4th of July 2014

We had an nice day and I am only 1 day late posting this one...I am caught up ;)! Swimming, playing at a park, dinner with grandparents & fireworks of course!  Happy Birthday America!

fun day at the pool with Grandma R! 

 Jake loved showing us all the skills he has learned in swim lessons.

 Austin loved his new float... He chilled out for nearly 2 hours in it!  

 Family trip to the park...

 still finding baby grassies!

 dinner at G&G B's house... Fun times waiting for it to get dark. 

 Annual family picture... The boys look so much more grown up compared to last year's pic.

 Pin wheel blowing.

 Oh the excitement!

 Hanging out with grandpa.

 Baby is really starting to show lots of personality!

 Sparkler fun.

 Street fireworks.

 spectators.

 It is so fun to watch their excitement :). 

Swim lessons and other water adventures!

While J&K are busy at swim team the others are having fun at lessons and back yard water fun.  Jacob and Carter are enrolled in lessons and doing well.  Jacob says he is ready for swim team next year :).

Mike found a blow up hot tub on sale at Target and laid a paver platform, set up the tub and filled it up all in an afternoon... It has been a wonderful addition to our backyard :).  The boys will warm up after evening swim practice and Mike and I enjoy soaking in it after the kids go to bed.  

This was before we set up the bigger pool... small, but fun!  

He loves his goggles and will wear them long after we are done swimming!

baby found some googles too...

Ahhhh, it is cold!

chilling

Oh the fun!

We have made a few visits to the community pool...

Jake is quickly becoming part fish!

Sprinklers!  He thought it was soooo funny.

Curious...

And even more curious!

Uh, oh!  He found the spray nozzle!

WOW!

Lessons!

He likes them!

Floating...

And the newest water fun... If you look closely, you will see the sprinkler under the trampoline.  What a way to cool off!  

Looming craze

Every year it seems that something catches on obsessively around here and this summer it is 'Looming'.  It took awhile to gain attention with my boys, but when it did it hasn't stopped!  They use little colorful rubber bands to loom together to make bracelets, creatures and other odd projects.  It really brings out their attention spans as they spends hours a day working on them.

Some of their early projects.

 They follow tutorials on youtube and sometimes modify directions to make their own unique stuff.

 Josh has ventured into working on a double loom to create bigger projects.

 Kyle prefers 2 prong looms to make fish tails.

 It is almost as messy as legos!  But they don't hurt as much when you accidentally step on them! 

 One of his first dragons (baby Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon)... Compliments of the tutorials offered by Cortney Nicole from How to Loom Your Dragon on Youtube.

 And here is his most recent project... It was a BIG project that took him about a week of spending every extra minute in his day working on!  It is an adult Toothless fully equipped with blue fire, saddle and Hicup, his dragon trainer!  Again, built by following the fabulous tutorials made by How to Loom Your Dragon.  Thank you Cortney Nicole, you are awesome and have made this little boy very happy this summer!

 Here is a better picture of everything together...

 And here he is without all his accessories.  This guy is awesome!  

 Cute little face. 

 He is bigger than he looks!

 Joshua's dragon collection so far.

 Jake is following in the footsteps and is wearing a lot of the bracelets he has made and a dragon josh gave him.  He amazes me at how well he can follow the tutorials and they come out looking perfect... he is only 4!

 These things have kept them busy this summer!