The past two evenings, Andy has been hanging out with my Dad, Uncle Dave, and Kevin to watch some race car action at the Newton speedway. So the kids and I, my sister, Isabelle, and my Mom have been doing things together too. Today the kids wanted to nap in the car...they were too excited to nap and never fell asleep...and we headed over to my sister's house to play for a bit. We then went to the famous "Monkey Joes" that we've been hearing about from Miss Isabelle. She loves this place! The kids have seen pictures of it on Julie's blog and have really wanted to go. So hot weather = indoor activities...it's this giant building filled with ton of inflatables. Unfortunately it was pretty busy today as could be expected...but Ava and Isaiah couldn't get enough of it!
This is the giant pirate ship we've been hearing about. The nice thing about this place is that they have areas for small children and on all the larger inflatables, an adult can accompany their child to help them climb up the ladders and go down the slides. Ava is pretty independent with this type of thing but Isaiah still likes the security of Mom being by his side on those HUGE slides.
Isaiah knocking down a pirate barrel on the "ship"
Ava going down one of the pirate ship slides...it was pretty steep!
Ava made herself comfortable
Someone has to be just like his big sister!
All smiles...who wouldn't be!
Climbing a giant dragon/snake thing
Miss Isabelle...I adore this little girl!
Ava riding on the dragon/snake thing...not sure exactly what it is
Riding on a shark
I love how energetic Isabelle is...it's hard to capture a picture of her when she's busy.
Just the right size of slide for my Boo!
Flyin' at high speeds!
When we were waiting for our dinner to get ready...Isabelle wanted me and only me to hold her...one proud aunt!
These two couldn't get enough jumping!
Monkey Joe himself...this picture was taken by Miss Ava
My loves!
Grandma with her three grandbabies!
One zonked out little boy!
Now is the point where everything is kind of messed up and we go back in time. The next few pictures are of Kevin's b-day last Sunday...yes I know, one week ago.
Kevin and his princess blowing out candles on his ice cream cake
Dinner with cousins
They LOVE sitting together on the picnic table...it was pretty warm so Julie brought it in the kitchen.
Isabelle loves her ice cream...it was an Oreo ice cream cake! Kevin loves her so much...there's something so special about a Dad and his little girl!
Ava and Grandpa
Isaiah, Isabelle, Kevin, and Grandma enjoying that yummy cake!
Kevin's family...counter clockwise...Julie, Kevin's brother Dan, his mom Vicki, his sister Amy, and her husband Ray (they're expecting a little one...another grandbaby for the Larsen's)
Onto a new subject...the items that were given to us by our neighbor. The Estabrook's have two boys who have outgrown most of their toys so Chrissy, their Mom, had us over to take what we wanted. We came back with a wagon full!
Ava in the "Sully" costume...it's a character from the Disney Pixar movie Monster's Inc.
Isaiah with his Darth Vader talking helmet...you've got to love the undies with it...someday he's going to look back on this and say, "Mom, why did you take a picture like that?" Can we say possible wedding slide show photograph?
Now this looks nice...lots of toys organized in nice large bins...not for long!
We sold our kitchen countertop table and chairs...Pier One here we come on Monday...to make way for a new one. This zone in the house had become a new play area.
This is a neat castle they gave us...it has lots of accessories too!
Here are some random pictures I took outside the other day. I haven't taken any of the yard since Andy got the patio wall and part of the landscaping done a few weeks ago.
We...remember when I say we it usually means Andy...got a great deal on these pavers that we're using for landscaping. The tree is not done yet but we've expanded what we already had. Andy also put in landscaping lights...they look great at night!
I bought quite a few perennials at our local town grocery store...we call it "Larry's"...to landscape around the patio. I love pinks and yellows for the backyard...hopefully these continue to come back each year and grow in size!
We had so many random areas with dirt where grass would not grow...so between the patio and tree Andy just put a few stepping pavers and filled it in with river rock! I think it looks great and it's a great alternative to walking on mud and dirt all the time!
A few closer pictures of the landscaping
Love the wall...it's bench height as well so we can pull a table up to it and use it as seating if we want to.
Our garden...these are the four tomato plants we have that are growing like crazy!
We had a pretty big storm the other day and lots of my corn...yes this is my corn...was knocked down. But it's still doing pretty well. Hopefully the sweetcorn will turn out and I love drying out the stalks to use for decorating the front of the house for fall! That's actually one of the reasons I plant it...it's either by a pack of corn seed for a dollar or spend $12.00 at Flowerama to buy a bunch of dried stalks.
Isaiah still enjoys a little swim in his pool
This was/and still is our sandbox...Jackson loves digging and laying in it. The other day he dug so hard and so far down that he ripped through the landscaping paper layer...the one that prevents weeds...tore that up and mixed the dirt that was under that with the sand on top. What a mess...but we still loves our Toots!
Just a view of our deck and patio! Andy loves his new red grill!
Best buddies!
This kid LOVES and I mean loves garden tomatoes...not store bought so much...but picked right from the garden, still warm tomatoes. He ate this thing down to the little tiny green leaf that was on top! It doesn't matter the color, size, or shape...he loves tomatoes. He had already eaten a yellow one we found earlier!
Slippin' and a slidin'
Have you ever made ice cream in a bag? I do this every year in my classroom to go along with a story we read and it's very easy to do. We made vanilla ice cream. In a small zip-lock you just put 1/2 cup milk with 2 T sugar, and 1/2 to 1 tsp vanilla. Zip it up and put it into another baggie just in case...then add that to a giant zip-lock filled with ice cubes and salt...I use rock salt. Shake the bag for 10 minutes or so and there you have it. We made it before dinner and put it in the freezer to keep while we ate. They really liked it!
Scoopin' up a bite
I mentioned that we had a pretty bad storm the other night. One of our trees split and most of it fell over so Andy chopped it down...well used a chainsaw actually...looks like we have enough firewood to last us a while!
We have other chairs that go around our fire pit but why not add a few logs for extra seating...love that idea!
On Friday morning my friend Kara...who I've known forever...we were close high school buddies...came back to attend her Grandmother's funeral. She was able to stop by and see some friends before heading back to Arizona. Kara lives there with her husband Mike and her 15 month old daughter Sami! What a peach!
I'm pushing Ava and Isaiah wanted to push little Sami!
She's got her Mama's eyes!
I wish I would have gotten more pictures...but this is Kara! She hasn't changed one bit and is one of those Mom's who looks like she's never had a kid! We're both busy with our lives and don't talk on a regular basis...but when we do...it's like we've never been apart! Love you girl!
Now back to last night's activities...since the Dad's were gone, we hung out at my house.
Making rainbow cupcakes with Ava, Isaiah, and Isabelle...and yes...I did this all by myself with all three of them! They really liked this!
In this picture the kids were each picking out one color of food coloring to use in the batter. Ava picked yellow, Isaiah picked blue, and Isabelle picked red.
After some yummy Casey's pizza it was cupcake time! Isaiah, Ava, and Grandma enjoying their masterpiece!
Miss Isabelle and Julie...Isabelle loves her cupcakes, frosting, and sprinkles! She has a sweet tooth just like her Mama!
Why not mess the floor up with Play Dough! The kids haven't used this in a while and Isabelle wanted to play with it too. Perfect!
Well there you have it...I've been at this for almost an hour! Hopefully you feel caught up on things. Happy weekend to you!
My Three Happy's:
1) Spending time with my Mom, sister, Isabelle, and my kids for the past two nights. I LOVE my niece to pieces! Auntie Amy will be spoiling her so much in the years to come!
2) I love watering the flowers and garden with our old watering cans that came from Andy's Grandpa Knaphus's farm. One doesn't have a date but the other one was made in December of 1912. I love thinking about where this watering can has been, who has used it, and that we are lucky to be the owners of it now.
3) Since the kids didn't nap today Isaiah was asleep at 8:30 and Ava fell asleep a little before nine! Wow!
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