new friends and fireflies

For the past couple of weeks Kait has enjoyed every minute of playing with a new friend.  She is about a month younger than Kait, and she’s visiting her grandma who happens to be our next-door neighbor.  The girls played together a bit last year when R visited her grandma, but this year we’ve been home the entire two weeks of R’s annual visit.  Oh how I wish R lived closer!!  The girls have been together every minute possible without ever getting bored or having one disagreement.  Amazing.

This visit also coincided with the arrival of my new camera, so the first couple of pictures were of Kait and her new friend.

I love this huge, authentic laugh, and

here’s proof that Kait is her father’s daughter.  I love seeing her silly side when she’s with friends.

R and Kait tried their hand at catching fireflies one evening.

This was Kait’s first experience with catching bugs, and she wasn’t that thrilled about touching them.

Maybe next time we’ll fill up the jar.

(and yes, I LOVE the new camera!)

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family fun

Last weekend we were very excited to welcome my brother, my sister-in-law, and our two nieces for a couple of days of family fun.

Considering we have five girls between us, with four of them age 3 or under, we managed to pack a lot of fun into our brief time together.

The cousins had SO much fun playing together!

We snuck in a few family photos for Grandma,

and we enjoyed getting to know our newest member of the family, baby C.

It was a short but very sweet visit.  Looking forward to next time.

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keepin’ cool–from the archives

On this incredibly warm summer day (my phone says it’s currently 99 degrees), I thought it might be appropriate to post some pics from the archives.

The little girls are keepin’ cool Kenyan style.  Nothing beats splashing in a bucket of cold water on a warm day,

except maybe chillin’ in nothin’ but a diaper.

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beep, beep

When we lived in Kenya, we borrowed a little car for the girls to play with from some missionaries who were mostly finished with it.  We spent hours pushing that car around.  Kait was really too big to play with it, but Rose and Pendo used it every day.  I was looking through some old pictures from Kenya a few days ago, and I came across this one.

Just LOOK at those squishy cheeks!  When the girls played with it together, it would usually end up this way with Pendo riding and Rose pushing.  They both really preferred it this way.

A few weeks ago we were at a birthday party and the little ladies found another car to play with.

They immediately started playing with it the same way they did two years ago!  Fascinating!

Rose wasn’t quite as content to just push the car this time, but they did a good job (for once) taking turns.

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sleeping bear dunes

When we were up north with G’s side of the family, all 20 of us headed out to Sleeping Bear Dunes.

If you haven’t been there, it’s a HUGE area of sand dunes, and this is us about halfway up.

The view from halfway up, and all five of us made it to the top!!

In this pic you can just barely see G and Pendo trekking up the final stretch.  I was so proud of the all the girls for making it to the top.  It was a workout!!

The BEST part was running all the way down!!

I wish we could have spent more time there to explore the many other areas of the park, but maybe next time.

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one, two . . . three!

One . . .

. . . two . . .

. . . three!!!

Can it be true?  Pendo turns three today!

We were able to celebrate with my brother and his family who happened to be visiting us this weekend.

Precious Pendo, we are incredibly thankful that you are our sweet girl.  We love you and enjoy you, and we’ve treasured every minute of watching you grow and change this year.  You are no longer our little baby, and we are thankful every day that God blessed us with you.  You add spice and challenge and cuddles and laughs to our family, and we are forever grateful for the miracle of you.  Happy 3rd birthday, sweet one!

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at the cabin up north

I mentioned earlier that we had the amazing opportunity of going up to northern Michigan for a family reunion.  G’s aunt had an especially special birthday this year.  I won’t tell you how old she is, but there is a 7 and a 0 in her age now, though you would NEVER in a million years guess it if you know her at all.  I think she acts at least 15 years younger than she is.  Kind of like myself.  🙂  Anyway, we celebrated by spending last week catching up and hanging out with first and second cousins that we hadn’t seen in waaaaaaay too long.  Kait had a BLAST with her cousins that are just a bit older than her.  She learned to make balloon animals (aren’t you proud, Nyanya?), and she spent hours and hours each day with her cousins floating in the lake or creating small cities in the sand.  We also took a couple of day trips, but we spent a lot of time just hanging out by the lake with this crazy crew.

Here is the birthday girl, Aunt C, and her sister who happens to be my second mom.

As one who never had a sister, it’s really neat for me to see these two ladies together.  They are SO different from each other, but their love and respect and enjoyment of each other is incredibly obvious.

I pray every day that my little ladies will have a lifelong connection like this–that their hearts would be knit together and they would enjoy each other all of their lives.

I’ll post some more pictures as soon as I can, more for my sake than yours.  This little blog has become my little scrapbook as time goes on.

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exploring old mission point

While G and I were on our getaway, we were able to do lots of fun things.  I was amazed at how many things we could do and how fast we could get out of the house without little ones.  We took a loooong hike along the beach

and on a trail and fortunately escaped getting poison ivy.  We went shopping in Traverse City and brought home some cherry jam.  We searched (and found) the exact spot where G proposed to me on the shore of Lake Michigan 14 years ago.  We ate at the same restaurant that we did that long ago evening.  We discovered a new beach that we hope to take the girls to someday, and our favorite part was enjoying some of the best ice cream EVER at Moomers.  We even said hi to the cows that provided it for us.

We enjoyed every minute of our time on Old Mission Point and are thankful we had the opportunity to revisit this place that is so special to us.

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just what the doctor ordered

G and I were thrilled to be able to take a getaway “up north” last weekend.  We dropped the girls off at Aunt Mel’s house (where Grandma and Grandpa were also visiting), and we hit the open road for Old Mission Point which just so happens to be the place where we were engaged.

We weren’t sure we were going to be able to go because all of us were quite sick, and Rose and Kait seemed to be getting a little worse.  I took the girls to the doctor’s office two times that week and was on the phone for hours talking with nurses to make sure that none of us were contagious (because we were headed to a family reunion right after G and I returned from the weekend).  It turns out that most of it is allergy related and a little cold and ear infection thrown in for good measure, but G and I actually made it to our getaway.  We were able to stay in this lovely place alllllllllllll by ourselves.

It was decorated beautifully inside, and it was just so refreshing to get some uninterrupted time with my man.

The lovely family that allowed us to use their guest house gave us this beautiful cherry pie as well as making dinner for us the first night.

And, yes, we had access to this private beach for the whole time we were there.  Ahhhhhhhh . . . .it’s been way too long since I’ve watched a sunset.  Bea-you-tee-ful!

The worst part is that the kids weren’t feeling well while we were gone, and Grandma and Aunt Mel had to take them to Urgent Care, and that’s also when we realized that my camera was officially on it’s last few snaps.  That was disappointing, but we had a great, refreshing time together.

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summer projects

We just ended a lovely week, and I’m working on some photo editing to share some of it with you.

Until then, I’ve recently decided that I really want to try my hand at making something new from something old.  As you can tell from my continual blogging about estate sales, and if you could see me most evenings pouring over blogs where others have repurposed or refinished things from the past to make them fresh and new for today, then you would know of my growing interest in learning how to refurnish old furniture or make something new from old wood.

I’ve spent some time searching Craig’s List for old barn wood for a project I have in mind, and my sweetheart of a husband agreed to go with me and the little girls to pick some up not far from home.  It’s from a 100 year old barn that blew down in a storm last summer, and I’m SO excited about doing something with it!

It wasn’t the safest place to take little explorers, and the guy who was selling us some of his barn was a bit nervous to have them bouncing around all the protruding nails and large splintered wood.  Rightfully so, but I did get a couple of cute pictures before we all got too nervous that they would get injured and wisked them away to safety.

I brought this weathered old window home, too.  It only cost me a dollar, and I have something fun in mind for it.  Looking forward to getting to my project, but it may have to wait until the fall.

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