Gallup Park

I know, I know. Sorry. It's hard to sit down and take the time to update this blog. It takes so much time to upload the pictures. Anyway....while Nathan and Daniel were at camp, we took the other 6 to Gallup Park one of the nights. It was actually kinda chilly (hard to believe right now since it's like 90 gazillion degrees outside at 1am!), but it was a lot of fun. The kids rode their bikes and Tom and I pushed Ethan and Haven in the stroller. We'll have to go back sometime with the other 2. We took way too many pictures, but I won't bore you to death. Here is a sampling :)

Tom took this!

Andrew!Mom with the kidsSweet Sarah!Mom and Haven
This goose family crossed right in front of us. They hissed as Tom and Andrew passed by! I took some pictures and then hurried past them!

One of the many attempts at a good picture!

Haven in the swing--she loved it :)

Kids watching the ducks

Mom and kids on the dock

Andrew spent most of his time throwing rocks in the water!

Peter being goofy for the camera :)

Andrew...throwing more rocks

Ethan running!

Ethan doing what he does best--looking cute :)

throwing rocks

Rachel and Sarah

Ethan running to get more rocks

"Let's get lots more rocks!!"

Sarah, Ethan, and Rachel

I love this picture!! They walked out on the dock like this and I snapped their picture :)

We had a very nice night:) I hope you enjoyed at least some of the pictures. Until next time...

bETHANy and Camp

I still think it's neat that Ethan is in Bethany! No, we didn't plan that when he was born, either. I didn't notice it until several months after he was born. Anyway, that's not what these pictures are about so enough of that :)

The first picture is of Bethany in her dress from India. She really wanted a picture with Ethan, but he was very uncooperative that morning.

However, he decided to be sweet and help his sister in the parking lot :)Haven's wearing a dress I made for a friend of mine when she had her first baby about 17 years ago. Both of her girls wore it and then she gave it back to me when we had Sarah :) All 3 of my girls have worn it now! I'm trying to find the picture of Sarah--then I'll put all 3 on here together.

Nathan and Daniel went to Camp Joy this summer. They seemed to have a great time. (We had a nice time at home, too--it was pretty quiet!!!) Here are some pictures of them as they get ready to leave for the week. Thank you so much, Grandpa Koski for driving the crew up and back--all alone :)

The boys (Daniel, Nathaniel, Nathan)

The crew minus one (Nathan, Nathaniel, Daniel, Sarah, Mya)

Here's the missing Kristyn!

Just a cute/pretty picture of Sarah Rose!

The fearless driver!! I'm not sure, but it looks like a GPS he's installing. Since I already know the rest of the story, I'll tell you that he made it up and back 2 times without getting lost ;)

Ok, so, I have one or 2 more batches of pictures from June. Then (for all you impatient, I-can't-believe-no-one-has-posted-4th-of-July-pictures people~~and you know who you are, Koskis!!) I will work on July 4th pictures. I actually don't have very many at all so if you're eagerly awaiting those, you may be disappointed.

Dirt and Water

As I mentioned, we had a large pile of topsoil delivered to our driveway last week. For some strange reason, it seems to be made of magnets--all the kids are drawn to it!!! Here are some pictures of them enjoying the dirt hill :)

Ethan and Rachel

Let's see if we can slide down!

Yep!!

So innocent looking :)

I have no idea what they are scheming, but it looks serious!!

Daniel was trying to avoid the camera--HA, I got you :)

I even managed to get Nathan playing in the dirt :)Next on the agenda was water. Dirt, mud, water--they all seem to be the favorites of little boys :)

What came next??? A shower, of course :)

Grass!!!!!.....at least, that's what we planted :)

This is the year for us to work on our lawn, such as it is. The backyard is pretty much mud (when it rains; dry, hard ground when it doesn't) with tufts of grass here and there. The front yard is divided into 2 sections. The smaller side was pretty bare from all the wear and tear. The larger side is ok. We started with the smaller side and roto-tilled it. The boys dug, hauled dirt, raked, etc. Then they spread grass seed and sat back and watched it grow. Well, skip that last part. They don't typically sit back :) However, the grass is coming in nicely. We've done a '2nd coat' of grass seed so we're just waiting for that to sprout and fill in the gaps. I'll take some pictures when it's done! We'll probaby just try to fill in the gaps on the larger side. The backyard will take some doing. We have a huge tree back there that thinks it needs to spread its roots everywhere. We ordered a huge pile of topsoil so we'll see what we can do back there. We really want to cut down on the mud and make our yard look presentable :) Here are the guys working--while the girls had their birthday party (see below).

Peter, Daniel, EthanEthan and DanielEthanDad in charge!! Ethan, Daniel, AndrewNathan using the roto-tillerPeter with the roto-tiller. Peter had a great time doing this--he ended up doing most of my new garden, too!

Hopefully, there will be more tomorrow :)