Silhouettes

A friend recently took silhouettes of our entire family and we finally got this framed.
I love how it fits perfectly above our fireplace!

Father's Day

We celebrated Father's Day with a home made cake. The kids frosted it all by themselves and then drew pictures and designs on it. The pictures on the left are Ryan's. It is Mike (top left) and a large hermit crab (just below Mike's foot). Amber drew a heart (top center), a balloon (top right) and a flower (lower right). They both did a great job and had a lot of fun. We celebrated by going out to eat on Friday when Mike was off work. But when Mike came home from work on Sunday we had one of his favorite dinners (Taco Salad), cake and presents of course.

Ryan's Airplanes

Ryan is sooooo into airplanes! It is amazing! He really loves them! I thought I would share a few

This is a model in progress, he loves to work on his models whenever he get's the chance. He has his own "model table" now, it is a card table that's in our office/den. It is always covered with his current model, paint, etc.
This is the last model he did. I think the day he finished this he started the one above. There isn't much time in between, he can hardly wait to start the next one. Ryan's detail is amazing! He does almost all of the work by himself, but his Dad helps if he needs it.

He makes airplanes out of anything, all the time. We were at church for a little while and the kids were waiting for me so Ryan built these out of paper. He made them at two different times. The helicopter was a Father's Day gift for Mike.

Mike recently bought some wood and had plenty leftover. Ryan drew up some plans on paper and told Mike he wanted to make an airplane out of the wood. Ryan took his plans, cut them out, then drew them onto the wood and Mike cut them out. It was completely Ryan's design and idea. You can even see propellers.

He is definitely an artist like his Dad and has the love of airplanes like his Dad. It is sooo cool!

When all he has is paper and pencil he draws airplanes, all kinds of airplanes from all angles.

AMBER - I recently picked Amber up from sitter's and we were rushing to take her to her tutor. She said she needed a snack. I said "I'm sorry but I don't have a snack on me and we are running late so we don't have time". She said (in a tone that made it seem like I was completely crazy) "I can't even work without brain food". That's my Amber =) I try to make sure I have brain food for her now when we go to the tutor. (The tutor also mentioned Amber had been asking for a snack . . . . just like her mom - loves to eat =)

Painting

Mike painted the kitchen =) Our kitchen was a very dark green color, ever since we bought the house I have wanted to lighten it up =) Well Mike painted it on his last days off and it is much lighter. What do you think? This is it newly painted . . . . . . now look below . . .
This is the best picture I have that shows the kitchen before we moved in, with the dark green color . . . . I think it's a definite improvement, what about you? It is definitely lighter now.

Braces

Here are some lovely photo's I just had to share. They kind of look like mug shots . . . which is kind of fitting, the price of braces these days is a crime. The guilty party isn't the cute child . . . but those darn teeth! They are the ones taking all our money. If I had known the full set of photo's included the kids I would have tried to make sure Mike brushed their hair . . . . oh well, that's how it is supposed to be in the before picture. We will make sure their hair is brushed and they look super great in their "after" picture so the difference seems even better.

It seems so young to get them started, but since Amber's teeth are even worse than Ryan's they will at least be going through it together. The first thing they will be getting is a Lingual Arch for their bottom teeth. They have three different appointments in July, one week apart, to have these put in. The first appointment they get spacers, then the band on their back teeth and the last appointment is to put in the wire that runs along the inside.

MEMORIAL DAY

For Memorial Day we went to Floral Haven, avenue of flags, to help fold up and store all of the flags that were displayed in honor of Memorial Day.

There was a nice ceremony, and they awarded the first flag lowered to a special person (oops, can't remember who though).

The Scouts lined up and were ready to start lowering the flags.

They had to march/walk all the way to the far end of the cemetary to start.

There were a lot of flags!!! All over the cemetary

But, there were a lot of Scouts and helpers too.

Ryan and Mike were with Jeff, the Pack leader, the whole time

I was proud of Ryan, he really did a good job!

Mike did a good job too. He helped/worked as much as Ryan did. I love that he is sooo involved with Scouts (I think he really enjoys it too)I thought it would take a long time, but we managed to get done, and back home for a BBQ of our own. We celebrated with filet (it was on sale thankfully, because I really wanted steak) and corn on the cob. It was a memorable Memorial Day!

BEST OF BOOST

It was the Best of Boost 2008 - The kids loved it as some of our favorite skits from the past year were brought back for a grand finale!

Matt was a pretty tough Cupid from da Bronx!
Andrew was Baby Moses being interviewed by Barbara Wa Wa =)

And Bryce and Allen danced the "Pitty Party" dance like crazy!

It was a great year! The kids loved it and are already talking about next year!