My Fantastic Weekend!

Thursday night Levi, the girls & I saw Harry Potter at the Drive-In with Evan Almighty as the second feature. Harry Potter was great - as I had expected! Then, Saturday morning I rode up to IA City with one of my best gal pals, Christy. We met up with another one of my great friends, Sonya, for lunch and knitting at the Crazy Girl Yarn Shop. Here is a picture of Christy testing her new toy with Sonya's knitting as the subject.

That night I got home and the family loaded up for a pool party/birthday party in Mediapolis. The kids loved it - including Ayla. She sat in her baby float for nearly an hour and a half of the two hour party. Levi did take her out to kick a bit. Ayvarie played hard on the water slide and Ayden kicked it in the deep end with the boys. They start their swimming lessons tomorrow, so I'm sure there will be a lot of extra pool time in the next couple of weeks.

That was Saturday...today we visited the Naibi Zoo with the Thompsons. The last time (and only time) we visited the Niabi zoo was in 2004 for Ayden's 5th birthday. Here are some pics to recap our day.

Friends and family...

We spent our time during the past week meeting up with friends and family. Felt like reunions all around! Dad received some down time in the hospital getting his knee replaced, so we visited him, too. Don't worry...I took pics of his "zipper" on his leg (according to Ayvarie). Anyway, here are some pics I took on Sat & Sun.

Sweet Ayla.

Joel & Ayla having fun

...and holding hands.

Simply B.

I have bunches of pics on my hard drive that need some attention and passing along. It was great meeting up with Jim, Drea & Joel on 7.7.07. I'm hoping to get more of the pics I took of them up here within the next few days. We'll see if I can get anything accomplished. Monday was a Monday and Tuesday is an extension of my Monday. I'm just not making a whole lot of progress at home or work yet this week. Tis life, right?

Sparklers!

Ayvarie & Ayden lit up more sparklers when we got home from watching the fireworks last night, so I attempted to take some pics of them in the dark. It was fun!

Happy 4th!

Can you tell the difference between the first and second pictures?


I was messing with making the eyes pop on the kids. They just looked dull, so I was following the combination of some suggestions I found by googling Photoshop tutorials. I think it fares well for Ayla & Ayden, but Ayvarie looks a bit inhuman. Either way, it's good to know.

Meanwhile, celebrate your freedom (if you are in the USA) today! It is a beautiful day here in the midwest.

Connecting the Blocks

Well, Ayla had her first of I'm assuming many tumbles. She was sitting on the floor and leaned forward a bit too far and "connected" with some Legos this afternoon. Unfortunately, the proof has lasted into tonight as you can see the white circle surrounded by red that remains on her nose and the red rash on her cheek. I sure hope she takes her time learning to walk so she doesn't end up with loose teeth like Ayvarie did.

Shhh...

This is proof of what went on at our house this afternoon. Levi decided to stay up a bit too late playing the Wii, so instead of rearranging with me, he opted for sleeping with the baby instead. I don't blame him - I enjoy naps with Ayla and wish I could do it regularly. I guess tomorrow will be the busy day at our house!

Princess Ayv?

It was a gorgeous day out after what we have been enduring so far this June. The high was supposed to be 79. I'm sure it reached that, but it felt cool after having near 90 degree temps for so long. Ayvarie wanted her hair in pigtails, so we twisted them up while we were at it. She loved it, but as much as she changes her clothes during the day, she changes her hair style, too. They didn't last long after our mini photo shoot.

Tonight was Ayden's last baseball game of the season. They won 20-0. I think they've won all of their games since the tournament a couple of weeks ago. The team improved dramatically in only a couple of weeks' time. I do think I'll miss watching the little guys, even though I know I'll enjoy the flexibility in our schedule for the rest of summer. Ahhhh.....

My Honor Student

A few weeks ago we recieved a letter inviting Ayden to participate in the Honors program at school. I was pleasantly surprised. He had to get a 95% or above in at least 2 areas on the ITBS. There was also some other factor having to deal with school-based tests and recommendation from the teacher, I believe. Either way, we are thrilled! Meanwhile, Ayden has a strong interest in science/math and working with his Lego NXT. So, we signed him up for the Iowa State Engineering Kids Camp this summer. It was yesterday and today at the ISU campus. What a way to market your university at such a young age, huh? Since I have strong ties to ISU, I don't care. They worked with some Lego robotics, a tornado simulator, studied some paper airplanes, and even had a GPS scavenger hunt on campus. He really enjoyed it and wants to attend again next year. I just hope they have a few different activities to keep it interesting for the kids. It's such a cool way to keep the kids interested in learning!

One more...

Post...

This is from earlier today (first set of swimsuits).

This is the second half of my journal layout for my book.

Berry good...

Berries! We tried to get some yard work done today...even with it being Father's Day. What a way to spend the afternoon. It was actually really nice for being almost 90 degrees. The humidity didn't feel too bad. While the kids played in the pool one last time tonight, I managed to pick a few berries from my wildly growing "weed". The prickly vine has started taking over my hasta bed, but I can't bear to tear it out until it has stopped producing yummy fruit! I might actually try to put in some sort of trellis next year and get some "weeds" growing elsewhere in the yard. I have the jars and tools to do some canning. Jelly or jam might be fun!

I happened to notice on Her Space : My Space, that the word to capture for the day just happened to be berries! I have attempted some other nice photos based on their word of the day, but I haven't gotten them posted yet. I would really like to try to keep up and post as often as those two gals do. Maybe it could be my mid-year resolution. Ha!

Happy Father's Day!

I created a layout today for my 8X8 book (it's more of a journal) I'm working on for 2007. Anyway, I wanted to honor my Dad, so I worked on a page that had him in it. The most recent pic of him is from Memorial Day weekend. Of course, Ayla's in it, too. I didn't use much in the way of embellishments except some experimentation with the transparency feature in Microsoft Digital Image Suite. I've been editing my pics in Photoshop, but I am still a lot faster working my layouts in MDIS vs. PSCS2. That's one of my personal goals...to become efficient at it all using PSCS2. I'm having so much fun with photography these days that it's pretty much a necessity!

Here's the card I made for Dad as well. It contains some designs from Weeds & Wildflowers (specifically the newsprint, red paper and doodles) and Calico Designs (the buttons, DAD alpha and ribbons). It was fun to make. I really should try to make a few cards every week so I can build up a stash. To physically scrap them takes so much longer and I enjoy making cards and giving someone something handmade. Even the kids made handmade Father's Day cards for Levi this year. Fun!

Family Fun!

Snails...

Sunlight...

With Levi being gone so much for work, the kids want to do fun things when he is home. He got home after 2AM yesterday and when he woke up around 9:30, we all got ready to head up to Maquoketa. Our friends camped there overnight and were planning to walk some trails and visit the caves. We missed the tornados on Friday and the rain stayed away on Saturday until evening, so we had a lucky couple of days. The caves area is beautiful! There are a lot of caves to crawl through. We avoided those since we didn't wear the best attire for that. Instead, we entered those we could while standing and hiked around the trails. The kids had such a good time, so we're hoping to return sometime this summer (and I'm sure the boys will be dressed for crawling).

Family!

A perfect ending to a great day!