July 4th Weekend

This year we went to my parent's house for July 4th.  Cory and I were able to sneak away and see a movie in the afternoon while Mom and Dad watched the kids.  After the movie we went back to their house, grilled some burgers, brats, and hot dogs, and then shot off some small fireworks with the kids.

They always like the snappers.

The smoke bombs are always a hit.

They also like watching the "snakes" grow into little piles of "poo".

Julia was a little unsure about the whole thing, and spent most of her time hanging back with Grandma and Grandpa.

There were a few loud sparkly ones that neither of the girls wanted to get too close to.

The kids had fun with the little fireworks, and later on, after the girls were in bed, Cory, Grant and I went to watch the city of O'Fallon fireworks.  We walked around the festival and looked at the rides. Grant was a little disappointed that the lines were too long to ride any.  Grant did get to play one of the carnival games.  He didn't win, but he was a very close second.  We bought him a light saber to replace his broken ones, and then we settled down and listened to a band play until the fireworks started.  It was a good display, but we all wished it would have lasted a little longer.  I think Grant felt like he waited forever for them to start, and then they were over before he had even figured out the most comfortable position to watch them. 

We spent the night at Grandma and Grandpa Hedberg's house, and on the way home we got a call from our alarm company saying that our house alarm had been set off.  Oops! The neighbors set it off when they came to let Mia out.  We told the alarm company to call off the cops, and we when got home the neighbor was still there, scared out of her wits.  We know the alarm system works, and she can verify that it is LOUD!  The rest of the day was pretty uneventful as we tried to keep cool in the Missouri summer heat and humidity.

Busy Birds

The Mommy and Daddy birds have been busy around here.  We have two nests that have made it easy for us to watch all the activity, and the growing baby birds.  This first one is a Phoebe nest on top of a window under our covered front porch. I went out one day and found three out of the four little ones sitting on the window ledge (You can just see the head of the one in the nest).  By the end of the day all four of them were on the ledge, and by the next day they were all gone.

The squirrels lent a hand in the building of this next nest.  A couple years ago the squirrels chewed a hole in this screen belonging to one of our mudroom windows. A pair of Carolina Wrens found this little hole and made themselves a cozy nest in the corner.  It has been fun getting a close-up view of the birds growing.  It won't be long now before they're gone.

Can you see the little beak in there?

Swim Lessons

The kids have had swim lessons last week and this week.  This is Julia's first time at swim lessons, and I have to be in the water with her.  She is loving it.  We are in the "baby" pool most of the time, and then we move over to the big pool toward the end of the lessons to practice "swimming", and for her to jump in.  She is getting very good at blowing bubbles and kicking her legs.  The arm circles need a little more work.  She LOVES jumping of the side of the pool to me, and says, "Do it again!" after every jump.

Johanna is having fun, but doesn't love it as much as Grant and Julia do.  She is more hesitant in the water, but she did let her instructor hand her down off the diving board to another instructor who was in the water.  That is quite an accomplishment for her.

I was unable to get away from Julia during the lesson to get a photo of Grant, but believe me, he is there and having a great time.  He's just happy to be in the water. I may enroll him in another session of private lessons, so he can really start to polish all the strokes he has been learning.  I think his favorite thing so far in swim lessons is doing front and back flips under the water.  After the lessons today he told me that he has fallen in love with water and would like to marry it.

Robbers

Cory and I were sitting out on the screened-in-porch the other day, and the kids came out and said they were "robbers".  These were the outfits they were wearing:

Apparently, robbers like to wear pj's and tall socks.

Strawberry Sorbet

With all of the very hot and humid days we've been having lately, I thought it would be a perfect time to make Johanna's requested strawberry sorbet.

I think she enjoyed it...

Everyone else enjoyed it, too.

Sisters

Fresh Raspberries