A doggone good time!

Katelin chose to have a dog party this year (shocker to us all...not). Yes, she is still on her never ending kick about getting a dog, and we are still holding strong about not getting one. Anyway, it actually turned out pretty cute. The first thing the guests did upon arriving was put on a pair of ears, and create their own dog tag and collar. (We ran out for Alissa, so she got to wear her dalmatian Halloween costume!) Following that quick craft was a dinner of what else...but hot dogs of course! Then it was on to the games. The first one was a dog bone hunt that made them crawl on all fours in search of bones hidden around the yard. Then a stimulating game of "Trainer says" (dog version of Simon Says), to get those dogs in order. It was rather easy actually. I mean how many dog commands can you think of? Maybe more than me. Next up: the bone pinata, presents and cake. The night was supposed to end with a dog movie, Hotel for Dogs (which is much like what our house felt like), but the girls were all too razzed up for that, so the Big Dog took them out for some recreation on the trampoline. It was so doggone fun! Okay, Im done. Onto the pictures! Happy birthday to my 8 year old pup!

Fireworks!

This 4th we decided to try out the local fireworks down at Lake Michigan again. We headed over at around 7:oo to get a good parking spot (proving to be a mistake later), and a good spot on the grass. Downtown 4th of July is crazy busy with thousands of people deciding to gather in the same place, because its the best and closet spot for fireworks. It was a great day though, and the area has plenty of room for everyone, so you dont have to feel crowded...until its time to get home anyway.

Brylee loved watching the boats and waving at them as they floated by heading out to the lake. She also loved running away down the sidewalk next to the dock!

Madi borrowing Brylee's shades while Brylee makes another escape attempt.

Some nice guy volunteered to take our picture! Here we all are with our glowy necklaces.

Almost firework time!

Alissa, of course has to be silly...

Let the show begin!

Oooooohhhhh.....

Ahhhhhh.

A perfectly happy and content boy.

After our 5 blocks of walking back to the car, and another hour waiting in traffic (should have been a 20 minute drive...funny how that happens when there is only one way to go because theres a big lake in the way!), we made it home with 3 out of the 5 kids asleep. A success over all. Next time, we'll remember to park farther out! Happy Independence Day!

18 months and park hopping

Somewhere in all the chaos of summer, Brylee turned 18 months old. She is all of a sudden looking and acting more grown up, and I cant do a thing about it. I decided to re-paint the kids little table black and bring it down to the kitchen area. It is now Brylee's favorite place to sit and eat. She seems all too big when she does this!

Taking those pictures made me realize it was time to capture her last few baby moments on camera...or attempt to. I learned that going to the professional photo places is just a waste of my time and money, seeing how the kids never smile good there and then they charge you twenty bucks a sheet for pictures that dont really show their true colors. SO, with intentions to get some good 18 month photos, we headed to the park. Brylee loves the park, so it should have been an easy location to get a smile. Well, smile she did, but would she hold still to get it on camera? Not really. She is much too busy running from place to palce to sit still for a picture! Would she even look into the camera? Didnt even think about it. So there are a few candid smile shots and maybe a couple lucky ones too that we got.

And since we were already doing pictures, we also took some late ones of Zack as a big 3 year old, and Katelin for her baptism. Zack you can see, Katelin you get to wait until later for. Dont you just love anticipation!? We ended up going to a couple different parks. One was mostly for fun, while the other (by the lake) was better for picture backdrops. The fun park is what we now like to call "squirrel park". It is crawling with them! There was one tree in particular that had at least 7 squirrels lving up in it. I dont know if you can see them in the picture or not. They are also very used to people, and will come pretty close to you. The other squirrel shot is of one sitting upside down in the tree and licking what appears to be a McDonalds ice cream cone wrapper. Thats my kind of squirrel! Squirrel park also features a few bridges over a river that has fish, turtles and ducks. Naturally, the kids love going to that park. Anyway, on to the picts!...

Friends

I know I havent been very good lately at updating the blog, so Im going to do a little bit of catch up here with some of our summer activities. First off, last month we were lucky enough to have our good friends come back to Wisconsin and stay with us for a while. It was so great to see them again, catch up, remember old memories, and create new ones. The kids were of course ecstatic that they got to spend time with their best friends again, who they hadnt seen in almost a year! Some of the activities we did together included painting ceramics, Six Flags, and the Field museum in Chicago. Take a look!