dancing

we actually had a fair amount of rain this past june, which bodes well for a cooler summer (than last year certainly, though it still seems plenty warm right now!) but the best part about rain is naturally... dancing!

okay, there's not as much dancing going on in this actual picture... and most of the 'dancing' here may have mostly been running back and forth through that GI-normous puddle, but there was a lot of skipping and laughter too

you can see that smile... this kid was in HEA-VEN!!!

i wish you could see better in this picture how rayna's eyes were sparkling too! they were both having the best time :)
we love the rain!

and it doesn't have to be rainy to for us to appreciate a good dance party:

and dress-ups are also always nice! these 2 are the best posers:

ray'd actually pulled that minnie mouse dress up and attached it to her skirt so it would be  along ruffly skirt, i thought it was pretty clever!

poor boy has 2 older sisters... 'nuff said! but he sure is cute too!

arboretum in summer

so we've been to the arboretum a couple times this summer, we love the chichuly glass on display there, and i never take enough photos :) here's a few of my favorites. and yes, we went in june... before it got too hot, so these pics are more than a month late--so it is!

i love the three layers of the glass and all those cute little kids in the middle!

we loved the boats. there was this one with the balls, and another with 'fireworks' as afton called it, can you believe how still that water is?!

and this one's a real flower, but you can totally tell the inspiration behind some of the glass comes from mother nature

more with cute little kids, i don't think i managed to get any pictures with our cousins when they came, but aunt wendy put a few up here if you need to see those too :)

afton's favorite piece, called 'the sun' it's so much more impressive in real life...

i think this one was the boys' favorite, though that may be because they were splashing in the water if the mom's ever looked away

and again, i can't help but be amazed at the flowers! these hibiscus were about 10 inches across!

giddy-up armadillo!

cheese! (nope, she doesn't get lost when we go out)

i just loved how the glass mixed in with the flowers and became part of the landscape, gorgous!

and this one just might be MY favorite! it fits in so well

a few more friends we liked seeing, afton heard this little birdy and correctly identified him as a woodpecker, i could barely even see him, though my camera zoom worked pretty well, impressive!

and this huge little dragonfly fascinated malachi when i was trying to get a picture of him with his cousins... that picture failed...

rayna's birthday/memorial day

so i've been meaning to post this stuff forever... and i just realized i'd already uploaded the pictures, which is the part that takes the longest, but i still never got around to finishing it all...

so, rayna's birthday was on memorial day this year (a mere 6 1/2 weeks ago), and we played it up in grand memorial day/birthday style! we headed out to the lake that morning, and had a great time playing with a bunch of our friends. rayna's special request was lots of store-cookies for lunch dessert, which is not only a reasonable request, but easier than anything else probably could have been!

some people out in raft/boats...

daddy, and the kids with the store-cookies

did i mention that i think all the kids ate for lunch was cookies? oh well birthday's don't come around too often!



and the girls with their cookies



rayna's new birthday clothes from grandma w. she loved getting a package in the mail! and tried her new clothes on immediately



so maybe this is a weird picture to post, but everyone was having a great time that afternoon talking to grandma w on the phone, that i just had to post it anyways. rayna finished talking pretty quickly, but afton and daddy had turns too.



and the favorite birthday present was the hula hoop. it's huge, but the kids were having a great time jumping through it, and swinging it crazily around... it was pretty fun to watch too :) i liked afton here mid-jump.