Our little deer

Our favorite wildlife coming for a visit...Check out the video below:) Casey is saying "she's walking" and pretty excited to see twins:)

Safety Day

Carly so proud of her cardinal drawing..We do LOTS of chalk drawings in the driveway..

Our pool that was attacked by the raccoons.. Seriously, why did they chew it up??? It's a mystery..

On the carousel at the local mall. It was stopped when I took this picture, I have to stand between them b/c they are not over 42 inches tall.. the ride is a reward for being "good" when mommy is shopping..

Safety Day in Portage, MI about 20 min south of here.. there were emergency vehicles on display for the kids to climb in etc.. It was hot, Casey was impatient to wait and Carly was not that interested...

Casey was pushing, pressing, you name it any button she could get her fingers on.. She loved this part, Carly not so much, I pretty much made her sit up here for the picture.. she was unhappy as you can tell, she had to stop picking the clover in the grass next to the truck.. However, when she was in the driver's seat she said "hey, Mom I can see SEARS and the Mall over there"... yep my little shopper!! that was the highlight of her day..

Backyard fun

They LOVE to play in the kiddie pool in the backyard.. They were slipping off the raft into the pool making a splash, having a good old time w/ that.. that night, we left the pool up and some animal (i'm guessing a raccoon), chewed up the raft and the pool, and I mean, chew marks all along the sides of the pool and all over the raft..very strange..

Below: check out the video of our "backwoods slip and slide"...

Battle Creek Air Show

Yep, that's our Carly dancing to the music while the air show is going on.. Notice in the background, everyone else is watching the planes, she dancing to the background music!! We really need to get her into dance..

The girls liked the airshow very much.. It was fun.. However, a few suprise fly-overs were a tad too loud for Casey.. A very nice family brought Casey a pair of headphones to muffle the sound, it did help and she kept them on, but it was just about the end of the show.. She did just fine with the loud jets etc, but a couple flew from behind and directly over us and it was ground shaking and she was not ready for that.. a big suprise to her...

4th of July

At the Battle Creek Air Show, Carly's first Ferris Wheel ride..she L-O-V-E-D it! there was a littel carnival at the airport, so we did a few rides, but this was her favorite one.. It was my first ferris wheel ride in 13 yrs I think... I survived..

Carly and Casey at the Richland 4th of July parade..I said "take a nice sister picture for Mommy" and this is what I got...

Just waiting for the parade to begin..

3rd of July in our driveway.. our neighborhood has a little party at the park across from our house and they put on a 20 min fireworks show over the lake. As the blankets show, it was chilly! The girls made it up that late, it was about 10pm when they started.. western Michigan twilight lasts until 10:30pm some nights.

At the Richland Library, after the Kids Parade, lemonade and cookies after.. the two kiddos to the left are our neighbors, Brady(3) and Jessica (2), we do lots with them..

Just some pretty pictures

Just a few pictures out in our yard. We have just fabulous wildflowers that grow and blackberries too. Carly and Casey love to pick flowers, so it is perfect.. So far the deer have not found the wild blackberry bushes..Carly keeps asking me to pick a bowl full of berries so we can make black berry pie..

Carly's swim lesson video

she is a little nervous, but does it.. You can feel her anxiety!! a big step for carly!

Trip to Urbana, IL and swim lessons

Carly with her "Seashells" completiong certificate and Miss Meg her instructor:) She's pretty happy to get the certificate and is doing so well with lessons. This year was a big step, going to lessons on her own.. She'll probably be in Seashells until she's 5ish, but she is right on track, they keep them in this level until they can swim independently...She is working on going under water and holding her breath... I'll post a video of a big jump in the pool...

We went to Urbana, IL, where we used to live. My very good friend Vicki and her family
still live there. Mark and Vicki have 2 kids, Elie 5 1/2 and Lucas 3 1/2. Carly and Elie hit it off right away, what a fun weekend.. Below is a picture of all of us "Urbana-Champaign friends", everyone has kids now and it was such a great time:)

Twirling Video

Video of Carly twirling in the driveway...she is our dancer!

John Ball Zoo

We visited John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapid, MI about 1 hr away. It's a great little zoo and they have a sting-ray & shark petting pool.. Casey was not about to pet the sharks!! She did dip her hands a little in the water..

Carly petting a sting ray - she said it was slimy.. She really got into it and was petting lots of them:) Carly is dancing in the background...

Casey and the goats! As you can see she loves animals!

Carly being brave and touching the horns.. The princess and the goat:)

Lake Michigan and frog in the yard

We went to Holland State Park on Lake MI-Father's day..The water was cool as usual, but Carly didn't mind. Casey was not such a fan of the cold water, but she enjoyed the sand, Tim and I would build the sand castle and Casey would crush it. We had a little picnic and no seagulls attacked us:)

We went to Holland State Park on Lake MI-Father's day.. Carly was bringing me "seaweed" and bird feathers (my favorite)...

Carly telling Casey to kiss the frog, she came close to doing it, but still wouldn't hold it--she just "pet" it...

Carly was holding a little frog we found in the yard. I was suprised she would hold it and Casey would not.. They enjoyed making it hop around the yard. Poor little frog, he survived though..

video of the girls and the frog

Binder Park Zoo

Mid June we went to Binder Park zoo in Battle Creek, MI, just about 30 min away. They have a great africa safari exhibit where you can feed the giraffe's. Casey enjoyed the goats, she had to get right up next to one, Carly is not so into the petting zoo area, but she did come inside the goat gate this time.. She doesn't like the smell too much, but Casey wanted to lay on the ground next to one and snuggle! The also have a little dinosaur park are, the girls like to climb around.

Strawberry Picking

First week in June we went strawberry picking in Paw Paw, MI.. It was wonderful and the girls had a blast. As you can see by Casey's face, the strawberries were delicious! She ate the strawberry and the greens too and I can't blame her, Michigan strawberries are the best, it's hard to buy them in the store now, they just aren't the same:) Right next to the strawberry fields there was a plot filled with daisies, all the kids we went with were in the field picking away..