Father's Day 2013

This year Father's Day

Started out sunny,

With lots of play.

Including an intense afternoon thunderstorm,

Yummy food for the best Daddy,

And presents - 

Including a special Father's Day Message of the Force.

It ended in hugs all around,

Happy children,

And a Daddy that hopefully knows how much he is cherished.

Sending Daddy to Work

Outside Fun

With the addition of our castle,
And a two-seater wagon,
Among our existing toys
And mostly gorgeous, beautiful and perfect sunny weather…
Our June was spent largely outside.

It was fun to watch Macie come into her own,
And Ephram and Macie interact more with each other.
They have so much fun on warm, sunny days - just being in our own yard.
Looking at these pictures now,
In a month that has been filled with cold and rain,
I find myself longing for new summer days.

Argh! Treasure on the Beach

We were invited to a Pirate Treasure Hunt on a local beach in early June.

It was so much fun!

All of the kids made pirate hats out of newspaper,

(Macie proudly took a sticker in lieu of a hat)

And headed to the beach where they shoveled found "treasure" into their pirate loot bags.

Afterward, the kids had fun investigating the wildlife on the shore.

And I had some time to admire my husband being a most excellent father.

The kids loved all of the driftwood, which provided balancing and hiding opportunities aplenty.

Soon we'd spent over two hours on the beach at Picnic Point,

And it was time to leave.

We headed off the beach,

Where a passing train actually came to a stop at Ephram's command.

(He was convinced he had the pirate magic pixie dust that made it happen.)

We all had big smiles,

Fun memories,

And two boys had bags full of gold doubloons, rings and pirate beads.

We gleefully counted all of the doubloons to Jake and the Neverland Pirate's soundtrack,

And modeled the jewelry around the house.

Both of my boys love pirates right now.

(And my little girl has since come to love them, too!)

Music - with Daddy - on Computer

Andy has developed a new hobby this year.

He's always been a musician.

But this year he has discovered the joys of making music on the computer.

He has done a lot of self study to learn about keyboards.

He uses a keyboard controller to compose his own music.

And does some programming things that I don't really understand, too.

For this Halloween, he actually made us a soundtrack of Halloween sounds.

He has also introduced all three of the kids to his new hobby.

They all love it too!