go to the Zoo

 Standing on one leg like the flamingos.

 Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting!

 Clouded Leopards are so cool.

A couple of other cool cats.

 Chillin'

Ari the White-Cheeked Gibbon, our zoo's newest addition by adoption.

 I almost left off the craziest thing... the raccoon.  Not a zoo animal.  We noticed it above the meerkats then it climbed over to another tree and crawled/fell down out of the tree right in front of us.  That's when we thought, uh oh, this animal is not right.  We kept an eye on it while my friend went and told zoo staff.  Apparently they had been trying to trap it the day before.  Strange.  Beware of raccoon at zoo.

Cookout and Neighborhood Fireworks

Fun in the snow

Having some sledding fun. We have 4-5 inches of snow. Unfortunately it iced over last night. Sledding today was kind of scary. We made the kids go to a smaller hill because everyone kept zinging across the road. It was like a sheet of ice. There was just no way to stop yourself. We had grownups lining the road to catch the kids. The smaller hill wasn't so bad.

Reed and mommy sledding before the ice hit.



Back home now. Warming up. Safe and sound.

Cate's Play Date

Cate's classmate and her little brother came over for a play date. They had so much fun jumping on the trampoline and playing with every toy they could find.

RSC Fall Festival

The kids got to wear their costumes a little early for the Fall Festival at church.



Aren't they adorable?

It's Pumpkin Time!

About this time every year we make our way over to Walden Farm to look at pumpkins, pet the farm animals, play in the hay maze and lots of other fun things.



We always see someone we know there. This time we bumped into some good friends of ours and the girls had their picture made together.

Sonshine Promises

A good friend of mine, Gretchen Clasby, is the artist who painted the above picture. She has a business called Sonshine Promises and creates wonderful greeting cards, figurines, framed pictures... of little bluebirds and cardinals. I especially love the frazzled-looking birds. Gretchen ministers to so many through the sayings and scripture quotes. I was just thinking about her and what she has meant in my life so I thought I would share. If you would like to see any of her products you can go here for her website.

Weekend in the Woods

We had a great weekend camping at Cedars of Lebanon State Park with our great friends, the Binders. This is one of our favorite parks.



We did some letterboxing (treasure hunting). Along the trails we spotted some abandoned fairy houses and came upon a troll bridge. The troll almost got Heidi at the bridge.



Cate found the dollar bill the troll had left in a cave as bait but she managed to escape without being caught.



We found the tree that Peter Pan uses to get into his hidden cave.



The kids collected feathers, chestnuts and rocks to make a fairy house back at camp. They had a great time painting rocks and pictures to lure the fairies to our house.



We saw lots of walking stick bugs, spiders, rolly pollies, caterpillars (calerpitters as Reed says) and grubs. A good time was had by all and it was really hard to pack up and head home.

Bowling with the little ones

My kids had never been bowling. Their friend Eli had a birthday party at the bowling alley. They had a blast. Cate said she really liked the Diego cupcakes.

Cate would only use the pink ball.







Reed could barely get the ball down the lane.