Happy Father's Day Tim!!!

The girls are so excited about today, not really sure why, cause I don't think they understand what Father's Day is really. Josie asked me when Kids' day was, and I told her that's everyday around here. ha

Tim didn't want much, we had plans to go to the races, but the rain cancelled those. So Tonya and Levi and the kids came up for a night of playing cards. It was SO much fun!!! It's not often that, well actually, don't really know when the last time it was just us and them together. We had a great time and so did the kids. Aeriel, Amberlea, Josie and Cailyn played and played and played. Rachel was a little out of the loop, but she was alright with that, we attempted to teach her how to play pitch, but she just didn't catch on really. And Gunnar was more than happy playing the wii all evening. It was a really nice time!! (even though the guys kicked our butts, sorry Tonya, pitch isn't my kind of game either, I hate to bid)

Back to Father's Day, it was a blur of a morning. We slept in, but not on purpose. This wasn't good cause the girls were supposed to be serving at mass, but there was no way we were going to make it on time. I didn't get the French Toast breakfast made for Tim either and I had plans for the girls to decorate a big cookie for him, and we needed to be up at mom's by noonish. The girls got the cookie done, and it sure was "pretty".

We headed to mom and dad's for a bbq and a really fun time of hanging out together. The grandkids played in the pool, rode bikes, rode 4 wheelers, and played some washer and bean bag toss. It was great!! My parents house is always such a good time because the kids can play outside and do things we don't normally get to do. I had a hard time getting the girls off the 4 wheelers today (this is why they were so excited about Father's day I think, they just kept saying that they wanted to go to Grandma and Grandpa's for Father's Day ....lol)

Tim took off for a couple hours with his dad for a Father's Day car show. The two of them said they had a great time looking at all the cars. Tim really enjoys doing these things with his dad, and I'm glad they got to go together.

And to my husband on this Father's Day..... I don't tell you often enough how great of a father you are to your girls. It's not easy being in a house full of all girls, but you never complain.... ha. Everyone that sees you can tell just how much you love and support your girls in everything that they do!! Happy Father's Day Honey!

Here are more pictures for you...... of course.

Summer Fun!!

I wanted to share a few pics I took of the girls this afternoon. Since the sun came out and it was warm this afternoon I let them play in the water with the hose. They decided to make a water slide. We did this last year and had a pool at the bottom, but I told them I wasn't dragging out the pool, they'd just have to wing it. And so they did.

Amberlea is so smart.... she got the hose put up on the tree house just right so that they had a waterfall they had to go under to go down the slide. They were FLYING down the slide. Mostly Amberlea, cause unlike her, the other two are a little more nervous about trying things like this cause they don't want to get hurt.

After playing for a while we headed over to the pool my Mom bought for the grandkids to play in. They had a really good time just splashin' around in it for a while.

I must say that when the 3 of them are together, most of the time it is wonderful and they play and play and play!! This includes lots of dress up time, makeup, dance performances, school, outside, to just reading books together. At times I make them split up if they are having a bad day fighting with each other, but it about drives them all crazy when I say they have to stay apart from each other for a while. They have a great sisterly bond, and I just pray it continues for a few more years.... you never know what that preteen age will bring on, they might be at each others throats by then, but one can hope and pray not.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Another update

We have been super busy lately, I feel just worn out these days. The weekend wasn't much of a weekend because we (or I should say, I was) up at 6am every morning packing and getting things around for a swim meet. Saturday's was the Maryville invite and Sunday we headed to Auburn.

Both meets lasted into the afternoon and it was a long day. The only good part about it is watching the girls compete and they did AWESOME!! I'm so proud of all of them. Rachel is figuring out how to gain speed and we are seeing improvement in her this year. Amberlea is our competitive one and wants to know just as soon as she steps out of the pool what place she got. And Josie, oh Josie..... what can I say. People are amazed at how well she is doing just being 5. I had one mom tell me on Sunday they got the biggest kick out of her because every part of her body is moving, but she is standing still in the water. She knows how to do the strokes, but she just hasn't figured out how it will make her faster. BUT, last night we had another meet and we worked out an incentive to make her want to improve her speed. She was shed 12 sec, 5 sec, and 10 sec off 3 different strokes. That's awesome! I was pretty proud. I won't tell you her incentive just yet, we'll wait to see if she reaches her goal.

Tim and I want to take the girls to the pool later this week to work with her on her strokes. We are hoping the sun comes out for a few days like they say it's going to so we can get a chance to do this.

Tim got his cast off on Monday. He is super thrilled about that. He said the Dr. told him if he didn't know where to look for the break, be wouldn't of been able to see it. It healed great! He was released to do whatever activity he wants to do. It is just going to be sore for a little while still.

Rachel has her last summer VB game tonight, Tim and I are not attending. We needed a night off from all the running. 3 swim meets in a row and tomorrow is another one in Neb City I have to travel to. We decided to just stay at home tonight. I hope she does well! She is also attending at Band Camp this week at northwest. She is pretty excited about that, I hope she enjoys it and gets a lot out of it. She will have a performance on Saturday for all of us to see. That will be interesting to see what they can do compared to the little concerts we've seen at St. Greg's. I'm looking forward to that.

We are looking forward to a fun weekend with all the kids celebrating Father's Day!

Weekend Activities

It was a beautiful weekend, I'm sure you'll all agree. Our weekend started off with an afternoon at the pool Friday after I was done with the babysitting kids. That was a lot of fun! Josie has been dying to see if she was tall enough to go down the slide this year..... and sure enough she was!! HUGE milestone in her life, ha. I went up with her and she was a little nervous, but she did it. I was so scared. I couldn't go down with her, just had to watch and see how she did, it made my heart race. Not sure why since we were surrounded by lifeguards, but even still, it scares me....I'm a mom.

The first time she struggled at the end of the slide. She wasn't expecting that current at the bottom and it took her a bit to get to the ladder cause she was swept away by the current. I figured this would of scared her enough to be done, I was wrong. She climbed out of the pool and told me that was a BlAsT, and she was going again!! She went down several times Friday afternoon. She also went off the diving board several times. Her few days of swim team practice has really paid off. I see a huge improvement already.

Saturday morning was Maryville's intrasquad meet. Pretty much just a practice for Maryville and to get some seed times for the kids. Josie swam all 4 strokes. She was pretty worn out, but she did great. Backstroke, not so good..... I'll be honest. Took a long time, but she really doesn't get it at all. But, in her defense, several of the first time swimmers wouldn't even attempt it, and she at least tried.

Josie's other strokes were much better. Being close to the youngest, I'm super proud of her. It will be interesting to see how much she improves in the weeks to come. She didn't come in last though..... that was exciting!

Amberlea also did awesome. Over the last year she has really become competitive with her swimming. She moved up to the 9-10 age group this year. I don't know all the results, but in 2 of them she placed 3rd. That is really good for our first meet and that there are girls older than her. I can't wait to see what she ends up doing over the next few weeks.

Rachel, like always did a good job. Rachel struggles with speed a lot of the time, but she has beautiful form. Not sure how to get her go faster, but she is a really good swimmer. Can't complain at all.

Overall if was a wonderful weekend, got together with friends, spent time with the family, and just relaxed. Nothing better than that!!

Josie
Rachel

Amberlea

Auffert Sharks

Here's a picture I did up of the girls that I took today. I thought it turned out pretty well. They are so amazing!!

Pictures

I was trying to multi-task and started a new post while waiting for photos to load, it ended up loading them on the wrong post, so here are the pictures and read below for the details of our vacation. sorry

This is where we stayed. The girls enjoyed watching/feeding the fish and turtles.

This is a picture of the girls watching the water and fire show at the Landing. It was pretty cool.

Josie driving the Duck, this is her 2nd time. Cailyn also drove it.

Cailyn loves her floaty race car. It's the only way she'll get in the pool. She just zooms around the pool by kicking her feet. Isn't she so cute.

Branson Vacation

We had a wonderful time in Branson last weekend. We left on Friday and returned on Monday. The girls weren't ready to come back home, and Tim and could of probably stayed another day, but they can't last forever.

We didn't do a whole lot, and that was the nice part. We did some light shopping, Rode the Ducks, went to see The New Shanghai Circus, the water show at the Landing and mostly just hung out around the resort.

We did quite a bit of swimming, some mini golfing and tennis. It's really nice that all this is included at the resort. It saves on both time and money for us.

I'll leave you with some pictures of our good times. Thanks Mom and Dad.... we all had a great time!