4th of July Celebrations

We had a small, but fun 4th of July celebration this year.

Dorie and Nora trying on the star glasses

My cooking helpers

Love the pose, hehe

 Kids and Dorie

Marolynn had made some pans of Jello jigglers, and thought it would be fun for the kids to cut out shapes with cookie cutters. They had a lot of fun with that!

Mike grilled some burgers and hot dogs

Popsicles for dessert

We did a few small fireworks, pop-its and sparklers in front of our house

Later on, we headed to the park to join the neighborhood celebration and see the aerial fireworks

There was also a giant outdoor movie screen with the Penguins of Madagascar movie playing

It was a fun 4th with family and friends!

June Misc.

A few more pictures from June...

My long-legs kitty!

The kitties get along pretty well as long as Max doesn't try to cuddle with Sadie or pounce on her - both of which are a little hard for him.

 Picture with my fam

Celebrating "National Doughnut Day"

I brilliantly locked myself and the kids out of the house one day, so we just had to hang out until Mike was able to come home from work and let us in. We went to McDonald's for lunch which we have never done before. The kids thought it was so fun, I heard them scheming about how they could get us locked out of the house again...uh oh. Next time I will be prepared!

I ordered a cat tree for the cats, and the kids helped me assemble it when it got here.

Max has pretty much lived on it ever since...hehe

Date night at Happy Sumo

The kids came and surprised us one evening all dressed up like this:

One day I was doing some work around the house, and when I went into my room to get something, I found a surprise! He keeps saying he is too old for naps, but...

Summer afternoons

We took the kids to see the new Disney/Pixar film "Inside Out", and they loved it. The kids assigned each one of us to one of the emotion characters. Evie was Joy, Nora was Sadness, Sam was Anger, I was Fear and Mike was Disgust. I think they are all pretty fitting...except Mike's. Haha.

Day Camp

June 30th I headed up to Camp Jeremiah Johnson with our wolf den and some of our other scout leaders for our annual cub scout day camp. The boys had a fun time and got to participate in a variety of cool activities. I'm glad we signed up for the morning session, because by the time we were on our last activity, it had gotten really hot!

Baby V

The day after Beth took the girls to the lab, her baby was born! Sweet little Vienne is here, and we are so excited! 

The kids made some cards for me and Mike to take to Beth and Reece in the hospital

 Mike holding little baby V

We are so thrilled for Beth and Reece! Baby V is adorable!

Day in the Lab with Beth

The girls are both very interested in science, so Beth invited them to the lab where she works to learn about some of the different equipment they use there, and to do some experiments. They loved it so much, that they asked Beth if they could come back every day!

All ready to go in their lab coats and gloves

Learning about pH, and testing different solutions to find out their pH

Doing some more experiments - they learned about different ways to mix solutions, concentrations, different ways to keep things cool, different ways to measure things out, how the metric system works, and more!

Getting some liquid nitrogen

This was Evie's favorite experiment and she kept asking Beth to do it over and over. Beth inflated and tied a plastic glove, then put it into the liquid nitrogen. It shriveled up and became crunchy. Beth took it out and put it on the floor, and the girls watched it warm back up and reflate and go back to normal. They thought this was the coolest thing ever.

Evie was also very excited about the dry ice

The girls learning about gels

The girls absolutely LOVED their day at the lab! 

Beth was such a good sport to do this with them, especially considering what happened soon after...