Cousins!

M got his first haircut this week. He looks soooo cute and like such a little boy now. My friend Nikki cut his and D's hair while her daughter and son came over to play on the swingset and pool. Hopefully, having shorter hair will make it easier for me to clean the terrible mess he makes in the morning while eating his yogurt. I don't know why, but he just loves smearing his food all over his hair.


Here is another before shot (not too excited about getting his hair cut--we ended up cutting his hair while I held him on the swing):


Here is an after picture (probably hard to tell the difference in pictures):



The girls playing together.


This week Ana and Andrea came to stay with us for the day. We went swimming at a local beach and tried our hardest to catch at least one of the 30+ sunfish that kept taunting us by swimming up so close to us (no luck, they are just too fast!).


We spent the evening in Stillwater and ate outside at the Freight House. We then headed over to the Teddy Bear Park for some fun for the little ones.


We met up with the cousins Saturday evening again for dinner at Buca. Yum-a-licious!





Click here for more pictures of the cousins on my sister's blog.

4th of July

This week started off with a trip to Central Park to see the Teddy Bear Band (BYOTB). The kids loved dancing to the music. A tradition my mom started and I am continuing with D is to paint her toenails red, white and blue to celebrate the 4th of July. D was pretty excited that they matched her "party dress". D and M modeling their 4th of July outfits. On Sunday of the 4th of July weekend, we went to my parents' house for a family gathering and fun times in the lake.
M and D got some one-on-one swinging time in with Uncle Robb. We all had fun going down the slide.

D got to go fishing with Papa and was so excited everytime she caught weeds. Maybe next year we'll actually put a hook on the end of her pole! My cousins Ana and Andrea and Aunt Terry are in town from Texas this week. They got to meet M for the first time and play with all the cousins in the water. We are so happy they could come visit for a while! We borrowed the neighbor's raft and went for a ride behind the boat--sooo much fun! We ended our evening with a ride on the pontoon. M didn't quite know what to make of the life preserver he is required to wear and just sat perfectly still on the chair the whole ride. Other random pictures and videos:

Don't even ask... Click here for a link to my sister's blog to see more pictures from our day at the lake.

Remember When...

...you saw your first parade?


...and got "vulcanized" for the first time?


M was anxious for the parade to start and was even marching like the honor guard.



...you ran through the sprinkler to stay cool?


...or tried to figure out where the water came from?


...you learned how to cook something? I know it looks a little scary (it's a pizza), but it actually was delicious. D attended a summer Bible camp last week called "Incredible Edibles" and this was one of her creations--yummy!


...your imagination ran wild? Upon returning home from a trip to Costco, D immediately made this "bed" out of pop cases and insisted that I tuck her in so she could take a nap there (no, she did not actually sleep there).


...you looked this cute in your bathing suit?


...you didn't care, or even notice for that matter, how dirty you got? I think M had sand in his hair after just one minute on the beach.

What a handsome beach bum!


...eating a cupcake was this much fun (and messy!)

(Don't M's legs look long in this picture? I think he's finally getting taller!)

Dance Class and Pelican Rapids

Here are some pictures of D in her new dance outfits. I got a great deal for her ballet shoes, tap shoes, leotards, and some costumes off of Craigslist. All this for less than what a new pair of ballet shoes would cost. She has been taking lessons from one of the students I worked with in youth group. She seems to like the lessons and I think will be even more excited with her new dance wear. Below is a video of her modeling one of her new outfits and showing a few dance moves.



We spent the last week in Pelican Rapids with our church youth group on the annual missions trip. We stay at Camp Joy in Dent and drive into town every morning and evening to do work on our ministry teams. Here are lots of pictures from our trip.

Here we are on the shore of Star Lake at Camp Joy. We had the full range of weather on our trip: nice warm, sunny days like the one pictured here, cool days good for jeans and sweatshirts, and a really stormy evening complete with sirens that had all of our team members scrambling for shelter as most of our ministries take place outdoors (construction, soccer camps, VBS camps, etc.). I ended up in a church basement while Steve was in the basement of the house he was doing construction on with the Spanish speaking family that lives there. Somehow he ended up there alone--the other workers that were helping him out left before the storm got too bad to travel in. D and M were back at Camp Joy, a 30 minute ride from town where we were. They apparantly had the pleasure of sitting the storm out in one of the camp bathrooms--not a pleasant place on a good day, let alone crammed in there with many people. We were very fortunate that along with the pastor's daughter, who was our official babysitter, many of the kids from camp went out of their way to play with and take care of D and M. I was apprehensive that they weren't with us during the storm, but knew at the same time they were being very well taken care of.

Steve was the offical videographer for the trip, and D likes to do what her daddy does, so she grabbed a camera and wanted to film the chapel service one night like daddy was doing.

I worked on the kitchen crew, and this is the dining hall where we had our meals. We cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner for the 60 team members. The picture shows the dining hall set up for a special lunch to commemorate the 15th anniversary of our partnership with Pelican Rapids. Usually we don't have nice tablecloths and centerpieces!

D really enjoyed riding her bike on the sidewalk path at Camp Joy. She rode her bike almost every day.

M had a blast at the camp, too. He could usually be found riding his big wheel bike or playing with a ball.

Our family lived in a trailer camper for the week. After working out the kinks in our nap and nighttime sleeping schedules (NOTE: it does not work to put a three year old and 18 month old to bed at the same time in a small camper--one at a time only, please), things worked out fairly smoothly. M learned how to climb out of his pack 'n play on the second night, but luckily never tried to do that again. D, Steve and I slept on the large bed together after Steve decided sleeping in the compartment on top wasn't working. I call it a compartment because it can't really be called a bed. A cabinet folded out with a mattress and it was no higher than from your elbow to your fingertips. He couldn't even roll over. At 2:00 a.m. the first night, he said he couldn't take it anymore and moved to the bed with D and I. It worked out amazingly well for all three of us to sleep together and D thought it was fun to sleep with Mommy and Daddy. Here are Steve and D during nap time.

Here is a picture of our camper with a large tree branch that fell and hit it during the storm. Luckily no one was inside at the time!

Every year, two missionaries from Guadalajara, Mexico come to be a part of our team to Pelican Rapids. This year, brothers Otoneal (Oto) and Asael (Asa), or as D calls them, Ocho and Nueve, joined our team. I guess Oto sounded like Ocho to her and logically, Nueve follows Ocho, right? They spent a couple of days with us after the Pelican trip before heading back home to Mexico.

There were some beautiful sunsets over the lake at Camp Joy.

D and M made lots of new friends during the week. Here are some of their favorite "big kids": Emily is pictured above and Josh below.

Amy, above, and Matt, below, were special friends to both D and M.

Charissa, our offical babysitter.

D loved riding the bus with Brooke (above) and going to VBS with her. V (below) was always super friendly with both D and M and had her secret handshake with D (a high five with a fist bump).

A family picture at Camp Joy.

Sibling picture at Camp Joy.

Of course no trip is complete without a picture by the giant pelican.