the wish

 

Helen had a big day --- she turned 5 AND started Kindergarten!  The smile on her face in this photo reminds me of the day I gave birth to her and found out she was a GIRL!  As you can see in the pictures - she is so excited that it is her birthday :)

As she was laying down for bed, she said to me "I wish EVERYDAY was my birthday!". 


ready for her breakfast bar :)

We carried on a tradition that we learned from our friends in Germany - on the first day of Kindergarten the children get a special bag of treats and they cannot open the bag until they get home from school.  Ross is reading a special note that I put in Helen's Kindergarten bag.


so happy!

very excited about her Tag reading present :)


waiting in her line to go into school!  She's such a big girl :)


an outfit for her American Girl Doll


the CAKE!

Fred and a prayer

 who is Fred?  let me tell you the story.  when we were visiting my parents a few weeks ago, jillian kept saying "mommy"  "mommy" "mommy"  - my dad would say to her - "that's not your mommy, that's Fred".  Jillian immediately replied  "No that's not Fred, that's my mommy".  My dad and Jillian had this conversation at least 2 other times while we were visiting... as she said "mommy, mommy, mommy" - he would say "no, her name is fred".   we were home for about 3 days and driving around town in the car one day, when Jillian says to me "Mommy, why you called Fred?".  I could not stop laughing... .i wonder how long she had been pondering whether or not my name was really Fred :)

 while we were visiting my parents, Helen asked if she could say a prayer at the dinner table before we ate dinner.  We all agreed - fully expecting her to begin with "now i lay me down to sleep" -- because this HAS happened before!  :)  She started out the prayer saying that she was thankful for the food and for her family and then she paused and said "Please Please let us have marshmallows by the fire tonight"..... we all tried to keep a straight face at the table as she finished her prayer.  she could not figure out why we were laughing....

 the neighbor gave jillian some rainboots and she thought she needed her raincoat to go with the boots... you know the story .... If you give a Moose a Muffin :)

 my almost 5 year old!

jilly pretending to catch raindrops on her tongue

backyard camping

 this weekend we decided to have a cook-out and camp-out in our backyard

 with all that junk food - i had to throw in some wheat buns :)

 grillin' hot dogs

 the fire is hot.....

 .... never fear - engineer daddy has a solution ... using tent stakes to hold the skewers in place while the hot dogs cook :)

 mmmmm.... ketsup, mustard, and marshmallow face!

 smores!

 putting up the tents

 such teamwork :)

 "hey dad, is the tent ready for me to get in?"

 5/6 of us slept outside in the tents.... i stayed until bedtime and decided to retreat back into my comfy bed.... fully expecting the rest of the family to join me at some point during the night....

 ....NOPE!  everyone stayed in the tents ALL night!  breakfast time.

 yummy pancakes!

and this folks is what you call "tent hair"!

11 years (August 4)

 We decided to get a babysitter for the kids and ride our bikes up to Three Rivers, MI to celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary.  (50 mile round-trip bike ride - fun!).  We rode past the downtown area and a Bed and Breakfast that we stayed at many years ago on our way from Chicago to Ann Arbor for a Michigan Football game.  We ate at a place called Frankie's.  It was a restaurant recently remodeled (and menu updated) by the Food Network.  (the show will air on the Food Network on September 5 @9EST).  The food was resonably priced and tasted pretty good.  Little did we know that the excitement of our evening would be trying to "beat" the approaching storm home to Sturgis :)

 We had cake with the kids and showed them our wedding and honeymoon album.

 oh.... and a "small" biking accident too :)  Ross was pretending to be a BMX biker (who was actually riding a road bike!)  and jump over some railroad tracks.... he made it over the first set... but ... not the 2nd set... i slowed down in reaction to Ross falling and didn't unclip my left foot.  As i was talking to Ross, my tire got caught in the railroad track and I lost my balance..... when your shoe is still clipped to the bike and you loose your balance.... YOU WILL FALL - ugh!  so here we are showing our wounds :)

the sky started to clear.... AFTER we got home.  (We did have to stop on the way home because i was a little nervous about the lightening strikes.... we stopped at a place that was having a garage sale set up in tents.... no one was around for the evening so we took cover for a few minutes!)  An Anniversary to remember for sure! 

our newest member

.....drumroll please....... of the Sturgis Stingrays!  in her debut swim meet on July 21 (the conference swm meet!).  she talked about making the team all summer ... practiced her freestyle and backstroke in our backyard pool almost every day.... talked about making the swim team EVERYDAY..... and finally swam in her first swim meet! 

 her events - backstroke, freestyle, and a relay (she actually swam 2 legs of the relay because they were short 1 team member)

ready for the conference meet

 mommy and jilly at the swim meet :)

 graham ready for his event

 she's about to swim backstroke!

 on your mark!

 waiting for another event in the staging area - she is so proud :)

i can see the happiness on her face  - she was so excited!

 can't believe she started from the starting block too!

 jayden waiting for his event

 graham waiting at the starting blocks

relay time!

jayden (video above)

had to load the other 2 videos to youtube - here are the links:

http://youtu.be/S_94cHDHQus - graham

 http://youtu.be/67jIhlJ3wHE - helen