With my computer having been in the shop getting repaired for the past 2 weeks, I haven't been able to update the blog. I'm glad to have my computer back. There's not much to update with, our July has been pretty low key. Here are just a few recent pictures of the kids.

Now that the computer is back, Jake is back to playing his games.

Flashback...... Jake playing with that same octypus toy. He had to have been a little older than Em is now, he has 2 top teeth.

We hope everyone is enjoying a great summer!

Love, S

Our New Niece

We are once again a proud Uncle, Aunt and Cousins! Our beautiful baby niece, Claira, is finally here and we are anxious to get to know her. I don't have any pictures but, as usual, Jenni (blogging queen that she is) has all the details over at their blog. Click here. We are so excited for Andy and Jenni and the girls...all three!

4th of July

We had a great 4th of July yesterday. A day packed with fun! We started the day by heading to the Carmel Fest Parade with Gam and Papaw. We got rained out toward the end, but Jake loved the parade. Papaw taught him to yell, "candy! candy!" as the parade passed by. The little panhandler ended up with a pretty good stash of candy! My favorite part of the parade were the guys on the riding lawnmowers. I'd never seen riding lawnmowers in a parade and these kids were poppin' wheelies! It was great. After the parade we headed to our house for a good old fashioned cookout. Uncle Andy, Aunt Jenni and the girls joined us. We just relaxed, ate and watched Wimbledon. Later that evening we headed over to our friends for another cookout and more relaxing fun. The kids on their cul-de-sac had a parade and Jake got to participate. We wrapped up the day by watching the fireworks. What a great day!

Jake at the parade under the big flag.

The lawnmowers.

Jake in the cul-de-sac parade. He was a pro-waving, he didn't have any candy to throw.

Waiting for the fireworks to start. The kids poked their heads out of our sunrooves.

Spontaneity!

Last week in our House Church we were talking about how we make life too busy and we leave no room for spontaneity. We challenged one another to make room to be spontaneous in the way we share our lives together. So today, as Jake and I were about to head over to the pool we called our friends who live very close by to spontaneously invite them to come along and IT WORKED! They headed right over and joined us for a fun afternoon at the pool. We are so blessed to live in close proximity to our good friends and to be able to share these fun times.

Stay-cation.

This year, since everything cost so much $$$ and since Em is too small to appreciate...pretty much anything, we decided to have a stay at home vacation....a staycation. So far we've had a great week. It's kind of strange, but relaxing. We kicked off our staycation with our Day Out With Thomas (see post below) and have now added a trip to the Zoo to our list of fun things we've done. Once again, we left Em with a sitter (sooo glad we did) and took Jake to see the animals. We all had a great time. Incidentally, the first Tuesday of every month is community day...1/2 price tickets, so needless to say, the place was packed!

These were a couple of shots that I really loved....

Jake with the Lioness. He knew she was a female because she didn't have the mane. What a smart kid...thanks to Disney's The Lion King, we've got plenty of knowledge on the lions.

Jake was very excited about seeing the elephants. There was a baby that was so cute. We talked about how there was a mommy and a daddy and a little Emily elephant.

So that was our trip to the zoo on our staycation. We've got some more stuff planned like free movies, swimming, The Children's Museum and stuff like that. Stay tuned.