the lemonade stand

Another summer, another garage sale/lemonade stand....

This time the two girls I watch on Fridays were here to help Rachel with her lemonade stand.  They made it much more fun for Rachel (and helped her become much more outgoing with advertising to passers-by), but she also had to split the profits with them.  But they were all thrilled to make over $12 EACH.  The following day Rachel had one with her sister (though Rebecca wasn't much help at all....) and made another $20 or so!   These shoppers like their lemonade, brownies and cookies, and the cute sales girls!

My garage sale did much better than I expected, too.  Hooray for getting rid of stuff AND earning money to buy school clothes!

fun with friends

We made our yearly visit to see our good friends, Allecia, Kaden, and Marin this week.  We talked about maybe meeting somewhere new this year, but Rachel and Kaden both wanted to go where we've always met, so we stuck with tradition.....bikes, playground, lunch, splash pad, and ice cream.  

Not a great picture.....Allecia, I really hope yours look better than this sorry picture!  (I forgot the camera and took this on my iPod.)

It's always SO good to see them and catch up in person, but never long enough.  :(  the kids enjoyed each other, too.  It was a perfect day for playing outside and getting wet on the splash pad!

even more natural play

Last week was a busy week at our house.  It was VBS week, which is a highlight of the summer for my girls, and to add to the excitement, I also kept two of Rachel's friends (twin sisters from Rachel's Girl Scout troop) all day each day so they could go to VBS with their friends (lots of the kids from Rachel's school/our church go there for VBS).  So every morning was VBS and every afternoon was fun with her friends.  So it was a busy week full of fun.

One afternoon after VBS we met some friends for lunch at a park near the VBS church.  They also have one of the Natural Play Areas I wrote about in my last post, so of course, Rachel wanted to check it out.  None of the other girls had ever played in one of the natural play areas before, so they were excited to see what it was all about, too.

Someone got the idea to build a log cabin.  Then they decided to make a table and chairs inside the cabin.  They made six chairs, enough for everyone to have a seat.  I won't post the pic I have of all of them sitting on their chairs, but here's one of Rebecca in the cabin at her seat.....see how hard they worked?  They dragged logs and stumps forever!  

Also adding to the fun this week was an American Girl movie premier.  The new movie, Isabelle, premiered at the movie theater near the American Girl store.  I took my girls, the two girls I was watching, and Rachel's friend, Taylor's mom took her two girls and a girl she was watching....so between us we had seven little girls.  It was a sea of little girls, ages 4-12ish and their moms....  But they give you lots of free American Girl swag, which the girls loved.  Free paper dolls, free craft, free doll t-shirt, free popcorn, and so forth.  They loved it all.  I wish I had a picture, but the one I took didn't really turn out in the dark theater.

What a week!

natural play

In the last few years our metroparks (we have a great metro parks system) has introduced something called "Natural Play Areas" in some of its parks.  These areas are areas in the woods where kids can climb trees, build forts, go creeking, and just play in nature.  

A few weeks ago we went to a new-to-us park on the other side of town, and as part of our exploring, we discovered one of these Natural Play areas.  Rachel had just finished a week at camp, where she was out in nature every day, creeking, getting muddy, and having a great time.  So she LOVED playing in the woods in this new play area.  Since then she's been bugging us to go see the Natural Play Areas at some of the other parks.  We happen to have one in our park that is just up the road from us, so yesterday we went to check it out.

On Fridays this summer I've been watching Rachel's friend, Taylor, and her younger sister, so they came, too.  The girls had a great time exploring and then building this fort.

I love that she loves this stuff....even though it's not really my thing, I'm happy that my girly girl (notice three out of the four girls are wearing skirts and sandals...not exactly hiking-in-the-woods apparel!) doesn't mind getting muddy and having fun in the great outdoors!  

Then there's this.....the opposite side of the coin.  

Next month my brother and his family are moving to Poland for a year, during his sabbatical (he's a college professor).  So they had a big moving sale, and this Playmobil princess castle didn't sell, so they passed it along to us.  My girls have been having a ball with it this week.  Never mind that it's missing a whole bunch of pieces.  They're loving it.

visiting Grandma and Grandpa

I don't have a whole lot in the way of pictures, because I didn't have a camera on this trip--my husband took the camera on his trip.  These pictures are from my mom and my brother.

We've spent the week at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  It's been a full week, with a trip to IKEA, a trip to the park, a trip to Sauder Village (pictures in a bit), July 4th with family, and a trip to the lake.  The girls have had a great time.

These pictures are from Sauder Village, a village/farm where you learn about what life was like back in "the olden days."  Both girls really enjoyed it, though Rebecca wanted to touch EVERYTHING and managed to get her head stuck in a fence!  Despite those issues, we had a great time!

And here are pictures of the 4th of July.  Not great....but it was our girls' first experience with sparklers.  They loved it.

We watched the fireworks from the front lawn.  It was perfect weather, perfect view, perfect night.  The girls were so excited and loved every minute.