Summer Art's Festival

Sunday after church, we hit our usual spot-Costco to pick up a few things and for a slice of pizza...trying to kill some time before meeting up with our good friends the Thillianders, Leeders and Bill's best friend Ben.The Summer Arts Festival was going on down town close to the Old Market and it was the perfect sunny day to stroll around. We took Phoebi and Sawyer down to see the ducks....but they didn't really like Phoebi so they just hissed at us.

We decided to take Phoebi with us thinking, "Hey, she would love walking around down town, how bad can it be?" The answer is: bad. SHE was GREAT, she walked so nicely, never pulled on the leash and let everyone in Omaha pet her. The bad part was everyone else that was at the festival! Oh my goodness, we could not walk four steps without people stopping and asking about how big she was, if she was a Dalmatian/Great Dane mix, if they could pet her and how much food she ate a day....it was exhausting! Melody and I found that if we just kept walking and didn't stop, it didn't give people a chance to come over, but if we ever stopped at all.....we had more people swarming around us than the Kettle Corn stand! There were quite a few other dogs that we met and they all got along really well together! Although Phoebi was the largest one there! I must have gotten used to how big she was because once I saw her next to other ones, she just looked enormous! She's such a goof ball*

We wandered up and down the streets looking at some interesting artful expressions....and I hate to sound distasteful and unappreciative.....but here goes: some of it was downright ugly. There. I said it. But other people seemed to really think it was marvelous so who cares what I thought! It was a pretty hot day, so we made several stops by the free water station, where Phoebi downed about 21 of those little plastic cups of water.

Everyone knows that you can't go downtown without stopping at Ted & Wally's for Ice Cream!

I loved this sign that was posted at the counter: Children left unattended, will be given a double shot of espresso and a free puppy! (I made sure Sawyer stuck right with us!)

We sat outside in the little patio area to enjoy our treats. Sawyer and I shared a dish of Dutch Chocolate, Bill got a cookie dough shake, Ben got a snicker doodle and praline waffle cone! Then our friends Brandon and Laney showed up with their little son, Nolan!

I had to chuckle at this sign about cleaning up after your dog, because as soon as we had gotten out of the car to the festival, Phoebi decided to potty all over the parking lot...and it was a LOT! Thank goodness we had our potty bags with us!

Needless to say, Phoebi had a great day with all of her adoring fans but fame comes with a price: Exhaustion. As soon as we got home, she went right into her bed and passed out!

Parent's Night Out!

Tonight is Parent's Night Out! The kids all dropped in right after five, in their jammies of course! They all look so adorable in their jammies, I just wanna eat em' up! They played some random made-up lion game....I didn't quite get the rules but I guess I was the only one because none of them seemed to have any trouble :)

After a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs with cheesy garlic bread, they all snuggled up together to watch "Rio"! Sawyer has been dying to watch it and I have really wanted to as well since it takes place in Brazil!

The movie is not quite over yet, but all I have heard for the last hour is fits of laughter! They seem to REALLY be enjoying it! I think I'll wait till I put them all to bed to sit down and watch it in peace :)

I'm about to go and set out cookies and milk for their bed time snack and then it's off to bed little monkeys! I love having the kiddos during the day, but there is something just so lovable about having them at nighttime, all cozied up in their jammies and sleepy eyed.....

Lemonade for Sale!

The day of the Lemonade stand turned out to be gorgeous! Blue Sky, light breeze and more importantly, Piping HOT! We dragged our coffee table out into the driveway, the kids made some signs, we squeezed lemons and limes, slathered on the sun screen and gave the people what they wanted: Lemonade and Cup Cakes!!!!

We had SUCH a great turn out!!! All of our neighbors came by and of course all the kids parents and then some 'drive-bys' that pulled over and became customers. We kept the cup cakes in the fridge in the garage so they didn't melt all over the place and just had little 'runners' to go and grab a few out at a time....although the first couple of times they went to grab one, the cup cakes somehow ended up having nice big ole bites out of them by the time they made it back to the table! LOL So we did have ANOTHER talk about not eating or licking the cup cakes!

And just as we were about to close up shop....guess who drove up?? Papa Steve!!!! (with no money!) We let him have a cup cake anyways :) Sawyer was so surprised!! It was actually nice that Papa came right towards the end so that we could just sit and chat a bit.

The kids had such a fun afternoon and they actually made a little over $45.00!!!

I'd venture to say that we were are the most successful stand in the neighborhood!

Cup Cakes Anyone?

We have been slowly collecting some items to send with Nana Kathy on her missions trip to Guatemala in a few weeks! We thought that having a lemonade stand would be a great idea to raise money to buy some things off of the list that the orphanage is in need of. We thought we'd 'beef up' the lemonade stand with a few baked treats to top it off :)

We made OREO cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting and then Banana cupcakes with Chocolate Peanut butter topping.....

Samantha observing Sawyer as he cracks an egg (which is about a 23 minute process, might I add...)

The OREO cup cakes even had half a cookie placed in the bottom of the cup!

They turned out SO yummy!!!!!

Fun in the Sun

As soon as my kiddos walk in the door the past few mornings, the first thing out of their mouths is, "Can we go in the sprinklers today? Pleeeeease?" So, we have been waiting till after lunch to go out and run around since it's a little warmer later in the day.

You know how kids sometimes do random things and then it turns into something that they want to do ALL the time?! Well, apparently spreading towels out on the driveway and having Sawyer wrap them up really tightly is the best thing ever....(eye roll)... And of course he gets the biggest kick out of it because he gets to be the center of attention.

The other 'game' that they love is coming and sitting on my lap after they are all soaking wet! I knew I shouldn't have made such a to-do about it the first time, because now they just think it's hilarious to get me drenched :)

One very unpleasant thing for Sawyer is if any tiny droplet of water gets anywhere close to going up his nose....you would think that a spider had crawled up there and was laying eggs with the way that he reacts! There is yelping and fake sneezing, dramatic coughing and gagging...it's a big to do...that usually happens at least every ten minutes or so.

The kids just LOVE running around in the water and I love it too because it's makes them so tuckered out that nap time is a breeze! Of course we have wet towels always needing to get thrown in the wash, little swim suits hanging up to dry and a layer of spray-on sun screen coating the side of our house :)

You've Got a Friend In Me...

A few weekends ago Sawyer's buddies came and spent the day with us! Jack, Theo and Oliver are pretty much the best people on earth in Sawyer's mind :)

We spent most of the day at the park since the weather was SO nice out! It was sunny and warm, with a perfect breeze....

Boys will be Boys.

All they wanted to do was see how far up they could climb and then jump off! I just about had heart failure a couple of times and was sure we were going to have a trip to the ER.

AND.....I found a four leaf clover! I had never found one before! But there it was....just four little perfect heart shaped leaves! I'm looking forward to a year of good luck!

Of course we had to end the afternoon with ice cream sandwiches!

And The Doctor Said...

Thanks to all of you who have been praying for Sawyer's eye sight for the last couple of months! As I mentioned in the last post, we went to see Dr. Troia last week to check on the progress of his left eye. His vision actually has improved in that eye! It was 20/40 and is now at 20/30!! Wahoo! We have not seen any improvement with the eye crossing in towards his nose though unfortunately which means that the eye muscle is still weak. Since the patch seems to be helping improve his sight, he will continue to wear the patch for four more weeks. At that time, we will see how he is doing vision wise and how the muscle is doing at keeping his eye straight. Please pray that we will not have to resort to surgery and that we will see tremendous improvement in both VISION and MUSCLE STRENGTH when we go back in a few weeks! Thanks so much!!!*