Schools Back in Session

Today is Claire's fist day of 2nd grade and she was so excited that she was up at 5:30 am ready to get the day started. It makes it so much nicer than having to drag her out of bed. Mark took Friday and Monday off work and we had a weekend vacation before school started back. We hung out on the beach of Silver Lake at St. Joseph Michigan. Some of the other favorite activities of the weekend were picking peaches at an orchard, playing at a great park in Berrien Springs, and eating Chinese takeout at our hotel while watching the Olympics. Now it's time to get back to the routines of a busy school year. Luckily I got Hope to nap in the tent, because she definately doesn't like being confined to a small area and crawled out of the tent soon after I put her in it.
We got to the beach early enough that we had it pretty much to ourselves for a little while.

Olympic Dreams

We've been enjoying the Olympics the last few days and the kids are definately getting in the spirit of the games. Brock has mastered the sommersault with great form and sticks the landing every time. Claire is moving up in her skills and is currently perfecting the head stand. She's been able to hold her head stand for up to 10 seconds. Go USA!!

In the Army Now!

Hope is officially moving now. She started doing the army crawl today and is really proud of herself. She also has her bottom two teeth to show off with her smile (they came in late June). It's hard to believe that on the 29th of this month she'll be 6 months old already. She adds so much joy to the family.

County Fair Time

It's County Fair time once again. We had to go twice because Claire was on a sleep over the first time. Brock's favorite place was on a piece of farm machinery. Mark was afraid we might have to buy one the way he was pulling and jerking on all the levers.

Of course, the rides are always fun too! Claire even rode with Brock on a few of them.
Hope being introduced to a baby goat for the first time. Brock doing his belly laugh at the rabbit house.

Family Fun!

This is for all the guys out there that enjoy a good fish story. Just ask Mark, because I wasn't out there at 6am getting bit by mosquitos in the most remote place in Jasper county to catch this one and many others. But he obviously was and had the foresite to bring the camera. (He has more pictures and would love to show them, just ask) I think he was trying to out fish the Canada team.


We took a trip to Indy this past week for a little fun. We stayed at the Holiday Inn with the waterpark and spent the next day at the Children's Museum. A fun time was had by all, however not much sleep was had by Momma.
Who's this clowning around???

Brock's Birthday

Brock turned 2 on June the 12th and we celebrated his birthday that weekend with a construction theme. He calls the construction vehicles "dig digs".

Little mini Mark.

Claire's Birthday!

Claire turned 7 on May the 18th and I'm just now getting around to the pictures. As you can tell the theme was High School Musical. For those of you who don't understand what that is, just ask any grade school girl and they'll tell you all about it.

A couple of Claire's best friends stayed over for a sleep over that night. They had a ball doing all the things that a 7 year old girl loves to do.