July and August 2011

This summer seemed to go by really fast! June was taken up with finishing school and swimming lessons, we were out of town to reunions and visiting most of July, and August included more swimming lessons and getting ready for school. And along in there we celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary!

On the Fourth of July we went hiking. Ellie didn't enjoy it too much, but the boys had a great time!

Ellie's cool shades on the Fourth. We set off some fireworks in our yard that evening, which Ian stayed outside for the first time and actually enjoyed himself! Ellie watched them intently, also, from the non-mosquitoey indoors.

We had a great time visiting both sets of grandparents and almost all the cousins, aunts, and uncles during July. At one family reunion we hiked 2000 feet down a mountain. This is how Caleb and Levi went down half the mountain :).

July means birthdays! Caleb requested that they celebrate their birthdays with Grandma, with whom the share the special day, and we did (we've gotten to celebrate with Grandma every year so far!). This is Levi with his train cake, driven by Woody.

And Caleb with Buzz and his rocket. It's hard to believe they're five years old!!

When we came home we celebrated again with Daddy (who was not there for their actual birthday). We did it on two different days to let them each have their own special day (although I realized they're wearing the same shirt!). We did Caleb's first, and let him blow out candles again and open presents.

The next day it was Levi's turn! He's very excited to be five!

Ian didn't have any formal cub scout meetings in the summer, but he worked a lot on his requirements. One was making dinner - this yummy pizza!

We got some caterpillars in August, to watch them turn into butterflies, which is absolutely an amazing thing. Here were four of the five already in their chrysalis.

Then they turned into these pretty painted lady butterflies, which we released when grandparents were here to visit. Two of them didn't want to fly away, and Grandpa was able to take them out on his finger and place them on a flower.

I got a pretty decent picture of the four of them! Just for fun.

We watched some grain being harvested - that's big entertainment around here! It makes me wonder what Ellie will find interesting - right now any kind of machinery keeps little boys' attention.

And, we built a sandbox to play in! John also spend countless hours prepping our house (which you can see some of how bad it is) to be painted, which we also did, pictures to come one of these days........

I guess there's not too much about Ellie's summer - she got to watch a lot of swimming lessons, she met all her extended family, and did pretty well traveling, even the long 10 or 13 hour drives. She got two teeth, and learned to roll from her back to her tummy while at Grandma's house! Other than that, she's just been a happy little girl who loves her brothers!