Reading

One of my current favorite things lately is watching - or just hearing - Abram "read." Hearing what he comes up with to retell the stories he has heard many times is just the cutest darn thing. 

And speaking of reading, I started back up teaching the girls to read a few weeks ago (after a faulty start at the beginning of the summer!). I started with Explode the Code and Zoe whizzed through the entire first book with little to no help from me! Claire struggled with it a lot. So, I am onto my third method in teaching Claire to read: "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." I think I will be sticking with this one. I think it is best suited to help her with her struggle to learn to read. I may actually use it with Zoe, too, to fill in any gaps she may have from teaching herself to read English. :)

A Great Summer Night

Last Wednesday night we had a crazy, crazy wind storm - that was not the great summer night! We lost power, got the kids out of bed and all huddled downstairs in our unfinished bathroom for about an hour. Not a great picture (taken in the dark with Jason's phone), but here are four of us in the shower. 

Claire was pretty scared. Abram couldn't stop talking the next day about how we were "hiding" downstairs in the bathroom.

Here is the view from our deck at Claire's party on Wednesday afternoon:

 And  . . . here was the same view Thursday morning:

Our apple tree (that was loaded with apples) went down and took three sections of our neighbor's fence with it. OOPS!

In all the tree-falling-down-excitement that morning, someone thought it would be fun to take my picture . . . in my p-pops, not yet having brushed my hair. Just keeping it real here!

Jason and my brother-in-law were able to cut up and remove our tree from the neighbors yard that night. 

Meanwhile the kids picked up all the sticks in the yard from the storm and then got to have ice cream sandwiches. I actually took this picture to send to Abram's Texas family because he is sporting his Texas Tech shirt from them.

And then it was time for the real fun to start . . . emptying the pool

And then cleaning the pool. Not a great picture of Zoe, but she goes to town helping Jason clean the pool whenever they clean it. 

The kids have loved eating the little, sour apples from our tree. I'm pretty sure this is the "Africa" in them and I love it! Sad to not have an apple tree anymore.

It was super fun to stay outside, working in the yard as a family as it was getting dark (and past the boys' bed times).

A little fire for our sticks.

Notice a sleepy someone in the background with his blanket as we were finishing up?

Due to the fire we made and the heat, a bath was in order, even though it was late.

Working hard, getting dirty, having fun, staying outside after dark . . . a great summer night as a family!

Lake Fun

Last Sunday we took off right after church and drove to Grey's Lake in Des Moines. We had our picnic there after the zoo several weeks ago and the kids have asked multiple times to go back to swim. We packed another picnic lunch and then swam and played and swam and played.

It was a super fun few hours!