Spain, here I come!

I am leaving for Spain, Italy and Greece tomorrow morning. I am super excited and a little sad to be leaving my girls for 15 days. They are thrilled to be getting to visit relatives though. They are staying with my parents, then my sisters, then Bracken's parents. Coke and Jeff are even driving them all the way back to MI so when I fly back the kids will already be home--how great is that? Today I'm meeting my dad to drop off the kids. Even though we don't live close to relatives, they sure are helpful about watching the kids!

Really, I am truly blessed. I feel like I have it all. :)

My happy little milk drinkers

I was getting the girls' milk ready for lunch yesterday and was thinking again about how fortunate I am. I know that several of my friends have had to deal with different milk/formula issues and we have avoided that. I did finish nursing Jordan at 11 months and have enjoyed a little more freedom over the last month and a half. But I really just wanted to say how happy I am that they all still drink their milk. I usually have to have chocolate milk in order to make myself drink it. :)

Grace visits

"Grandma Grace" from church brought some blankets that she had made for the girls over to the house. Taylor and Morgan took each others pictures with Grace (I cropped them some). Jordan is also getting close to walking, but she wants to always hold on to our hands. Thanks for the birthday outfit mom. :)

Beach Day

We finally got a nice day at Duck Lake. Jordan loved the sand but thought the water was too cold. This was our first day back from our weekend trip (Tuesday). Today it is cloudy, so we are just cleaning, playing and blogging inside.

Jordan's birthday

Jordan got a little birthday party on Father's Day. The girls had gone swimming earlier in the day (although I thought the water was pretty cold at Lake Cornelia). Coke grilled a delicious dinner for all and then there were cupcakes. Later in the evening, Bracken took the girls fishing and they each caught 2 bullheads (which were promptly returned to where they came from).

Here Jordan had finished most of her bottle (on the long ride home) and was entertaining herself with the last bit of milk.

Tom's wedding

Mike helps Miles get ready. Bracken before his jacket is on.

Tom escorts his mom, Deb (Ma) Bell. At left we see Bracken holding his arm correctly. During rehearsal (just the first time), he grabbed her arm and hauled her down the aisle.
Jillian and her dad. Miles with the flower girl behind him.
Dan was the best man along with Jilian's sister as matron of honor.

We had another trip to Iowa for a wedding. This time the flooding was so bad in Iowa that we were rerouted around I-80 (they actually closed a section of the interstate and it was a 150 mile detour as so many roads were covered with water).

So, the drive was long but the wedding was fun. The kids stayed with Bracken's parents for 2 nights and Bracken and I remembered what it was like to sleep in past 8 am. Thanks Jeff and Coke! It was also somewhat of a class reunion--at least of Bracken's friends. We got to see many new kids of friends or see how grown up others were that we had met several years ago.

There was a bus ride to the country club for the wedding party. You can see it got a little crazy. :)

Jordan turns 1 on Saturday the 14th.

Since Bracken is in a wedding on Saturday (Jordan's 1st birthday), we won't even get to see her. Not that she'll be old enough to know the difference, but still. I hadn't gotten a lot of pictures of her in her "wedding dress" as she slept through most of Rebekah's wedding. I attempted to take her to JC Penneys today. We got pictures of her by herself in another outfit, but when all 3 girls got in their wedding finery, Jordan just bawled. So, later on I just did my own photo session (much to my husband's dismay). Well, I thought they turned out fine. :)

We also have been trying to enjoy summer break. Finally, today we had a day without rain. Yesterday we met a playgroup at a park--it was sprinkling when we arrived but cleared up some. The girls and I even attempted the beach after that. However, though it is not nearly as bad here as it is in Iowa, there has been so much rain that the channel we usually play in was more like class 1 or 2 rapids. So, we mostly stayed on the beach and pretended we were warm in the sun. Tomorrow it might get close to 90, so we'll try again if we get all of our packing done early on. It's another wedding weekend trip to Iowa--18 hours in the Jetta with 3 kids is certainly an adventure. You know, it seems kind of bad to just put movies in the dvd player all the time, but on the other hand, when we were kids, we didn't have to be strapped into car seats the entire time either. We're halfway through Anne of Green Gables (the book), so maybe we'll get a chance to finish that as well (if Bracken can stand it!).