Saturday Fun

In the morning we went to my parent's house so that Paul and I could get new brakes on our cars. Paul got new front brakes, I got new back brakes. I could have gotten a picture of the 3 guys (Papaw, Paul and Zach) putting on the brakes but someone in the group was not wanting to listen. I'll let you decide which one that was. :)

Instead I'll put this picture on here. Zach kept running over to pick berries, he was way more interested in that then helping with the cars!

After getting new brakes we went over to Paul's parents house to do a little swimming. This was the first day that I've been in the pool , all the weekends before now we were either busy or it was raining. When we got there PopPop was mowing the lawn, he stopped to take Zach for a little ride.

The kids all enjoyed swimming and splashing in the pool.

The clouds came and went while we were there, eventually though it became too cloudy and cold so it was time for us to leave. Hopefully we have more summer like weather and can get to the pool more often. I can't believe that it was the end of June before I was able to get in.

Megan's Soccer Camp

This week Megan has been doing a soccer camp from 9:00 to 12:30 everyday at the park near our house. It's sponsored by a nearby church and the best part....it's free! Lauren has gone to this camp in the past for quite a few years, this year she thought she was too old for it even though the camp goes up to age 14, but it was Megan's first year since they start at age 9. I'm so glad I signed her up even though we didn't know anyone else doing it. She really enjoyed it!

Today they had a scrimmage game that we could come and watch so of course I couldn't miss that! Here she is with a couple of her new friends.
Yes, she did manage to kick the ball quite a few times. I'm so used to watching Lauren play that it was interesting to watch how a bunch of 9 and 10-year-olds play soccer. The whole group of them follow the ball, there's no such thing as positions!

Except for the goalie position, here she is playing goalie.

And here she is being goalie and being scored on!

She let in two goals before they switched and someone else became goalie. Though in Megan's defense she wasn't the only one to let the other team score.

Back to running the field, Megan's trying to get the ball.

They played for about an hour, which was a lot for how hot and humid it was today. Here's the rest of the gang on the sidelines watching.

After the scrimmage game the church had a cookout that everyone was invited to. They had hamburgers, hotdogs, pasta salad, chips, watermelon, cookies and drinks. We stayed to eat but once we were done we were out of there. It was just way too hot to stay and hang out.

Megan had a lot of fun and she got a lot of exercise, hopefully she wants to do it again next year.

All Night All Day

The kids sang this past Sunday in church, the last time till the fall. Even though I taped this song last week when they played at Friends Home Kristin was wanting me to tape it again. So here it is, uncut. It's a minute 14 seconds long.

Yet another great job done by the children's choir.

Happy 14th Birthday Lauren!

Lauren actually started last Friday celebrating her birthday when she asked if she could have some of her friends come over and spend the night. There was a PAL dance that night so the plan was for her friends to come over around 4:00, feed everyone pizza and cake, take and pick up everyone from the dance, and then have them sleepover till Saturday at 11:00. So 4 of her friends (she was limited in the number, they had to fit in our cars!) came to her "birthday party." Here they are singing Happy Birthday to her.

Her ice cream cake that she picked out at BJ's that day.

I think the girls all had fun. They seemed to get along well even though some were school friends and some were soccer friends. One of her friends proudly said she didn't go to sleep till 6:30 am! Lauren just can't hang, she was the first asleep at 4:00 :)

Saturday evening we actually had nothing to do and since the whole family was together we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate Lauren's birthday. We usually let the birthday person choose where they want to go and Lauren wanted to go to Olive Garden so that's where we went.

Today, her actual birthday, was so busy that I knew I couldn't do much for her. (Mainly why we did everything over the weekend.) We did manage to sneak over to Coldstone Creamery while Zach was sleeping and get some of their delicious ice cream. Yum!

After dinner we did things a little backwards and opened presents first before cake since no one was hungry. I got her one of those cards that makes music when you open it, this one played "Walking on Sunshine" since she's my little sunshine. (Awwww!)

I love this picture! I told Zach to go sit on Lauren's back and they got a little goofy.

One more cake. That girl got 2 cakes and a huge cup of ice cream for her birthday. I might have to take her clothes shopping for bigger clothes!

As of right now that cake has yet to be eaten. We were still so full from dinner that we just put the candles on, sang to Lauren and she blew the candles out. It was funny because I started to put the lid back on and put it away and Zach just lost it. "I want cake!!!!" I guess he was the only one not full! He was satisfied with a cookie from the top, when Lauren gets back from karate in a few minutes we'll finally have our cake.

Can't believe that my baby is 14! Seems like yesterday she was a little girl...

Nothing but Videos

Kristin and Megan went to the nursing home again today to sing some more songs with the children's choir. My favorite one of Megan is this one with the hand motions:

I condensed 5 songs down to 50 seconds for this next one!

Kristin even played the clarinet for one of the songs. The children's choir is supposed to sing this one next week in church so it was kind of like a dress rehearsal for them. The only thing you're missing in this video is where the kids sing Sweet Low Sweet Chariot, Kristin doesn't play her clarinet for that and the video was too long so that part got cut.

Very nice little concert they had. Kristin has practiced that song all year. It was one of the songs in her book but it was near the back so she had to learn some of the notes herself since her music classes at school hadn't gotten that far. I think she did a very good job, especially after hearing her practice all year! I really thought she was hopeless there for awhile but she pulled through. Now for Lauren to teach Megan how to play the saxophone... The choir will turn into a band!

School is out!

The girls all had a half day of school today, well not really a half day. Lauren got out of school at 9:30 and Megan and Kristin got out at 11:30. So as soon as the last two got off the bus we headed out to lunch to celebrate. I've been doing that for the past few years, last year it was Red Robin and the year before it was Cheeseburger in Paradise. None of us can remember where we went the year before that but I know we went somewhere. As you can tell we don't do go to any 5-star restaurants! I try to go to somewhere we've never been and this year we decided to try... Famous Dave's.

In case you're wondering Megan said she was trying to tuck in her shirt!

Famous Dave's was not crowded at all and we got seated right away. Kristin of course got ribs, I got a beef brisket sandwich, Lauren got a BBQ salad, Megan got a cheeseburger kids meal and Zach got a chicken fingers kids meal. Very delicious! We all especially enjoyed the homemade chips we got at the beginning that came with 5 different barbecue sauces. Lauren liked the "Devil's Spit" the best. I didn't know we were going to get the chips, if I had I probably wouldn't have ordered anything for Zach. But we brought what he didn't eat home and that's going to be his dinner.

Would we go back again? We all voted yes!

Weekend Fun

The girls like to cook but did you know that Zach does too? Here he is mashing my potatoes to go with dinner Friday night. Afterwards he added blue food coloring to them (he chose it) so we ate blue potatoes.

Saturday night was our town's night where they shut down Main St. and all the local businesses are out, bands play, it's just a fun evening. I've heard they do this to celebrate that all the University kids are gone! I was wanting to go and take the kids but Lauren wanted to go with one of her friends and Kristin didn't want to go at all. Paul wasn't sure about going so in the end it was just Megan and myself.

Wow was it crowded, probably because it was such a nice night. Even though it was just the two of us Megan and I had fun. She got her face painted and we got gelato. We got a free balloon (could have gotten a ton more, just didn't want to carry them) but I did pay for an Elmo balloon to take home to Zach. I couldn't resist, it just looked so darn cute.

Megan has a face that looks like Elmo!

On Sunday Lauren was getting her things ready to go to a pool party after church. What silly glasses she has, Zach thought so too!

Daddy had a softball game Sunday evening. Zach was practicing in case they needed him as backup. I was pitching to him and he actually hit the ball a few times so even though daddy's team didn't need him this time, he's ready for a future game.

Megan's Recorder Recital

In 3rd grade the kids learn how to play the recorder in music class. Lauren did it, Kristin did it and this year it was Megan's turn. The concert was yesterday afternoon so while Lauren stayed home with Zach I went over and watched the concert.

First they all played several different songs together. Then they took turns playing either individually or in small groups if they wanted. When it was Megan's turn she played a duet with her friend, a song that they had written. Her music teacher told us that they had approached her and asked if they could have a piece of staff paper, she seemed really impressed with them and told them she would laminate their song so they could keep it as a keepsake.

The music teacher Megan has is the same one that Kristin has and the same one that Lauren had when she was in elementary school. When I dropped the girls off with that beehive a few weeks ago she was there where the drop off is and stopped me. She wanted to tell me how great my girls were and how much she just loved having them in her class. That just made my day to hear that.

Of course I couldn't go to a concert without recording part of it and of course I couldn't blog about it without putting something on here. So here's Megan playing her duet she helped write. I only have the first 30 seconds, they actually played for a minute.

Overall a very nice little 3rd grade concert. I've got a ways to go before I get to go to Zach's!

Having Fun Outside

Today I told Zach if he was extra good while I ran a few errands than we would stop at the park and play for awhile. Today is supposedly the best day of the week so I felt like we had to get out and enjoy it. Any time he started to act up all I had to do was mention the park and he settled right back down. This was the best shopping I've had in a long time!

So we stopped at the park as promised and he had the absolute best time. It was so much fun to just watch him. He had a huge smile on his face as he ran from one thing to another. I believe he played, or tried to play, on every piece of equipment there. Whenever he sees someone he calls them "people," like, "look, there's people over there" or "a people is coming." He doesn't get the whole singular/plural thing. So he was climbing up the steps to go down a slide when a little girl probably a little older than him started to climb up. He stood at the top and yelled to her, "come up here people, come up here." He loved being around the other kids.

Here's some pictures from before Memorial Day from where we enjoyed the outdoors at our house. First here's Zach trying to jump rope.
He kept wanting to walk up to me with that jump rope, just a flinging it around. I kept telling him to get back. You've got to always be watching when he's around, he'll whack you with something.

He's still not very good with riding his tricycle. I don't think he really has the patience for it. But here's a cute picture of him sitting on it blowing bubbles.

I got our little blow up pool out of the basement and I positioned his table with the umbrella so it would give him some shade. There were only a couple of inches of water in but he didn't care, he still had fun splashing and jumping in it. He has such a goofy face in this picture.

I went and got him some sunglasses from inside because it was really sunny out. Of course he didn't keep them on. Though he did try to put them on himself, upside down that is.

And finally it was lunchtime so we had our lunch outside. Here he is eating his "pb&j," his favorite.

One time, about a month ago, he came up to me when I had the refrigerator open and he kept saying he wanted "j." "I want j!" he would say, real whiny sounding. I had no idea what he wanted at first until he pointed to the jar of jelly. Then it clicked, he was calling the jelly "j" because I always call a peanut butter and jelly sandwich "pb&j." He just keeps me on my toes that's for sure.