Kids, kitties, kitchen (and rainbows)

I really need to catch up with some older photos, so here is an overload of everything on my camera!

A few weeks ago, we visited the cousins. Zachary took Dane for a ride in the go-cart.

Ellie and Nora road the 4-wheeler with Mike (the invisible man).

We went to Milnor a couple of weekends ago for an all-school reunion.  I didn't take many pictures, but here is one of Dane and Nora enjoying the pool Grampy and Grammy set up in their yard. Grampy even ran the hose from inside the house so the water was nice and warm.  (When I was a kid, he made us use the cold outside well water.  Funny how that works!)

Nora gets a little help from Grandpa Paul.

Nora loves to hang from monkey bars!

Building and destroying sand castles on the beach this past weekend.

Our fearless flyer!

All wrapped up after swimming.  You must zoom in on Nora's face- she looks so sweet here it almost makes my heart skip a beat every time I look at her!  It's no wonder she's a little bit spoiled...

Fishing and swimming with cousin Morgan.

Uncle Mark and Daddy filleted all the sunfish and we had a delicious fish fry supper!

Full moon rising while out for an evening walk down our driveway.  The neighbor is renting the pasture around our place right now, so we have cattle to keep us company.

Nora and Dane helped Daddy paint our mailbox yesterday.  I will have to take a new picture of the finished product sometime. They did a great job!

Now for the kitties portion of the post.  Nora continues to love her kitties! This picture makes me smile- Nora is grimacing because Sunny is getting bigger every day and almost weighs as much as she does, her sunglasses are upside down, and Sunny is so relaxed (even purring!).  He still lets the kids drag him everywhere.

Rosie will occasionally humor the kids and allow them to carry her around.  However, she isn't nearly as calm or patient, as you can tell. (Of course it doesn't help that Nora has her in a headlock!)

Bessie doesn't let herself get into situations like the one above! 

The three pretty kitties on our deck this evening.

This is Zachary and Ellie's cat that they use as a living doll.  I suppose this is what our cats have to look forward to?

A couple of kitchen pictures...

cucumber water.

Steaming bread fresh from the oven one morning as the cattle graze in the pasture.

We have had a few recent rainstorms and beautiful rainbows.  This one was a couple of weeks ago.

And this one greeted me as I came out of the basement this evening after our tornado warning weather.

(The color is a little bit funny- I had to do some tweaking or the rainbow was hardly visible.)

Beautiful summer

The scenery of my morning run- I couldn't help but think, "O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain..."

The pretty lake as we loaded our boat this evening.  Nora took her first ride on the tube tonight, and one of our friends took her first wakeboard runs tonight at only 9 years old!!

You can't beat a day like this!

Three little kittens

Almost two weeks ago, we adopted these three cute kittens (who aren't really all that little, but kittens just the same).  They will hopefully be great mousers someday!  For now, they are happy to chase a bobber while Dane goes "catfishing."

From left to right, Sunny, Bessie, and Rosie.

                                      

They like to follow us all around the place.  Yesterday, they came running down the driveway after us as we walked to get the mail.  By the time we turned around and headed back up the driveway, they were lying down and panting from such a long run!

Miss Bessie is the shy one.  She follows us but keeps her distance a bit more than the others, for the most part.  She is still quite tame and likes some extra attention from time to time.

Sunny is the mellow guy.  He likes to be very close to us, and is very tolerant of the kids.  Just yesterday, Dane picked him up, carried him up the steps of the swingset, and gave him a ride down the slide!  And while they all are quite purr machines, this little guy starts purring the moment he sees you!

Rosie is the one looking toward the camera here.  She is kind of the leader of the pack and always very vocal.

We really like our kittens!!

Happy Birthday to America and Grandma!

Proudly flying our colors.

Saturday morning was hot and hazy- almost 85* by 10:30 am as Mike and the kids headed to Grandpa and Grandma's house with the flag on the 4-wheeler.

The kids apparently needed to cool off a bit, clothes and all!

Grandma shares a birthday with our great nation!

Everybody looks a bit anxious for the cake to be served!

A few small fireworks to end a fantastic day.

A beautiful 2-year-old girl

This is an update just about Nora.  It's mostly for my own sake, so that one day I can look back after these days fly past and fondly remember the little things that make me love this girl so!  She is definitely all girl- she loves shoes (and would change at least 5 times a day if I let her!), carrying a purse, lip gloss, playing with babies, playing with her kitchen.  She patiently sits while mommy combs her hair and then admires the end results in the mirror. She even has started loving to pose for the camera.

She loves Daddy, and she has him pretty well wrapped around that little finger!  She asks him for gum frequently, another one of her passions.  She can easily chew the same piece for over an hour.

She loves to have songs sung to her at night.  Her favorite two are "You Are My Sunshine" and the alphabet, which she can sing by herself, if she thinks you aren't listening!  She was so much slower to talk than Dane, but she just took off over the past 2 months.  Before then, she hardly said a word, but she speaks in complete sentences all the time now.  She asks for her "special princess phone" and her "special princess camera" and loves to carry them around in her backpack if we're going somewhere.

She gives big hugs and sweet kisses and pats us on the back. She admires her big brother above all. She is our sweet "Sister"!

Last days of T-ball

Batter up!

He's off to first!

Heading home!

A common scene in preschool T-ball. They get a bit bored running the bases, so they take a little break!

Storytime to finish things off!