One Last Bounce

We went over to Grandma and Grandpa's this morning to eat Grandpa's famous waffles and get in some more jump time before the big bouncy house was picked up. I think that the adults had more fun than the kids!!

Sophi ate the longest licorice rope (created by Dad).

We also finished off all of the leftover cake!

What a great weekend for all of us. Happy Birthday Grandpa!

65th Birthday Bash - Day 2

After an eventful night, we all met up at 9:00 am for a family portrait. To get all of the kids to sit nice for A LOT of pictures - we had a slip 'n' slide


Sawyer got in on the action fully dressed!

a pool - Sophi helps Signe get in!?!


and a giant bouncy house. This even made Auntie Kelli smile in the pictures!




We all had so much fun spending the day together. How cute is this picture of Jack and Sophi?

I had to let them take a silly face one first in order to get them to smile nice!

Jack took this picture below of Sophi - thought it was cute.

The front yard swing was also very popular - - - I am not sure if Sawyer was trying to push Sophi or just push her off!

Looks like he called in for reinforcements.

By the end of Day 2 the only casualties were 2 fat lips. Signe on Friday and Sophi on Saturday - - -Ben said that our family gets the "Purple Heart" of the weekend!

Happy 65th Grandpa!

Mom and all of us kids had a surprise party for Jon's 65th Birthday. He was in shock when he walked in - - - he thought he was just going to dinner at Meggin and Greg's. We all had a great time!

Neil made a batch of his famous Honey Ale for the occasion - I tracked down this great picture of a much younger Jon for the label.

The kids had lots of fun playing in the yard, riding bikes and breaking open a pinata!

The greatest gift - all of the grand kids together!

What would a party be without cake?

Sophi helped Grandpa blow out his candles!

I think it was said that this was his best birthday ever!

Lemonade/Cookie Stand For Sharks

Sophi is having her first "Lemonade Stand For Sharks" fund raiser this morning. Sophi was so excited that she got up at 5:30 am! We made her this cool shirt to wear with her artwork on it last night and Grandma picked up the balloons that the local Party Store donated. We had the cookies and lemonade ready so we headed outside for business. It was supposed to be 82 and sunny and we had a 5K ending in front of our house (not bad planning on mom's part).

We even made some sharks with her message on their belly to hang in the tree over her table... there was a small breeze so they looked like they were swimming around.

We made a cool sign to put at the end of our street to point people in the right direection.

Sophi hired her sister to work the stand with her - she payed her 1 cookie and a glass of lemonade. (She gave a cookie and lemonade to Grandma and Mom for helping also) - nothing like cheap labor.

Sophi was open and ready to support her cause! Too the right of her was a big bouquet of blue, green and yellow balloons to draw the customers in.


1 hour into it, a thunder and lightning storm moved in... Sophi moved her stand into the living room and kept right on going - - she wore her staff out.

Her very 1st "Lemonade Stand For Sharks" was a success - - she ended up making $81.25 + $50 from her Captain Curt call-in order! She was excited and had a great time!! We will keep you posted on when the next one is.

Shark (Cookie) Infested Kitchen

Sophi recruits her sister, mom and grandma to help get the shark cookie making underway. She has to make cookies to sell at her 1st Save Sharks With Sophi Lemonade/Cookie stand that she is having tomorrow morning. Aprons on and off we go...

They get all of the ingredients in the bowl and mix it up.

The dough pasts the taste test with flying colors.

Sophi rolls it out...

and we cut out as many sharks as we can....

...we ended up with 123 cookies.

Sophi picked colorful stars for the eyes and let grandma know when the glaze was just the right color for her new self-titled shark species, the "Starry-Eyed Grey Fin".

They were delicious!! We even took a phone order that night from one of Sophi's favorite people, Captain Curt. He ordered 100 cookies - - - looks like we will be in the kitchen a little longer than we thought!

Haircuts and Hairdos

Sophi, Signe and I all had haircuts this week. Signe decided to surprise our hair stylist Farrah by wearing her long green wig to the salon...

Sophi sat so nice for her haircut that Farrah gave her curls!

Pigtails

Signe wears her hair in pigtails almost every single day. She looked too cute today with her ribbon-filled binders!

Signe Graduates!

After completing 2 years at House Of Prayer Preschool - Signe got her diploma today!

She is looking forward to Fun For 4's next year. It is a pre-K program that resides in Sophi's school. She will go Monday, Wednesday and Friday all day (the same hours as Sophi) and she can hardly wait! She is really excited about getting new school shoes and a lunchbox!

With the girls having been at House of Prayer Preschool for the last 4 years - we sure will miss the staff.

Save Sharks With Sophi

Dear Family and Friends, Sophi has decided to save our earth one shark at a time. Her love for all marine life started on her first visit to the Keys at age 4. Since then, her love has steadily grown into a passion focused mostly on sharks. She decided she wanted to help as much as she could after she experienced a shark research trip first hand this past April with Auntie Kelli, Uncle Curt, Dr. Neil and others from http://www.rjd.miami.edu/. You can see some pictures from that day by looking at our April 16th entry called Sophi's Best Day Ever. Please take a look at the flyer below to see what our next great environmentalist is up to. Thanks so much.
If you have a hard time reading this due to its' size (sorry, I couldn't get it any larger for the blog) - let us know and we will send you an email with the flyer as an attachment.