Laura the Elephant

Ever heard of the charity Little Dresses for Africa? Rachel, the woman who founded it, attends our church, and organized this fun little fundraiser in order to build a school in Malawi. There was a little carnival with a bouncy house, games, crafts, food, and live music. The main attraction was an elephant ride.

Meet Laura. She is a rescue elephant who lives in Michigan. She may look familiar to you (ha ha!), because she is the elephant that was in the movie Ace Ventura. We took Liam to ride her, and he LOVED it! He had to be accompanied by an adult, so Josh rode while I took pictures and showed London. She called it a puppy :)

Summer Nights

Last month, Josh was home early every night (by 5:30), so we got to spend a lot of nice time together playing outside, relaxing inside, or making ice cream in our new cuisinart machine- everyone needs one of those machines! Now it's back to work as usual for Josh, leaving early and coming home near he kids bedtimes...at least he has most weekends off now though, making those something to look forward to again!
London enjoying some of the ice cream we made- cookies and cream...who needs a spoon?!

Watching a Veggie Tales video before bed.

Love.

I love this picture. I don't really know why, but I think it's because it encompasses the stage that they are in so well. They are starting to play together better and love each other more. Not that that makes things easy- the play often becomes too rough, or Liam gets upset because London doesn't want to play with him, but it's nice to know that they love each other and really like to be with each other most of the time.

Let's go Outside!

I've been trying to plan some outdoor activities while the weather is still good...I took the kids the a splash pad last week and Liam had a BLAST. London, as it turns out, hates sprinklers, but she was happy just to sit on the blanket with me and watch Liam have a good time. We've also been using our kiddie pool as much as we can before it's time to put it away for the season. Here are some pics of the kids having some outdoor time!

Liam LOVED the splash pad. It wasn't very warm outside- only about 75, but he still had a great time.

London sitting by the pool (in the shade!) relaxing. I know her swimsuit doesn't fit. Honestly, she usually just wears a swim diaper because I'm too lazy to put a suit on her. :)

London sitting on the blanket at the splash pad. In her coverup- she DOES have a suit that fits, and she wears it in public!

Playing in the pool!

Ode to the Backyard

We've been spending a lot of time outside these days- the weather is perfect right now, and I feel like in Michigan you have to jump on that when you get the chance, because it will starts snowing here in about two months. Here are some photos of our backyard- these were taken about a month ago when it was hotter out, and the grass was dying.

There are a lot of plants out here, and I don't know the first thing about gardening. Luckily, my mom and aunt came up a couple of weeks ago and helped me get caught up on the weeding- it was a mess!

This is our first house that we've had a fenced in backyard, and we love it! We don't have to worry that the kids are wandering off if I need to run inside to grab something or if I'm busy in the garden. The deck is great too with the sandbox, grill and kiddie pool. I'm going to miss the summer!