Let there be curls...

For those of you that know me, know that my hair has always been and will always be straight as a board.  Of course, I can use moose and hair spray to ruff it up a bit to give it a slightly curly (more messy) look but I have never been able to maintain curls in my hair. Even for my best friend's wedding a few years back, I tried so hard for for the cosmetologist to curl and spray my hair to stay for the entire night but as much as she tried, by early afternoon, the majority of my curls were gone!  Well not any more...

 My mother in law decided on Friday night that she had to try pin curls in my hair.  I was completely doubtful that it would work but I decided to let her try.  I slept with the bobby pinned curls in on Friday night and on Saturday morning, I took all the bobby pins out and viola...curls!  I was a bit nervous at first because the curls were so tight that my curls came up past my chin but within an hour or so, the curls fell and it was perfect. My hair stayed like this for the entire day and I'm so excited that I finally know how to get curls once in a while! Thanks to my MIL whom had a great idea!

And on a side note,  our baby girl is still completely in love with puppies!  Our uncle had a new tiny puppy for her to play with this past weekend and she would not leave the poor puppy alone!  It just melts my heart how much she loves puppies and babies. It is well known that if you walk past Bryleigh with either a stroller or puppy, she will run up to you and ask, "Can I pet your puppy?" or "Can I pet your baby."  We are still working on asking to "see" the baby not "pet" the baby!  Ha Ha

May the Force be with You!

We were invited to Christian's friend, Maximus, 7th birthday party !  Christian and Maximus were in Kindergarten together and his mom and I go way back to when we both worked the front desk at the Mead Inn and we were both pregnant around the same time! Never did we think that 6 years later, our boys would be friends!  The theme of the party was Starwars!

The kids had so much fun with their light sabers!  Elizabeth is quite the party planner as she had the Starwars theme for everything including the food, games, and treats!  If only I could be that creative :)  The party was a great time even for this girl who has never even seen Starwars!  

Randoms

My sister and I had a girls and kids day (can't leave out Christian since he is the only boy cousin in the family!)  We picked up some last minute wedding supplies since her big day is coming up very quick and then spent the afternoon finding fun things for the kiddies to do!

My niece, Ducati, is the cutest little munchkin ever!  Her funny faces are priceless!

Christian's last day of swimming lessons was a few weeks ago.  He spent 6 weeks in swim lessons this summer and greatly improved on his skills.  Although, he did not pass into the next level this year, he did so well and we are so proud of his progress!

Christian had his first eye doctor appointment last week!  He passed with flying colors!  As we were leaving the office, Christian informed the eye doctor that the reason that he doesn't need glasses is because, "I eat my carrots, unlike my cousin Phoenix!" Our idea of trying to get Christian to eat his vegetables may have backfired a bit. (Sorry Phoneix,  we love you with glasses and we know its not because you don't eat your carrots!  lol)

Christian also had his 6 year check up last week also!  Our little boy is still just that...a tiny little boy!  He is only 37 pounds, only in the 4th percentile!  But he did grow 2.5 inches in 1 year!  He surely isn't growing much but I can't say that he isn't eating well because he has been a bottomless pit this summer!

I took Christian and Denali to the $2 summer kids series movie at the theater last week!  We decided to see Disney's Oceans.  Little did I know that it was a documentary film about Oceans. The "Disney" in front of the name sure is misleading.  I guess that is what I get for not researching the movie before taking kids to it.  I have to chalk this "fun"  little trip up to a failure since the kids were bored about 15 minutes into it.  It was interesting but not for 2 little kids who have lots of energy to burn off!

My first attempt at french braiding Bryleigh's hair!

I can't get enough of the closet full of Bryleigh's cute summer clothes!  I may have gone a tad  bit overboard on the summer clothes for Bryleigh this year considering we only have about 2.5 months to wear all these cute clothes!

Bryleigh is so cute when she is sleeping! So peaceful and innocent!

I'm also very proud of the fact that I finished my longest run as of yet the other day...4.21 miles!  I also signed up for my first 5K, the Kolor for Kids run on August 24!  I'm so excited!

This post was all over the place but we have had a lot of stuff going on that just doesn't fit into any one post!

Family Pictures

At the end of June,  we had Nieman Photography take our family pictures. Bill and Connie are amazing at what they do and we are never disappointed in our pictures. Each year at Christmas I ask my family for gift certificates for pictures so we do pictures every year, one year is just the kiddos and the opposite year is family portraits.  I just placed my order this week and I can't wait to get them!

I can never get enough pictures!  Now the hard part will be trying to find more wall space to hang them since I'm running low with all the pictures that we have now!

Camping again...

We headed out to Vista Royalle Campground on Thursday afternoon for another camping  weekend with our friends, Tammy's parents, and Tammy's sister and family. It was a large group of us and we had a lot of fun celebrating for Carley's 8th birthday weekend!  I actually didn't take a lot of pictures because it was nice to just relax and enjoy the hot, humid weather at the beach!

On Thursday evening, we went to Two Lakes for dinner!

 

On Friday and Saturday, we spent the majority of the day at the beach!

 

A man's best friend!

On Saturday morning, the kids started off the day with an ice cream breakfast!

On Saturday evening, we celebrated Carley's birthday with dinner, cake, ice cream, and presents!

Christian even got a late birthday present also!

Christian had a lot of fun playing with Wyatt and Tyler, while Bryleigh was able to get in lots of girl time getting her toenails painted and playing babies with Chloe, Carley, and Kailey.

Bryleigh also met her first boyfriend...Tyler! It was the cutest thing ever to see.  She would follow Tyler around and want to sit by him and play by him.  She had to sit by him at every meal.  And apparently 3 year old's know how to flirt because Bryleigh was definitely doing that.  She would even make comments like, "Tyler doesn't want to be by me," when he wanted to go play by himself. (Yes hunny,  this is how relationships work, we all need a break sometimes. lol)  Tyler was such a good sport about it,  he was so nice and would take her on bike ride's and play on the beach with her!

It was a fun weekend but I am definitely ready for a break from camping.  I think we will take a few weekends off now!  Its good to be home today!

Take me out to the Ball Game

Bryan, Bryleigh, Christian, and I enjoyed our first ever Wisconsin Rapids Rafters Baseball game yesterday evening as a family evening.  We went with our friends, Tammy and Travis and their kiddos.  Christian went with his great uncle Kevin last year to a game but the rest of us have never made it to a game since the league was started in our town a few years ago.  The kids were very excited to be going to a game and it was even better that Wisconsin Rapids Youth Softball Association (WRYSA) players got in free if they wore their uniforms.  Christian wore his Cubs uniform from this years team and Bryleigh wore Christian's Brewers uniform from last year's team.  They were very cute!

As soon as we entered the gate, a staff member approached us to see if Bryleigh wanted to run the bases after the 3rd inning! She happily said "yes!"  Christian and Wyatt were asked to participate too but our shy boys declined.  Our Bryleigh girl loves to be the center of attention so I'm pretty sure that we are going to have our hands full someday.  I snapped a few pictures of her enjoying her "run to fame!"

I was bummed that I forgot to get a video of it but I was excited when I learned that they record the game and put on YouTube.  So here is our little star in action  (fast forward to 1:25:00)...

Isn't she just the cutest!?!

Unfortunately, we were unable to stay for the entire game since it would have been way past my the kids bedtime so we left in the 5th winning. But the rafters won 16 to 11 so that was awesome!  It was fun to take the kids out to the ballgame and eat some good food.  We will definitely have to do it again!