Summer!

Summer is in full swing, heat and humidity and all! June is flying by, and we're busier than ever, since every day is different.... the tidy schedule that we have during the school year is forgotten! The above picture was taken on a nice evening in our backyard with the timer on the camera. Amazingly all the kids are actually looking the right direction!

This past week we took Jacob and Mary to Clifty Falls State Park for 2 nights. Hannah had a "vacation" at Grandma Dianne's house. She kept saying things like, "is this the vacation?" We felt very bad leaving her, but it was the best thing for everyone, and Hannah did fine with Grandma & Grandpa.

We aren't campers, so we stayed at the Inn in the park, which is very nice. Most of our time was spent hiking or swimming. We lucked out with the weather- we've had a lot of severe storms, but it didn't rain at all and the humidity let up a bit. I think the high temps were in the upper 80's, but hiking in the woods out of the sun wasn't too bad at all. Friday (the day we came back home) the high was something like 92, and the humidity was creeping back in. Here's Jacob hiking along one of the falls.... you can sort of see the falls in the background behind the trees:

You can't hike without trail mix!

Mary took this picture.... a little out of focus, but not bad for a 5-year old:
Jacob and Brian crossing the creek:

Another trail mix break:

Resting against a tree after our last hike:

It's been so hot here, the vegetables think it's July! I've picked some cherry tomatoes from our garden already, and we had our first Indiana corn today (Father's Day)....

An unrelated note... Hannah had her final visit with Dr. Brown (her heart surgeon) a couple weeks ago. She will continue to have regular visits with her cardiologist for a long time, but as far as surgery goes, she's all done! I asked him if I could take their picture, and without hesitating he called to Hannah to come sit with him.... and she actually cooperated! I'm sure I'm not the first parent who's asked for a picture with the person responsible for saving their child's life. Someday she'll want to know who he was and what he was like. So, that's that.

Lots of Spring Pictures

Actually, some of these are more like summer, since it's been muggy and mid-80's for at least the last week! Back in April (before Hannah's surgery), we celebrated Jacob's First Communion! Here he is, looking very handsome, with Mary (looking very cute too!):

There were about 180 kids from St. Monica receiving First Communion, divided among 4 masses. This is Jacob posing with the rest of the kids after the mass we attended:

This was last Sunday, the first really HOT day of the year. We couldn't help but get out the wading pool and water toys (and sun block).

And of course what better way to celebrate the beginning of summer than ICE CREAM CONES!

On a whim I bought bleacher tickets for Jacob, Mary, and me for the Indy 500 parade (Brian had to work, and Grandpa Charlie stayed with Hannah). I've never sat on the bleachers, so I was really excited! The first half of the parade was terrific...... but then the sun moved over the building that was shading us and the last 45 minutes was in the blazing hot sun! We survived. Next year I need to remember to bring hats! Since it's Memorial Day weekend, the parade contains a lot of military people and American flags. Every time one goes by, everyone stands to salute. At one point Jacob wanted to see something and I told him to stand up, but he said: "I can't stand up, or everyone will think there's a flag!" Ha.

Here are some of our favorite parade moments...

The Purdue Boilermakers "train" that actually has smoke coming out of the smokestack:

Elmo....(and Dorothy the fish)...

And The Indianapolis 500 Princesses (Mary's favorite part)....

Today was a big day for Hannah..... no more crib, and into the "big-girl" bed! Wow!! It's been 2 hours since she went to bed and she's amazingly sleeping soundly in the bed! Here she is getting ready for bed:

How cute is she?

I can't believe the girls went to SLEEP!

Happy Easter

Despite the crazy, busy Holy Week at church, we had a very nice Easter Sunday at our house. We had a surprise visitor... (uncle) Dave in town to see Duke play in the Final Four! Of course, everyone we know was on Butler's side, but it was a fun weekend of basketball anyway.

Here are the kids all dressed up in their Easter best:

We have had amazing Spring weather, and Hannah LOVES being outside. Here she is having fun in the sandbox.... she calls it the "sand castle."

Snow and Singing

Well we can't compare to the East Coast, but we've had a fair amount of snow here in the Midwest. The kids had fun over the weekend:

And a musical number from Godspell, performed by Hannah:

GO COLTS!

We had a great time Sunday watching the Colts beat the Jets and make their way to the Super Bowl!! Brian even got the kids excited about it. Mary saw some face paint at the store and asked if we could paint our faces for the big game, so.....

...... here we are getting our "game faces" on:

I wasn't planning to put Hannah in a Colts shirt, but she saw the rest of us in our shirts and she heard us all saying "Go Colts" so she pointed to her own shirt and said her version of "Go Colts too?" So then I had to go digging through the old kids clothes in the attic until I found an old shirt that Jacob wore when he was 2.... she was very excited to be dressed for the game!

A funny story: During the game Brian and I were booing the Jets and expressing our frustration, and Mary said: "Those Colts are making me MAD!" We'll get to party all over again a week from Sunday when the Colts play in the Super Bowl!

Mary's Birthday

Mary turned 5 on Jan. 5! Here are some pictures from her birthday party. Her two buddies, Maryn and Evan:

Mary was lucky to have all of her grandparents here for her party. Here she is with Grandma Chris and Grandpa Dave: with Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Dianne:

and with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Emilie:

Eating tacos:

Mary on her new bike... she rode it around the living room for about 5 days, until we got tired of tripping over it, and now it's in the shed waiting for Spring! That's the trouble with winter birthdays.Time for cake!

Happy Birthday Mary!