This And That

I haven't taken the time to post anything recently because life has been too busy.  It's always busy, but lately it has seemed overwhelmingly so.  There have been some wonderful moments amidst the busy, and I have tried to capture some of them.  This post is random pictures of things from the past month.  I guess you could call this a hodgepodge post.  Oooh, that's fun to say!  Hodgepodge post.

Last day of 2nd Grade.  She was just so cute!  

I wanted to try braiding her hair and making a star.  I was going to do this for the 4th of July, but Emma decided before school ended that she wanted to get her hair cut.  Every time her hair gets long enough for me to start having some fun with it, she wants it cut.  Oh well.  But I decided before that happened I wanted to at least try this.  I think it turned out well.  It needs a little adjusting to be perfect, but I liked it. 

I made the Father's Day treats that we handed out to all the men at church.  I just made chocolate
mustache suckers, but I liked how they turned out.

I put these stickers on the back.

I grabbed this picture right before we got her hair cut.

And this is the after picture. 

She's had fun playing around with her hair at home.  She put it into the pig tales all by herself, which
I'm impressed with because that's difficult to do with it so short.

And then she decided she wanted to see how many clips she could fit on her head.  At least I
guess that's what she decided.  I can think of no other reason for this 'do'.

We've had lots of fun bowling lately.

I just love her bowling stance after she sends the ball down the lane.

Emma gave her very first family home evening lesson.  She decided to teach about
repentance and prayer, and told the story of Enos to help.  

She was so animated - it was so fun to watch and listen to!

It's not summer without swimming and time at the lake.  Emma loves the water.
Although she might like torturing Eric even more!

She didn't seem to like the sand he rubbed on his arm though.   Love her expression!

So life has continued, and we're enjoying all the extra time we have together.  It's always so fun having Emma home all the time in the summer.  There's nothing I enjoy more than spending time with my family. 

What Saturdays Are All About

Last Saturday we decided to go to a kite flying event down by the beach.  We've never been, but have heard about it, and apparently it's been going on here for 12 years now.  So we decided to grab one of Emma's kite's and go check it out.

On our way, we found where the sidewalk actually ends.  It made the trip completely worth it.

There were a few bigger kite's being flown by the event people, including a huge manta ray.  I'm amazed they got it up there, because the wind was really pitiful that day. 

At one point they wanted everyone there to launch their kites at the same time, and it was supposed to be this big grand thing I guess, but I was definitely underwhelmed.  There weren't a million people there, and the wind was not cooperating.  I don't think I saw more than maybe 15 kites flying at a time. Usually it was closer to 10.   And afterwards, the announcer kept saying how "magnificent" it was.  Hmm, maybe he needs to get out more often.  

You can see Emma in the middle of the picture, right below the big manta ray kite.  And the green blob to the right of her and a little closer to the camera is the kite we were trying to fly.  Yup, it was on the ground most of the time.

This was during the big kite launch thing.  "Impressive" right?

But it was fine that it didn't turn out like we'd hoped, because it was a beautiful day, the temperature was wonderful, the sun was shining, and we were having fun even though the kite wasn't really the source of that fun.  We had brought some bubbles just for something else to do, and they ended up being great!  

She loved just holding up the bubble wand and letting the wind blow the bubbles out over the lake.

And Emma loved climbing and walking all over the rocks by the lake.  I think it's a kid law that you must seek out and enjoy climbing on rocks like this.  

And since we were so close, we just had to stop by the lake.  Eric wanted to get his feet wet.  If you remember from my last post, he loves doing this.  And Emma has taken after him.  So they went down to wade just a little.  When they were done, Eric decided he didn't want to deal with Emma's sandy feet, so he carried her back to the car.  

That evening I went out for a girls night with a dear friend, and while I did that, Eric took Emma fishing.  It was a free fishing day here - no license required, so Eric definitely wanted to go with Emma.  She said she loved it and wants to go again, even though they didn't catch anything.  There were some nibbles, and that was good enough for Emma.  Luckily they got home before it started to poor rain that night.  

It was a busy day, but a very good kind of busy!

Nathan's Visit

Eric's twin brother Nathan came to visit last week.  He had been working in Chicago for a few days, and was able to come stay with us for a few days for the long weekend.  It was so nice to see him!  We always love having Nathan around.

Emma wrote this in the room where Nathan would be staying.

We watched some movies together, and Emma wanted (and I think perhaps succeeded) to play every Lego game she has with Nathan.  He probably thinks that's all we own and all we do!  Emma has at least 12 different Lego games, so it really is a lot!  Emma also wanted to play Nathan some chess.  And of course, not wanting to be left out, Eric also played some Chess with Nathan.  This might be my very favorite thing to watch the two of them do.  You've heard of sibling rivalry?  Well, these two are the best at it.  No, they don't smack talk a lot, or get mean or aggressive (or upset when they lose), but they are so similar that their very attempts to out-strategize the other plant a permanent smile on my face.  They played twice, each winning once, and decided in the interest of brotherly love to leave it at that.  A tie.  =)

We went out to Lake Geneva for some lunch at the Sprecher restaurant there and to wander around the shops and by the lake.  It was a perfect day for it!  With so much rain lately it was fabulous to get outside and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.  Lunch was delicious, and we came across some very interesting items in some of the stores.  Emma's favorite was this hat.  It's made of sheep's wool.  It was awesome!

The lake was beautiful.  Eric being Eric, he just had to dip his feet in the water.  Eric's never met a river or stream or pond or lake or any body of water that he didn't want to walk around in.  Regardless of how cold it might be (I mean the water's temperature, not the temperature outside.  He doesn't seek out this activity in the middle of winter... usually.).  As we finally found a bench to relax on and enjoy the view, Emma was still a ball of energy, and kept walking back and forth along the edge of the sidewalk, or just running around in a circle on the grass.  Yup, my kid is weird.  Cute.  But weird.  And, because I was bored, you get the lake pictures slightly antiqued.

On Saturday Eric, Nathan and Emma all went to see the new Star Trek movie together.  We had seen it the previous week (and I liked it), so I opted out this time.  Then that evening we enjoyed a BBQ with some wonderful friends.

On Monday morning Eric and Nathan went out for breakfast, while I stayed home with Emma, who wasn't awake yet.  When she got up and found out where they were, you should have seen the look on her face!  She was NOT pleased.  I, however, thought it was hilarious.  Yeah, I'm not what you'd call a "good" mom.

Emma was very sad to see Nathan go.  She loved spending time with him and having someone else she could relentlessly tease and show-off for.  We hope he'll be back soon!

TKD Belt Test & Celebration Dinner

Yes, another post about taekwondo.  This one is mostly to link to the videos of her form and sparring so that family can see them.  Emma was testing for her high purple belt and successfully earned it.  I think she knew her form better than anyone else in class!  And during her sparring she kicked (I'm sure accidentally, but it was still awesome) the face shield off her opponents helmet.  Unfortunately right when that happened another set of kids got in the way, so you can't really see it clearly.  You can see the mask fly off at about the :45 second mark, but that's about it.  Anyway, we're so proud of Emma and how hard she works at this!




Afterwards, we went out for dinner to celebrate a job well done.  We didn't know yet if she had passed, and actually earned her next belt, but we were proud of the job she had done and all her hard work in preparing for it.  We went to Buffalo Wild Wings because Eric wanted to take us there.  Emma and I had never been.  Emma loved it!  It was great seeing her get all messy.