A little while back

I am really behind on posting. On the fourth of July weekend my step-sister and brother-in-law (and their sweet son Hayes) came to visit us. We had a great time. We went to the zoo and I love these pics. There was a new baby elephant born a few weeks before we went. I really didn' t think it would be a big deal to see. But it was. Amazing. How can God make something so small into something so big? The baby was so fun to watch. (the 800 other people around us seemed to agree)





Looking stylish on the bench by the elephant.


I love that the Columbus Zoo has a Razorback. Perfect.




I know I am going to miss this zoo. But it is 40 min. away and a lot of trouble to take the girls to by myself. I should go, but I better save up energy for bedtime. :) So we will go to the pool instead. It has taken me over a year to forgive them for totally ripping me off, but I am putting my children's desire to have fun above this! :) Can't wait to get to TX so Olivia can start swim lessons. I have been telling her since Feb., "Oh sweetie, I promise we will start soon. But we have to wait until we move." I am pretty sure we could have gone to like 6 different sets of lessons by now. So, she has had a great attitude and done the best she can in the bath tub. :) Hopefully we will move at some point in the near future so I we can do all the things we keep promising and more importantly all live under one roof! I miss that!

Yum!

Baking seems to get me through the days (the days while we are here and he is there). It is fun and the girls love it. And who can complain about getting to have some yummy treats?

These are coconut cupcakes (no pieces- just milk- makes them nice and moist). Sprinkled ones just have buttercream and others have lime buttercream.







Olivia playing hairstylist with her new kit. She picked this out from Toys R Us. I am pretty sure I like it just as much as she does!

Bye

Before Travis left for Ft. Worth, we all got together for ice cream at Graeters. It was so yummy and so fun! Here are my girls with Caroline and Ava (who have been gone to Cape Cod for two weeks! We miss them!)


Graeters really is the best ice cream ever. Now I am an ice cream snob. This is one of the few things we will miss from OH.


Few of the other things we will miss from OH. These people have been our family here. Love them!


We have drawn on the driveway several time since Travis left. It is an outside activity that provides a lot of fun and very little energy on my part. This is very important. Have to save it to make it through bedtime. She looks precious here. Love that she decided she should wear a crown outside to draw on the sidewalk.

Confetti Cookies

The girls and I made cookies from Confetti Cakes. I love Elisa Strauss' two cake cookbooks. My awesome brother-in-law Brent and sister Rachelle got them for me for Christmas. Most of the cakes are so amazing, that I haven't tried much. I have made a couple of things and they are so yummy! We tried the cookies. You are suppposed to make them like lollipops, but I didn't have any sticks. They were so fun. I haven't made royal icing before. It was so fun to use and would be great for a party. I was worn out afterwards because I was standing in the kitchen at least 3 hours making dough, icing, coloring all of the icing, baking, decorating (and eating!). I love being able to make things that you can buy- and esp. if they are as good or better. It was super fun. The icing doesn't taste very good when it is wet, but it dries nice and hard and it actually tastes really good. I will cut out a little salt- she called for 1t. too much- I will try 3/4t next time.






We have been playing with friends and trying to do a lot of fun things before we move. We actually got an offer on our house, but the next day they decided not to move to Columbus. So we are waiting for God to bring the buyers. :) The other day we got a call for people who wanted to see the house in 15 minutes! Thankfully they didn't come for 40 b/c the girls were both in the bath and the house was messy. It was clean (thankfully!) from the night before and Travis had mowed earlier in the day. Those people liked our house (and esp. liked the water we left! Ha!), but they are very early in the process of buying a house. Hopefully we will have sold our house by the time they come back around! Travis and I have been learning all kinds of things during this time. Some of the lessons I hope we have really learned so we don't have to learn them again!

The girls are so much fun! I LOVE their ages. They are so great and we adore them. They get along so well and are such amazing blessings to us. I better get them to a bath. Olivia has piano tonight before VBS. VBS is wearing me out. I am glad it is only one time a year! Annika made it the first night, but only about 10 minutes last night. Travis came and got her- she was ready for bed!

My Mom's Visit and Dance Recital

My mom came to visit at the end of June to play and to see the girls in their dance recital. Olivia was so excited to learn to sew with KK! They made a cute pillow for her bed.

Look how proud she is!

Annika found many ways to be helpful while they were sewing!

My mom's birthday was coming up, so we celebrated with a surprise lobster dinner. So yummy!

Here we are after the recital. We couldn't take pictures during it, but we got this one afterwards. They did so well! We were so proud of them. Annika did ballet to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." Olivia did ballet, tap, and tumbling. They both loved it. Afterwards when we got in the car Annika said, "I want to do that again!" She must have had a really good time.

This is Olivia's tap outfit. She really liked it because it is similar to Molly's (Amer. Girl) in her book. Molly got to be "Miss Victory"- Olivia also pretended to be Miss Victory!

This is Olivia in her tumbling outfit. This was her favorite. It has fringe- she quickly became a fan of fringe!

The girls got trophies (Annika got a bobble head one- she picked it out), flowers, the pink cake they always want, balloons, and a fun little hello kitty gift. They were so excited! I love making my girls feel special!

My nephew Hayes came to visit for the 4th. We had a great time going to the zoo and going to Thurman's Cafe. And eating Graeters! Yummy! He is so cute! The girls had a great time playing with him or watching him play I should say. I forget at this age how they just play along next to other kids, not so much with them.

When it rains it pours

...sort of. I have been meaning to blog for a long time. I have a lot to share. But I haven't had the time. I go to bed after midnight every night and still there is no time. I don't know how parents of more than two children survive. Gold stars for all of you! I put up several new posts- mostly pictures. We got to go to FL. It is the first post and so it is farther down. Don't miss it!

We are still waiting to sell our house. This seems pretty impossible from human standards- that is why we are so thankful God is in control of all of this! We are very hopeful he does in fact have a buyer for us. If not, we want to be open to what he does have. He has been blessing us during this waiting period- AWESOME trip to FL, Graeters (our favorite ice cream here in OH) is now being sold in the Dallas/Ft Worth area at Kroger!, and many other things that I am trying to keep track of so I don't miss any of his blessings! Travis needs to be in TX in Aug. I am going to miss the cooler, mostly bug-free summers here. And our great friends we've made. And our house. Honestly, that is about it. I am ready to move back to the South- I think. The other day I was remembering how hard it is to move. It is almost like starting your life completely all over again. Everything is new and nothing seems like home. Definitely not looking forward to that. But I love our family and just being with them everyday makes everything doable!

Slate Run Farm

The girls and I went to Slate Run Farm- a working historical farm here in OH. The girls had a great time and even got to pet the baby calf. Annika was not a fan of the stinky pigs.