Summer Fun

We've been having a great summer break. 3 weeks from today the kids start back to school. I know it will fly by.

We've had an extremely HOT summer. If we are outside we have to be in the water, otherwise we melt. So if we aren't swimming we are finding ways to keep entertained indoors.

I took the kids to Sky Zone a couple weeks ago. It's a HUGE trampoline park. Here's Porter running out of the foam pit.

Stella in the back corner playing Dodge Ball. They both loved playing this.

Doing Spin Art.

Working hard on sticker moasics.

We went to the Beaverdale Farmers Market to get some yummy locally grown food. Of course the kids wanted Sno Cones. :)

Playing in boxes. I can't believe he fits in this!!!

Mike built a big deck a couple weeks ago. He came home like this a few days in a row. The shirt was a goner, but I did manage to get the shorts clean.  Go me!!  ha ha

Sara, Mom and I went on our annual Mother/Daughter weekend, we sure missed having Anna there! This year we traveled to Dubuque and Galena, IL. We had a great time. Here they are posing on the corner of Diagonal St! :) (Mom is in the middle of talking, go figure!)

We are fostering a cat for the next 18 months. Cosmo Vladimir Cupcake Ricklefs (try saying that 10 times fast!!) will be living with us while our good friends, the Ricklefs live in Beijing, China the next year and a half. He's such a great kitty. He and Rex have adjusted to each other pretty darn well.

Luckily our neighbors let us come over and swim as much as we want which has been fabulous this summer. We are so glad that the Little's live so much closer!! They come and swim a lot, too!! :)

Last week was VBS at the Luthern Church of Hope. I think 5000 kids attended during the two weeks they offered it. It's a great program and the kids just love it. This is just the kindergarten and preschool group. The 1st - 6 th graders are upstairs.

Had to snap a photo after leaving a playdate to what my car was reading. It actually started out at 110 degrees!

Mike and Porter taking a snooze on the couch.

I took the kids along with Hannah and Haydn out to the Animal Rescue League today to visit the animals. It was fun! Hannah wanted me to get her a dog and bring it home. Pretty sure Sara wouldn't of been too happy about that!!!

Trip To Mall of America

This past weekend Stella and I traveled with my wonderful mother in law, Linda to the Mall of America. She really wanted to take Stella to the American Girl Store and to eat there.  We had a fantastic weekend! :)

Eating lunch on Saturday once we got to the mall.

Linda had a BIG surprise up her sleeve and bought Stella a new American Girl Doll!! Stella was beyond thrilled! At first she really wanted Kit, then she saw Emily and fell in love with her. Here she is deciding between the two.  She decided on Emily until.......

....we headed upstairs and she saw the "Just Like Me Dolls" and then she wanted a doll that looked like her. So that's what she got! Her doll had the exact same color of hair as Stella and a few freckles across her nose.  The only major difference is Stella has hazel colored eyes and the doll has blue eyes.

We had dessert at the American Girl Cafe. Very cute. Stella named her new doll Sophie. So Sophie, Stella, Linda and I all shared an ice cream sundae and fruit smoothie.

We shopped some and checked in at the hotel and swam for a bit. Then we headed back to the mall and ate at the Rain Forest Cafe. It was a lot of fun! Stella and the tree frog.

Getting ready to ride a ride at the amusement park in the center of the mall.

Getting ready for bed. Stella brought up her other two dolls, Kanani and McKenna. Stella had so much fun and it will be a trip she'll always remember taking with her Grandma! :)

Porter's New Look

We started giving Porter's room a new look last month and finally finished it this week.  He picked out new bedding, Lego Ninjago of course! Choose orange for his walls and navy curtains. We also got him a new stuffed animal storage and mirror at Ikea over the weekend.

We got rid of his bunk beds a couple months ago and got this bed off Craigslist with dresser built into it. Mike then put doors behid the dresser part so he can crawl in there and have a hide out. He loves it!

I also got two Ninjago posters for his room. He wanted Cole and Sensei Wu.

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I also ordered him a wall decal off Etsy with his name in "karate" writing and in the next photo you'll see the karate/ninja decals above his closet that I also got for him. You can see the new mirror in the corner of his room here. Linda got him a new alarm clock at the Lego Store at the Mall of America over the weekend. It's the red Ninja, Kai, from Ninjago. Kai is his favorite ninja and he was thrilled with this! You can see him on top of the bookshelf.

I'm very happy with the new look and most importantly so is he!! :)

Stella's updated room

We gave Stella's room a new look this summer.  She picked out new bedding, curtains, paint color (we helped with the paint color). Mom made her a new bedskirt and pillow shams.  I ordered her a wall decal that is over her bed that says her name with some butterflies around it. We were at Ikea over the weekend and got her a new stuffed animal storage (that is the pink mesh thingy hanging from the ceiling) and a new storage unit.

I think it turned out pretty cute. The walls are now gray, they used to be purple.

You can see the new storage unit next to her dresser here. There are pink fabric cubes storing her doll clothes, accessories and Barbie items.  The dresser I picked up last spring off Craigslist and sanded and painted it and put new knobs on it. I'm really happy how it turned out.  There are new mirrored peace sign decals around her mirror.

Stella's new trick

Not sure if this will work or not, but I'm giving it a try.  Stella taught herself how to do a flip off the diving board this week. She was so excited!

Week In Review

We've had another fun week of summer vacation.  Summer break is going way too fast!! I want to stop time for a bit and enjoy the kiddos more! Here is just a handful of the fun things we did this week. We did a lot of swimming, but I didn't get any pics of that.

Porter made a "robot" in preschool (can't remember if I posted a pic of him with his buddies and their robots already or not?).  Stella really wanted her own robot after seeing P's, so one morning this week she made 2 robots and Porter made another one using materials found around the home. 

Wednesday night we had Hannah and Haydn over to spend the night.  I took them to Pump It Up (a bounce house place) that afternoon.

After supper that night they took their dolls in a walk around the neighborhood.  Porter opted to stay at home with Mike and play on the swing set! We also made S'mores and we've had the tent up all week in the playroom so they slept in that and had lots of fun!

We finally got rain on Friday. I feel like we haven't seen rain in ages. I opened up the windows to hear it better and Rex loved having the windows open just as much as I did.

Stella has really gotten into playing dolls this summer. She plays in her room all the time with her dolls. So cute! :) We are going to be redoing her room this week, you can see her new bedding in the photo. We redid Porter's a few weeks ago. I'll post pics once we are done with everything.

P got a haircut this week! Here he is enjoying the sucker he got from Great Clips.

They are signed up for the summer reading program again through the Urbandale Library. Their prize this week was a coupon for free pretzels from Auntie Ann's Pretzels! They were thrilled! They LOVE Auntie Ann's!!!!!!!!

Saturday they were invited to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. They had so much fun! We hadn't been to C.E.C for well over a year.

Stella hit a jackpot on one game and won a TON of tickets! (And yes, she dressed herself in a winter dress, but oh well! She looked cute! :)  )

Porter loved the game where he got to shoot huge spiders. I think he played it like 10 times.

We have Adventureland passes this year for the 1st time and we headed out there today.  I've been wanting to get a caricature of them all summer and finally did today.
                                   

They should sleep well tonight. They started out with P on his bike and Stella running with us this morning (they did 1.5 miles), then almost 5 hours at the water park!! So we are having a movie night tonight. They are watching Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

4th of July Week

We had a fabulous time in Okoboji over the 4th of July with the Davidson crew.  The evening we got there I pulled out my camera to start taking pics only to find my camera battery completely dead! UGH! Of course the charger was at home, 3.5 hours away.  So I didn't get too many pics, but I did learn a good lesson....to keep my charger in my camera bag! :)

Chris and Kim are getting married at the end of September and asked Stella and Porter to be in their wedding. The kids are super excited!! Kim had cute little poems made up asking them to be in the wedding and gifts for them also. The kids found the packages within 3 minutes of being at the lake, no joke. If there is a gift with their names on it, it's safe to say it will be found in record time!! :)

Here is the happy couple with the Wild Ones.

The morning of the 4th of July we headed over to the Sunset Beach neighborhood to partake in the annual foot parade. It's always a great time. :)

Family photo after the parade. Also, you can kind of see the shirts the kids are wearing in this photo. Steve and Chris made shirts that same Team Boji on the front with a photo of all the grandkids from last year on the tube being pulled behind the boat. On the back is a beautiful sunrise view from the lake house looking onto West Okoboji Lake and it also has each individual childs name on their shirt. They are really cool. Of course I had high hopes to get all 5 kids in a group shot wearing their shirts, which didn't happen! :(

The STL Davidson crew arrived in the afternoon on the 4th. The grandkids had SO MUCH fun all playing.  It was great seeing them all together.

Linda and Nora

Chris and Kim

Double Trouble: Scott and Mike

Getting their fishing on

P-Man and Grandpa

The Grantster

Guy aka: Bubba G

The next morning Mike, Steve and the kids went out on a guided fishing trip with a local fishing guru. The girls stayed out the entire time, over 4 hours! Here are Stella and Mike before taking off.

Steve and Linda were kind enough (and Brave enough!) to offer to take all the kids out for dinner one evening so the rest of the adults could go out for dinner alone (read: ordering off a menu that does not include chicken strips and french fries).  We all had a wonderful evening!! :)  Wish I would of gotten a group shot of the 6 of us....maybe next year! :)