Reunions and Birthdays

I can hardly believe this is our last full week of summer vacation.  The kids start back to school a week from today.  We have had a wonderful summer.  Last summer was difficult in many ways, due to the ages and diversity of the 4 kids, so I was prepared for the summer to be really hard.  However, they have done really well.  The last two weeks there has been a lot more fighting, but they’ve really gotten along well all summer and we have had a lot of fun together.  I’m so thankful for this as my expectations were very low after last year.  =)  One thing I asked the older two kids to do was to make a list of 4-5 things they would really like to do over summer vacation.  We managed to do all the easy ones, but a trip to Chicago did not happen this summer.  I don’t think they minded too much, we stayed plenty busy.  But one thing they both had on their lists was a trip to the zoo.  My Mom went with us one day and we had a great (cool) day at the zoo.

   

Another summer vacation list item: roasting marshmallows….a few neighbors joined in on this fun.

   

This past weekend we enjoyed the annual Kaiser weekend.  Thank you to all my aunts and uncles and grandparents for all the work they did to make it a success!

 

  

Creighton turned 4 yesterday and we had fun celebrating with him.  His choice for a meal was hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, cottage cheese, and chocolate M & M cookies. Happy Birthday, Creigh!

Perfect Pictures

I was looking around our house this morning and noticed many of our pictures are getting dated, especially ones of Anya, she has changed a lot in the past 6-12 months.  So I decided to take some new ones.  In my mind, I set out to get “perfect” pictures, you know, ones where everyone is looking AND smiling AND has their hands neatly folded in their lap….Well, I did not get those.  What I got were some like this:

This:

This:

This:

This:

This:

And this:

When we first came back inside I was frustrated, but the more I thought about it, the more I smiled about these pictures.  I was planning to make the kids suffer through another photo shoot, but I think I’ll frame some of these after all.  What better reminder that we aren’t a perfect family, never will be, and that is 100% ok. =)