Congratulations Krysta and Brett

Kyle's youngest sister, Krysta was married last night.  The kids have been calling him "Uncle Brett" for about a year already, but now it is official!

 These 5 kids enjoyed rehearsal so much they were all hot and sweaty afterward.

Yay! We finally chased her down to do her hair!

  Looking pretty with her bracelet in her mouth

This is one of the goofy smiles we got from him when we told him to smile for the camera.

 

 The whole crew (20 of us)

      

This is the other goofy smile we got from him. 

 

 All of the hard work in smiling must have made him tired.

  Re-energized for the dancing

TaDa--No training wheels!

Caleb has learned to do so much this summer already with swimming lessons and getting braver at the cottage.  This afternoon he asked to try going without his training wheels, and did awesome.  He was so determined to do it and, in the end, so proud of himself...we could hardly get him off of the bike to come in for bed!

Some favorite pics from our St. Joseph vacation

   We had a extended family reunion in St. Joe, Michigan.   

  Wanna go for a ride?

 The kids' favorite feature--the lukewarm hot tub. 

 farm animal statues downtown. 

happy 4th of July!

 Stacie, Sydney, Lesley and Rachel riding the dolphin (are they native to St. Joe???)

 

Josie's Birthday

 I think I took a couple hundred pictures of Josie on her birthday and at the celebrations.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Birthday breakfast (with silly hat)

 Birthday cake on her actual B-day (a butterfly).

 Using 2 presents at once...magnifying Dora on her new leapster

to make  "Big Dora"

Waiting patiently for more cake for the cottage celbration of June B-day's

(Happy Birthday to Grandpa, Uncle Kraig and Aunt Katie!)

 such a sweet Face

Her new baby which she loves to take care of.

Officially Summer

 First beach trip of the year.

 They ran in a cirlce for about 20 minutes while I unloaded all of our stuff.

 Strawberry picking was about 20 degrees colder this year than last year, but we still came home with a bunch of red ones.  Caleb was really good at picking the good ones this year and even helped weed out the green ones Josie snuck into our bucket.

exercising her compulsive side

Photo shoot

Openning Day to cottage season

We told Caleb ahead of time that we would head to the cottage after church on Sunday.  He woke up Sunday morning, bright and early, and very excited to start summertime. 

 

The very moment he's been waiting so long for--playing trucks in the sand with his "best buddy", Nathaniel.

Josie's relaxing after a tough day

If only they could find a larger body of water that they could all play in without bumping into eachother.

Bria's Baptism

On May 22, we went to watch Bria (Caleb and Josie's newest cousin) be baptised. 

Here's Josie riding Caleb's new scooter (a favorite pastime for her, expecially since it bothers him) even though it was time to go. 

 Lemonade in the lawn.

 "cheese burber"

 Caleb was pretty excited that we gave him the go-ahead on getting in the lake.

They both went home in underwear/diaper only. 

Springtime popscicles

 You can also get a view of the patio table that Kyle made us this spring!

Most of this ended up on her (not in her).  That may be the last time she has a

popscicle with a shirt on for a while.

Caleb's 4th Birthday Party

 We tried for a picture of me with the kids for Mother's day.  This was the best of them all--it seems they aren't in the mood for this after church.  

Below are a couple of pictures from Caleb's party.  He had such a great time and got to play with his cousins, which is what he said he wanted for his birthday this year. 

Opening presents

Trying out the new bat and ball

 All 3 with a bat.

 All smiles (Until the singing started)

B-day cakes Archive

Here are some pics of past B-day cakes for Caleb.  I think the creativity will have to stop when the kids turn 5, because I'm just not sure how many ideas I can actually pull off.

B-day #4 (dinosaur)

 

 

B-day #3

 

B-day #2

Trampoline Fun

 Our neighbors have both a trampoline and a swing set and allow our kids to use it.  Both Caleb are Josie are much more confident on the trampoline this year and are loving jumping on it. 

 Somehow this turned into hide and seek.  See how good of a hider she is--you can barely even see her behind those hands.