Love these kids

Dani has taken a few really cute pictures of the kids over the past couple weeks.

Jacob and Claire keep losing teeth!  Fortunately for them, they are having some of their big teeth come in.  Soon, they won't have to bite into corn, apples, and other food with the sides of their mouths!

With so much time this summer, Jacob and Claire have made a lot of creations.  Quite often, the buildings combine 2-3 different types of blocks and is very colorful.

Playing with the whole family

We spent a lot of time with the whole family on the Cody trip.  Nearly every day, Heath and Bri and their kids came to visit.  That gave the cousins a lot of time to play together.  

Kate and Liam (Kate in particular) got to spend lots of time reading with Heath, John, Vicki, and just about anyone who would sit down and read a book with them.

By the end of the vacation, they had basically memorized a couple more books that had been read to them at least a dozen times.

The cousins had a blast riding bikes and jeeps together.  At first, Kate and Liam were a little nervous around the jeeps (perhaps because of almost being run over a few times by their older siblings), but they warmed up to it and ended up loving it!

We went to see Despicable Me II one night (which was very funny!), and Claire and Brighton made sure to keep each other company on the way back to the car.

Kate and Bentley were best little buds the entire week.  We worried a little how these two headstrong little girls would react to one another, but they played really well together and were quick to say sorry after little spats.

John got out the bottle launcher, and we made good use of it, sending it rocketing off dozens of times.  All the kids took turns pumping the air.

Bri and Kate had some together time drying out after playing in the cold pool.

We also got to see grandmas Hope and Pat most days at the house.  They were good to come join the chaos.  One of my favorite memories was seeing Grandma Hope pull up and come up the stairs onto the walkway to the house, and seeing Liam beeline over to give her a hug followed closely by Kate coming to give her a hug, too.

 

When Hope went home the last night, all the kids wanted to be in the picture... but not so much that they would look at the camera!

Grandma Pat got similar reactions when she came over, with kids running over to give her a hug.  They were very sweet with her, and it was great to see her throughout the week.

 

Everyone got to spend good, quality time with the family.  We loved it!

Playing with fire

John added an awesome fire pit this summer, and we put it to good use.  The kids liked playing around it.

and also loved making and eating s'mores.  Kate and Liam just liked eating the marshmallows and graham crackers.  Liam probably ate 5 s'mores worth of stuff.

Jared LOVES s'mores, too, and needed to make sure he got his fill, which he did, eating 5 on Friday and 3 more on Saturday.  I guess that's where Liam gets it from.

On Saturday night, we made tinfoil dinners.  They were absolutely delicious and cooked perfectly!!!  There were a few of the dinners that were very, very spicy!  

We had some nice, relaxing evenings around the campfire.

until the kitten came the last day.  We weren't sure where it came from, but it was quite comfortable around all the kids and it was quite comfortable.  Fortunately, John and Vicki's neighbor Cheryl (who Vicki works for as well) came to the rescue and brought it to find a home.

We were pretty fortunate with our weather.  Thursday through Saturday we ended up either grilling or using the fire pit.  Each day, right about the time we started, a storm rolled in.  On the 4th, we were flipping burgers and hot dogs in the rain.  On the 5th, right after the fire was started, the rain came through, but we were dry for s'mores.  And on the 6th, a huge storm rolled by, just missing, and we only got a little wet.  It was nice, though, to get the cool temperatures that followed.

Playing in the lake(s)

Down the road from the Streeters is a little pond with a paddleboat, canoe, some fish and a zipline.  We had some fun paddling around the lake with the babies.  Kate really wanted to be on the boat... until she didn't (which happened very quickly).

She was a little bit happier with the boat pulled onto the shore.

Liam liked driving the paddle boat.

Dani took the kids on a canoe ride.  With the little bit of wind that was going, a canoe full of people, and an erratic at best front paddler, Dani and the kids spent a bit more time than planned exploring the edges of the pond.

Grandma took the kids fishing for their first times.  Almost immediately, Claire felt a fish on her hook and reeled it in.  Once on the dock, Vicki realized the fish had swallowed the hook and decided to put it out of its misery by bashing it against the corner of the dock (while Claire watched).  She then put the fish on the dock, and Claire watched the fish in tears.  Meanwhile, Jacob continued his fishing (with more success with the release part of the catch and release).  We wound up taking the fish home and Vicki cooked it for Jacob.  Claire took a long time to recover ("but he was just so beautiful"), finally receiving comfort in that Jesus and the apostles ate fish, too.

The pond was fun to jump into from the dock.  The 7-year-olds were pretty tentative about jumping in. Liam LOVED it!  He walked right off the edge into Jared's arms, then as soon as he was in the water, he wanted out (it was, admittedly, a little chilly).  As soon as he was on the dock, he turned around and was back in the water, calling to get out.  He probably jumped in 15 times in a row!

Dani and Jared took a few turns on the zipline, and we stayed about as long as our babies would let us. It was a lot of fun!

We also got to have 2 lake days with the boat.  The first day, we did some water skiing at Big Horn Reservoir.  Dani and Jared took turns skiing for a little while until the water got too choppy.

Claire wanted a few turns on the skis, so Dani hopped in the water with her.  She is so light that she got up on the water a few times, but just wasn't able to keep upright.  We were proud of her willingness to give it multiple tries, until she just got too cold.

Jacob wanted to drive the boat, and after Jacob took a turn on the tube, Grandpa let him on the way back to the dock, which basically made Jacob's day.

The next day, we took the boat out to Buffalo Bill Reservior.  The water was cold and pretty choppy, so the waterskiing was pretty short, but we got out the tube and Jacob and Claire took a turn in it.

Liam also took a turn in the tube and loved it!  He had a big smile on his face basically the entire time.

 

Kate also had a turn in the tube.  In the tube, she was pretty happy... until the boat got going.  She definitely didn't want to be in the tube at that point!

Our kids love to go in the boat!

Playing in the dirt

Liam found a play construction helmet that he wore around for a few hours one evening as he drove around his little electric jeep.

He spent a long time digging around with his tractor and eating some of the the dirt.  He seemed completely in his element!

Liam also followed the big boys' example doing some dirt biking, going over the little gravel piles near the fire pit.