Busy Summer

This summer sure has been a busy one! Mostly yard work and stuff around the house, but those are the things that keep you going... right? The girls are in swimming lessons for the first time. They both love it!... although I don't really know any kid that doesn't love to swim. Jake's brother Ben, and sister Sara, stayed with us for a week. Then we went to Utah for a family reunion (Evans family) and attended Jake's Grandpa Evans funeral in Boise a few weeks after the reunion. Here are a bunch of random photos of our summer.

When we were in Boise we were parked at a gas pump right next to a big ol' fire truck. Of course the girls were in awe. The firemen were so nice to the girls, waving at them and talking to them (I'm sure it's in their job decription). Then they came over to our car and gave the girls their very own fire hats!!! So exciting!

Elsa and Sierra swimming at the hotel in Boise. We are lucky this summer and get to spend a lot more time with the Schall's then we normally do. It is great for the girls to get to play with their cousins a bunch this summer!

I was watering the flowers and over watered which made a "river". The girls, being true Montana girls, grabbed their fishing poles and started fishing.

We have BEAUTIFUL rainbows at our house. This one was probably the best... although I wasn't there to see it.

Fishing at the reunion. For the Schalls and Evans reading this... look closely at the canoe....

Jake sure is looking more and more like his dad.

Evans family reunion.

The iPod is the new coolest thing in the house. We can barely keep it charged any more.. with the constant use it is getting.

Well, I guess that is all the pics for now. We still have a quick trip to our neighbors cabin, a trip to Yellowstone, a trip to Elko, and a wedding planned for the next couple months... with lots of yard work in between. Summers sure are busy!!!!

Jake's BIG 30!

Happy Birthday Jake!!!

It's his big 30th Brithday this year! We celebrated it a little early this year... over the weekend, when we would have time to spend the day having fun! We started off the Birthday celebration with a good old fashioned parade. It was the annual Three Forks parade, kicking off the rodeo weekend. This was the first parade the girls have been too, and the first parade I have been to that after all the floats (and cars, and horses) have gone by, they turn around the come back the other way!! You get the see the whole thing twice!! I love Three Forks!

Waiting for the parade to start

Here it comes....

The girls got sooo much candy. We weren't prepared and didn't have a bag for candy. I totally forgot parades throw candy... what was I thinking??? But we managed to get their giant stash back home. :)

After the parade we came home and got ready for the celebrating. Megan, Nick and our neighbor Mike came over. We grilled steaks, ate cake, and just hung out. It was really nice. I hope Jake had a great Birthday!

Rainbow trout cake. :)

Birdhouses

Jake thought it would be fun to build some birdhouses for the girls to paint and hang on our fence. Of course the girls had tons of fun painting.

Here they are hanging on our fence. We don't have any birds living in them. I think by the time we did them, the birds already had established their nests. Hopefully next year we will have some birds move in.

Big Birthday Weekend!

In honor of Maddies Birthday, we decided to take a little weekend family trip to Billings. We thought it would be fun to take the girls to the zoo. They are young enough that the Montana zoo is cool. I think Sierras favorite part were the reptiles, and Maddies favorite part was picking the random flowers along the path. It was still fun though. One major part of our trip was SWIMMING! Sierra has been dying to go swimming, so we made sure to get a hotel with a nice swimming pool. After the zoo we all got in our swimming gear and went swimming. Of course we all had fun. Maddie liked hanging out in the hot tub with papa. Sierra and I stuck to the big pool. After swimming, we showered and got ready for a nice dinner. The next day we headed home to get ready for Maddies Birthday celebration! Maddie has been talking about her birthday for months. She couldn't wait to turn 3, have a ladybug cake, and invite Aunt Megan over to celebrate. All of her birthday wishes came true! We had a fun weekend. It was nice to have a family fun getaway, and I'm sure there will be many more to come!

At the zoo

Sierra was kind of scared of the tiger.


Checking out the wolverine

Animals from the zoo gift store. Sierra chose a baby deer, and if you know Maddie, you wouldn't be surprised that she chose the snake.

SWIMMING!!!

Sierra loved jumping off the side of the pool.

The big pool was too cold for Maddie.

Maddies birthday celebration. Showing her Happy Birthday card Grandma Neela made for her.

It was so fun to watch her excitement!

The ladybug cake.

She almost got them all out in one blow.

The Shed That Jake Built!!

One day Jake and I were going for a walk... I asked him what he thought about building a shed. We walked around the property, talked it over, mapped it out and that was that, Jake was going to build us a shed! He got right on it and ordered all the lumber. As soon as the weekend rolled around, he got right to it!

He built the whole thing by himself.... well, I stained... but he did everything else. It's a 12x12 shed.

All framed up within a few hours!

Jake putting the siding up.

Getting ready to stain.

Jake cutting the tails off of the facia.

Getting started shingling

Time out for a few pics of the girls.

They were very good at entertaining themselves most of the time. They made their own see-saw.

A little too high for my comfort.




Back to the shed! Almost done!

I love this picture. You can see the big storm clouds all around. If you look closely, you can see the rain pouring down on Jake as he was finishing shingling the roof.

TA-DA! Finished! It took Jake about 2 days to build! It's nice having a carpenter around! :)

Visitors!!!

(Sariah, Sierra, and Maddie)

My mom, Lena and Sariah came for a visit this last weekend. I had such a good time, and I know the little girls did too! It is ALWAYS nice to be around family. Lena took probably about 800 pictures (literally) and loaded about 400 of them on to my computer. But instead of going through the pictures and then writing a big blog about all the things we did, and how cute the girls were... I thought I would just link you to Lena's blog. She did a great job at blogging about the things we did while they were here. Click the links below to read about our visit. ;)
Miscellaneous
Madison River
Photoshoot

Congrats to the Grad!

Congrats to Sierra! Her first year of preschool has come and gone. She really enjoyed school.... I'm sure most kids her age do. She has really learned a lot this year in school. She made lots of friends and made lots of cute crafty projects. :) She has one more year of preschool before she is off to the big school and full days. I'm glad that I have one more year with her at home.

This is a little video of one of the songs the kids sang for their graduation. (the boy next to Sierra is AJ)

OH boy!

Sierra and Maddie had been begging me for days to make cards. Finally we had some spare time for the kids to get their hands sticky (Literally. They use WAY too much glue!). Anyway.... so I got their paper out and let them be. Sierra was so excited to show me what she had been making. She made this specail card for her friend in her class, AJ. She told me that AJ said 'hi' to her in school. Now, when I was in preschool, I remember liking a specific boy. Yes, it is way too young to like boys, but I guess I just couldn't help it. Not sure if Sierra is the same way... So on the inside of the card she drew a dragon and a snowman and lots and lots of hearts! Um... Right away I thought, 'Jake isn't going to like this AJ kid'. Then she wrote AJ's name (she spelled it JA) and her name at the top. I love her drawings. Her dragon and snowman are cute. I think I am going to snatch this card up and keep it before she gets a chance to give it to AJ. She only has 3 more days of school left. She will be going to preschool again next year. I'm not sure if AJ will be moving on to kindergarten or stay in preschool. I guess we will see...

close up

Here is a cute butterfly she made the same day. She is really proud of her butterfly. We hung it up on her magnectic board in her room. Super cute!