The New Road

In July of this year, the city finally agreed to fix our road. I wish that I had some before shots, but I don't. You will just have to take my word for it that our road was the worst road in the area. Those of us that had to use it on a regular basis would joke that we didn't try to miss the potholes, we just tried to find the smallest ones to go through. (the only problem was that we weren't joking about it.) Anyway it was neat to watch the big diggers and other equitpment work on the road. The pictures are of the first day when they ripped out the origional road, but it lasted nearly a week. My kids spent a lot of time out in the front yard just watching what was going on. At least they had the neighbor kids to keep them company. One of the workers commented that he didn't realize this would be a parade. (all the kids were sitting on chairs and eating snacks.) The workers were really great though, and would watch out for the kids.
Wouldn't you be fascinted too, it you had never seen big equiptment up close?
For the most part this didn't interrupt too much, although I did have to drive across the front lawn one time to get out and take the kids somewhere, and I did have to carry my groceries around the corner from my house. That gave the neighbors a good laugh.

Brooklyn Fish

There is a funny story behind these pictures, I had been drying the swimming pool after draining it and cleaning it, and it got left in the sprinklers over night, so the bottom was full of some water. The next morning, I let the kids outside to play, and before I could say boo Brooklyn had climbed up onto the trampoline, and was playing in the dirty water from the sprinklers, and having a great time. The other kids thought it looked like fun, but I stopped them before they could get all of their clothes wet too.
Who needs a swimming suit to go swimming, just give me some clothes and water and life will be great.
Lucky for me she did eventually get out of the water.

Gymnastics

Aby and Mckenzie both signed up for Gymnastics this summer with Karson and Bryn as their cohorts. This turned out to be very fun and both of my girls loved every minute of it. They could hardly wait until Monday of each week so that they could go back. Both of them were very sad when their six weeks were up. It was only with the promise that I would sign them up after our trip to Chicago that they stopped crying.

I have to admit that I was very impressed and pleased with the teachers and the gym that they go to. The main goal is to teach the kids strenght and to have fun. I love how they have mixed the skills in with games and learning. On a side note, I did sign my kids back up and they are loving it!!! The are so excited to go and play on all the mat and toys each week. The only hard part is that Brooklyn isn't allowed to play with them. This doesn't make her very happy, and she is constanly trying to get into the play area with them.
This is Aby turning a flip on the bar.
Their favorite is definatly the pit of foam. The teachers call it an Ocean, and the kids love to play and jump into it. I have to admit If I could I think that would be what I would want to do the most.
Here is Kenzie as she is helped to do a front flip. She is turning out to be quit good at gymnastics, and has a lot of strengh in the arms and legs.

Brooklyn the monkey

Brooklyn has firgured out how to climb and she does on everything that she can. I couldn't resist taking this picture though of her showing off how balenced she is. I get a kick out of it.

She didn't fall and for that we were both glad. (what am I going to do with my monkey now!)

Summertime swimming

This summer found all of us spending plenty of time outside in the back yard swimming. The kids loved to play with the sprinkler under the trampoline, and then they would move it and just run through it. I found out early on that my Brooklyn is a fish and then some, she learned the word swimming, and even figured out where her swim suit and dipers were. She would come up and bring them to me each afternoon and say "side" that means swimming outside. My other girls didn't complain, they love the water also.
Here is my fish Brooklyn jumping on the trampoline having a great time. She mainly has fun when she is by herself, she doesn't like it too much when the other kids get on. They bounce her around too much.
This was one afternoon when A by had invited a friend over to swim they had fun playing on the trampoline, and then playing on the slip and slide. My girls were funny to watch on the slip and slide it took them a while to figure out how to slide.
This is Brooklyn taking her turn on the slip and slide, she liked to splash in the water, and try to drink it. lucky for me I use house water only when I do things like this. I didn't start out the summer with a swimming pool, I didn't think that the kids would want one, but I found out that they did, and so we ended the summer with a samll pool for the kids to play in also.

Fixing the fence

On of Ryan's "favorite" (ok not really) projects this summer was to help the neighbors to the south of us replace the fence between our two yards. We really weren't planning to do this until next year, but the neighbors got two big dogs, that chewed through some of the fence posts, and slats, and started coming into our yard, and scaring the kids.
Here you can see Ryan digging up one of the fence posts, I dont' know who put in the fence in the first place, but they definatly buried the posts deep enough.
Look at the muscles on that hansom man. :)
You can see how deep it was and how much cement was used. (I think he was just showing off for me, but hey I am easily impressed anyway.)

My Beautiful Girls

I have recently been appropriatly chastised for not keeping up on my blog. I should say that I have been slacking. I love reading other people's blogs and find myself always wanting others to update their blogs, and so this also means that I should keep mine updated. In my defense my summer seems to have slipped by and I have not gotten around to it and I am sorry.

Earlier this summer my kids were playing outside, and I couldn't resist because they were so cute so I started snapping pictures of them. I know the pictures look posed, but they did that themselves.

I love this shot of Aby, if you look close you can see the freckles on her nose. I am sure that one day she will hate the freckles, but I will always love them.

Kenzie is such a beauty, and she grows more lovely each day.