Day at the park

A couple weekends ago we went up to Laramie for a little family reunion with Kevin's family. It was a beautiful day! The kids had a blast playing together and it was so nice to get to see everyone again. I wanted to go around and take a bunch of pictures, but Sammie and I ended up laying in the grass in the shade and watching everyone play for most of the time. Then she fell asleep so I was pretty confined to that one spot :) It was just such a nice, relaxing day.
Sammie was experiencing a little stranger danger and didn't want anyone but Mommy or Daddy :)

So sleepy...

Out!

Gracie was saying "pretty hair!" She's not used to all that hair :)

Birthday!

I decided for my birthday I wanted to go to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keensberg. I had been trying to go there for years but we never got around to it. So Kevin got off a little early on my birthday, we packed a dinner and headed out. We were a little nervous about the weather because it was raining on the way and the sky looked pretty dark out east, but the rain stopped before we got there and it was a gorgeous night! I absolutely LOVED it. My pictures don't even do it justice (I wish I had a zoom lens for my new camera). You walk on these walkways high above the ground and look down at all these animals. They have hundreds of wildlife, mainly tigers, lions, and bears, but also some leopards, wolves, coyotes, lynx, and some other wildlife. They are an amazing place, they rescue these animals from people who have owned them illegally and mistreated them. Some of them had never been outside until they were rescued and brought to this place. I could have stayed there all night and stared at them if my children would have let me and if they weren't closing up. We did spend a little over 2 hours there and they allow you to bring your own picnic so we walked around and then ate dinner at a table right next to the tigers and bears. I highly recommend it and we will definitely be going back. Tigers are my absolute favorite, they are just gorgeous!

These 2 were wrestling for a while then the smaller one pinned down the bigger one and held him by the neck and they just stayed there for about 10 minutes not moving.

So many bears!!!

This is Gracie reminding us to be very quiet so we didn't make the animals nervous.

This lion was the most vocal, it kept roaring over and over. Then later at night the wolves started howling, which was really cool to hear.

This was on our way out and Gracie was a little done with being quiet, and this tiger was a little bothered by her.

More Veggies!!!

I'm SO glad we did the garden this year, the kids just LOVE it. Every day we go look for more things to pick and they are just so excited to see what's out there every single day. Here's some more of our latest. I have since learned that bigger is not better when it comes to zucchini (thank you Jan :) ) I really thought - "wow, look at me and my massive zucchini - I'm great at this" but now I see that it's more, "wow, I don't know what I'm doing and need to be more on top of picking things at the right time" :) SO I will try to be better and not pick them so late - even though the kids seem to like the big ones a lot better I've realized - they are much more exciting :)

Gracie just starts eating everything right away :)

Sammie's 6 months!

Half a year already!!! I keep saying it over and over but she's just such a SWEET girl! So easy going and smiley all the time. She is very very grabby lately, you really have to watch what you have near her because it'll be hers in a second if you aren't careful. We started some rice cereal about a week before she turned 6 months and it took her about a week until she seemed to really like it and not just spit it all out right away. She is rolling all over the place and will even try to scoot some when she's on her belly now, and she's getting better and better at sitting but still leans forward without help. At her 6 month appt she was 14 pounds 9 ounces, which I'm almost positive is bigger than her brother and sister at that age, I'd have to double check. She seems a lot bigger to me, but maybe that's just because she seems to be growing SO fast and time is just flying by! Right when she turned 6 months she was still sleeping in the bassinet right next to me, very uncomfortably because she was WAY to big for it. As I'm writing this it's 2 weeks later and a lot has changed, but I'll get to that later :) She is a big fan spitting and doing raspberries. She sucks in her lower lip all the time, which I just love! She is just such a little angel!!!

Painting

I bought these wooden star and flower racks at Hobby Lobby a while ago and thought I'd let the kids paint them for their new shared room. Bradley did a great job and painted all 4 of his. Gracie lost interest pretty quickly but did a great job on 2 and I finished up the other 2 for her :)