Happy Birthday Laine!

Laine turned 6 on July 26th - hard to believe she's that old already!

We celebrated by having her best friend, Ellie, over with Ellie's whole family.

Yummy cake and cupcakes from Sam's - I decided to buy a cake instead of making and decorating my own this year.

Yummy - everyone enjoyed the cupcakes!

Time for presents...

And a little piano playing!

Mead tried on Laine's new lip gloss - very sparkly.

The next morning (on Laine's actual birthday) the celebration continued.

Pearler beads have been the big hit - hours of concentrated fun.

And Laine is super excited about her new ESV bible with pink flowers on the cover.

Tie Dye

Some friends and I recently decided to have a craft day with our kids - we wanted to make tie dye t-shirts since none of our kids had ever made them (or even knew what they were!)

The kids did well picking out colors and making their creations.

And they've been wearing them regularly ever since!

City Garden

I took the kids to City Garden last week to join some friends.

Everyone had a great time splashing, jumping...

laughing, and playing.

We managed to get the whole group to sit at once - not for long though!

Cole seemed to like the camera's attention, so I fired away and got several cute shots.

Botanical Gardens

Daddy has been on "staycation" for the past week and a half, so we've had the chance to visit several favorite St. Louis spots as a family.

Our first big outing was to the Botanical Gardens where, of course, the kids played in the children's gardens for quite a while.

Enjoying the water on a hot day.

Thirsty anyone??

The gardens are decorated for the lantern festival this summer.

So many beautiful creations!

Riding bikes

Laine learned how to ride a two-wheeled bike this week.  Yay!  I'm so excited - especially since I love riding bikes myself.  One day we'll go on nice bike rides together.

We all headed over to the church parking lot and gave Laine plenty of room to ride.  She took off almost immediately - just needed some direction on making "big, wide turns."

Not to be outdone, Mead circled around the parking lot with Laine.

Look at her go!

And Cole pushed himself along too - more Fred Flinstone style.  He'll get there one day.

Hats

These hot summer days I'm trying to protect the kids from the sun, so we've been wearing our hats a lot.  Mead looks so sweet in her pink sun hat.

Cole doesn't really like his sun hat, but he is more than willing to wear a baseball cap, even though it makes him sweat even more.

Such a cute boy!

Louisville Slugger Museum

On our way out of town, after Penny was done with all his meetings last week, we stopped at the Louisville Slugger Museum.

This was an especially anticipated visit for Penny, but all of us enjoyed the toured.  It's been fun to hear the girls over the last few days talk about baseball bats and how they are made - apparently they learned a lot!

We each received a complimentary mini bat at the end of the tour, which has been a big hit (pun intended) for the kids.

Cole in particular has become attached to his bat - almost any time of the day he can be found carrying it around.  We make him put it down to sleep, mostly because it could be a safety hazard!