June Fun

**WARNING - LOTS OF PICTURES OF CUTE KIDS BELOW- PROCEED WITH CAUTION**

I can't believe we are in the last week of June! We did a lot of fun things this month. Here is a quick re-cap....

....went bowling with friends

Jake went here......

.....to see him play
Rory McIlroy at the US Open for those of you that aren't golf crazy.

Went to a church picnic....

Got a haircut....

Spent some quality time with dad....

Went to an open house at dad's work.....


Hayden operating the helmet smasher (yes, that's a technical term)

Bailee and her new boyfriend....I think he's a real dummy

Mom operating the toy smasher...another technical term

Dude! I got an arm!

Bunch of test dummies...


And......

To celebrate the girls' awesome grades, Jake and I threw them a luau!


Complete with a Tiki bar....

....hawaiian buffet....

....and hibiscus cupcakes!

No party would be complete without friends!

Cassie, Lily, Jordan, Catelyn and Bostyn

Anelia, Bailee, Carissa, Hannah and Meghan
June was a total blast. Bring on July!!

Three Years

Three years ago today, I married my best friend.

He makes me laugh...I couldn't imagine my life without him.
We are the perfect team and together we can do anything.

We've had a busy three years. I am so excited to see what our future holds.

Happy Anniversary Jake!

I love you!

Father's Day

Instead of buying the usual...aka boring...ties and t-shirts,
I wanted to get a little creative this year for Father's Day.

So the kids and I made Jake a hero box!

After all, he IS our hero.

Hero box from the outside....

....and the inside

A closer look at all the goodies

We also gave him this...

After opening presents and a few dozen hugs and kisses, we packed up and made the drive down to Jake's parents' farm.

Couldn't resist snapping a pic of all the sleepyheads. :)

Sunday after breakfast, we loaded up the boat and headed down to the lake. When we stopped for gas though, we realized we weren't going to make it much further, because of this....

Anyone got a patch kit?

Luckily, we had everything we needed to fix it
and we were back on the road.

Good thing, because who would have wanted to miss this?

We even got Hayden out on the tube!

Look closely....see my feet sticking out of the water?

Ouch.
It hurts even more the next day.
Apparently water-skiing at 31 and water-skiing at 16 are two very different things!

I am so lucky to have such an amazing father for my kids. He is supportive, loving, funny, patient, and best of all, a great teacher.

Happy Father's Day!

The End is Here

FINALLY!

School is over and the girls are moving up!

They'll both be in middle school this fall.

Wow.

Two kids in junior high. Where does the time go?


Yesterday was Bostyn's graduation celebration.
Before the ceremony, the kids walked around the school, while the rest of the school clapped them out. It was really neat.

The clap out

Bostyn getting her "diploma"

Officially a 6th grader!!

So proud of my little girl.

Both girls finished out the year with straight A's. We are so incredibly proud of them. Montgomery County is the number one county in Maryland for public education, so getting straight A's was no small feat.

In other news, Bailee received an award on Tuesday in math. She in is the top 5% in her grade.
AWESOME!!

Congratulations Bailee and Bostyn! You have made your mom and dad so proud!

Ride this train....

These days, Hayden is digging trains. He reads about trains, plays with trains and wouldn't stop talking about riding in a train.


After some research, I found out that we live close to a historic, still operating train!

When we boarded the train Saturday, there were some pretty sketchy characters hanging around the ticket office.

One even resembled the outlaw Jesse James.

He pulled a knife on me when I mentioned I saw his face on a wanted poster. Oops!

This guy was hanging around Jesse....called himself Evil Tom McGinnis

A few more sketchy riders....


In the middle of our ride, the train broke down, so we entertained ourselves by taking goofy pictures.

The train got going again, but unfortunately, we were being robbed!! Turns out the sketchy character really was Jesse James and he was looking for cash and jewelry.

He even took pearls from a baby. What a monster.

Lucky for us, there happened to be a sheriff nearby.

He caught both criminals, but they started shooting, so he had to shoot them both.

They fought the law....and the law won.

After our exciting train ride, we walked around the train yard for what seemed like hours and checked out the other trains.

Minutes after this picture, we had to carry Hayden to the car screaming.

He could have stayed there all day.

I guess that means it was a successful trip?

Learning Games

We love to play learning games at our house.
Our new favorite game is to play vocabulary flash cards on road trips.


Hayden loves to learn too.

Here are a couple of things I've done to help him learn various things.


Alphabet rocks
Uppercase on one side


Lowercase on the other....ignore D...the lowercase D fell off and has since run away


I saw a variation of these rocks HERE and I knew they would be a perfect way for Hayden to see and feel the letters.

We have fun making words and sorting the letters into color groups.






Family Photo Album


This may look like an ordinary album, BUT....inside is something a lot more fun.


Pictures of far away loved ones!

My brother Kyle, who is serving in the Army in Oklahoma

My parents, who live in Utah

And....my grandparents, who also live in Utah

I also have pictures of my brother Josh and his family and some relatives from Jake's family.

We are visiting my family in August, so this will be a great way for Hayden to know who they all are before we get there.


Hayden loves flipping through the book and pointing out who everyone is!



P.S. Family members - If you want your picture in Hayden's book,
PLEASE send me a head shot photo of yourself.


I would love to have everyone in his book!