Monday, July 28, 2014

Happy 11th Birthday Amelia!


Amelia Grace is eleven years old.  It hardly seems possible to us.  We spent the morning watching home movies of her as a baby and telling her the story of the day she was born.  
Then it was present time!!



The bikes just keep getting bigger...

Amelia is pretty awesome because we let the kids pick where they want dinner or what they want us to make for dinner on their birthdays.  Amelia picked steak, asparagus and baked potato!  Love that girl and her appetite!  I should win some sort of award for the most pathetic birthday cakes.  When I look back at my kids birthday photos, the cakes are terrible.  Either hideous home made ones or completely tacky store bought ones (remember Amelia's black and gray Harry Potter cake?  Yikes).  Well, this Pepperidge Farm cake, she picked herself but it is a pretty sad looking cake.
We love you so much Amelia Grace and are so proud of the daughter, sister and friend that you are!  You have been a blessing to us for eleven years and we cherish every moment with you!  Happy Birthday!

Visit to Minnesota!

We went to Minnesota to visit my sister and her family and helped welcome them into their new home.  Like, really welcomed them.  We arrived immediately after the movers so we are pretty much the rudest house guests ever.  Their new house is awesome and the kids had a great time with Max!

 Jam time, cousin style.

We are sisters, we are loving, loving sisters! 
 Traci and Kent were awesome hosts despite moving in only 24 hours before we got there.  We had such a fun time chilling out and catching up and enjoying Minnesota summer weather. Traci and I also found our new favorite summer drink.  Cucumber vodka tonics, yummy.

We went to the horse races and let the kids bet on their favorites.

Addison kept picking the winner, number four horse every time!

Winner, Winner!!



We spent an afternoon at Dave and Busters and as you can tell, they didn't have any fun at all.  Those stuffed animals only cost us like $350.  
Although Traci, Kent, Stephen and I polished off a tube of beer, which helped.  I lost the picture of it, but it was a giant tube of beer with a flashing light on top.  Which was extra funny, because it was like noon on a Monday and we were the only ones in there.  Or at least it seemed funny after consuming a tube of beer.  They usually only sell them to bachelor/bachelorette parties, ha!
Thanks so much Scholten's!  We had a great visit!

Father's Day! (A little late)

This post is a little late (I just located the pictures on Stephen's phone) but this was actually Father's Day!!
These three have the best Daddy in the world!  As each year passes, they will only appreciate him more because he is an amazing example of love and fun and what it means to be a follower of Christ on this earth.  

Daddy love!

Cubs, Bears and Star Wars gear always goes over well :)
 

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Twin Lakes Summer Camp!!

Amelia and Luke have been counting down the days until Twin Lakes Summer Camp, and the day finally arrived!
This is year three for Lizzie and Amelia so they are pro campers by now.  Amelia's drop off took all of two minutes, she and Lizzie had their bunks claimed and beds made by the time I got my pictures taken.  

My cute campers right before we went to check Luke in.

Amelia and Lizzie are such a sweet pair.  

This was Luke's first year at Twin Lakes and as he explained it to me, "He was a little bit nervous and a little bit excited!"  
This is how I left my boy.  Smiles, a thumbs up and he was off to the pool with his new buddies.  
Once you leave the camp, they do not allow phone calls with the children so it is only communication by letters and the pictures the camp puts up on the website.  
So, I scoured hundreds of pictures everyday trying to locate my children and praying to God they would be having a great time.
These are the pictures we found of our kids.
They sure don't look miserable.















And then, it was finally pick up day.  And as I watched this sea of orange children file into the pavillion, I shook and had tears running down my face searching for these two beauties.  
I couldn't wait to hug them and squeeze them and listen to all of their stories about camp.



And all was right in our world again.
Amelia and Luke talked the entire three hour car trip home.  We got to hear all of the songs, all of the bible stories and devotions, all of their favorite activities, favorite meals, who snored and who didn't in their cabin.  It was so fun to listen to it all and especially have them feed off one another.  It don't think any of us stopped smiling the whole trip home.  And then we pulled into the driveway, Amelia and Luke got in a huge fight and both got sent to their rooms.  
Sigh.  Back to real life.
Funny camp moments...
As I was unpacking Luke's trunk, I was putting away all the toiletries.  I opened his soap case and this is what I found.  His completely brand new, unopened soap!!!  Which means he went the whole week without any soap on his body at all.  When asked about it, he just chuckled and said, "Whoops."
Boys.

Also, when I opened Amelia's trunk (which the kids have packed for the parents upon arrival) I lifted out her pillow and blankets and the trunk was empty!!  "Amelia!  Where are all of your clothes!!!!"
She explained to me that she left her laundry bag on top of her trunk and "didn't we see it?"
"Um, no.  There was nothing on top of your trunk."
Well, very long story short-another parent grabbed Amelia's laundry bag by mistake and I eventually tracked them down.  That poor mother, had three campers, plus Amelia's dirty laundry to wash!  She mailed it all back to me clean.  Bless her heart.  So although I was a bit frantic about the missing laundry, it really worked out awesome for me.  I hope someone mistakenly takes both the kids laundry bags next year.    



Monday, July 7, 2014

Happy 4th of July!

Stephen and I only had Addison for the 4th of July because Amelia and Luke were away at Twin Lakes camp.  We decided to do the 4th of July race to start off our independence day.  Stephen is a much faster and competitive runner than I am so he headed off to the front of the starting line while I lined up WAY in the back with Addison in the double jogger stroller.  (Although, my sweet husband did offer to push the stroller).

We found our sweet Ashley before the race!  So proud of Ashley becoming a runner!!
And then the race began!  Addison just sat back and read her book while once in awhile saying to me, "Mommy, don't look left, don't look right, just keep running!"  She was quite motivating even telling me, "Wow, mommy.  You are actually fast."  
It did kind of pump me up to be passing people left and right all the while pushing a 35 pound child in a big stroller.  I finished in 19 minutes so I was pretty happy with that considering the stroller factor and the whole, "I'm not a runner" factor.  I only like to run if my tennis racket is in my hand.

After the adult race, it was time for the kids fun run!  Like always, Addison was up for the challenge!

Smiling the whole way!

We did it!

After her race, Addison crawled up in her stroller and read her book during all the chaos around her.  That girl is the epitome of a book worm.  

Woo Hoo!!!!  Stephen won 3rd place!  Amazing!  He is a crazy fast runner!  
Proud of you honey.  
Even more awesome, after he flew through the finish line, he turned around back to the course and ran back to find me to see if I wanted help with pushing the stroller!  I declined but still...I have the sweetest husband ever.


Friday, July 4, 2014

Women's State Tennis Tournament

Our women's 18 and over tennis team made it to the Mississippi State Tennis Tournament.  We were so excited to return to Jackson and were ready to shop,eat, drink and play tennis!
We have nicknames on our team based on our personalities and funny team stories.  

Don't we look so tough?  

Jessica and I played three matches together and won all three of them! 
I also played a match with Mary Claudia (Psycho) and we won that one as well.  
 

We had a rainy start to the tournament so the whole first day we did a lot of lounging in the hotel and waiting, waiting, waiting.  It was very reminiscent of my Valpo college tennis days. 



Lo and behold, we made it to the championship finals!!!  I played with Allison and we won our match!  
And guess, what...

WE WON STATE!!!!!!!!


Our little coast team are the Women's 18 and up State champs!!
It really was so awesome and I was so proud of our whole team!