In Full Swing & Independence Day

Danny is playing in baseball games again!  One of my happiest memories from this summer so far is watching him play as the sun set at the Sandstone Ranch ball fields with my mom and Michelle.  Turns out the coach's son has a twin sister and she and Michelle have become fast friends cheering on their siblings.

We got to see what a virtual version of Girl Scout Day Camp was like in June.  I was amazing at how well they were able to make it work from home.  I can't imagine how many hours it took to prepare!  The highlight of our at home experience was dissecting an owl pellet and all the crafts Michelle got to make.

Michelle ended her hip hop year with a red carpet recital by performing in the studio  with part of her class (3 other girls) and their moms, and being invited to join the dance studio's new competitive junior hip hop team.  She is excited to triple down on the hip hop classes next school year!

When "Mom camp" is run by an artist for the week, your daughter gets to do really amazing things prints, clay, tie dye, and playing in the creek.

There were so many natural art shows this summer!

And the puppies are still as cute as ever.  In this case, they found a cream cheese wrapper and the children thought it looked they they were kissing.  They are great when separated but definitely keep me on my toes when they are together!

We love watching you play baseball, Danny!  On this new team we have many more opportunities to do so, that's for sure.  We are so proud of how hard these boys work and spoiled by having one of the dads keep track of the score and outs for us on an app that lets all of us spectators know what's going on.  The games are usually pretty well matched and therefore can be real nail biters.  It's great!

Natalie worried on the way to her fist softball game that the team they were going to play against would be as good as Danny's team.  Turns out there was no need to fear because Natalie's team won by quite a lot.  She was so happy and Hubby offered her Mike & Ike's to celebrate.  We think her team won the second game to but no one really keeps track at this age.  It was quite fun to have my Dad and the missionaries join us for pizza and ice cream from Lefty's while we watched.

We had a pretty chill 4th of July weekend.  Instead of buying hundreds of dollars worth of fireworks to set off in the street this year, we bought a Nintendo Switch that was in stock for the first time since March.  I'm pretty sure that with the city fireworks being canceled caused plenty of people to head up to Wyoming and buy fireworks that are illegal here because there were fireworks all over the place!  Luckily we had friends with legal fireworks they were willing to share with our children too.  Independence Day just wouldn't be the same without blowing things up!  P.S.  I am totally obsessed with Hamilton after watching it on Disney+ as a family over the weekend.  Natalie and I sing the songs every day.  Her favorites are the ones Jonathan Groff (aka Kristoff from Frozen) sang as King George III.  I can't blame her but I am amazing not only by the genius of the entire production but of how many of the songs run through my head every day.  I am also so grateful I read the Alexander Hamilton biography it was based on before seeing the show.  There is just so much story packed into so little time that the kids were pretty confused but I thought it was brilliant.  

The boys are enjoying the discoveries of summer, including having a pet baby snapping turtle for a few hours.  It took more than one of us parents to convince them to put it back where they found it the same day.  Now Danny wants a turtle but I said I was already at and perhaps beyond my limit for pets right now.

We all agree that watching U8 softball is one of the cutest things ever!  I love seeing my dad wear the shirt I had made for Father's Day to the games too.

You may notice there are no pictures of our oldest child in this blog post.  Between her insistence I not take pictures of her and plenty of play dates with Charly, Emma O. and Ava (including sleepovers) I feel like she is a true teenager now even though she isn't quite 13 yet.  She has grown leaps and bounds since being able to play with friends again this summer and I am so proud of her.  Love you, Kate!