Independence Day 2016

The traditional flag waffles!

Me & Lorelei... she was trying to swat flies on the window.

And she actually got one...ha!

This year we went to fireworks on July 2 since that is when Medford has them. Like we normally do, we went to Grandma's house and were able to walk over just before the fireworks started.

 The kiddos waiting for fireworks to start.

Lorelei didn't last all the way through just because she was so tired.

Jimmie actually moved to a little chair next and sat there so perfectly while he waited for them and all throughout them. He really loved them!

On Monday, the actual 4th, we had a barbecue at our house and the Oxborrow's came over for the afternoon to swim. For actual dinner, the sister missionaries came over and it was a fun evening.

Uncle Marc even brought over a few little exciting little things for the kids on the 4th. Nothing too crazy, but enough to keep them entertained and excited!

Lions, Tigers, and Bears...Oh Yay!

Seems like in this past week we've done a lot with animals! One Friday in June, we all went down to the Cape May Zoo. It was a great time for everyone and an absolutely beautiful day! 

Jimmie and Grandma

Karsten and Dawson. We kind of played musical strollers all throughout the zoo which was fun for the kids to be able to switch it up and visit with each other.

The beautiful tiger that emerged just as we walked up.

Lorelei LOVED the reptile house and wanted to stand up and wave to all of the animals.

This capybara was adorable. My favorite animal at the zoo this trip.

The gorgeous giraffes and the baby giraffe! Hard to see but it's just a few months old.

There's a better picture of the baby.

A happy Dawson!

Another one of Lorelei's favorites was feeding the goats.

She was not afraid at all to stick her hand right up to the goats and let them lick her.

Karsten had a really fun time with this too!

The zoo was fun, but it definitely tired some kids out!!

We got to stop at Royal Crowne on the way home and Jimmie was THRILLED with his Vanilla ice cream!

The next week, we went over to my Aunt Tracey's horse farm to see my cousins Kaci and Nikki and their horses.

Jimmie (and most of us) thought it was pretty dang hot! Jimmie and Great Grandma liked to stand under part of the trailer in the shade to watch. He decided he'd like to come back another day that was a little cooler to do pony rides. 

Lorelei didn't really like going ON the horse with me too much. But she did like trying to climb through the fence and petting the horses.

And she loved taking care of Dawson.

Kirsten DID like riding the horse after a little bit of coaxing.

Trying to get under the fence.

Meeting and playing with their dog, Shadow.

Cousin Pool Time!

We love being able to have a pool in our backyard, but we especially love that the Oxborrow's love to come over and swim in it! It is so fun (and sometimes a little crazy) to have all of these littles enjoying themselves on these hot days. I'm not always able to capture a lot of pool pictures since I'm normally IN the pool with them, but on this particular day, I was pool side with a broken and cut up toe that needed to stay bandaged and dry. So, picture duty it was!

Since Lorelei is notoriously daring (to a fault), it only took one or two times in the pool before I realized that a life jacket for here was essential. So, I caved and got an infant life jacket. She fought it initially, but now loves it and knows that it lets her swim better in the water.

Jimmie has one of these awesome puddle jumpers that supposedly lets them swim confidently on their own. He doesn't seem to think so though... I'm hoping he will be brave enough to swim with just his puddle jumper floaty by the end of the summer. For now he insists on being in the whale AND his floaty.  Whatever works! He clearly has a blast :)

Dipping the toes in while boycotting the life jacket.

Grandma and 3 littles! Karsten also got a puddle jumper but has since learned how to swim around on his own.

Two boys in their whales.

Ms. Adventure loves jumping into the pool!

 And here goes Karsten, full force, swimming across the pool! 

 Sometimes it's nice to just relax.

And this little chug is just as happy as can be floating in the pool!! Lorelei loves to swim to Dawson and see her best friend.

Yeah...this is the life!

Another plus of swimming at Grandma's? Guess who made these kiddos fudge stripe cookie s'mores for their post-swim snack?! Pretty lucky kids!

June Relief Society Activity

For June's Relief Society activity, we wanted to focus on the preparedness theme that we had been doing. We did a really successful Christmas gift themed "Make & Take" activity back in November so we thought it'd be fun to do similar summer themed activity. 

For a month+ prior to the activity we announce that we would be collecting items that we'd be using in the making of our preparedness items. Some of the items we asked people to bring were cardboard egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, tuna or chicken cans, dryer lint, candle ends, and pill bottles.

We made...

-Firestarters with toilet paper rolls (the "bombs")

-Mini Firestarters with egg cartons

-Waterproof matches

-Buddy Burners + Personal Stoves

I'm not going to bother with individual tutorial because I'm sure you can do a simple Google search and find

The basic idea of how to do these is to stuff the toilet paper roll or egg carton holes with lint and then dip in or cover with wax. Not gonna lie, the massive pile of lint freaked me out a little..ha! So we made sure to have disposal gloves for people to use.

Once stuffed, people went to the crockpots that were full of melted wax to dip or cover their creation with wax. We also had wood shavings for the buddy burners in the tuna/chicken cans.

I don't have a finished picture of these. Maybe someday I'll get mine out and take a picture. 

The pill bottles were for the waterproof matches which we just dipped into the wax and put in the bottles.

And for our ward, we had a fairly good turn out! This was at the very beginning so we had several more people trickle in. 

We had a mini 72 hour kit display. We didn't do much with it except for talk very briefly about some unique things we have in ours or some things we think we should add...etc.

Darci did a brief presentation about why this is important, how to use things, and what we would be doing.

Some of the ladies in action!

We also had a fire pit going in the back parking lot. We actually started our activity out here to demonstrate how to use the fire starters that we'd be making. It was very impressive! Julie used one of the "bombs" (the toilet paper roll starter) with NO kindling and lit the logs straight away.  Those puppies have some serious power!

I love summer campfires. It was fun to visit with friends and make some delicious treats!

We roasted marshmallows and put them between fudge striped cookies (I think I actually prefer s'mores this way now instead of the graham cracker + chocolate)

We also roasted whole apples and dipped them in caramel. I wasn't expecting these to amount to much but they were delicious. You don't even need the caramel to enjoy this! Just hold an apple directly in the flame for quite a while, take it out, cut it up and enjoy!

A shot from when we first started. I didn't get many shots while we were all out there since I was kind of covered in caramel and marshmallow :)

Meanwhile, back inside...there were many treats drying for people to take home!

And I managed to snag a picture of our awesome, fearless leader, Julie! She always works so hard to make sure everything comes together and goes above and beyond! We are so lucky to have her.