Natalie and Emily Swimming

It is amazing to watch the girls learn to swim. Here they are practicing swimming under water!

Dancing Julia

We can jump off the diving board!!

Summer Fun

It has been so hot here, we are just over it! To attempt to cool off we took the kids for frozen yogurt. Carrie and the girls met us.

When you are pregnant there are lots of things you think about passing on to your kids. Unfortunately, I am afraid that Natalie got my grace. For example, the huge goose egg on her head below is a ballet injury. Yep, she fell down and hit her head on the floor while twirling. 

Here are my goofy girls right before bed the other night.

Julia has a new love of Minne and Mickey mouse. She loves to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Jeff got her this new stuffed Minnie at Target the other day when we were shopping.

My mom is always spoiling the girls, here they have a huge sucker or two...

Natalie finished up t-ball last week. I was so glad to be done sitting in the heat!! They got metals and Natalie thought it was just fantastic. She broke out the tu tu for the last game.

Mi Mi and Pa Pa came to watch!

Daddy and Julia at the game.

Natalie got invited to her first birthday party for a boy. They had it at a karate place and Julia wouldn't have any part of just watching - she jumped right in there! It was so cute to see her with the big kids.

Here are the girls running the obstacle course at the birthday party.

You just never know what the girls are going to be coming out in when they go in to play dress up.

We love leotards and dancing at our house. Julia is even getting in on it here.

Daddy even got in on the Mickey Mouse craze and made some Mickey Mouse shaped pancakes for the girls.

Julia finally has the pedaling down, now we just need to work on the steering.

Late June - Early July

Never a dull moment at our house! Man, it has been hot this summer! Here are the girls just hanging out outside when we could stand it!

We got a tomato plant and Julia and I have been making salsa. I am pretty sure the plant is burnt up now, but earlier the salsa was great!

We decided to take a break and out to the ranch. Here is Julia on her way to see and feed the cows!

And here is Natalie out fishing. You could say the fish weren't biting...

But the next morning Natalie caught her first fish! You go Natalie!!!

My Dad's aunt passed away, so he came up for the funeral. Of course he got talked into playing all kinds of games with the girls. Here they are playing tooth fairy. Hmmm, I wonder if the tooth fairy really dresses like this?

And then it was time to make some cupcakes! The favorite part was of course the sprinkles.

I just love when the girls start to play dress up.

Of course we had to play around with Pa Pa's hat.

It was so hot one night that we didn't even feel like getting the sprinkler out, so we just gave 'em the hose!

It's official, Julia is in big girl panties....most days...

We watched Ethan one morning and he and Julia played so well together. They loved playing in the doll house, it was so cute!

Natalie never turns down a chance to hold baby Ella.

Cassidy came into town and met up with Kendra and me and we decided it would be fun to take all the kiddos to eat!

Summer means lots of birthday's for us!! Here we are at Hadley's 2nd. Making hats was one of the activities.

 Julia ditched the hats to go and bounce on the pony.

Julia loves the horse that Natalie got from Pa Pa James. She was upset in her bed so Natalie thought it would be nice to take it to her. Silly girls.

For the very first time ever, Jeff took us to get fireworks. All it took was a 2 year old saying, "Fireworks, boom, Ji Ji, buy"

Just a little excited.

Hmmm, I think she is listening for the boom.

We are ready from head to toe for the fourth!

Of course we had to shoot of one firework early. We did the parachute and Julia wasn't so sure about the boom.

And here they are looking for it!

Found it!

 The fourth started off at Aunt Debbie's with a little slip 'n slide. Or slip and crawl if you are Julia. Natalie was a natural.

After hanging out at Aunt Debbies and taking a little rest, we headed out front from some neighborhood fun. Mi Mi and Pa Pa even came by.

Yep, they were loud, but Daddy was prepared with ear protection! Yea Daddy!

I love this photo of Natalie. She is screaming because she was walking towards all of us with the sparkler to show it to us and we were all yelling at her to stop. She couldn't really hear because of her ear protection so we had to yell really loud and she thought everyone was mad. Poor baby.

Hanging out.

Even the Mi Mi's got in on the fun!

Julia's first sparkler.

Natalie getting a great view thanks to Pa Pa.

I love when kids are learning to talk. Here is Julia saying, "Tinkerbell" and "Applebees".