Crazy Squirell

My kids love to find and feed the animals in our yard!  We frequently had bunnies, ducks, chipmunks and squirrels in our yard.  THE KIDS LOVE IT!  It is so fun to watch how excited they get over seeing  the animals.  This is one crazy squirrel that we had a lot of fun watching! 

Waterloo Fireworks...

So I am obviously just getting to July!  Wow how the time flies...  We went to a firework show on the 2nd with some friends.  Like always it was a blast!  I couldn't believe how well the kids did because it was soooo late!  But Brecken had fire which made him really happy!  He is such a pyro!

 Bryn was happy because there was a huge thing of red vines and this girl LOVES SWEETS!!!!

 We almost had it!!! We almost got the sparklers to say USA.... the s got a bit cut off..

 My and my baby cakes!   When she wants to be she is a really big snuggler!  So of course we take total advantage of those moments!

 "Grandpa" Hansen brought a flashlight, so when the sparklers were gone what do you think this little guys played with the rest of the night!  The darn flashlight!  And that thing was BRIGHT!

 These got a a little out of order...This was on the drive home, my 3 yr old is totally fist pumping!  That boy needs to stay away from Jersey Shore

 JJ caught up on snuggles from "Grandma" Hansen, my kids have adopted a few sets of grandparents since moving here!  It is so fun!

 Well I think the boys had fun!

Shaving Cream....For FUN!

I have a friend that makes cards out of shaving cream..weird but cool.  I though hey how about for the fourth we make some cards to send out to family to say we love you..great idea right?   WRONG!  Really what mom in her right mind gives kids shaving cream and food dye and says ok lets have some fun!  I didn't get the memo telling me that this was probably going to turn into a disaster until it was to late.  Oh they had a blast but there was shaving cream everywhere and food dye everywhere!  Oh and the cards ripped and lets just say not a kid friendly craft!  But all in all they had a great time so I guess that's what was important.

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 Bryn loved every dirty minute of it.

 Jaylee is our perfectionist who wanted it to just look perfect!  I love that about her.

 Brecken decided he didn't need a pan or paper, just shaving cream!  Oh that boy, he keeps me so so so busy.

Holy HOT!!!

Hot is one thing..add HUMIDITY and it is plain torcher!  We have a pool pass which is really fun, but some days I don't feel like taking the THREE to the pool by myself.  I almost always have my friends teenager go with me just to watch JJ so I can solely watch the other two!  Anywhoo..this day we decided to change it up a bit and have a water balloon fight!  It was pretty short lived!  But they enjoyed it and then we just turned on the sprinkler and let them have at it!

We attempted to play a game with them..yeah not such a great idea.  All they want to do is pound them at each other!

 Poor boy..when he is the only boy they had to gang up on him a little bit.  He enjoys every second of it too.  Bryn just played in the little car and tried to stay out of the way!  Jay is my crazy girl who was running around like a chicken with her head cut off!

Smores Party

Since it was summer and having bonfires is on our "summer list" of things to do we decided to have a Smores Party.  I had no idea you could make so many variety of smores.  My top two favorite that we made were strawberry marshmallows, on chocolate graham crackers, with maraschino cherries and Hersey chocolate! Can you say YUMMMM!  The next fav was a chocolate covered graham cracker, regular marshmallow and Andes mints!  Oh my delish!

 MJ had to use a stick at least once.

 The kids favorite part was setting them on fire and blowing them out! I am surprised that no one got burned!

It was a really fun time for the kids and the adults...I think that I should have set myself a limit because I ate like atleast 5+  yeah I could barely move afterwards!

Sturgis Falls Weekend

We have this awesome weekend called Sturgis Falls.  They have seriously like the downtown split into different parts for  different types of people.  We were at the outside park with the Talent Show.  Across the river were bands playing live music, kids crafts, a parade, a car show at a different park ,down the street one way were food vendors and then the opposite way was a carnival for kids(which we decided to stay far away from, it gets a little hectic trying to keep three kids happy on rides usually..plus the fair is at the end of the summer and they will get to ride rides there.)

This was the night of the talent show! One of my friends kids was in it, so we wanted to go show our support, plus we love anything outdoors that is fun for the family.

 We took JJ's buddy with us...  They are so cute together.

 One of the young men that my kids love came...He stole Brecken for awhile, which Brecken loved.

 My friend that has the Dance Studio...this is her daughters group...That took 2nd place!!!!

 The next morning we woke up bright and early for the parade.  The best part is I have a friend who lives right down the street from the parade route, so she wakes up early and lays down blankets for us so we just have to show up before it starts and we get the best place ever!

 It was like a block full of people from church!  Seriously we kept running into people that we knew it was so fun!  There were like 7 families there!

 Oh the best part...THE FOOD VENDORS!  I love carnival type food it's just so delicious!  Looks like Mark liked his too!

 At the end of the day the kids had got their faces painted, made a wand, got balloons and played with sidewalk chalk...Looks like a pretty happy bunch!

Wiconsin Summary

To sum up our Wisconsin trip in one word...hmm...AWESOME.  My mom planned and cooked all of the meals prior to coming, we all had our own rooms (we had our own condo!!) there were tons of great kid activities, and indoor pool bc it rained so much, my mom babysat while Mark and I went out, Sara babysat, we did some shopping and it was all just great!  Growing up we didn't do a ton of family vacations.  Any time I had off from school I usually spent with my dad, and it was just a hectic time in our lives so it is really fun to make up some new family trip memories.  I am so thankful for the amount of time my mom put into preparing for the trips so that we could all enjoy ourselves so much.  A great trip comes from good planning...and not letting me get to hungry and turning into a beast!

Fishing

These uploaded a bit out of order.  Well we can start by JJ caught a fish!  Brecken thought that was just the coolest thing ever, the fish swallowed the hook..then we put it back in the water until I could find some tools to get the hook out, while he was in the water a HUGE BASS tried to swallow him whole..Sara yanked him up out of the water..got the tools..they didn't help and the poor thing died.  All so that my kids could actually catch a fish.  Poor fish, but we had fun.  That is so selfish of me..

 Bryn bonded with Aunt Sara.  Sara even babysat while Mark and I went on the paddle boat ride earlier that day!  Having a teenager around is really a lot of help.

 While the other kids fished we played in the huge sandbox.  I would build stuff so she could knock it down the usual kids stuff.