Fun in the Sun!

July has come and gone and where did it go?  It was sure a fun time in July.

We did a lot as a family and made many memories.

We hope you enjoy the little adventure you go on as you see the month through our eyes.

Our front flower bed has been a fun adventure with the advice from my parents...

sprinkle worm castings on them.

I don't know if it is the perfect weather and water or if it is the new worm casting advice.

Happy 4th of July!!!

Gabbi decked out her trike to celebrate.

The kids were goofing around and here is the catch we caught!

Waiting for the firework show.

Never can get sick of these.

Happy Birthday Beck!

Stephanie and I having fun writing our names with the sparklers.

Lemons anyone?

Jayden has been begging me to take him to Build a Bear workshop

so here is him "stuffing" his bear.

Jeff and I ran away to a cottage for a weekend over our birthdays.

We had such a relaxing time away from everything.

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Kraus for watching Jayden.

Okay, I didn't have such a good luck with fishing while we were there, but Jeff caught a few.

Summer School is out for Summer!!!

Jayden has been very busy catching hundreds of dragon flies in our yard.

One day he caught 33 dragon flies and I thought it would never end.

It's a big one Mom!!!

The final after all the hours of chasing them around the yard.

Jayden and his friend Beck have been in the making of a Paper Air Plane Store for a while.

So we let them follow through with what they hoped to be a successful business plan.

Together they made $52 and they were happy campers.

Jayd making cookies to sell at the store.

One of the things on Jeff and my to do list...Packer Practice!

We had a blast.  The traditional riding of the bikes into practice.

Again, the bikes.

Jordy!!!

Can we say...ROGERS!!!  The quarter backs practicing.

Finley!!!

Jeff and Jayd posing after a cold practice.

 

Jayd and I trying to stay warm for a pose.

Swimming lessons.

 

Tennis Lessons.

Guess who came to cheer on his best buddy?

Grant loves to watch Jayden with anything and think he may want to play tennis too.

We hope everyone has had a great Summer so far.

Before we know it, it will be over...so enjoy!!

Until next time,

Jeff, Heather and Jayden

Summer Vacation is here!

We were very excited for summer vacation to start,

but can not believe we are 1 month into it.

So far June has treated us well with lots of fun adventures.

We added more to our family with Jeff's brother getting married and so thankful for them to join

our family(Stephanie and Gabbi).

We hope that everyone is having a wonderful start

to their summer vacations and having lots of fun!

 Chad and Stephanie were married June 1st.

The day turned out to be perfect and we sure had a lot of fun!!!

Congrats to the newly weds!!!

 

Bob and Sheri looked great!

Our family photo

Steph and I are making many fun memories as "sisters"

and can't wait to make more.

 

Jayden and Beck's last day of 1st grade!

I can not believe how fast this school year has gon

and that 2nd grade is right around the corner.

Jayden and I went up to a cabin with my parents

my two uncles, Nicole, Mike and Grant.

We had a wonderful time as we always d

and such wonderful weather.

Here is a pic from our dock; enjoying the North Woods.

It was Grant's first year and let me tell you, he loved it!

I think he loved most was watching hi

buddy Jayden fish and play.

Grant!

Jayden...is that how you catch a fish?

Happy boy chewing on Mommy's scarf.

He puts everything in his mouth

guess more teeth are on there way.

Beautiful sunset!

We went fishing one night off the pier on South Twin.

Here is one of the Walleye's Jayden caught by jigging.

He was pretty proud of his catch, sad though that it was just a little to small to be able to keep it.

Every day we caught our limit and this is how the guys spent there afternoons...scaling and cleaning fish.

Jayden seen these two perch next to the boat the one day and said "I'm going to catch those fish".

Well, as you can see he did.  That stinker is a good fisherman and he sure loved them at our fish fry.

Helping Grandpa get all our keepers out of the

live well before cleaning them up.

The really pretty butterfly Jayden caught when we

were at the boat launch.

Making a sand course for his ball and a sand castle.

Imagine that...a turtle decided to join us on vacation.

It was prepping to lay eggs in this nest.

This lovely deer along with others visited us a few times a day.

Jayden and I tried to see a few times how close we could get to it and this is as far as we could go.

The day we left the cottage, we drove home, did a few loads of laundry and repacked to go camping.

We went to our favorite place, Boot Lake.

It was beautiful weather and okay fishing.

If you ask Jayden what his favorite was...

"fishing and going to the candy store".

Jayden caught his first Bass on an open faced rod.

He was pretty proud and so was his daddy.

You guessed it...he caught more.

He caught in total 4 large mouth bass and had a blast.

Jayden loved that we let him be The Fire Master.

He kept this little fire going for over an hour before we put the "big" logs on for making our dinner.

We worked on our yard over one of the weekends an

Jayden helped us out.

We told him we'd pay him for his work with either money or something from the store.

And this is what he picked...a slip n slide.

Jeff and I were temped to go on it, but thought we

shouldn't since one of us

surely would have ended up in the ER with broken bone.

Posing for the camera after a fun day on the slip n' slide.

 We watched Grant for a little while and we took him to the park.
Jayden loved taking him on his first slide ride.

And his second.

We hope everyone has a wonderful July and is safe over the 4th.

Until next time...

Jeff, Heather and Jayden

It is what it is...

This month has been filled with great joy and much sadness.  As most know, my cousin Dan was diagnosed with brain cancer since November of 2011.  Sadly, Dan was taken away from us on May 21st and can now be pain free and at peace.  I learned from his memorial service that we had something in common.  A motto I live by is "It is what it is" and that is something that Dan believed in also.  We may not have been close over our adult years, but I think I have found our connection.  I think this is one reason he was so strong and courageous.  People may be negative about something, but you can change that so quickly with "it is what it is".  Meaning, we can't change what happened, but we can change what happens in the future and learn from the past.  It can be hard to find something positive in some situations, but there is always something there, we just have to find it.

Dan, you will be missed by many.
What a role model you were for the fight you gave;
what an inspiration!

Happy 7th Birthday Jayden!!!

We took Jayden as part of his birthday gift to The Wilderness in Wisconsin Dells for a night.  We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back.

The guys did the ropes course.  They had such a good time.
 I am scared of heights, so I stood back and took pictures.
It was pretty cool that they could climb the course over one of the arcades.

Splash!!!

On his actual birthday, we took him to Texas Road House for dinner.
He was such a trooper and got on the saddle and took his birthday lasso like a champ.

After, he was able to enjoy a little fun with his roller blades we gave him.
What an amazing idea, roller blades that are 4 different sizes in one.  Wish I thought of that.

As most know, I enjoy sewing a few projects here and there.
I decided to make a few of my scraps into pillow sack dresses for church.
They turned out really cute and hope some little girls can enjoy them for a few years.

Jayden has been begging me for a cape, so we made one out of an old shirt...

Here comes Super Jayden!!!

Grant loves his cereal!

Jayden loves to try climbing the trees in the back yard.
Here he is climbing the bamboo tree.

We went to Memorial park for a cousin picnic.
Just hanging out on the monkey bars.

Grant had his first piece of licorice.

Taking Viola (Vi) for a ride.  Her mom said, "I'm not ready for her to date yet".
It was so cute the two of them taking a cruse around the two yards.

We headed up to the farm to plant our pumpkins and a few other things for Uncle Ronnie.
This year we were joined by Nicole, Mike and Grant.
It sure was a fun time and can't wait for the pumpkins this fall.

Planting potatoes...

Grants first planting...

Just chilling on the grass.

The beauty of the farm.

On a nature walk in the flats.

My buddy.

We hope that everyone has a wonderful June and we will chat soon.

Love,

Jeff, Heather and Jayden