Starwberry jam

 It is strawberry time... this means strawberry jam time.

 The kids are getting to be such a big help.

And they have sooo much fun helping Mommy.

We looooove homemade strawberry jam.

 We should be good for the year I think.

Baseball

 The kids got their first baseball gloves, balls, and tee ball stand.

Marty took them out and showed them how to play.

Doesn't this little guy look like a natural?

  It think we may have a future Twins player here. 

Redwood County Fair 2011

 It is FAIR time!  Redwood County Fair that is. It was hot and sweaty as always.

 We enjoyed looking at the animals: cows, goats, piggies, sheep, geese, bunnies, chickens, and ducks.

 Then came the rides which is a big hit with Gracie and Zach.

Gracie even got to do bumper cars with Marty this year, Zach was to short.

 They are having a whale of a good time!

 Front row on the gator roller coaster in the picture below.

 Then some good fair food:
corn dogs for the kids and pork sandwiches for Marty and I.

Ice cream for everyone.

July 4th Fun

 Our 4th of July celebrations were pretty tame. Just us hanging by the pool. It was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine. Marty worked in the morning so after kids woke up from their nap we put on the suits and headed to the pool.

32 weeks

 

The highlight of the day was we got to use our new patio set for the first time.

We had just put it together the day before.

 We were enjoying ourselves so much we decided to eat supper outside too and make it a real '4th of July' picnic day.

 To top it off, Ice Cream Cones for a bedtime treat!

Swimming

 Well, the weather has finally warmed up here in MN so we are able to enjoy our pool.

Gracie and Zach are quite the swimmers.  We put on the arm floaties and they just go like crazy.

It is so much fun to watch them have fun.

 Marty often plays 'shark' with them, which really gets them going.

They love to jump all by themselves, head under and everything.



Potty Trained!

I think we have our Zachy potty-trained at 2 yrs and 9 mo old!!!

He has been in Micky Mouse underwear now for about 2 weeks.

We are so proud of him.

Good Job Buddy!

This is weird we have been buying diapers and wipes for over 4 yrs.

Just think we get a 2 month break and then right back at it!

Storm Damage

Last Friday, July 1, 2011around 5pm the surrounding area of where we live experienced a destroying storm.  I don't think anyone really knows if it was a tornado or not, but it sure did similar damage as a tornado would. Fortunately for us no damage was done to our house, sheds, or barns. Around our house we just had some branches down. At the farm we had a lot of tree damage. Some of these trees are probably 100+ year old Maples that were just beautiful once... now not so much.

 Again we are so blessed that all our structural buildings went untouched, but some people in the area had much more damage. In a neighboring town, Belview, a tree fell on a nursing home and they needed to evacuate the residents to other places.

 Some people were without power for several days. I think the town of Redwood Falls went 2 days or so without power, some in the rural areas went 4-5 days! We again did pretty good and just have 5 or 6 hours. No person was hurt that I know of but I know some houses were. Please say prayers for all these people.