Beating the Heat

Hope you can find a way to 

Beat the Heat

 today:)

Happy Summer! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIMES 2!

 Seems like yesterday we were in Massachusetts partying it up with friends and family

 for the twins 1st birthday celebration!

We had our ladybug party at the Booths and had 

SO many people show up to shower the twins with love!!

 How we miss SO many of our old friends! 

Can you tell which twin is in pink and which is in green? 

 Had to throw this one in of Addie Doan! 

Here we are 7 years later celebrating with Sophia and Arianna 

at their 7th BirthdayButterfly Bash! 

 We had a bunch of school friends come over along with a few other close 7 year olds 

and we had 16 altogether! It was a tad crazy!

 I had a coloring contest to keep them all quite for a while- it definitely helped!  

 My little babies have certainly grown up into pretty amazing little girls who each have their own personality and spunk! They have matured SO much from 6 to 7 and are BIG helps around the house and are growing more responsible every day! They have a heart that loves God and I am SO encouraged by their desire to know more about Him and His Word. I pray every day that their little hearts would continue to hunger after spiritual things and that God would draw them to himself! 

Special thanks to Erika for letting me use her camera since mine was broken!

P.S. We have a new camera!!!! 

It is beautiful and I am SO enjoying playing with it and discovering all it can do! 

I will post more pictures tomorrow of the continuing celebrations:) 

I'm Still Here

Summer has been rolling by quite quickly! 

I have neglected the blogging and Facebooking world (a little) to play out in the sun,

 swim, watch movies, read books, visit libraries and splash pads, etc. 

It is nice to not be so tied to technology:) although I havent abandoned it altogether:) 

Mark has been teaching 2 hours of summer school a day and tutoring and web designing, so he has kept busy too- pretty soon, he will return to full time work and the "schedule" of fall will be back in place! I like schedules- it makes life easier- the kids know what to expect and the days just flow better. I am SO grateful for all the extra work Mark does in the summer because that means extra cash and that is SO helpful! Especially since he is paying for me to go to San Diego to get a little break for 4 days with my friend Megan! I wish REALLY Mark and I could go together but its hard leaving 4 kids with family or other people- and its more expensive when 2 people go on vacation! SO... I will be leaving on Tuesday to go to the OCEAN with my dear friend Megan! I am SOOO excited! I dont know the last time I swam in the ocean- probably at least 4 yrs ago when we lived in Massachusetts. I LOVE the ocean! I love listening to the waves, the taste of salt in the air, the boardwalk, the piers, the sand and shells, the seagulls (well, maybe not the seagulls) and dont forget the food! I have stalked out my favorite bloggers to find out all the yummy places to eat and have compiled quite the list! I printed out a "schedule" for my vacation- listing all the places we want to go to on each day and where we want to eat those days too- good thing Megan is not a "fly by the seat of your pants" kinda girl because she loved my schedule:) We are kindred spirits!

The weather here in Denver has been CRAZY- 

very HOT and not a dry heat like normal but a muggy heat- its not fun! 

We do get rain almost every night and that does cool things off quite a bit, which is nice! 

Another exciting development is the purchase of a new DSLR camera- we are planning to get it hopefully by the end of July and I cannot wait to start using it (I have been without a camera for almost 2 weeks hence the lack of blogging- I REALLY like pictures with my posts for some strange reason) I am planning on taking some classes to understand how to fully utilize all the many features on this fancy camera! They have some at local camera shops and even the rec center! Mark is in charge of picking out the camera since he knows a lot about them and I have no idea- so I am not sure what the exact model is but he has been scouring the internet to find the best deal~

My blog is also getting a makeover which I am very stoked about! I found a girl who does blog designing and the unveiling of my new blog will hopefully be in August! I think you will love it! I certainly like what she has done so far! Exciting stuff! 

Another bit of exciting news- my twins turn 7 tomorrow!!!!! Where has the time gone? I may just cry looking back through all the old pictures of them as babies and toddlers. My hands were SO full back then and I must say they have turned into such lovely young ladies 

who I am very proud of and love even more with each passing year! 

I will leave you with some mini-golf pictures! It was fun- it was free and we wont do it again till next summer! Competition was lacking so we basically just hit the balls around without keeping score! 

Not my favorite way to play minigolf but, the kids loved it...

 Sophia scored a hole in one- it was legit too! 

Review of Summer Reading Programs for local friends

Every summer, I sign my kids up for MANY reading programs because reading is SO good for them and they enjoy it and you score lots of freebies! Thought I would jot down the programs we have done so far and the rewards so you can see if you would like to still participate- most programs run through  the end of July/beginning of August and there are very easy requirements that can be met in like a week at our house if your kids like to read or you like to read to them! I am So grateful because we live in a very good spot seeing as we are within 15 minutes of all these counties! P.s. You do not need to be a resident of the county to participate and you dont even have to have a library card there from what I could tell! And you can finish the whole reading sheet and get all the prizes at once if you want- it seems easier that way to me! And I usually try to sign up my younger two in the older kids program- they usually give you the option and there are a lot more prizes for the older option rather than the infant one! And as always their are expiration dates on these FREE coupons- most are good through at least September and some even through December~

DENVER COUNTY-
broken up in 3 sets of 6 books each, so a total of 18 books for all these prizes....
Set 1- backpack usually from the Rockies
Set 2- FREE Elitches Amusement Park ticket or a free book (Last year we got 4 free tickets for all 4 kids and (Ella was free because she was 3) andwe did not take Elijah because he was so little. They let us use the 2 extra tickets for Mark and I so it was a FREE day at the park!)
Set 3- Free book

Engelwood Library- not part of a county- its located off of Hampden and Santa Fe
broken up into 3 sections with 5 books each (total of 15 books)
Set 1- Free pass to Belleview Farm and a free admission to the Engelwood rec center (we will use this to go swimming there when its cold outside)
Set 2- Free pass to Cornerstone mini Golf and a free pass to Skate City
Set 3- Free bowl of Noodles (any size and with meat!) from Noodles and Company and a Free Burrito from Chipotle

Bemis Library- not part of a county but of of Caley Littleton Ave
This is the hardest out of them all but it goes pretty quickly..
3 different record sheets with 6 hours on each broken up into 15 minute segments
Set 1- Free Applebees kids meal, free bowling, free book, free chickfila meal
Set 2- Free Lakeside passes, Free Cornerstone mini golf pass, Free Ice Skating pass, Free Skate City Pass
Set 3- Free Fazolis Kids meal, Free ice cream at Freddys, Free Texas Roadhouse kids meal, Little trinket prize
For those of you with smaller kids, they do have a 3 and under program that is much less reading and gives you a free bowl of noodles from Noodles and Company and a free ice cream from freddys and a free book!

Let me know if you have any questions!
Tomorrow, I will do Douglas County and Arapahoe County for you!
I have yet to decide if we will do Jefferson County- its a bit farther than 15 minutes for us!

 Happy Reading!!

Independence

loved seeing all the guys working on the grill

my camera was almost dead at this point

friendly competition

relaxed conversations

lots of kiddos playing

fellowship

trying to teach the kids bocci ball

Fireworks at Miss Megans

Homemade ice cream to finish the night off- YUM!

We had a wonderful HOT 4th of July- BBQing with friends and watching fireworks!

I was burnt from swimming that morning- it was near 100!

Special shout out to the Mondragons for a wonderful party!

We also got VIP treatment for fireworks at Megan's house too:)

SO thankful for the men and woman who have sacrificed and are sacrificing 

so I can enjoy SO many blessings as an American! 

Also SOOO very thankful for the freedom from the bondage of sin 

that God has given me through the sacrifice of His son, Christ!  

I am blessed, indeed!

Birthday Celebrations: Part 2

We had a party with Friends from church on Saturday morning! 

I went with a red, white and blue theme and 

couldn't be more excited with how it turned out!

favors for kiddos

 He really gets embarrassed when their is a lot of attention directed towards him but he was polite and said thank you for very gift he received! He really was SO happy and talked all afternoon about his big day and all the fun presents he received! Although later that night he got a fever because of a new tooth coming in- poor little guy!