We Love Aunt Natalie!!

 The summer is rolling right along much faster than I would like it to.  But it has been such a blast!! In June we had a very special visitor!!  My sweet cousin, Natalie, came to visit us.  My kiddos call her Aunt Natalie:) I felt very bad that my life was so crazy, busy that week and we had to move forward with it.  But we tried to fit it some fun too!

My kiddos had swim lessons again this year.  And Elsie had lessons for the first time! It was so cute to watch her paddle around in the water!!  Poor Nat had to come with us a few times and brave the heat!!

Jane and Beckham have each made made amazing strides with their swimming!  They are both very confident in the water and it puts me at such ease to know that they can stay alive in the water!!  They even mastered jumping off the diving board without help this year!!

 Jane and I had the neat opportunity to sing the National Anthem at the Knob Noster city fair and parade!!  It was so neat to sing with my daughter! She has such talent and I am so proud of her.  Before we sang, we got to ease our nerves by having some fun at the fair!! This was right before Natalie came to visit.  But I wanted to include it :)

 This was back stage before Jane and I went up to sing.  Elsie loved the flowers they gave us!!  There was a little stage that she was enjoying being a performer on!!

 Here we are the darling...yet rather strange...clowns that were there:)

 There was an air show on base right before Natalie came.  I was so bummed that she wasn't here for that.  However, we were able to go on base and let Natalie see the super secretive and super cool B2 Bomber airplane take off!!  It was pretty neat.  I'm glad Natalie got to see it:)

 Elsie started a little dance class!!  I just had to put this picture in.  I think her tights may be a bit too small- haha!

 We were able to take Natalie to the Liberty Jail!!  It is one of my favorite sights in Missouri.

 It is very neat to hear more of what happened in that jail and about Joseph Smith's time there.

 Poor Ryan had just had a small oral surgery... so when we went to dinner after Liberty Jail, poor Ryan was a little out of it- ha!!

 Little Elsie just loved Natalie and gave her very little peace :)  She loved to be around Aunt Natalie!

 For a fun activity, we decided to tie dye some t shirts!  It was pretty fun and the shirts all turned out really well!!

 Here are the end results...minus Natalie's.

 Just a few more pictures of Natalie giving Elsie some special attention since she wanted to be by her side the whole time:)

 Cute, cute, cute!!

 One night we ordered Chinese food for Nat, since its her favorite!!

 On the weekend, we made a special trip to Union Station!!  Back in the day this was a major train station hub.  It was quite beautiful and there was a lot to do there!

 There was a really nice view of Kansas City!!

 And some really neat things throughout...

 The main reason we went there though was to see this mummies exhibit.  It was pretty neat but a little more morbid than I had thought it would be.  My kids and I are learning about ancient Egypt this summer so I though mummies equaled Egyptian sarcophaguses and artifacts and that it would go right along with what we were learning.  Well... this exhibit was actually just well preserved bodies and mummies.  As we were walking through, I thought many times "I can't believe I am here with my little kiddos...and Natalie!"  Oh well, It was a funny memory I guess.  And I think everyone enjoyed themselves a little:)

To end our time with Natalie we had Smores!!

The week went by so so fast and we had so much fin with Natalie!!  We love her and were so glad to be able to spend some extra time with her!!

Hello Summer!!!

 I cannot believe that this school year is over!!  It came and went so fast.  The end of the year is always fun and this year did not disappoint.  Jane had a fun project where she got to research and make a project about a famous American.  Jane chose Walt Disney which was very appropriate since we had just returned from Disney World.  All the third graders got to present their projects while being dressed up like their person.  Jane did so great and it was such a blast to see her in action!!

She also got many many awards! Way to go Jane!!

 Elsie and I had a blast at Beckham's field day festivities!! We also got to eat lunch with him and his classmates.  What a fun day!

 For Memorial Day, which is the official start of summer, we had a day filled with family fun!!  We went to Powell Gardens and saw their gardens of myth display.  It was super neat.  We had to follow a map and  find the mythical creatures.  We found a dragon...

 A Kappa...

 of course we hit up the splash pad...

 we saw garden fairies...

 a minotaur...

 Bigfoot...

 trolls...

 a gargoyle...

 a unicorn...

 a bridge troll...

 and a leprechaun!!!

 The gardens are so so beautiful and searching fro the mythical creatures made it so much fun!!

 Then we bought a grill for Ryan so we could have a BBQ and some outdoor fun!!

 We whipped out the slip n slide and the kids went to town while Ryan cooked!

 For desert I made frozen Butter Beers which were amazing!!  That was one of the things I loved the most about Harry Potter World and was anxious to try it again!!

 Everyone loved it!

 Here is a picture of Elsie and Ryan taking a nap at the city pool :)  There is no better way  than the pool to start off the summer!

 For some summer fun, we got some tinker boxes to explore!!  Elsie got to learn about and reptiles and make some reptiles, a snake, a turtle and a chameleon.

 Jane got to paint and make a cork board!

 And Beckham got to learn about and make a camera obscure.  It was super super neat!  Here are the final products!!

 At the library, we got to see a magician!  He was so fabulous and funny.

Summer is off to a great start and we are enjoying every second of it!!