Summer Sunshine

Where do you put all those random summer memories?  Well; all together in one Smushed-up blog of course! 

Amy has long been invited to family gatherings at Jon Osmond's house.  His parents throw a summer party and a Christmas party each year.  This year Jon's mom, Connie, went all out.  The food was amazing as per usual, but this time... she bought a pool along with pool toys!  As the only two kids present that day, Kasey and Karsten Loved "Their Pool". 

"Can you believe this just for us"



Connie and Amy

We have also been talking about meeting up with our former neighbors on the lake; however, our boat gets rather filled up with our family alone.  They have been playing with a Jet Ski this past summer, which allowed us to ask them to meet up for a swim!


Amy and Sandy (former neighbor and maker of all of the kids birthday cakes)

The boys enjoying lunch (Kasey, Karsten and James)

"Can we get one, Mommy & Daddy?"

 And seriously, what is summer without CORN, POPSICLES and WATERMELON!

"I really like corn.."

"Me Too!  Like ... A LOT!"

"...Almost as much as popsicles."



The smile says it all

Karsten has been helping out Gma and Gpa with their chores each day, but boy.. this past weekend was a Hot One!  He even had to borrow Grandpa George's hat!

I'm just like Gpa!

Recently, we took the boys to Barnes and Nobles.  Kasey wanted to pick out a book that fit him.  He kept picking out books with Lots of words (he doesn't have the patience to read all of them right now; we stick to shorter stories).  At any rate; he kept picking out books that he would not normally let us read to him.  I kept telling him he needed to find one his size.  So, he quickly found another book... placed it on his feet and asked me "Mommy, Is this one my size?  Is this tall enough for me?"  Yup, literally sized it up like he was trying on a new shirt.  LOVE!

Dr. Who (Adult fiction) looks like a perfect fit to me

One night recently, I was going through our bed time rituals.  We read a story (they each get to pick one), say prayers, and then read Kasey's adoption poem.  It dawned on me.  We get to appreciate these cute moments, but have never captured it.  Although I can't capture each and every night - thought a quick pic would do the trick.  The pick below is a great one cause it shows their favorite book of the summer.  It has No Words, but it does ask to you to find different items in the book.  We have expanded this from the eight stated items on the side to many, many more.  In fact, the kids started a new game using this book.  Karsten says "When I lift my foot up like this, you find .. um... Nemo".  They have also tried inserting somersaults, spins, etc; which defeats the point of settling down for bed time; therefore, we have stipulated a "must sit on your butt" rule while playing this game.

Our sweet little angels

I just LOVE nigh-nigh time.  Especially listening to their prayers.  After we say "Dear Lord, God Bless..."; they fill in the blanks with who they want to pray for "Brooklyn, Auntie 'Lisa, Uncle David, Papa, Grandpa, etc.."  My favorite is when they throw in there the oddest things.  Lets see, lately we have prayed for corn, dinosaurs, dolphins, Africa... you get the picture.