Trip to Indiana

       

Olivia and I took a girls trip to Indiana to visit my sister Becky and her family. Olivia was so excited to see Becky and especially Grace. It was such a special time with my sister and our girls :)

 

 

On the plane ride. As you can tell Olivia was thrilled!

       

 

Olivia brought one of her Elsa shirts for Grace to wear & couldn't wait for her to put it on

Lots of plan time together :)

 

Visiting Ryan at the mall. Olivia loved sitting in the foot part of the stroller. We did plenty of shopping while I was there :)

 

There was a fun bounce house place in the mall which I took Olivia to a few times. She had a blast & it was especially nice because there really wasn't anyone else there.

Becky made one of my favorite meals, chicken bryan from Carraba's. She did such a great job with it that I had to take a picture of it! (It tasted even better than it looked!)

Becky bought the girls matching shirts & I had to take this sweet picture of Olivia reading to Grace. Olivia kept saying "Grace is so cute!" She was definitely in heaven having all that play time with Grace.

Beautiful, sweet girls. I hope they always have a special relationship

Playing at the playground on the campus of Notre Dame. They live right around the corner from the university which I think is so neat!

Becky and I had to laugh at that belly!

Becky and Ryan's neighbor had a birthday party for one of their daughters and were kind enough to let Olivia attend.

 

On Saturday we spent the day at Silver Beach in St. Joseph, MI.  The water was super cold at absolutely PACKED with people. A lot different than the beaches in Florida, lol.  But they had a cool old carousel and a big nice splash pad. Olivia rode the carousel about 5 times, lol! It was a fun day! 

The splash pad had huge cannons that shot out water every few minutes. It was a little much for the smaller kids but super neat!

Olivia loved chasing after Grace :)

Playground fun at the beach.

This was Grace's first carousel ride. She looked a little nervous at first but then seemed to like it.

This happened while I was gone.....Cameron lost his FIRST tooth! But he was so sweet to wait until I got home before he put it under his pillow. 

And then when we got home we picked up our new puppy, Rocky, who is a mini dachshund. Olivia had been dying for a small puppy for awhile (and of course I wanted one too!) so we finally decided to get one from a friend whose dog had a litter. Olivia was over the moon excited and loved telling everyone that he wouldn't "grow bigger" and that she would always be able to pick him up. He will only get to be about 10 or 12 pounds. He sure is a cutie!

Charlie's half birthday

Charles & I thought it would be fun to have a half birthday party for Charlie. His birthday is in January & since we don't think he will still be with us then (and he's never really had a party before) we decided to celebrate his half birthday. We invited a few friends over (with children his age) along with my parents & grandma. We really had a nice time & he said it was the best birthday he ever had :)

Jurassic World decorations

Cake made by me, dinosaur by Charles :)

The party crew 

Lots of nice gifts!

4th of July

The morning of the 4th Charles & I took the kids out for a bike ride on the Santos trails where we did 5 miles! This was our second time doing that many miles & I am still so impressed that the kids can go that far.

That evening we had a fun little party with some of our friends. Everyone brought a side dish and I provided the meat & ordered a festive cake :) All the kids had a blast watching Charles set off some fireworks and everyone left just in time for us to drive downtown to watch the big fireworks. We had a fun day!