Building and Splashing

Cory sent me to FL for my birthday to spend a long weekend with my good friend Joanne, who lives there.
He did a lot of fun things with the kids while I was gone.
They met some friends at Home Depot for the kid's bulding clinic. The kids got to make message boards.

Aren't Alex and Molly adorable? I love the little aprons and safety glasses. They had a great time.

Leah, Isaac, Molly, and Alex with their finished projects.

Then they went to a fun park with fountains for kids to play in. Molly jumps in!

Alex, Molly, and Isaac enjoyed the water.

South Dakota Fun #5

What else do we do there? Wii, Ladderball, Carcassonne, and Settlers! We love competitive games!

My mom and I playing some Wii.

Alex, Cory, and Chuck playing Ladderball.

Alex and Cory

Sally, Alex, and I

South Dakota Fun #4

Here Grandpa and Alex were walking to go get the tractor for tractor rides. Alex loves being in the tractor.

Alex and Grandpa

Alex and Molly love the animals, too. They love going to the chicken barn and collecting eggs. They like watching the sheep and other animals too. Here are Gretchen and Heidi, the guard donkeys. The donkeys protect the sheep from coyotes and other predators.

Sheep

South Dakota Fun #3

Molly learned to make "dancing ladies" or "flower princesses" or whatever you want to call them from the flowers and buds of Grandma's hollyhocks. She LOVED this and wanted to go get more flowers and buds several times a day. I don't think there were any flowers left by the time we went home.

Molly loves picking mulberries. They are similar to blackberries, but usually sweeter.

Here Molly shows off some of the mulberries she picked.

She also got to ride in the tractor with Grandpa.

South Dakota Fun #2

Molly and Alex were both really excited to hold their new cousin Tyler.

Alex really wanted to feed him a bottle.... well, at least for 5 minutes. Then he was happy to pass Tyler to someone else.

Molly couldn't get enough. She was quite the little babysitter. She wanted to hold him and feed him bottles anytime she could.

When we got home, we asked Molly what she liked best of everything she had done in SD. Holding Tyler tied for first place. :)

Tyler

My adorable nephew Tyler was baptized at my parents' church while we were in SD.

Here are Cory and I with my brother-in-law Chuck, my sister Sally, and Tyler.

We were sponsors along with Tim and Rhonda

Here are Grandpa and Grandma L with Molly, Tyler, and Alex

Here I am with Tyler. I'm glad I got to spend a lot of time with him. He lives in Montana, and he'll be much bigger the next time I get to see him!

South Dakota Fun #1

We went to SD to see family. We had a fun time! In Watertown they got to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Lee, go on some go-kart rides, eat some pizza, make and eat snow cones, and more. They loved it.

Molly liked playing with Taz, the dog at Cory's parents' place. Here she is with Taz and Uncle Lee.

Alex preferred the stuffed dog (wolf?).

Grandpa E. fixed up this go-kart, and Molly and Alex had a great time getting rides in it around their back lot. Here they are in the kart with Grandpa E.

Cory gave them some rides in it too. Here they are with Daddy in the kart. His parents live on the edge of the city, and they have this great back lot of grass. It's a perfect place for rides!

VBS

The preschoolers had VBS in the middle of July. The theme was Veggie Tales. It was really fun. Molly was a craft helper (she attended the VBS Day Camp the previous week for the older kids).
Here is Alex with his buddy Gideon.

The boys and girls competed to raise the most offering money to be given to the World Vision Agriculture program. The boys raised more money than the girls, so Sara was made into an ice cream sundae. The boys all got to pour chocolate syrup, sprinkles, or whipped cream on her hair as a reward. Then the girls got to "clean her off" with water balloons. Sara is a very good sport! Alex was the first boy to put stuff on Sara. He picked the chocolate syrup and had no reservations about squirting it all over her hair!

Here is everybody watching Sara getting messy! Thanks, Sara!

Sunsets and Rock Climbing

These were actually taken Easter weekend, I think. I finally uploaded all the photos from my phone and found these and the ones of Molly below. I thought the sunset was pretty, though. Usually there isn't much to see on the drive from Minneapolis to South Dakota.

Molly went rock climbing at REI this spring. Here she is getting ready to climb. She was VERY excited.

She did well!

Baby Toads

A few weeks ago, we were geocaching near Lake Nokomis, when Molly and Alex found tiny baby toads. They picked them up and named them and wanted to keep them "forever and ever".

Guess what their names were? Mr. Hoppy-Hop and Mr. Hoppy-Hop. Yes, both the same.

These photos are from my phone, so they aren't very good. We said they could keep the toads until we got back closer to where our van was parked. Then we had them release them back by the shore. I'm not sure if the poor baby toads actually survived all of the love and cuddles they got or not. Alex actually gave his a kiss. Ick.

Funny Stories

Cory and I were just making lunch when we heard a clunk and some yelling upstairs. Then it was quiet again. I went to the stairs and called out, "What happened?"
Molly said, "Alex punched me. And um... well I um.... Alex punched me and I forgot not to do something back to him so I kicked him. But then I said I was sorry and hugged him and asked him to forgive me. So we are ok."

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Alex has been really into pretend play lately. This morning he appeared wearing his little hard hat and carrying his tool box. He was waiting not-so-patiently for Molly to wake up so she could play with him.
He said, "I am a builder and Molly is a detective. I saw Daddy do a CRIME and now Molly needs to investigate the CRIME." (He says crime with an emphasis each time, only it sounds more like "kwime". Super cute!)


A few days ago, Molly and Alex were running around wearing different silly hats. Alex told me he was a chef and Molly was a movie director. Alex said he was going to make me lunch. I thought he was making me "pretend" lunch, but then he said I should come into the kitchen. When I got there, Molly had put on the Little Mermaid for my viewing pleasure, and Alex had made me lunch. It was all ready on the table. I should have taken a photo of it. It was sooooo cute! At the table for me was one slice of ham, 2 raw broccoli florets, 2 apple slices, 6 blueberries, and a glass of water. I should mention that the broccoli and apples were already cut up in containers in the fridge, so thankfully he didn't have to attempt to cut anything. That would have been scary.

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One day Molly spilled some goldfish crackers in the van as we were driving. Cory and I told her she had to pick them all up once we got home. She kind of growled at us and said, "I thought this was a regular day when I didn't have to do anything."