First Day of School 2013

Emily--3rd grader!

Christian--1st grader!

Best friends...(Emily, who's not touchy-feely, puts up with Christian, who is touchy-feely, and his request to hold hands on the way up to school.)  Awwww...

Here's to a great start to another great year!

The reports are in--both kids had a great first day!  Emily said, "Third grade is awesome!"  and Christian, who only yesterday was lamenting the fact that he had to go back to school, said, "I love first grade.  I had a really great day!"  Hurray!  The report from the home front--boy-oh-boy was it a lot quieter!  And, while we missed our big kids, Kari enjoyed the one-on-one Mommy time while Juliana was asleep and both girls screeched a LOT less without the older sibs teasing...:-)

Raspberry Picking

"Ready to pick!"

With the weather being a whole lot less hot/humid than normal last month, I ventured out with the kids and some friends to the Berry Patch to pick some raspberries! The purple raspberries were in high season and the bushes were just packed full of them!  Yummm....

 And while Juliana liked picking the berries, she wasn't thrilled with the tasting (I KNOW!  The girl eats dirt, but yummy raspberries are not quite her pallet??).  So, we switched to pretzels and that was okay.

If looks could kill, huh?  Apparently, Kari wasn't thrilled with me taking her picture.

 The kids actually picked quite a bit!  We had 7 or 8 pints when all was said and done.

 Christian was my hardest worker (no surprise there!) and he did a great job filling up those pints!

Our little pickers!

Not sure if we'll get lucky with another July as nice this last one--sure glad we made the most of it and went pickin'!

Swim Lessons, Part II

Yikes.  I'm soooo behind on my posts.  Well, I guess that's what happens in the summer!  But, I'm going to try and catch up before school starts again next week--whaa???  Summer's already over??!  Ok, well, here goes a bit of catch up...

Oh, how we love our swimming lessons at Papio Bay!  Our second session of lessons brought some warm weather with it and so swimming was wonderful!  (And I had a Mommy-and-me class with Juliana so I was, for once, grateful for the heat!)  Christian passed on to Level 3, Kari will move on to the 4 yr old class (guppys??) next summer, and Emily will work on her endurance in Level 4 again.

The kids really love their instructors so we brought everyone dum-dum lollipops as a "thank you."  Christian and Kari had fun handing them out (with Miss Emily helping them along.)

Grandma Karen came with us for Fun Day and Juliana was stuck like glue to her!

Here's Emily and Miss Caitlin, our favorite guard/manager!  She and her sister, Emily, have taken the kids out almost every Friday afternoon this summer and they have loved every.single.minute!!!

Juliana has no fear when it comes to the water and she LOVED the slides and going off of the diving board!  Her teacher, Marissa, was so happy to have the "littlest Lindseth" in her class and was thrilled when Juliana warmed up to her enough to jump to her a couple of times!

Here she goes again!

Can you say "lifeguard in training??"  Here's Emily with Bree, one of her former instructors.

Cute Kari, who ended up having to go to the bathroom right after I took this picture.  Can you tell??

 Here's Christian, happy as can be and turning into such a great swimmer!

Gma and Juliana, keeping it cool

Kari and her teacher, Mia

Emily and Ella, best friends and swim buddies!

Campbell and Kari, ready for the diving board!

Kari, Miss Emily (Caitlin's sister), and Campbell!

Christian, got up his nerve and attempted the high dive!

He jumped!  (And did a 180 and belly-flopped it looking for the ladder.)  He said he'll wait until next year to do the high dive again.

And, here's Emily going off of the high dive.  She figured out that if she crosses her legs and points her toes, it doesn't hurt when she hits the water.

I'm so grateful my kids love going to swim lessons so much!  Great instructors who really enjoy teaching makes such a difference and we can't wait until next summer!

All Tuckered Out

 Kari is in that in-between stage where she's transitioning from needing a nap to not needing one.  The days that she takes a nap, it takes her a while to fall asleep at night.  The days that she doesn't take a nap, well, sometimes this happens around 4:00 in the afternoon.

 And this....

And this.  Summer days just wear her out sometimes!  

Oh, to be three yrs old again!

Fun-Filled Fourth!

Oh my goodness, where has July gone?  I can't believe I have yet to post on our Fourth of July!  Well, it was a great day!  Probably the coolest 4th we've ever had temperature-wise (which translates into warm enough to swim, but with no humidity, it was cool enough to enjoy being outside for some fun times with our friends and neighbors!

Emily even let me do her hair all patriotic!

The day started out with Cubby and the kiddos riding bikes.  Sorry for the bad pictures, they were off of my phone.  

After lunch we went over to swim at my friend's Andrea's mother's home for some swimming.

Can you spot Christian??

 Kari had so much fun, she fell asleep a midst a HUGE "tank war" of fireworks and smoke bombs.  We set her up on a big floaty in the shade :-).

And then came our fun evening!  This year, my sweet friend, Mandi, offered to play hostess that evening.  What a blessing it was NOT to have to prepare everything and just bring a side to share!

The kids all spread out picnic-style for their dinner...

Juliana climbed into a chair to chill out....

And the grown ups got to sit back and relax!

Juliana kept us busy though--riding the Wonder Horse (I had one of these when I was little!)

And then she moved on to the swings with her friend, Ben :-).

After dinner, we moved on to fireworks (mostly sparklers and smoke bombs for the kids...the grown ups helped with a few other noise makers :-)).

Campbell and Kari--such angelic faces for two sweet girls!  (Notice the piles of snap-its at their feet.  These girls went through 10 boxes of snaps all.by.themselves.)

Here are my good friends and neighbors--Stephanie, Bridget, and Mandi.  What would I do without them?!

Here's Christian with the parachute he retrieved!

Check out the looks on these girls' faces!  There was a big "BOOM!" and I caught their reaction!

And here are Emily and Ella and their sparklers!

 Happy Fourth of July...at last!