The Farm

I don't remember when or why, but at some point this summer the kids & I went out to the farm with Papa and Binga for a quick visit. The kids love going out there! Papa was working on the old farm truck and the kids found some treasures. And I got camera happy :)

Grandma Mary found some awesome toys for the kids to play with! They were from my dad's childhood days (they didn't look that old! toys sure aren't made like that anymore!).

Doesn't he just look ornery?! :)

This is what Jacob spent most of the day doing!

Anna found the old croquet set in the garage.

Anna also got her birthday present from Great Grandma & Grandpa. A new baby doll and blanket (plus a giant thing of bubbles!)...can you tell she's happy as a lark?!

What a blessing it is to have such wonderful grandparents!!

The kids also found the creeper in the garage. Anna had fun directing Jacob to push her on it. Ha!
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Papa hard at work on the old truck. He was determined to get it fixed. And he did, of course. His dad taught him well!

I thought it was funny that this picture captured two things so opposite...the old farm truck (what year is it anyway? 60s?) and the tech-savvy Prius!

Is It Still Considered a Bump...

When it's starting to obscure my access to the laptop?? The boy can pack some punches...if I were any shorter (or when he gets bigger!) he'd knock me off balance with some of them!!
Sent from Jennifer's BlackBerry

Anna's 5th Birthday...on the 4th!

We had Anna's party on the 4th of July weekend again this year. It works out well with all the fun stuff going on around town. This year, Anna wanted a butterfly cake. I made way too much cake, so Binga also made her a lady bug cake!

Not my finest example of cake decorating, but Anna loved it:) The "recipe" called for candy sticks as the "body" but I couldn't find any. And yes, Aaron was the first to point out just what the Twix looked like.

Time for presents! Aunt Cara & Uncle Terry gave her TOM & JERRY!!! The kids love Tom & Jerry.

And Aunt Cara made her a beautiful blue butterfly dress.

Papa & Binga got her a keyboard! Can you tell she's excited?

And she finally got her big girl bike!!

What a beautiful birthday girl!

The sidewalk in front of our house is the worst possible sidewalk to learn to ride a bike! It's uneven and bumpy. And of course, after I gave her a pep talk about how the training wheels would keep her bike from tipping over, etc etc etc. And then what happens? HER BIKE TIPS OVER!!

So Jacob took a spin and then she was ready to try again.

These two love watching harvest videos. Seth and Aaron dream up big plans for a custom cutting crew :)

Early Saturday morning, these guys (my brother Jamie, Doug and Aaron) ran the 5K. None of them (or me) slept well that night so since I was up at that ridiculous hour I took them to the starting line.

I'm not sure how many people ran, but it was a lot.
We did get to see the parade in some rain, but most of the other festivities, including the fireworks, were canceled because of the rain. :(

Harvest Time!

Since our whirwind trip from Iowa to Colorado wasn't crazy enough, we made a stop on the way home for wheat harvest (Aaron dropped us off and then came back on Saturday)! I wasn't packed for it (meaning I didn't have our boots), but luckily I had packed a pair of jeans for all of us and tennis shoes. Who cares, right?! The kids, as always, had a blast and loved every minute of it. So did their Mama, even though her pregnant body didn't tolerate the little jumps seats :(

He was talking 90 to nothin'! So very excited to see the "bombine" :)

Uncle Terry even let him drive the combine! :)

Anna rode the tractor with Aunt Cara.

Aunt Cara also spoiled him and fixed him mac & cheese for lunch since he doesn't like sandwiches (whose kid is he, anyway?!)!

Anna loves sandwiches!

Stopping for a quick lunch break. Terry, Aaron, Marisa, TJ, and Cara. It was super, super hot so the kids and I ate in the pickup :)

As soon as Marisa and TJ (my cousin & his girlfriend) showed up, Anna attached herself to Marisa for the rest of the day!

This was actually the first wheat harvest Aaron has been a part of! I had forgotten that and didn't tell him to make sure and wear jeans. At least he didn't wear his sandals! ;)
Uncle Terry also let Jacob drive the tractor. Except Jacob was more concerned with keeping the deer on the steering wheel facing the right direction...so they zig-zagged their way across the field!

There's not much better to me than harvest. And I'm so happy that my kids get to experience harvest (even if for a shorter time) like I did growing up. Those are some of my favorite memories of childhood.

Anna's Colorado Birthday

While in Colorado, we celebrated Anna's birthday with family out there. Grandma put together a B party for Anna and Great Grandma J--butterflies, bubbles, bears, and balls. It was lots of fun!

The kids made butterflies with paint and strings. (after they dried, we cut the paper into the shape of a butterfly) Anna's & Jacob's are now hanging up on their bedroom wall.

Bubbles, bubbles everywhere!

Great Aunt Georgia helps Jacob and Anna.

Eliza-their cousin somewhere down the line-is such a sweet, sweet girl!

She is in no way related to me by blood but if you saw a picture of me at this age, you'd think she was my daughter!

The bear cake! They also played a game with balls, but I didn't get any pictures of that.

And to finish off the party, Grandma put on a puppet show for the kids. They were enthralled!!!
Anna, John, Jacob, Eliza, and Toby

One evening, Jacob and Toby were playing around and Toby just crawled through Jacob's legs. They thought it was pretty funny so they did it over and over again!

Then they decided to switch places. It didn't work quite as well since Toby's legs are a bit shorter than Jacob's (and Jacob is just bigger than Toby!). Silly boys!

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That was our whirlwind trip to Colorado! We were so glad to see Erick's family before they moved overseas!!