9 Years Old...Really?

Miss Claire just celebrated her 9th birthday. Hard to believe!
She celebrated with a swim party (surprise, surprise), and a flip-flop cake.

Yes, the blog posts are short and to the point. My way of playing catch-up. I kinda like it this way too!

Go Team!

Emily had her first cheerleading event last week, during a fundraiser for our city's school sports teams. The cheer team performed a routine prior to a jr. high scrimmage game. They all did a wonderful job despite the blazing heat.

Back to School

Our annual tradition of taking a pic with school supplies:

Claire and her stash o' stuff for 4th grade

Emily and Allyson didn't have much of a supply list for jr. high (mainly just a few binders). All of the binders were plain, so the girls wanted to jazz them up a bit. (Photos of Emily are on a different camera.)

I must admit that I enjoy taking the kids shopping for school supplies, so it was a little bit of a downer to not shop for jr. high.

Allyson with her decorated binders

The jr. high school held a "locker day" where kids could decorate their lockers, practice combinations and tour the school. (Again, photos of Emily are on a different camera.)

Muscle Man

Max is still learning to swim (although he has NO fear of the water now). Max didn't love using the little inflatable arm rings, so we decided to give one of the padded swim suits a try. As soon as Max donned the suit, the rest of the family fell into fits of laughter. He looked like a mini "Arnold" with his buffed up muscles. :-) Here's our little muscle man showing off...

Silly Bands

Silly bands, silly bandz, crazy bandz...whatever the name, they are the latest "thing" in Claire's world! Claire is obsessed with these little rubber bands. She has around 200 of the bands in all shapes, sizes, and colors. I walked into the family room one day and saw that she had spread out some of her collection, so I decided to snap a pic. Just wish I was the person who had invented these!

She Sews!

In an effort to keep Claire away from the tv screen and be more productive with her time during the summer, I decided to teach her to sew. Her first project is a quilt! We went to the quilt store and Claire spent a good bit of time choosing just the right fabrics (greens, pinks & oranges). I bought a smaller sewing machine that has a speed limit on the foot pedal, and just let her go. She has been doing great, and hopes to have her quilt finished soon. (I'll post pics of her project when completed.)

Natalie & Leah Come to Visit

We were blessed to have two of the girls from Emily's travel group visit us this month. Emily and Natalie decided to make cookies one afternoon using a rainbow sugar cookie mix. It was such fun seeing the designs they came up with...and tasty too. The "Toms" cookie was made for their friend Leah, who arrived later (not sure why I don't have pics of her though).

*Edited* - found a pic of all 3 girls!

All the kiddos by the restaurant door

I've been MIA due to being incredibly BUSY. As usual, I'm going to attempt to catch-up on our bloggie happenings, but I'm sure I won't remember everything. :-)
During youth camp, I volunteered to care for a friends daughter so the friend could chaperone our youth group. This was all arranged "last minute" since the friend's babysitter was suddenly hospitalized.
As payment for taking over her duties, the babysitter insisted on taking us out for lunch one Sunday. We were treated to a lovely meal at Shogun, complete with our own entertaining chef. The kids loved the show and the food was delicious.