How to Keep Little Boys Busy

You will need :

a clear chair mat with cleats, 

multiple sheets of paper (taken from the garbage can if possible), 

and a willing assistant. 

 1.  Place a piece of paper UNDER the chair mat.

 2. Step carefully, but with great excitement on the chair mat where the paper is.  Listen carefully for the "POP" noise that accompanies every step.

 3.  Convince your assistant to peel the paper off the chair mat.

4.  Giggle and giggle some more when you show off your paper. And of course REPEAT!!!

Seeing Red

 Our first big harvest of raspberries.  They were YUMMY!

 Dad's new toy  -  ah  piece of equipment.

 It is the best thing since sliced bread!

 Every boy had their wish fulfilled and had a chance to run it.

 Oh my!  That's joy!!

 This boy was a bit more cautious with his ride.

 STILL the coolest thing ever, even going slower.

How come I never get a turn?

 ITS MY TURN!  IT IS SOOooo MY TURN!!!

 Gearhead.  He's all about machines and going fast.  Heaven help me.

 Now this kid - don't let him loose on your yard.  He's crazy!

I went fast. 

It wasn't hard. 

Daddy helped me.

Friends, Fun Snaps, Fireworks

Our friends, the Goldade family, came to visit us for the 4th of July.  We spent the day having a ton of fun.  The kids played toys, burned some energy running around outside, ate lots of food, and of course - FUN SNAPS for everyone!!

 This was my attempt at red, white and blue punch.  It looked pretty for about 2 minutes.  It didn't taste as good as I had hoped it would.  We had a few other red, white and blue themed foods - like three layer jello, strawberries, bananas, and blueberries, and popsicles.

 We were going to head into Moorhead for the big fireworks show, but as we drove by the neighbors we noticed they had a nice display set up.  We turned around and parked along the road for the show.  It was actually a pretty decent show.  As a bonus we saw fireworks from all four directions in different towns and neighborhoods.  One of the coolest sights were random lanterns that people lit and let go.  Later in the night Darren counted 12 of them floating one right after the other.  It was a little like the Tangled movie.

 The Goldade's left around 10:30.  They had a long drive to get home.  We drove into town and down one of the gravel roads to watch some more fireworks.  We were able to see the Moorhead fireworks and between 8-10 other firework displays.  You could look anywhere on the horizon and see fireworks.

 Tonight we let the boys use up the rest of the fun snaps.  The main goal was to get Mom's feet.  Those crazy flashes of color in the pictures are the boys running away from their dad and each other.

 Poor Gianna just had to sit in the stroller.  Boohoo.

 Sparklers for the boys!!  I like to think of it as mosquito control.

 Awesome Letter U, Brech Earl!

Distant Storm

Pictures taken 20 minutes ago.

 This was 10 minutes ago - I thought it was worth a second trip outside to take a picture of the storm and the moon.  

The mosquitos appreciated the second course too.

I hope the people are getting rain along with that lightning.  It appears like we will not be getting any storms our way.  They are south of us 15-20 miles and headed east.  There is another storm an hour northwest of us, but it doesn't appear to be headed our direction at this time.

Whatta Day

 Two little kids getting into trouble as soon as they woke up.  Whatta start to a day!

 What's this?  A missing tooth??

 It's REX HOWARD!!  He lost his tooth on Sunday morning.  Whatta day!

 Today he found that the tooth fairy brought him money and left it in the water.  Whatta day!

80, 81, 82 cents!  Whatta day!!